Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1869-03-12

stitutional power of supreme command |
of the army and navy. They have de- |
stroyed the strength of the Executive De- |
partment, by making subordinate officers |
independent OF and able to defy their |
Chief Magistrate; they have attempted
to place the President under the power OF
a bold, defiant and treacherous Cabinet
officer; they have robbed the Executive
of the prerogative of pardon rendered
null and void the acts of clemency grant
ed to thousands of persons under the pro-
visions OF the Constitution, and commit
ted gross usurpations by legislative at
tempts to exercise this power in favor OF
party adherents; they have conspired to
change the system of our Government
by preferring charges against the Presi-
dent in the form of articles of impeach-
ment, and contemplating before hearing
or trial, that he should be placed under
arrest, held in durance, and when 1t be-
came their pleasure to pronounce his SEN
tence, driven from place and power in dis
grace; they have in time of peace In
creased the national debt by reckless ex-
penditure of the public moneys, and added
| W WulCA dllCuu1 WSA5h oPOAA
the people; they have permitted the ma
ton to suffer the evils of deranged cur
rency, to the enhancement in price OF all
the necessaries of life; they have main
tanned a large standing army for the en-
forcement of their measures of oppres-
sion they have engaged in class legisla-
| ton, built and encouraged monopolles
that the few might be enriched at the ex-
pense of the many; they have failed to
act upon important treaties, thereby en-
dangering our peaceful relations with for
eign powers; their course of usurpation
has not been limited TO inroads upon the
Executive Department by unconstitution-
al and oppressive enactments. The peo-
pie of ten States of the Union have been
reduced to a condition more intolerable
than that from which those patriots of
the revolution rebelled. Millions of Amer
lean citizens can now say of their oppres-
sOrs, with more truth than our fathers did
of the British tyrants, that they have
forbidden governments to pass laws
of immediate and pressing import,
ance, 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 these
people would relinquish the right of rep
resentation in the Legislatures right in
estimable to them and formidable to ty-
rants only; that they have made judges
dependent on their will alone for their
tenure of Offices, and the amount and pay
ment of their salaries; that they have
erected a multitude of new offices, and sent
hither swarms of officers to harass our peo-
pie and eat out their substance; that
they have affected to render the military
Independent of and superior to the civil
power; combined with others to subject us
to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitu-
ton and unacknowledged by our laws
quartered large bodies of armed troops
among us, and protected them, by mock
trial, from punishment for any murders
which they should commit on the inhab-
itants; imposed taxes upon us without
our consent; deprived us, in many cases,
OF trial by jury taken away our charters;
excited insurrection among us; abolished
our most valuable laws altered funda-
mentally the forms of our Government;
suspended our own Legislatures, and de-
clared themselves invested with power to
legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
This 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 Con-
stitution and laws of the United States.
Encouraged by this promise, refugee
from tyranny, citizen Of the United
States, who, by order of military COM
mander, given under the sanction of
cruel and deliberate edict of Congress,
had been denied the constitutional
rights of liberty of conscience, free
dom of the press and of speech;
personal freedom from military arrest of
being held to answer for crime only upon
presentment of an Indictment, or trial
by jury; Of the writ of ha6eas corpus, and
the protection of civil and constitutional
government; citizen thus deeply wrong
ed, appeals to the Supreme Court for the
protection guaranteed him by the organic
law of the land. At once fierce and ex-
cited majority, by the ruthless hand ofleg-
islation, stripped the ermine from the
Judge, transferred the sword of Justice
to the General, and remanded the Cypress
ed 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
of it's unlimited sway, endeavored by
costly and deliberate trial to impeach one
who defended the Constitution and the
Union, not only throughout the war of
the rebellion, but during the whole term
of Office, as Chief Magistrate, but at the
same time could find no warrant or means
at their command to bring on the trial
even of the chief Of the rebellion. Indeed,
the remarkable failures in this 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 uncondi-
tional pardon. What more plainly than
this, illustrates the extremities of party
managementande engineering on one hand,
and of faction, vindictiveness and intoler-
ance on the other? Patriotism will hardly
be encouraged when in such record it sees
that its instant reward may be the most
virulent party abuse and obloquy, If not
attempted disgrace. Instead of seeking
to make treason odious, it would in truth
seem to have been their purpose rather to
make the defense of the Constitution and
Union crime, and to punish fl 1elity to an
oath of Office, if counter to party dicta-
ton, by all the means at their command.
Happily for the peace of the country, the
Wal has determined against the assumed
power of States to withdraw at pleasure
from tile Union. The institution of slavery
also found its destruction in the rebellion,
commenced in the United States in its in
terest
1t should be borne in mind, however
that the war neither Unmarried nor de-