—
The Fuge.
For the Watchman.
-LINES ON A LOCK OF HAIR.
BY JOHN P. MITCHELL.
In Arabian tale I have found
The magic that dwells in a curl ;
How the libs of a giant were bound,
In the soft, silken tress of a girl,
Those romantic old days are al: o'er,
Like shadows we saw them depart;
* But, with magical touch, as of yore,;
A curl has its power on the heart.
Its dominion increases with age,
Its magic grows stronger with time ;
It unfolds to the vision a page
To delight us, while ‘ mem'’ry bells’ chime,
Fuirest lady, I treasure thy tress
As Moslems the tomb of their god ;
Fond mem’ries twill ever refresh
Till my beart lieth Icw in the sod.
As the Bcenes o'er the magical glass
Which wizards are said to possess,
Soft ove r my spirit will pass
Brightest thoughts as I gaze on thy tress.
When the heart’s warm pulsations are cold.
When Death all its iendrils has torn,
Still, with ali the warm beauty of old,
Will shine ever the tress thou hast worn’
While I live I will gumid it with care,
To tell of bright days that h.ve flown,
To tings bright th: clouds of despair,
While I wander, in darkness, alone
May we meet in the future, above.
Where eurls are not lgpger than life,
Whese the angels, in purity, love,
And fond bearts are not sundered by strife
Bowarp, Pa., Nov. 25th, 1863.
~ Miseellangous.
THE CONSCRIPTION ACT.
THI: SUPREME COURT OF PENN-
SYLVANIA DECIDES THE CON-
SCRIPTION ACT TO BE UNCON-
STITUTIONAL.
HEeNgyY S, KNEEDLER, } Three bills in
| equity. And
vs.
Davip M. LANE, et al, Son a motion
FRANCES B. SMime, vs, same | in each case
Wu. F. NicgiLs, vs. same, | for a special
injunction.
OPINION OF JUDGE WOODWARD.
Ou the 34 day of March, 1863, the Con-
gress of the Unted Staes passed an Act for
*‘enroiling and caliing out the National for
ces, and for other purposes,” which is com.
mdhly called the Conscription. law, The
plaintifts, who are cit zens in Pennsylvania,
have set forth the act fully in their bills and
they complam that they had been drafted
into the military service of the Government
in pursuance of said enactment, bu that
= defendants, who are engaged in execu-
i the act, have violated the rights and
are .bout to invade the personal liberty of
vanie. This expression, “national forces,’
is modern language, when so applied. It ig
not frund in our Constitutions, either State
or Federal, and 1f used in cothmentaries on
the Constitution, and} in history, it will
generally be found applied to our land and
naval forcas in actual service—to what may
be called our standing army. It isa total
misnomer when applied to the militia, for
the militia is a State institution. The
General Government has no militia. The
Stete militia, always highly esteemed as
one of the bulwarks of our liberties, are
recognized in the Federal Constitution, and
itis not in the power of Congres to obliter-
ate them or to werge them into ¢‘national
forces.”
Unless there 1s more magic in a name
than bas ever been supposed, this conscript
law was intended to act upon the State mili.
tia, and our question is, therefore, whether
Congress has power to impress or draft the
militia of the State, Icannot preceive what
objection can be taken to this statement of
the question, for surely it will not be argued
that calling the wilitia national forces makes
them something else than the militia. If
Congress did not mean to draft the militia
under this law, where did they expect t)
find the national forces ?
“All ab e-bodied white male citizens be-
tween the ages of twenty-one and forty-five
years, residing in this State, and not ex-
empted by the laws of the United States,”
with certain specified exceptions, constitute
our militia, Wil: it be said that the .con-
script law was not intended to op rate on
these J think it will not. Then if it
does touch, and was framed and designed
to draft this very class of citizens, no
possible objection can be taken to the
above statement of the que tion we have to
decide. ’”
1, therefore, repeat the question
great confidence in ite accuracy, has
Congress the constitutional power to im-
press or draft into the military service of
the United Stutes the militiamen of Penns-
ylvania.
This question has to be answered by the
Constitution of the United States, because
that instrument. framed by deputies of the
with
people of the States and ratified and put
into effect by the States themselves in their
respective corporate capacities, delegates to
Congress all the powers that body can exer-
cise. These delegations are cither ex.
press or such implications as are essential to
the execution of expressly delegated pow-
ers.
