Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1869-03-12

MARCH u, 1869.
every means to keep open and exposed te
the poisonous breath of party passion the
terrible wounds of four-years' war
They have prevented the return of peace
and the restoration of the Union. in every
way rendered delusive the purposes, pro.
misses, and pledges by which the army
was marshalled, treason rebuked, and re.
bellion crushed, and made the liberties o.
the people and the rights and powers o.
the President objects of constant attack
They have wrestcd from the President his
constitutional power of supreme command
of the army and navy. They have de:
stroyed the strength and efficiency of the
Executive Department by making subor-
dinate officers independent of and able to
defy their chief 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 acts of clemency granted to
thousands of persons under the provisions
of the Constitution, and committed gross
usurpation by legislative attempts to exer-
else 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 ar
ticles of impeachment, and contemplating,
before hearing or trial, that be should be
placed in arrest. held 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
increased the national debt by a reckless
Of the public moneys, and
thus added to the burdens which already
weigh upon the people. They have per-
mitted 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 mea-
sures of oppression. They have engaged
in class legislation, and built up and en-
couraged monopolies, that the few might
be enriched at the expense of the many.
They have failed to act upon important
treaties, thereby endangering our present
peaceful relations with foreign powers. !.
Their course of usurpation has not been
limited to inroads upon the Executive
az ,,.- .,.-,-.s... ma
BY unconstitutional aud oppressive ems
sEs - -. e = - /
Union have been reduced to condition
more intolerable than that from which the
patriots of the Revolution rebelled. Mil.
lions of American citizens can now say ol
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 import
ance. unless suspended until their assent
should be obtained;" that they have ''re-
fused to pass other laws for the accommo-
dation of large districts Of people, unless
those people would relinquish the right Of
in the Legislature right
inestimable to them, and formidable to
tyrants only;" that they have "made
judges dependent upon their will alone for
the tenure of their Offices, and the amount
and payment of their salaries;" that they
have s'erected multitude of new Offices.
and sent hither swarms of officers to harass
our people 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 jurisdiction foreign to
our Constitution, 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 of these States," imposed
"taxes upon US without our consent, -
''deprived us in mauy cases of the benefit
of trial by jury" taken away our chart
ers, excited domestic instruction amongst
us, abolished our most valuable laws,
altered fundamentally the forms of our
Government, suspended our own Legisla-
lures, and declared themselves invested
with power to legislate for US in all cases
whatsoever"
This catalogue Of crimes, long as it is,
is not yet complete. The Constitution
vests the judicial power of the United
States Gin one Supreme Court" whose
jurisdiction ''shall extend to all cases a.
rising under this Constitution and 1.-The
laws of the United States" Encouraged
by this promise Of refuge from tyranny,
a citizen of the United States who, by the
order Of military commander, given un-
der the sanction of cruel and deliberate
edict of Congress. had been denied the
constitutional rights of liberty of consci-
ence, freedom of the press and Of speech.
personal freedom from military arrest, of
being held to answer for crime only upon
presentment and indictment, of trial by
jury, of the writ of habeas corpus, and the
protection of civil and constitutional gov
ernment-a citizen, thus deeply wronged,
appeals to the Supreme Court for the pro-
tion guaranteed to him by the organic law
of the land. At once fierce and excited
majority, by the ruthless hand Of legisla-
tive power, slipped the ermine from the
judges, transferred the sword of justice to
the General, and remauded the oppressed
citizen to degradation and bondage worse
than death. .... .-s