Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1868-07-24

ment or trial, or witnesses, but by the Con-
gressional enactment of ex post iacto laws,
and in defiance of the constitutional prohi-
bition, denying even to full and loyal
Congress the authority to pass any bill of
attainder or ex post facto laws. The same
usurping authority has substituted as cleo
tors-in place of men of our own race, thus
Illegally attainted and dsfranchiscd-aho host
of ignorant negroes, who are supported in
idleness with the public money and COM
bined together to strip with the race of their
brthright through the management of the
freedmen's bureaus, and the emssaries of
conspirators in other States; and to com
plete the oppression, the military power of
the nation has been placed at their disposal,
in order to make this barbarism supreme.
The military leader under whose prestige
this usurping Congress has taken refuge
since the condemnation of their schemes by
the free people of the North, in the cleo
tons of the last year, and whom they have
selecte as their candidate to shield them
selves from the result of their own wicked
ness and crime, has announced his accept
anco of the nomination, and his willingness
TO maintain their usurpations over eight
millions of white people Mt the South, fixed
TO the earth with his bayonets. He exclaims,
LET us have peace" "Peace reigns in
Warsaw was the announcement which
heralded the doom of the liberties of ma
ton. "The empire is peace" exclaimed
Bonaparte, when freedom and its defenders
expired under the sharp edge of his sword.
The peace to which Grant invites us is the
peace of despotsm and death. Those who
seek to restore the Constitution by eXecut-
ing the will of the people, condemning the
reconstruction acts, already pronounced in
the elections of last year. and which will, I
am convinced, be still more emphatcally
expressed by the election of the Democratic
candidate as President of the United States,
are denounced as revolutionists by the par
Of Ia.
suftrage, which the popular vote of New
YORK, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, ONO,
Michigan, Connecticut and other States has
condemned as expressly against the letter
of the Constitution, must stand because
their Senators and Representatives have
willed it. If the people shall again con
denim these atrocious measures by the cleo
ton of the Democratic candidate for Presi-
dent, they must not be disturbed, although
they have been decided to be unconstitu-
tional by the Supreme Court, and although
the President has sworn to maintain and
support the Constitution. The will of
fraction of Congress, reinforced with its
partisan emissaries, sent to the South and
supported there by the sodiery-must stand
against the will of the people and the decis-
ion of the Supreme Court, and the solemn
oath of the President to maintain and sup
port the Constitution. 1t is revolutionary
to execute the will of the people. 1t is rev
dictionary to execute the judgment of the
Supreme Court. 1t is revolutionary in the
President to keep inviolate his oath to sus-
tain the Constitution. The false construc-
ton Of the vital principle of our govern
ment is the last resort Of those who would
have their arbitrary reconstruction sway
and supersede our time -honored institutions
The nation will say the Constitution must
be restored, and the will of the people again
prevail. The appeal to the peaceful ballot
to attain this end is not war, is not revulu-
ton. They make war and revolution who
attempt to arrest this quiet mode of putting
aside military despotism and the usurpa-
tons of a fragment of a Congress, asserting
absolute power over that benign system of
regulated liberty left us by our fathers.
This must be allowed to take its course.
This is the only road to peace. twill come
with the election of the Democratic candi-
dates, and not with the election of that mail
ed warrior, whose bayonets are now at the
Threats of eight millions of people in the
South, to compel them to support him as a
candidate for the Presidency and to submit
to the domination of an alien race OF semi
barbarous men. No perversion of truth or
audacity of Misrepresentation can exceed
that which halls this candidate in arms rs
an angel of peace.
am, very respectfully,
Your most ob't servant
FRANK =. BLAIR.