There are but three provisions in the Con-
stitution of the United States that can be
appealed to in support of this legislation.
the plaintiffs, and thereupon they invoke
the equitable interposition of this Court to
enjoin the defendants against a, further exe-
cation of the said Act.
For the jurisdiction of this Court t) set
aside an act of Congress as unconstitutional
and to grant the reli-f prayed for, I refer
myself to the views of the Chief Justice in
the opinion h» has just delivered in these
“cases, and I come at once to the constitu-
tional question,
The Act begius with a preamble which
racites the existing insurrection and rebellion
sgaiust the authorities of the United States,
the duty of the Government to suppress in-
surrection and rebellion, to guarantee to
each State a republican form of government,
and to preserve the public tranquility, - and
declare that for these high purposes a mili
tary force is indispensible ‘cto raise and
support which all persons ought willingly
to contribute,” and that no service is more
praiseworthy and honorably than the main-
tenance of the Constitution and Union, and
then goes on to provide for the «nr ling of
all the able-bodied male citizens of the Uni-
ted States and persons of foreign birth, who
have declared their intention to bec me eit-
zens, between the ages of for'y-one and fif-
ty-five years, and these able-bodied citizens
and foreigners, with certain exceptions af-
terward enumerated’ are declared ‘‘the na-
tional forces,” and made liable to perform
military duty when called out by th: Pres
ident *
The .act divides the country into miiitary
districts, corresponding with the Congres-
sional districts, provides for provost mar-
‘shals and enrolling ‘boards and regulates
the deta:ls of such drafts asthe President
shall order to be made from the national for-
ces so enrolled. The payment of $300 ex-
cuses any drafted person, so that it 1s, in
fact, a law providing for a compulsory draft
or conscription of such citizens as are unwil
ling or unable to purchase exemption at the
stipulated price. It is the first instance, in
our history, of legislation forcing a great
public burthen on the poor. Our State
legislation, which exempts men who are not
wob g 10re than $300 from paying their
debts is in striking contrast with this Cons-
cription law, which devolves upon such such
men the the burthen which belong to the
whole “national forces,” and to which “ali
persons ought willingly to contribute.”’—
This, however, is an objection to the spirit
of the enactment rather than to its constita-
tionality.
The description of persons to be enrolled
able-bodied citizens, betyeen twenty and
forty.five years of age, is substantially the
description of the militia as defined in our
Pennsylvania statutes and probably in the
stitulcs of all the States. The national
forced, then, mean the wilitia of the States
~—certainly include the militia of Pennsyl-
In, ordinary editions they stand numbered
a8 clauses 13, 16, and 17 of the VILI scc-
tion of Art. 1, of the Consti ution: :
*-13. Congress shall have power to raise
and supjort armies, but no appropriations
of mouey to that use shall be for a longer
tor than two years.
«16, Congress shall have power to pio-
vide for calling forth the militia to execute
the laws of the Union, to suppress isurrec-
tion and repel invasion.
vide for organizing, arming and disciplining
the militia, and for governing such part of
them as may be employed in the service of
the United States, reserving. to the States
respectively the appointment of the officers,
and the authority of training the militia ac-
cording to the disc :pline prescribed by Con-
gress.”
‘To raise armies”--these are large
words ! what do they mean? There could
be no limitation upon the number or size of
the armies to be raised for all po-sible con-
tingencies could not be foreseen; but our
question has not reference to numbers or
size, but to the mode of raising armies. —
The framers of the Constitution, ‘and the
States who ado; ted it, derived their ideas of
government principally from the example of
Great Britain—certainly not from any of
the more imperial and despotic governments
of the earth. What they tneant to make
was a more free Constitution than that of
Great Biitain—taking that as a model in
some things—but enlarging the basis of pop.
ular rights in all respects tbat would be
consistent with order and stabllity. They
knew that the British army had generally
been recruited by voluntary enhsiments¢
stimulated by wages and bounties, and that
the few instances of impressments and
forced couscriptions of land 101ces haa met
with the disfavor of the Euglish nation and
had led to preventive statutes. In 1704,
and again in 1707, conscription bills. were
attempted in Parliament but laid aside as
unconstitutional. During the American Rev-
olution a siatute, 19 Geo. JII C. 10, per-
mitted the impressment of “idle and disor.
derly persons not following any lawful trade
or haviug some substance sufficient for their
subsistence,’ and this was as far as English
legislation haa gone when our Fedefal Uon-
stitution was planned. Assuredly the fra-
mers of our Constitution did not intend to
subject the people of the States to a sys-
tem of conscription which was applied in
the mother country only to paupers aud vag-
abords. On the contrary, I infer ‘that ;the
power conferred on Congress was the power
to raise armies by the ordinary English
mode of voluntary enlistments.
