The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1867-02-27
WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 81, 1867.
The Reai stains OF the Country.

Those who imagine that there are still
lef, constitutional barriers over which
Bsdicalism may not pass in its warfare
upon the South will find food for refec-
ton in the following melancholy but truth
tul remarks Of the Baltimore Gazette:
"when we remarked yesterday that
Congress had sbrogated the Constitution
Of the United States We spoke advisedly.
We did not mean merely that BY treating
the southern States as conquered Terrific.
ries and establishing over each Of them a
military despotism the Constitution had,
so far as they are concerned, been sus
pended or abolished. We desired to be
understood as saying that Congress had
annulled the Constitution not only in one
section but in both-that that instrument
is just as much dead letter in Maine as
il is in Louisiana. 1t is true that in the
northern States its forms are still adhered
10. Representatives are elected to Con-
gress from the old districts, two senators
are sent to Washington from each State,
the Federal judges and other officials dis
charge their respective duties after their
accustomed fashion, and matters may go
on in the same way for some time to
come. Nevertheless, all this is but a
vain and empty show, and in any hour
the scene may shift, and introduce new
and startling changes. 1t was not the
provisions which created Congress and
prescribed its duties, or which regu-
lated Presidential elections, or allotted
judicial functions, which made the Consti-
tuition what it was TO the Americanpeople-
IL IL AZ Nx..hs ch
cured their liberties. The wise and noble
principles of constitutional government
which were therein set forth as the funda,
mental law of the land alone gave to it its
vitality and strength, and won for it the
affection aud respect Of millions. The
declarations that no man should be de-
MED the privilege of worshipping God
after his own conscience-that freedom
of speech and of the press should not be
abridged-that the people might always
assemble together and demand Of the Go
vernment redress of their grievances
that no citizen should be seized and no
house invaded save under lawful warrant
that none should be tried for crime save
upon indictment by a grand jury, nor de-
prived Of life, liberty, or property without
due process Of law-that every man &C
cused should be entitled to speedy and
impartial trial; these were the pledges that
gave the people assurance of the stability Of
the Republic and the perpetuation Of civil
freedom. 1t was upon these that
the whole fabric of free constitutional
government in this country was reared, and
have since rested. And now that these
great principles are deliberately repudiated
by the Federal Government and erased
from the Constitution, that instrument
ceases on the instant to be shield to States
or people, and becomes but so much parch-
ment. The arbitrary and tyrannical sys-
TEN which is to be set up in the South in
lieu of the Constitution may not as yet
extend its operations into the North. But
the people of that section can have no
reasonable assurance of escape. The con-
stitutional barriers behind which they
would seek refuge are levelled, and the
minority is at the mercy of an angry and
triumphant party. He has read history to
little profit who has not learned how peril
Gus is the position of those who hold life
and liberty at the will of frenzied fac
ton. The genius of the Constitution has
ceased to irradiate the political armament,
and the darkness of despotism which is
settling down upon US will, in all human
probability, enshroud the whole American
neonlev