Bloomsburg democrat. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1867-1869, 1867-03-20


punish or cause to be punished. Such
a power has not been welded by any mon.
arcsin England for more than five hundred
years. In all that time, no people who
speak the English language have borne such
servitudc. 1t reduces the whole population
OF the ten States all persons Of every col
or, sex, and condition, and every stranger
within their limits, to the must abjcct and
degrading slavery. No master ever had u
control so absolute over his slaves as this
bill gives to the military officers over both
white and co!ored persons.
1t may be answered to this that the off.
GERS OF the army are too magnanimOus, just
and humane to oppress and trample upon q
subjugated people. l do not doubt that
army officers are as well entitled to this kind
Of confidence as any other class Of men.
But the history of the world has been writ
ten in vain if it does not teach us that unre-
strained authority can never be safely trusted
in human hands. 1t is almost sure to be
more or less abused under any circumstances
and it has always resulted in gross tyranny
where the rulers who exercise it are stran-
gers to their subjects, and come among them
as the representatives Of distant power,
and more especially when the power that
send, them is untriendly. Governments
closets resembling that here proposed have
been fairly tried in Hungary and Poland
and the suffering endured by those peoples
reused the syinpathies of the entire world.
1t was tried in Ireland, and though temper
ed at first by principles of English law, it
gave birth to crueltics so atrociOus that they
are never recounted without just indigna-
tion. The French Convention armed its
deputies with this power, and sent them to
the Southern departments of the Republic.
The massacres, murders and other atrocities
which they committed show what the pas
sions of the ablest men in the most civilized
society will tempt them to do when wholly
unrestrained by law.
The men Of our race in every age have
struggled to tie up the hands of their gov
ernmcnt and keep them within the law, be-
cause their own experience of ali mankind
taught them that rulers could not be relied
on to concele those rights which they were
sot legally bound to respect. The head of
great empire has sometimes governed it
with mild and patcrnal sway, but the
kindness Of an irresponsible deputy never
yields what the law does not extort from
him. Between such master and the peo-
pie subjected to his domination there can be
nothing but enmity he Furnishes them if
they resist his authority, and if they submit
to it he hates them for their servility.
l come now to a question which is, if pos
sible, still more important. Have we the
power to establish and carry into execution
u measure like this? | answer, certainly
not, if we derive our authority from the
and if we are bound by the
limitation which it imposes.
This proposition is perfectly clear, that no
branch of the Federal Government, execu-
tive, legislative or judicial, can have any
just powers except those which it derives
through and recognizes under the organic
law of the Union. Outside of the Con>ti-
tuition We have no legal authority more than
private citizens, and within it we have only
so much power as that instrument gives us.
This broad principle limits all our functions
and applies to all subjects. 1t protects not
only the citizens of States which are within
the Union, but it shields every human being
who comes Or is brought under our jurisdic-
ton.
We have no right to do in one place more
than another that which the Constitution
says we shall not do at all. If, therefore,
the Southern States were, in. truth, out OF
the Union, we could not treat their people
in way the fundamental law forbids.'
Some persons assume that the success of
our arms in crushing the opposition which
was made in some Of the States to the exc
cution Of the Federal law reduced those
States, and all their people, the innocent as
well as the guilty, to the condition Of vas
salage, and gave us a power over them
which the Constitution does not bcstow, or
define, or limit.
No fallacy can be more transparent than
this. Our victories subjected the insurgents
to legal obedience, not to the yoke Of an
arbitrary despoti>m. When an absolute
sovereign reduces his rebelous subjects, he
may deal with them according to his pleas
ure, because he had that power before. But
when limited monarch puts down an in
he must still govern according to
law. If an insurrection should take place
in one of our States against the sovereignty
Of the State Government, sand end in the
overthrow of those who planted it, would
hat take away the rights Of all the people
Of the counties where it was favored by a
pdTC UT u llluIOTIty vi tHC popuidtiOH Souiu
they for such II reason be wholly outlawed,
and deprived of their representation in the
Legislature? | have always contended that
the Government of the United States was
sovereign within its constitutional sphere,
that it executed its laws, like the States
by applying its coercive power
directly to individuals, and that it could put
down insurrcction with the same effect as a
State and no other. The opposite doctrine
is the worst hcresy of those who advocated
secession, and cannot be agreed to without
that heresy to be right. Invasion,
rebellion and domestic violence
were anticipated when the Government was
framed, and the means Of repeling and
suppressing them were wisely provided for
in the Constitution but it was not thought
necessary to declare that the States in which
they might occur should be expelled from
the Union.
Rebellions, which were invariably sup
pressed, occurred prior to that out OF which
tie: questions grow. But the States con-
tinued to exist and the Union remained un
broken. In Massachusetts, in Pennsylvania,
in Rhode Island, and in New York, at diff
erent periods in our history, violent and
armed opposition to the United States was
carried on. But the relations OF those
: ,ates with the Federal Government were
not supposed to be interrupted Or changed
thereby after the rcbellious portions Of their
population we're defeated and put down. 1t
il true that in these eallitr cases there was