Year: 1863

liberty, charity and justice. With faith
in these, the American people, though
assailed by those painful convulsions
which no nation ever escaped, through
desolated and heavy in heart, and weep.
ing over departed glories and joys, may
yet look off across the dark and angry
face of the waters, and in the distance be
hold the star of peace and honor, and
around it clustering the heavenly constel
lation of individual and notional happi.
ness. But if this people refuse, from
this time forward, to be led by those prin-
ciples, an abyss of horror awaits our
speedy entrance, es terrible to the up
right soul of free.born American citi-
zen as tho flaming depths where the lost
angels wrthe in agony, The world, it is
true, will not stand still; some other peo-
pie more worthy tho high trust will talk c
up the cause of constitutional Govern.
men; but we will be dropped in gloom and
utter despair by the wayside.


Sir, times like the present are always
full of danger to the rights of the peo-
pie. In an hour like this, if we expect
to retain the institutions of liberty, an
increased dgeree of vigilance is re-
quired. For when the elements of polit-
icsl organization are in commotion, and
disorder pervadas the whole face of af-
fairs, bad mon in authority unbridle the
spirit of tyranny in their breasts and
leap over the walls of constitutional re.
strsint. Such periods in history have
been the rich harvests of despotism.-
When the thunder rolls along the sky and
midnight gloom increases the terrors OF
the storm, the savage beasts of the desert
go forth and raven for their prey. The
rulers of the nation do the same. Ben
jamin was a ravening wolf, and stands
as the emblem of unlawful and sanguin-
ary power. Seditions and civil wars are
the unhappy occasions for the exercise
of this baleful propensity which high Of
fetal station SO generally begets in the
heart of man. And, Mr., Speaker, the
mournful evidences are thick and fearful
on every hand, whichever way we turn,
that the public confusion which now
reigns in our own once peaceful land, has
brought with it to us this pernicious evil
in its most frightful and aggravated forms.
Disaster has followed disaster in terrible
and startling rapidity to a people who
two short years ago had never tasted the
cup of humilia' ion OF sorrow. Our ter
ritorial grandeur has been torn and dis
puted by the sword, homes have been des-
olated and filled with the bitterness of
death, debt and taxation tower up like a
gloomy specter in our midst, and cast an
Iappalling shadow over the hopes of the
present and of future generations of labor
for more than hundred years to come;
but such scenes have not soltened the
heart of executive authority, tempered
the Unsuitable lust Of personal domination.
or stayed the hand of official trespass
and oppression any more in the Admin
istration of the American Republic than
they have in the Administration of the
Governments of former ages. The usur-
per se;zes the moment when the Consti-
tuition Of his country is weakened by
some deadly peril to assist in breaking
it down. He watches the opportunity
when the laws arc unsettled to trample
them under his foot and substitute his
own imperious and unhallowed will in the
place of their well-defned and peaceful
operations.


Mr.. Speaker, on the 22th day of last
September the President of the United
States, in few brief lines published in
tho newspapers and styled a proclamation
declared that the people OF this country
were under martial law, and that all civ
il rights and remedies touching their per-
sonal liberties were suspended. The blow
was sudden, quick, and radical. 1t was
piece of the inevitable logic of execu


tive encroachmcnt. Tyranny has its
rules of action as well as other systems
of wrong Chicanerv, fraud, and sub
tie, obscure falee- dealing characterize its
attempts when it does not feel secure in
more daring efforts. But this act OF the
President and his Cabinet is the unblush-
ing assumption Of power which has ceas


ed to respect or fear the Constitution or
laws which the people have made, and
which the servants Of the people have
sworn to support. 1t throws aside all
disguise, tears of its vail. and displaye
the horrible features of despotism to
American citizens. Will any member of
this House dispute the correctness of the
term which now employ ? Let us di-
vest ourselves of all passion and resent
ment. Let us take calm view of facts
and principles, as history will do, and,
by the steady light of truth and reason,
let us examine and discover, if we can,
what the Administration now in power
has done in behalf of the Constitution of
our fathers, and in behalf of the cause for
which this Republic was founded,


The object for which our ancestors re-
volted from the British empire. and enac-
ted that sublime tragedy of history, the
American Revolution, was to secure to
the citizen more liberty and personal Sc
curity than he possessed under the juris-
diction of the British crown. Their
complaints were not against the constitu-
tion of England, but against weak king
and a wicked ministry, who violated it in
order to oppress the subject. They stud
led the dangerous nature of a lawless ex-
ecutive during seven years OF grief, of
bitterness, and of blood. When day
dawned on their independence the great
secret of free Government was no longer a
secret to them. They had learned it, and


learned it forever in the high and holy in
spiration OF battles fought for the inherent
right to govern themselves. Their wisdom