he Democratic atchman. VOL. 7. BELLEFONTE, THURSDAY YORNING, FEB. 20, 1862. NO. 7. Miscellaneous. Memorial of. James W. Wall, Esq., to the Legislature of New Jersey. Ty the Honorable the Senate and House of Assembly of the State of New Jersey. Your memoriglist represents to your Hon- orable bodies—That he is a citizen of the State of New Jersey, and fully entitled to all the rights, privileges and immunities per- taining to such citizenship. That on the eleventh day of September last, he was ar. rested. by Benajah Deacon, United States Marshal for New Jersey, accompanied by an armed force, William R. Allen, Mayor of the city of Burlington, being present, and assist. ing with ona or two of his police. That the said Marshal, upon being called upon for his authority, produced a printed form or order in the words following, as near as your mes morialist can recollect : «To Benajah Deacon, Esq., Marshal. &c. You are hereby commanded to arrest James W. Wall, of the city of Burlington, and con- vey him to Fort Lafayette, in the New York harbor, forthwith. By order of the Secreta- ry of War. Dated, Washington, September 1861.” Upon reading this singular document, your memorialist demanded of the Mar- shal the nature and cause of the accusation against him, and a copy of the affidavit or affirmation upon which such warrant was based. He took occasion at the same time to deny the mightof any member of the President’s Cabinet to issue any such war» rant, much less the Secretary of War, and warned the Marshal that he would hold the Secretary responsible, and all who presumed to act under his authority ; that this official had in this overstepped the limits of his of- ficial authority, and having usurped powers not delegated to him by the Constitution, of by some law made in purauance thereof, he had put himself beyond the pale of the pro- tection of his office, and was liable like any private citizen, with this distinction, that having used his official position to effect this gross injustice and oppression, it was a great aggravation of his guilt, and would be considered so in a criminal prosecution, or in asking for exemplary damages in a civil action. To this protest and warning of your me. morialist, the Marshal made the following most extraordinary reply : “That he knew nothing of the cause and nature of the accu- sations, or of any affidavit or affirmation upon which the warrant sas based ; that he kad received the order through the post office, and was bound to execute it at all hazards, and if any resistance was made, he would resort to the armed force then sur rounding the house.”’ Upon your memorialist requesting time for preparation, and to have an interview with his family, 1t was peremptorily refused by the Marshal, who further declared ‘that he had orders to take your memorialist at onceto New York via the Camden and Am- boy line, which would pass through Burling. ton in the course of ten or fifteen minutes.” Against such an arbitrary exercise of pow- er as this, never surpassed by the most sub gervient minjon of the vilest despotism in Europe, your memorialist entered his most solemn protest, and prepared to resist such invasion of his rights by physical force.— Resistance, however, proved in vain, and your memorialist having succeeded in reaching the hall of his house, was there overpowered by a large armed force, torn from the midst of his family and dragged to the railroad station. From thence he was conveyed a prisoner by the Marshal, accom panied by six of his armed posse, not only through the State of New Jersey, but thr’o a portion of the State of New York, and in that State delivered over to the United States military authority commanding at Fort Ta~ fayette, 10 New York harbor. In this Government fortress he was con- fined for nearly two weeks, his correspond~ ence subjected to the most impudent sur- veilance, and his person to all those indigni~ ties and petty annoyances which a military despotism understand how to inflict. He was finally released from confinement upon: taking what was called an oath of allegiance and extra-judicial oath, unknown to the Constitution and the laws, but unobjection- ble to your memorialist, inasmuch as it pledged him to “protect and defend the Con stitution against all its enemies,” thus impos- ing, if it were possible to do so, additional obligations upon him to resist the unconstis tutional acts of this high official, and punish his gross violations of the personal liberty of the subject. There can be no greater enemy to the Constitution than that man, who, be neath the cloak of power, conceals the stiletto with which he thrusts at his vitals. Since his release, your memorialist has applied again and again to the Secretary of ‘War, for the cause and nature of the accu- gations agsinst him ; but thus far all his ap- plications have received not the slightest. no- tice. This persistent silence of the Secreta- ry of War raises the presumption that the unconstitutional warrant by which he dared to deprive a citizen of New Jersey of his lib- erties, has not even the bald pretence of a written accusation to give it the flimsiest shadow of a decent formality. Your memorialist, by