The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1868-10-15
Impeachment of the Radical Party.
BEHOLD THEIR GUILT!


We give below, from the Boston Courier,
an enumeration of specific high crimes and
rnisdemeanors, of which the Radical party,
through its leaders and agents in Congress,
stands arraigned before the bar of the coun-
try. 1t will be seen that the different counts
embrace every act subversive of the princi-
Piles of civil liberty, and equally derogatorv
TO the rights of the people;
I. 1t has set aside the Constitution Of the
United States, the basis. pledge and security
for Republican freedom.
II. It has practically abrogated State 60
vernments in the ten Southern States, rang
ing them in military districts, and placing
over those districts military commanders.
III. 1t has deprived every white man of
his vote who would not aid in the Radical
plan of reconstruction"
". 1t has bestowed the power of suffrage
upon every negro disposed to lend himself to
that purpose.
V. It has substituted military commits
sions for the civil tribunals.
VI. 1t has thus taken away the constitu-
tional right of trial by jury.
VII. 1t has deprived the people of the
sacred right of TIE writ of habeas corpus.
VIII. 1t has prohibited free speech.
TX. 1t has broken up and silenced free
press.
Y. It has inflicted "cruel and unusual
punishments."
XI 1t has violated the right Of the peo-
pie ''to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers and effects against unreasonable
searches and seizures"
XII 1t has deprived the Executive of its
constitutional, Just and necessary powers, by
means of which it was intended by the fra
Iners Of the Constitution that this "co~ordi-
nate branch Of the government" should help
to maintain due balance of authority, for
the common safety and welfare.
XIII. 1t has over-awed that other CO. ordi-
nate branch of the government, the Judici~
ary, which was also intended to help main
tain due balance of authority, for the COM
mon safety and welfare-by uncoustitution-
al and threatening legislation, so as to in
timidate the Supreme Judicial tribunal and
thus to prevent the declaration of a judg>
ment ready to be pronounced, from which
would have flowed the necessary legal con-
sequence, that the whole series of reconstruc-
ton acts was unconstitutional, revolutions
airy and utterly void"
XIV. It has required of the Southern
States taxation without allowing them rep
resentation.
XIV. 1t denies the right Of voting at the
coming election, to three Of those States, for
noncompliance with its unconstitutional,
unjust and arbitrary demands.
XVI. In order to maintain this monltrous
and iniquitous system of legislation, it has
been compelled to keep up the public debt,
instead of taking steady economical means
for its reduction and gradual extinction +;
and, for n period Of peace almost as long as
that Of the war. has ground down the people
by an ever increasing burden of extortionate
h., IS 4 ~
in this fourth year after the war, being more
than six times as much as in the year before
the war began.
Finally, apprehenGing that their scheme
of reconstruction" which meant always
Fubjugation of the South to uphold Radical
supremacy in the North, the agents of which
were the military force, the freedmen's bu>
reau and the carpet baggers," paid for
these services out of the pockets of the peo-
pie, had failed to ca jole the majority of the
negroes to its support-a bill! was introduced
into Congress, at its last session, providing
for large supply of arms to the blacks in
the Southern States by which the armed
minority might regulate the franchise of the
white ard black majority in the Radical in
terest. What dreadful scenes must have en-
sued, had this bill passed, through a conflict
of races, speedily involving the whole coun-
try in a civil war far more tremendous and
horrible than the sectional war in which we
have been engaged-the humane, the pru-
dent and the patriotic would wish to Danish
from the imagination.
Such is, in part, the amply sufficient
foundation for the arraignment of the Radi-
cal party. Every specification is a solid, in
disputable fact. OF these "high crimes and
misdemeanors," clearly suversive of the
very principles of civil liberty. it is mani
festly guilty. Upon such a specification no
jury in Christendom would fail to convict
10 Judge would hesitate 20 pronounce SEN
tence.