The people were justly jealous of stand-
ing armies, Hence, they took away most
ot the war power from the Executive, where
under monarchical forms,it generally resides,
and vested it in the legislative department,
iu one branch of which the States have
equal 1epresentation, and in the other
branch of which the people of the States
are directly represented acgording to their
numbers To these representatives of the
States and the people this power of origi-
nating war was committed, but even in
their hands it was restrained by the limita-
tien of biennial appropriations for the sup-
port of the armies they might raise. Of
course, no army could be raised or supported
which did not command popuiar approba.
tion. and it was rightly considered that vol-
untagy enhstments would never be wanting
to recruit the ranks of such an army. The
war power. existing only for the protection
of the people, and left, as far as it was pos-
sille to leaveit, in their own hands, was
incapable of being used without their con-
sent, and, therefore, could never languish
for enlistments. They would be realy
enough to recruit the ranks of any army
they deemed necessary to their safety.—
Thus the theory of the Constitution placed
this great power, like other governmental
powers, dircctly upon the consent of the
governed. .
The theory itself was founded on free
and fair elections—which are the fundamen-
tal postulate of the Constitution. If the
patronage and power of the Government
shall ever be employed to control popular
ele tions, the nomrnal representatives of the
people may cease to be their real represent-
atives, and the armies which may be raised
may not so command public confidence as
to attract the necessary recruits, and then
conscript laws and other extra constitution-
al expedients may become necessary to fill
the ranks. Bu* governmental interference
with popular elections will be subversion of
the Constitution, and no constitutional ar-
gument can assume such a possibility.
Supposing that the people ate always to
be fairly represented in the halls of Con-
gress, I maintain thau it is grievous injus-
to them to legislate on the assumption that
any war honestly waded for constitutional
onjects will not always have such sympa-
thy and support. from the people as will se-
cure all necessary enlistments. Equally un-
just to their intelligence is it to suppose that
they meant to confer on their servants the
power to itnpress them into a war which
they could not approve,
When to these consideratiors we add the
ability of a great country, like ours, to
stimulate and reward enlistments, both at
home and abroad, by bounties, pensions and
homesteads, as well as by political patron-
age in countless forms,!we see how little ne-
cessity or warrant there is for implying a
grant of the imperial power of conscription.
There is nothing in the history of the
Constitution nor in those excellent contem-
poraneous papers called the Federalist, to
justify the opinion that this vast power lies
wrapped up in the few plain words of the
13th clause, whilst the subsequent clauses,
concerning the militia, absolutely forbid 1r.
If the very improbable case be supposa-
ble, that enlistments into the Federal ar-
mies might become so numerous in a partic-
+17. Congress shall have power to pro- jplar State as sensibly to impair its own
proper military power, is 1t not much more
improbable that the States meant to confer
upon the General Government the power to
deprive them, at its own pleasure, altogeth-
erot ibe militia, by forced levies 2 Yet this
might easily happen if the power of con-
scription be conceded to Congress. There
are no limitations expressed—notking to
compel Congress to observe quotas and pro-
portions as among the several States—noth.
ing to prevent their raising armies wholly
from one State, taking every alle-b died cit-
izen o1ut of it to the endangering, it not ut-
ter undo ng of all its domestic interests.
And besides, if we concede this danger-
ous power to the language of the thirteenth
clause, we destroy the force and effect of
the words of the sixteenth and seventeenth
clauses. We make the instrument self-de-
structive, which is violative of all canons of
construction. Congress =hall have power
to provide for calling forth the militia in the
manner and subject to the limitations pre-
scribed in clauses sixteen end seventeen,
and therefore I argue Congress has not the
power to draft them. Is an express rale of
the Constitution to give way to an implied
one? If the thirteenth clause confers pow-
er to draft the militia, the words of the six.