reason of this cruel. unmanly silence of the War Department, has been compelled to submit to have his good name and fame called in question, fus loyalty to the Constitution doubted, and the most un- grounded and unjust prejudices engendered against him. Tt is the grossest injustice to place an individual in such a position—vio- late all the rights, privileges and immunities that belong to him asa citizen—punish him as if he were the vilest criminal, and then cruelly withhold from him the nature and cause of the accusation against hm. Your memorialist therefore makes this ap- peal to the Legislature of his native State, that it will, through our Senators and Rep resentatives in Congress, demand of the War Department the nature and charges on filein said Department, upon which such warrant was issued. or, if no such charges are upon record, that. then it shall be so made to appear. ” * » * I am fully aware that in the ancient com monwealths, self-preservation was consider- ed the first necessity of the State, as it was of individuals, and could be used as a justi- fication of “the temporary veiling of the Statues of Laberty.’’ The dictator who. in the hour of the Nation's peril, came forth from the Roman Senate with absolute pow ers over the life, liberty and property of the Roman citizen, was only the creation of this dangerous idea. And during the reign of Elizabeth there was a notion that a kind of paramount sovereignty existed, which was denominated her absolute power, incident, as it was pretended, te the abstract nature of sovereignty, and arising out of its primary office of preserving the State from destruc tiom But even then, in that tyrannical reign, it found men bold enough to dare the terrors of the royal frown. and declare “that this insidious plea of necessity means too of ten the sccurity of the sovereign rather than that of the people.” The opposition to this pernicious doctrine went on gathering strength until, in the reign of the First Charles, it culminated in the far famed De. claration of Rights, that is the beacon light, casting its blaze afar, to warn tyrannical governments against the invasion of the liba erties of the people. | And yet, we are asked to believe the mon- strous doctrine in this high noon of the nineteenth century, in a government like ours, made by the haters of kingly preroga tive, with a written Constitution defining and limiting che powers of every depart- ment, there really, in time of war, lurks in the Executive this dangerous element of power ; and against which there had been a continued and successful struggle of five centuries in England. In the eloquent words of Mr. Pendleton, of Ohio, words that have the true ring of the metal of the olden time, “Can it be believed that our fathers. pro~ testing against kingly prerogative, revolu tionists because of outrages on personal rights by their sovereign. would clothe the executive of their new government with a power over the citizens, which their former master had never dared to pretend that he possessed ¢ Canit be believed that they, proud of their English lineage, proud of their English liberty—aye, proud of their loyalty to the Enghsh Constitution, would sacrifice that right, which their English an- cestors accounted their chiefest glory. Those ancestors had battled for centuries, bravely for popular rights. They had placed the crown upon the brow of the people—they had decked it with many a jewel, it was ra- diant with the glories of popular liberty, and can 1t be believed that our fathers would tear away this priceless gem, that sparkled in the very forefront of that cornet, and ‘with 1t adorn the spectre of executive power. In no other point in the Constitution did they limit the rights of the people as admit~ ted at that day ; can it be believed that they would, in this one vital point alone, restrict the bounds of liberty, and enlarge those of power #” What course you, the Representative of the State of New Jersey, may deem it prop- er to take in reference to this wanton out- rage upon the cor.stitutionally guaranteed rights of one of your citizens, must be left to your own judgments. It is for you to say whether it shall be passed over without a remonstrance. If by your silence now, you constitute this a precedent, it may be you to declare of what value hereafter those high sounding clauses in the bill of rights in our Constitution will be to any of the citizens of the State of New Jersey 2 — That bill of rights was intended as the enun- ciation of certain general principles of free government—to serve as the landmarks of liberty and law. Did your present Senator in Congress, Mr. Ten Eyck, when he intro~ duced it into your Constitutional Conven tion, and his fellow meinbers when they vot- ed upon it, consider its clauses as only a “mass of glittering generalities ?” And vet, what clse do they become, if any Cabi- net officer may, under the authority of one of these general warrants, invade your State, with an armed force. kidnap any of your of the State at his sovereign will and pleas- ure, in any one of the fortresses of the Gov ernment. Surely if such outrages are to be and wicked shams. I speak