The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1877-07-13

worth as much as all the others. To get that
vote for their candidate they were required
to 20 further than they went for any of the
rest, and so they held l. That the certi-
fcate of the Returning Board was proprio
rigore an appointment. q That it was due
appointment, though corrupt and dishonest.
8. That this was vote provided for by the
Constitution, though the Constitution in
plain words provided against it.
THE FULL EXTENT OF THE OUTRAGE.
After all, there was but one question be-
| fore the commission. Had the American
people right to elect their own Chief Mag
istrate? They had the right. Their ances-
tors struggled for it long, fought for it often,
and won it fairly. Being embedded in
their Constitution, it cannot be destroyed
except by a force strong enough to over
throw the organic structure of the Govern
mcnt ITSELF Legislative enactments or judi
cial decisions are poweress either to strength
en- or impair it. The legerdemain of law
craft, the catches of special pleading, the
| snapperadoes of practice, do not help us to
decide matter like this. A great nation
must not be impaled upon n pins point.
Precedents which might bind a Court of
Quarter Sessionsl determining the settlement
of pauper cannot tie up the hands of the
supreme Legislature defending fundamental
right of the whole people. When Gren-
vile in 1866, cited the authority Of divers
cases to show that America might be taxed
without representation, Pitt answered al
come not here armed at all points, with the
statute book doubled,down in dogs ears TO
defend the cause of liberty. | can acknowl-
edge no veneration for any procedure, law,
or ordinance, that is repugnant to reason
and the first principles of our Constitution.
| rejoice that America has resisted" So
spoke the defiant friend of our race in the
presence of hostile Parliament ten years
before the Declaration of Independence.
And now, after this long interval of time,
we behold our greatest right-the right on
which all other rights depend-successfully
assailed in our own Congress with the same
small weapons that Grenville used. If
brute force had crushed it out, we might
have borne the calamity with fortitude but
to see it circumvented by knavery and petit
logged to death, is too much to be endured
with any show of patience.
If the majority Of that commission could
but have realized their responsibility to God
and man, if they could only have understood
that in a free country liberty and law are in
separable they would have been enrolled
among our greatest benefactors, for they
would have added strength and grandeur tU
our institutions. But they could not come
up to the height of the great subject. Party
passion so benumbed their faculties that a
fundamental right seemed nothing to them
when it came in conflict with some argu.
ment supported by artificial reasoning, and
drawn from the supposed analogies of tech
nical procedure. The Constitution was in
their judgment, outweighed by void stat
ute and the action of corrupt Returning
Board.
Let these things be remembered by oul
children's children; and if the friends of free
government shall ever again have such q
contest, let them take care how they leave
the decision of it to tribunal like thai
which betrayed the nation by enthronins
the Great Fraud of 1876.
| j. S. BLACK.