teenth and seventeen h clauses arethe id lest
that were ever written. But if the eigh-
teenth conferred only the power to enlist
volunteers, then the subsequent clauses be-
come very intelligible—stand well with the
thirteenth, and add essentially to the mar-
tia} faculties of the Federal Government,—
Look at those clauses, The militiaare to be
called forth to execute the laws of the Un-
ion, suppress insurrection and repel inva-
sions, to be organ‘zed; armed and discipline.
ed by the § ate, but according to the laws of
Congress, such part of them as may be em-
ployed in the service of the United States
are to be governed by the President but of.
ficered by the respective States. Now this
Conscription law recites an ‘existing insur-
rection and rebellion’ as the ground and
reason, not fcr calling forth the militia un.
der the above provisions, but for drafting
them into the military service of the Uni-
ted States. The very case has occurred in
which the Constitution says the militia shall
be called out under Stat» officers, but Con-
gress says they shall be. drafted, 1n cou-
tempt of State authority. General Wash-
ingten and the men of his day, did not so
read the Constitution, when in suppres:ing
the whisky insurrection in this State they
paid the most scrupulous regard to the rights
and powers of the State. Under pressure
of a foreign war, a Conscrigt Bill was re-
ported in Congress in 1814, but it did not
pass, and if it had, 1t would have been no
precedent for this law, because we are deal-
ing with an insurrection, and insurrections
are specially provided for in the Constitu-
tion. If to support a {foreign war Congress
may draft the militia, which I do no; admit,
the power of draft to suppress insurrections
is not to be implied, since another mode of
suppressing insurrections is expressly pro-
vided. When a State is called on for its
quota of militia, it may determine, by lot,
who of the whole number of its enrolled
militia shall answer the call, and thus State
drafts are quite regular, but a Congressional
draft to suppress insurrection is an mnova-
tion that has no warrant in the history or
text of the Constitution. Either such a law,
or the Constituticn, must be set aside. They
cannot stand together.
And, happily, ‘no ill consequences can
flow from adhering to the Constitution, for
the standing army of the federal govern-
ment, recruited by enlistments in the ordi-
nary way,with the State militia, called forth
according to the Constitution, are a force
quite sufficient to subdue any rebellion that
18 capable of being subducd Ly force of
arms. Such a formidable force, wisely wield.
ed, in connection with a paternal and patri.
otic administration of all other const:tution-
al powers, will never fail to put down re-
fractory malcontents, and preserve peace
and good order among the American peo-
ple. This conscript law, therefore, not
sanctioned by the Constitution, is not adapt.
ed to the exigencies of the times, nor likely
to have success as a war measure,
In its political bearings, even more than
in its military aspects, 1t is subversive of
the Constitution and of the right: of citizens
that depend upon Sate anthority.: A few
thoughts will make this plain. [tis impos
sible to study our State and Federal Consti-
tutions, without seeing how manifestly the
one was designed to guard and maintain
the personal and social rights of the citizen
—the other to take care of his external re-
lations.
Nurture, education, property, home, wife
and children, servants, administration of
goods and chattels after death, and a grave-
yard in which to sleep the sleep of death,
these are among the objects of State solici-
tude, for the protection of which the State
provides civil authorities and back of
them the posse comitatus and the military
to make civil administration effectual.—
Now if the principles be admitted thst Con-
gress may take away tho State militia, who
does not see the ultimate and final security
of every man’s domestic and personal
rights is endangered. To the extent delega-
ted in the Constitution nobody questions
the right of Congress to control the State
militia, but if the extent to which this en-
actment goes, the States will be reduced to
the condition of mere counties of a greal
Commonwealth, and the citizen of the State
must look to the federal Government for the
enforcement of all his domestic rights as
well as for the regulation of his external
relations.
The citizens of the States need protection
from foreign foes and Indian Tribes—peace
ful intercourse and commerce with all the
world—a standard of values and of weights
and measures that shall be common to all
the States, and a postal system that shall
be co-extensive wi.h interstate trade and
commerce.
To adjust and maintain these external
relations of the citizen, are high duties
which the Constitution has committed
to the Federal government and furnished
it with all the necessary functiona-
ries, and with power to levy and col-
lect taxes from tie people of the States, to
raise and support armies, to provide a navy,
and to call forth the militia to execute” the
aw,
Thus is the American citizen amply pro-
vided, by means of Constitutions that are
written, with protection for all his
rights natural and artificial, domestic and
fordign ; but as the war power of the Gen.
eral government is in his uliiitats security
for his external, so is the militia his ultim-
ate security for his internsl cor Comestic
nights.
