Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1869-03-12

that pretended patriots appeared before
the nation and began to pirate about the
thousands of lives and millions of treasure
sacrificed in the suppression OF thu rebel
lion. They have since persistently sought
to intiame the prejudices engendered be-
tween the sections, to retard the restora-
ton Of peace and harmony, and by every
means to keep open and exposed to the
poisonous breath of party passion the ter
rible wounds of four-yeals' war. They
have prevented the return of peace and
the restoration of the Union, in every way
rendered delusive the purposes, promises,
and pledges by which the army was mar
shalled, treason rebuked, and rebellion
crushed, and made the liberties of the
people and the rights aud powers of the
President objects of constant attack. They
have wrested from the President his con-
stitutional power of supreme command of
the army and navy. They have destroyed
the strength and efficiency of the Execu-
tive Department by making subordinate
officers independent of and able to defy
their chief. They have attempted to place
the President under the power of bold,
defiant, and treacherous Cabinet officer
They have robbed the Executive of the
prerogatlve OF pardon, rendered null and
void acts of clemency granted to thousands
OF persons under the provisions of the
Constitution, and committed gross usur-
patton by Legislative attempts to exercise
this power In favor of party adherents
They have conspired to change the system
of our Government by preferring charges
against the President in the form of articles
of impeachment, and contemplating, before
hearing or trial, that he should be placed
III arrest, hold in durance, and, when it
became their pleasure to pronounce his
sentence, driven from place and power in
disgrace. They have in time of peace in
creased the national debt by reckless eX-
peudlture of the public moneys, and thus
added to the burdens which already weigh
upon the people. They have permitted
the nation to suffer the evils of a deranged
currency, to the enhancement in price of
all the necessaries of life They have
maintained large standing army for the
enforcement Of their measures of oppres-
sion. They have engaged in class lie sisla-
ton, and bui!tup and encouraged monopo-
lies, that the few might be enriched at the
expense Of the many. They have failed to
act upon important treaties, thereby en-
dangering our present peaceful relations
with foreign powers.
Their course Of usurpation has not been
limited to inroads upon the Executive De-
partment.
By unconstitutional and oppressive en-
actments, the people of ten States of the
Union have been reduced to a condition
more intolerable than that from which the
patriots Of tho revolution rebelled. Mil
lions OF American citizens can now say of
their oppressors, with more truth than our
fathers did of British tyrants, that they
have " forbidden the governors to pass
laws Of immediate and pressing importance
unless suspended until their assent should
be obtained;" that they have ''refused to
pass other laws for the accommodation of
large districts of people, unless those peo-
pie would relinquish the right of represen-
tation in the Legislature-ar light inestima-
bile to them, and formidable to tyrants
only" that they have "made Judges de-
pendent upon their will alone for the ten
IRE Of their Offices, and the amount and
payment OF their salaries - that they have
"erected q multitude of new offices, and
sent Either swarms of officers to harrass
our people and eat out their substance ~
that they have "aifected to render the
military independent of and superior to
the civil power" combined with others to
subject US to jurisdiction foreign to our
Constitution, and unacknowledged by our
avs" "quartered large bodies of armed
troops among us, "protected them by q
mock trial from punishment for any MUIR
ders which they should commit on the in
habitants of these States" imposed ''taxes
upon us without our consent" "deprived
lis in many cases of the benefit of trial by
jury, sc taken away our charters, excited
domestic lnsurrection amongst us, abolish
ished our most valuable laws, altered
fundamentally the forms of our Govern
ment, suspended our own Legislatures,
and declared themselves invested with
power to legislate for us in all cases what
soever."
This catalogue Of crimes, long as it is, is
not yet complete The Constitution vests
the judicial power of the United States
in one Supreme Court" whose iurisdic-
ton "shall extend to all cases arising I'M
der this Constitution and "the laws of
the United States" Encouraged by this
promise of a refuge from tyranny, citi-
zen Of the United States who, by the order
of military commander, given under the
sanction of a cruel and deliberate edict of
Congress, had been denied the constitu-
tional rights of liberty of conscience, free
dom of the press aud of speech, personal
freedom from military arrest, of being held
to answer for crime on y upon presentment
and Indictment, of trial by jury, of the writ
Of habeas corpus, and the protection of
civil and constitutional governmental
citizen, thus deeply wronged, appeals to
the Supreme Court for the protection guar
anteed to him by the organic law of the
land. At once fierce and excited major
ity, by the ruthless hand of legislative
power, stripped the ermine from the iudg-
es, transferred the sword of justice to the
General, and remanded the oppressed
citizen to degradation and bondage worse
than death.
1t will also be recorded as one of the
marvels Of the times, that party claiming
for itself monopoly of consistency and
patriotism, and Boosting, too, of its unlim-
tied sway, endeavored, by costly and de-
liberate trial, to impeach one who defend
ed the Constitution and the Union not on
~ throughout the war of the rebellion, but
during his whole term of Office as Chief
Magistrate ; but at the same time could
find no warrant or means at their command
to bring to trial even the chief of the re-
bellion. Indeed, the remarkable failures
in his case were 80 often repeated that for
propriety's sake. if for no other reason, it
became at last necessary to extend to him
an unconditional pardon. What more
plainly than this illustrates the extremity
Of party management and inconsistency on
the one hand, and of faction, vindictive-
ness, and intolerance on the other Patri.