The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1867-12-12

place ten OF the Southern States under
the domination of military masters If
calm reflection shall satisfy a majority of
your honorable bodies that the acts re-
ferred TO are not only violation of ma
tlonal faith, but in direct conflict with the
Constitution, dare not permit myself to
doubt that you will Immediately strike
them from the statute-book. To demon
ssrate the, unconstitutional character of
those acts, l need do no more than refer
to their general provisions 1t must be
seen at once that they are not authorized
to dictate what alterations shall be made
In the constitutions of the several States,
to control the elections of State Legisla-
lures, State ofisers, and members of Con-
gress, and electors of President and Vice
President, BY authority declaring who
shall vote aud who shall be excluded from
that privilege, 90 dissolve State Lcgisla-
lures, or prevent them from assembling,
to dismiss Jud zee and other civil func-
tionaries OF States, and appoint others
without regard to State law, to organize
and operate all political machinery of
States, to regulate the whole administra-
tion of their domestic and local affairs
according to the mere will Of strange and
irresponsible agents sent among them for
that purpose. These are powers not gran
ted to the Federal Government or to any
one of its branches, and not being granted,
We violate our trus. by assuming them as
palpably as We would by acting in the face
o! a positive interdict, for the Constitution
fUrbi6s Us to do whatever it does not af-
frmatively authorize, either by express
words or by clear implication If the
authority We desire to use does not come
to US through :he Constitution, we can
exercise it only through usurpation, and
usurpation is the most dangerous of polit-
ical crimes. BY that crime the enemies
OF free government in all ages have work
Cd out their designs against public liberty
and private right. 1t leads directly aud
Immediately to the establishment of abso-
Lutte rule, for undelegated power is always
unlimited and unrestrained. The acts of
Congress in question are not only objec-
tionable for their assumption of ungranted
power, but many of their provisions are in
conflict with the direct prohibitions of the
Constitution. The Constitution commands
that a republican form of government
shall be guaranteed to all the States that
no person shall be deprived of life, liber-
", property without ane nrneesx of
law, OF be arrested without a judicial
warrant, or punished without fair trial
before an impartial jury; that the privi-
lege of habeas corpus shall not be denied
in time of peace and that no bill of at
taiuder shall be passed even against a
single individual Yet the system of
measures established by these acts of Con-
gress does wholly subvert and destroy the
form as we'll as the substance of republi-
can government in the ten States to which
they apply. 1t binds them hand and foot
in absolute slavery, aud subjects them to
a strange and hostile power, more uulim-
tied and more likely to be abused than
any other now known among civilized
men. 1t tramples down all those rights
in which the essence of liberty consists,
ard which free government is always
most careful to protect. 1t denies the
habeas corpus and the trial by jury
Personal freedom, property, aud life, if
assailed by the passion, the prejudice, or
the rapacity of the ruler, have no security
whatever. 1t has the effect of bill of
attainder, or bill of pains and penalties,
not upon a few individuals but upon whole
masses, including the millions who inhab-
it the subject States, and even their un-
born children. These wrongs, being
expressly forbidden, cannot be constitu-
tionally inflicted upon any portion of our
people, no matter how they may have
come within our jurisdiction, and whether
they live in States, Territories or districts
l have no desire to save from the proper
and just consequences of their great crime
those who engaged in rebellion against the
Government, but as q mode of punish.
ment the measures under consideration
are the most unreasonable that could be
invented. Many of those people are per
fectly innocent; many kept their fidelity
to the Union untainted to the last many
were incapable of any legal offense
large proportion even of the persons able
to bear arms were forced into rebellion
against their will !; and ot those who ar,
guilty with their own consent, the degree
of guilt are as various as the shades o
their character or temper. But these act
of Congress confouud them all together il
! one common doom. 1ndiscriminate ven
| geance upon classes, sects, and parties, o
upon whole communities, FOR offense
committed By portion OF them agains
the Government to which they owed ODE
dience, was common in the barbarous age
of the world. But Christianity and civi
ization have made such progress that re
course to punishment so cruel and unju'
would meet With the condemnation of a
unpYejudiced and right-minded men,
The punitive justice of this age, and e
pecially of this country, does not conser
in stripping whole States of their libertit
and reducing all their people, withot
distinction, to the condition of slavery
1t deals separately with each iudividua
L