earnestly. because T feel so. 1 have been made to know the insolence of | arbitary power. The most degraded crimi. | nal in any of your prisons could not have been treated as T have been. without an out ery of indignation from every honest citizen | in the State. I have been arrested without | the form of legal warrant—condemned with out the shadow of a trial, and punished by a degraded imprisonment of weeks, withou® at this hour, even knowing the nature and | cause of the accusation against me. I know | and appreciate my rights as a citizen of the United States, and as a citizen of the State of New Jersey ; and no man shall invade and trample upon those rights with impuni~ ty. I envy not the heart. for itis corrupt, nor the bram, for it is diseased. that can at- tempt to approve, or by reasoning, justify, such an atrocious act of tyranny as this. 1f such an act can be done in a republic, with- out redress, and with the approval of its cit- zens. then I know no difference between it and the vilest despotism upon earth, save only, that the latter is the most honest gov- ernment of the two. All of which is respectfully submitted. JAMES W. WALL. TrENTON, Jan. 14, 1862. awe A Scene after the Battle. About ten o'clock, writes the Chaplain o the 31st Ohio, T lay down in a tent and tried | to sleep, but the shrieks and groanings of | the wounded and dying reached my ears, | and pierced my heart, and I could not sleep: In a short time Dr. Linnett and a Mr. Olds, from Lancaster, Ohio, came in to sleep in the tent [ was occupying. One of them re- marked that there was a wounded soldier in an old blacksmith shop, who was desirous of seeing a chaplain. T arose from my couch and after wending my way through the mud and. wet, [ found the shop; and, to my utter surprise, I found the shop filled with the wounded, and one was Iving on the forge.— Some were mortally wounded, and a few were not. and praying with one of them a short time he obtained peace and pardon. I Then asked him what regiment he be~ lon ed to. Said he, ** [ am your enemy, bot we will be friends in heaven.” He then re- quested me to write to his grandfather in Paris, Tennesee, who is a Cumberlatd Pres | byterian minister, and inform him of his condition, and his being prepared to die in| the full triumph of faith. I conversed with several others, and tried to pont them to | the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. I was also permitted to see Gen. F. K. Zollicoffer, who was laid out on a board in a tent, in the cold embrace of death. I saw the place where he was shot, and laid my hand upon his broad forehead. He was about six feet high. and compactly and well built, one among the fincst heads that I ever saw. : After .conversing ——— pe Mr. Harris, of New York, and Mr, Cowan, of Pennsylvania, are both Republican mem- bers of the U. S. Senate, both members of the Judiciary Committee, and both opposed the expulsion of Jesse D. Bright—not. it may be presumed for any regard for that person, but from high and conscientious con- victions of duty. In the Senate of New York, as in the Senate of Pennsylvania there has bee® an earnest and able discussion upon a proposition to instruct United States Sen ators how they should vote with reference to Mr. Bright. In the Senate of Pennsylvania a resolution instructing in favor of expulsion | was passed. Inthe Senate of New York a resolution precisely the same character was | introduced, and not passed ; but in its place | another resolution was substituted by a vote | of twenty.one yeas to eight nays which ex- pressed the opinion that Jesse I). Bright was a traitor and ought to be expelled The distinction between the resolution of the New York Senate and that of the Pennsylva- nia Senate is apparent. The former ex. presses an opinion in which most men will concur, without attempting to control the action of Mr. Harris upon a subject of which he was the sole judge, The latter isin the form of a peremptory mandate to Mr. Cowan instructing him how to cast his vote. The one showed some respect for the deliberate conclusions of a United States Senator ; the other, none whatever.—Patriot §& Union. pp me 177 A little girl went to camp meeting, and when she got home she said the sisters in the various tents told her a good many things, and asked her questions about the Bible. On being pressed to state what they told her, she said one thing they told her about Peter, © who swore three times before he crowed.’ I= Gen. Buei’s command in Kentucky, consists of 1014regiments of inane, 9 re- | allowed the moment of victory to pass. giments and 9 companies of cavalry, and 19 batteries of artillery. Qur Sufferings are Intolerable. The Memphis (Tenn.,) Appeal says: ¢« Price isin full retreat -Southward.— citizens and immure them beyond the limits | pi;oe will probably continue in full retreat for there are several —indeed no less than three—Federal armies, each as large, better armed, and better equipped, converging up- passed over in silence, and with impunity, |; him, His past victories have been ren- then I do not hesitate to declare that your | gered valueless. Federal forces have been State Government is a fare, and the clauses | po