Year: 1863

inB tne peHalty ny strange ana uDac-
countablc freak, interpreted by friendly
pen as significant practial juke. Such
grim and grotesque jokes, where the thing
sported with is so precious as the rights
Of an American citizen, may remind the
world another incident in the life of a
Roman Emperor, which our respect for
the high ofice you hold will not allow
us to mention.


MIR. Lincoln, you were educated law.
yer, and from the great amount Of leisure
you must have enjoyed in The intervals
of your rural practice to qualify yourself,
by fit studies, for your present exalted
station, it is to be presumed that you are
well read in the literature Of your noble
profession. Permit us to carry your mind
back to those assiduous and ennoblinp
studies, and recall to your recollection
that light of English jurisprudence, Lord
Somers. The great constitutional law.
yer bore witness, as you, Sir, must well
remember, against the tyranny and cor
ruption of his age. 1t has been said Of
him in figure too smart and ornate to
satisfy severe taste, but still with entire
justice, that "like chapel in a palace,
he alone remained unpoluted, whilst all
around was PROCLAMATION and uproar -
Our purpose in mentioning this great
lawyer and statesman, who stood up with
such masculine strength against the tools
and parasites Of the last two Stuarts. is
to ask your attention to some very brief
extracts from his description Of tribu-
nal famous in English history, and which
has done more to color the current Of sub.
sequent English thought, and of the po-
litical thought Of the offshoots of the
English race (among which we occupy
the first place. than any other one thing
that ever had an abiding place among
men; your quick legal and historical per-
ception already sees that we can mean
nothing else than the Star Chamber,
which we but now termed famous, but to
which your deeper detestaton of its char
acter and better sense Of fitness, will ap-
ply the epithet, infamous. But let us
make way for the impressive language of
Lord Somers


"We had privy council in England, with
great and mixed powers IRE suffered under il lonq
and much. All the rolls of Parliament are full
of complaints and remedies; but none of them eff.
fcctual till Charles the First's time. The Star
Chamber was but spawn Of our council and was
called so only because it sat in the usual council
chamber. 1t was set up as formal court in the
third year of Henry the Eighth in Gerry soft words
'to punish great riots, to restrain offenders too
big for ordinary justice


"But in little time it made the nation tire n.
BILE. The privy council came at last to make lars
by proclamation. and the Star Chamber ruined
those that would not obey"


We allude. Sir, to that Justly odious
tribunal to recall to your notice a pecui-
arity ofthe jealous, liberty loving Anglo
Saxon race, with which your studies in
the principles and history of the illustri,
ous patriots who brought the Star Cham
Der to luin and its abettors to the block.
must have made you familiar The pc
culiarity Of the Anglican MIND to which
we allude is this: that it will bear twice
the injustice from the regular tribunals
that it will put up with from mock courts.
The ordinary fountains of justice, in the
eraly times we allude to, were, as You
well know, shockingly corrupt; a single
Judge in a single riding--the- infamous
and atrocious Jeffries-perpetrated more
instances Of brutal injustice than procee-
ded from the Star Chamber during the
whole period Of its existence. But JEFF,
fries did not so arouse the people and
sting them into infuriated and determined
resistance. In the one case, the principle
of the proceedings was subversive Of the
ends of justice; in the other, the law and
the jury remained, and a servile or bru-
tai judge was subject to the restraints Of
publicity, and might soon die. Just SO
John Hampden resisted the ship money
not because the imposition was burden
some, but because the principle was dan
gerous. Just so, as Mr.. Webster said,
our fathers went to war againsta pream-
ble-against the mere assertion of right
to tax them. when the tax actually lev
led was a trihe. Thus you see, Sir, that
there are things which the jealous race
from which we are sprung will resolutely
oppose to the death, more from the peril
which they see in them as precedents
than from the pressure of a present and


felt evil In the present case, the people
see that if you can suppress free riticism
of your Administrator by Mr.. Vallandig-
ham you can crush out such criticism by
every citizen of the loyal States. for you
have no more legal power over one citi-
zen than YOU have over every other. Ii
you can break through the Constitution to
infringe the freedom of speech, the people
see that you can equally break through
it to destroy every other right which the
Constitution guarantees for one part is
no more binding upon you than every
other. The principal of your late action
however you may intend it-makes you
the absolute master of our lives and liber
ties, Even if you were as pure, as wise,
ard as just as the first of your predeces
sors in the great office You hold, the pre-
cedent you are setting for some less vir-
tuous and more inscriptions successor,
would cause it to be fraught with such
fearful danger as would bind all freemen
to resist it.


Unless this dangerous action Of yours
is reserved, and you Sir, in your high
station, set the country an example OF
that steady homage to THE LAW, which is
our only sure anchor in the great storm
that has overtaken US, he must be au un-
thinking or sanguine man who will
venture to predict that you will lay down
your power as quietly as you assumed it,


Whichever, Sir, may be your own estimate