The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1869-03-10

va AVA ORP CooAOh. AASy
have engaged in class legisIatioN built
up and encouraged monopolies, that
the few might be enriched at the ex-
pense of the many. They have failed
to act upon important treaties, en-
dangering our peaceful relations with
foreign powers. Their course of usur-
patton has not been limited to in roads
upon the Executive Department by
unconstitutional and oppressive enact
ments. The people of the ten States
of the Union have been reduced to a
condition more intolerable than that
from which the patriots of the revolu-
ton rebelled. Millions of American
citizens can now say of their opp.es-
sors, with more truth than our fathers
did of British tyrants, that they have
forbidden the governments to pass
laws Of immediate and pressing import
ance, until their assent should be OBJ
tanned /; that they have refused
to pass other laws for the
accommodation of large dis
tricts of people unless these peo-
pie would relinquish the right of rep
resentation III the legislature, a right
inestimable to them and formidable
to tyrants only; that they have made
Judges dependent ON their will alone
for their tenure of offices and the
amount and payment of their salaries;
that they have erected a multitude of
new offices, and sent thither swarms
of officers to harass our people and
eat out their substance; that they have
affected to render the military indie
| pendent and superior to the civil pow
er; combined with others to subject us
to a Jurisdiction foreign to our consti-
tuition and unacknowledged by our
laws; quartered large bodies of armed
troops among us, protected them by a
mock trial from punishment for any
murders which they should commit on
the inhabitants; imposed taxes on us
without our consent; deprived us in
many cases of trial by jury, taken
away III charters, excited domestic
Instructions among us, abolished our
most valuable laws, altered fundamen-
tally the forms of our Government,
suspended ur own Legislatures, and
declared themselves invested with
power to legislate for ms in all cases
whatsoever. The catalogue of crimes,
long as it is, is not complete. The
Constitution vests the judicial power
of the United States in one Supreme
Court, whose jurisdiction shall extend
to all cases arising under the Consti-
tuition and the laws of the United
States. Encouraged by this promise,
a refuge from tyranny, a citizen of the
United States, also, by the order of a
military commander, given under the
sanction OF a court and the deliberate
edict of Congress, had been denied the
constitutional rights of liberty of con-
science, freedom of the press and of
speech, personal freedom from militia
ry arrest, of being held to answer for
crime only upon the presentment, of
trial by jury, of the writ of ha6eas cor
pus, and the protection OF a civil and
constitutional government. A citizen
thus deeply wronged appeals to the
Supreme Court for the protection
guaranteed him by the organic law of
the land. At once a fierce and excit-
ed majority, by the ruthless hand OF
Legislative power, stripped the ermine
from the judge, transferred the sword
of justice to the General, and remand
ed the oppressed citizen to a degrade
ton andLbondage worse than death.
1t will also be recorded as one of
the marvels of the times, that a party
claiming for itself q monopoly of con-
sistency and patriotism, and boasting
of its unlimited, sway, endeavored by
a costly and deliberate trial to impeach
one who defended the Constitution
and Union, not only throughout the
war of the rebellion, but during the
whole term of office as Chief Magis-
trate; but at the same time could find
no warrant or means at their hand to
bring to trial even the chief of the re-
bellion.
Indeed the remarkable failures in
the case were so often repeated, that
for propriety's sake, if for no other
reason, it became at last necessary to
extend to him an unconditional par
don. What more plainly than this
illustrates the extremities of party
management and inconsistency on one
hand, and of faction, vin6ictiveness
and intolerance ON the other. Pat
riotism will hardly be encouraged
when in such a record it sees that its
instant reward may be most virulent
party abuse and obloquy, if not at
tempted disgrace. Instead of seeking
to make reason odious it would in
truth seem to have been their purpose
rather to make the defense of the Con-
stitution and Union a crime, and to
punish fidelity to an oath of office, if
counter, to party dietation, by all the
means at their command.
Happily for the peace of the coun-
try, the war has determined against
the assumed power of States to with
draw at pleasure from the Union. The
institution of slavery also found its
destruction in a rebellion commenced
in its interest.
1t should be borne IN mind, howey-
er, that the war neither impaired nor
destroyed the Constitution, but, on
the contrary, preserved its existence
and made apparent its real power and
enduring strength. All the rights
granted to the States or reserved to
the people are, therefore, intact.
Among those rights is that of the peo-
pie of each State to declare the quail
.fication of their own State electors.
1t is now assumed that Congress can
control this vital right. which a new
er be taken away from the States with
out impairing the fundamental princi-