The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1871-07-07
THE DECLARATION OF 1871.

No candid person will deny that the
leading men in power at Washington
have been uniaithful to their duties.
They have broken the pledges they
made to the people, and, in reckless dis
regard Of their oaths, they have vioat.
ed the plaincst provisions of the consti.
tuition.
They have deprived the States of
their sacred right of sclf-governm ent in
matters purely local, and disarmed
them of the power to enforce their own
laws for the preservation of order with
in their own boundaries.
They have passed bills of pains and
penalties, operating on millions at once
without regard to the guilt or innocence
of the parties.
They have tramplcd on all the secur-
tiles of life, liberty aud property.
They have treated the haJeas corpus
law with contempt, and denied the
right Of trial by jury.
They have sent out swarms of their
hireling agents, with instructions to
kidnap, imprison and kill free citizens
for political oflenses, without judicial
accusation, without warrant, and with.
out legal trial.
They have not only trodden upon the
great principles embodied in the origi-
nal constitution as it came from the
hands Of its frameis, but. even the
amendments, which they themselves
interpolated, have been broken without
remorsc whenever it suited their in.
terests.
In defiance of the NlIIth amendment
they have doomed many persons to the
worst kind of slavery or involuntary
servitude In the public prisons, with
out the pretense of any "crime whereof
the party was legally convicted"
In the face of the XIVth, they have
abridged the "equal rights of whole
masses of white citizens.
Without the least respect for the right
Of universal suffrage, guaranteed by
the XVIII, they have interfered both
forcibly and fraudulently to prevent
fair elections, and TO set them aside
after they were held.
These outrages upon Justice, liberty
and law have been perpetrated, not
during the conflict Of a civil war-not
in moments of wild passion or heated
excitement-but in cold blood, upon
deliberate reflection, in a time of pro
found peace, in full view Of the conse-
quences, and their authors have follow
ed out this line oi policy, step by step,
with a persistency which shows their
fixed determination for the future, as
in the past, to be bound by no oath and
held by no promise.
The two last and most important OF
their anti-constitutional measures show
more distinctly than Others their settled
design to strangle the liberties of the
nation, and take perpetual power into
their own hands. The force bill auth
orizes the President, not Onlyto invade
the States at his pleasure, but by de-
claring martial law, to subvert all gov
ernment except what consists of his
mere will. Under the election law his
cannon is planted directly against the
freedom of State elections. Already the
bayonets of the executive have CLEANED
around the polling places of the people
in the cities Of New York and Phila-
delphia. VINO can mistake the mean-
ing of these preparations for the next
presidential election? Who doubts
that warning and rebuke are needed
now to prevent the administration
from carrying out its purpose by force