The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-11-11

Mr.. JOhnsOn's Assault Upon the Right
of the People to Bear Arms
PRESIDENT JOHNSON has issued a very strange
order, Outstanding and suppressing" the
volunteer military organizations in the Dis
triot of Columbia. This order is directed to
General Grant, and is as follows:-
~ am reliably advised that there are within
the District of Columbia q number OF armed
and for purposes SOhich have not been c0nImuai-
Gated to The Government Being at the present
time unnecessary for the preservation of order
or the protection OF the civil authority. they
nave nave excited serious approximations as to their
real design You Will, therefore, take official
steps for promptly disbanding and suppressing
all such illegal organizations"
This order is dated last Monday, the 4th
instant, and applies to all armed military
organizations, whether composed of negroes
or white men. General Grant reports that
besides the companies composed of oOlOred
men, there are four companies of white oiti-
zens whose organizations are likewise un-
authorized.
The order was transmitted, it seems, by
General Grant to General Emory, the officer
Immediately in command in Washington, and
he at once called attention to the fact that, the
District being no longer under martial law, he
did not see by ,Ohat authority such an order could
be carried into effect. This endorsement of
General Emory was referred to the President,
and there, for the present. the matter rests.
1t is surely somewhat of a strange spectacle,
yet hopeful one, in this country, when
subordinate military officer hesitates to exc
cute an order of the President, on the avowed
ground of its commanding him to do an Unlaw-
fll act. Yet General Emory is undoubtedly
right. The President has no more authority
to "disband and suppress" volunteer mill
tary organization in the District of Columbia,
than he would have to do so in the State of
Pennsylvania. Such organizations require no
sanction of law. They have existed all over
this country ever since the formation OF the
Government. They are guaranteed by the
express language of the Constitution, which
provides that 'fhe right of the people to keep
and bear arms shall not be infringed." The peo-
pie have thus an irreversible guarantee of the
Constitution that they may keep and bear
arms. That their voluntary organization as
companies is illegal is absurd. People have
as good right to organize military companies
as they have to organize base ball clubs, or
cricket clubs, or chess clubs, or any other
t kind of voluntary organizations. The Presi-
a dent has just as much right to command Gene
t raj Grant to "disband and suppress" the base
ball clubs of this city, as he has to command
: him to disband and suppress the volunteer
military companies in Washington.
The language of this order smacks too much
of French or Austrian absolutism to be tole-
rated by American citizens. It says these
military organizations in the District of Co
lumbia have been formed "for purposes Which
have not been communicated to the Government -
as though citizens could not exercise their
common constitutional rights without first
} communicating their purposes" to the Gov
ernment This might do for France; it will
not answer for the United States.
General Emory has done well to hesitate In
executing this unlawful order. No command
of superior can authorize a military officer to
commit an illegal act. officers of the army
are citizens, and are amenable to the laws as
are other citizens. The peaceful meeting OF q
volunteer military company for purposes OF
drill, recreation, exercise, or what not, is q
lawful assemblage, and the officer who should
attempt to disperse it would himself be guilty
of breach of the peace, and responsible for
whatever might occur.
We trust that none of the Washington COM
panies will pay the least attention to this
order. 1t is a totally unlawful one. The
President has no more right to issue it than
has the humblest citizen in the country.
This order is only one of too many instances
in which the President has attempted to exer-
5 else unlawful powers. Ever since he came to
8 the Presidential chair he has not been satisfied
to be simply and merely what the Constitution
9 makes him-the Executive-but has been con
stantly exercising powers outside of his office
His own will-not the laws of the land
has been his rule of action. This latest mani
festation of his habitual purpose refers, it il
true, only to a few obscure military companies
1 in the District of Columbia, but it is as fla
q grant breach of the Constitution as would
? be an order to General Meade to disband and
# suppress the Legislature of the State OF Penn
sylvania. And il is one of the alarming fea
lures of the times that these illegal and usurp
u ing acts of the President make apparently 81
u little impression on the public mind. Nom
-' of our earlier Presidents would have dared tt
ventura ON tbano