Could the Staje Uovernment strike af the
war power of the Federal Government with-
out endangering every man’s rights ? In
view of the existing rebellion, no one would
hesitate how to answer this question, and
yet it is not equally apparent that when the
Federal government usurps a power over
the State militia which was never delegated
eyery man’s domestic rights [and they are
those which touch him most closely] are
equally endangered. ;
The great vice of the conscript law is that
it is founded on an assumption that Congress
may take away not the State rights of the
citizen, but the security and foundation of
his State rights, and how long is civil lib-
erty expected to last after the securites of
civil liberty are destroyed The Constitu-
tion of the United States committed the lib-
erty of the citizen in part to the Federal
Government, and expressly reserved to the
States, and the people of the States, all it
did not delegate. It gave the general Gov-
erament a standing army, but left to the State
their militia. Its purposes in all this bal
ancing of powers were wise and geod
but this | legislation disregards these
distinctions, and upturns the whole
system of government when it con-
verts the State militia iritc ‘national for-
ces” and claims to use and govern them as
such,
Times of rebellion, above all others, are
the times when we should stick to our fun-
damental law. lest we drift into anarchy un
one hanlor iato despotism on the other.
The great sin of the present rebellion con-
sists in violating the Constitution whereby
every man's civil rights are exposed to sac-
rifice Unless the Government be kept ‘on
the foundation of the Constitntion, we im-
itate the sin of the rebels, and thereby en-
courage them, whilst we weaken and dis-
courage the friends of constitutional order
and government. The plantiffs in these bills
have good right,I think, as citizens of Penn-
sylvania, to complain of the act in question,
not only on the ground I have indicated,
but on other to which I will briefly al-
lude.
The 12'h section provides that the draft-
cd persons shall rescive ten days’s notice of
the rendezvous at whieh he is to report for
he fails to report himself in pursuance of
such notice, without furzishing a substitute
or paying therequired sum therefore, he
shall be dcemed a deserter, and shall be
arrested by the Provost Marshal, and sent
to the nearest military post for trial by
court martial.” The only qualification to
which this provision is subject is, that upon
prog er showing that he is not able to do mil-
itary duty the board of enrollment may re-
lieve him from the draft. .
One of the complainants, Kneedler, has
set forth the notice that was served on him
in pursuonce of this section, end by which
he was informed that unless he appeared
on a certain day he would be ‘deemed a
descrter, and be subject to the penalty pre-
scribed therefor, by the rules and arti-
cles of war.” I believe the penalty of de-
sertion by the military code is any cor-
poreal punishment a court-martial may
choose to inflict, even to that of being put
to deatk.
Can a citizen be made a deserter before
he has become a soldier? Has Congress the
constitutional power to authorize provost
marshals, after drawing the name of a free-
man from the wheel and serving him a ten
day’s notice, to seize and drag him before a
court-martial for trial under military law ?
This question touches the foundation of per-
sonal liberty.
In June 1215,the Barrons of Englard and
their retainers, ‘a numerous host, encamp-
cd upon the grassy plain of Runnymede,”
wruog fiom King John that Great Charter
which declared, among other securities of
the rights and liberties of Englishmen, that
‘no freemen shall be arrested, or imprison-
ed, or deprived of his freehold, or his liber-
ties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or in
any manner harmed ¢ nor will (the
King) proceed against him, nor send
any one against him by force of armes,
unless according to the sentence of
his peers, (which includes trial by jury) or
the comwon law of England. Here was
laid the stong foundation of the liberties of
the race to which we belong. And yet not
here for Magna Charta created no rights,
but only reasserted those which existed long
before at common law. It was for the
most part, says Lord Coke, merely declara-
tory of the principal grounds of the funda-
mental laws of England. Far back of the
Magna Charta, in the customs and maxims
of our Saxon ancestry, those principles of
liberty lay scattered which were gathered
together in that immortal document, which
four hundred years afterwards were again
re-asserted in two other great “declaratory
statutes, “The Petition of Rights” and
“The Bill of Rights,” and which were trans-
planted into our Declaration of Independ-
ence, the Bill of Rights to our State Con
stitution and the Amendments to our Fed-
eral Constitution, and which have thus be.
come the heritage of these plaintiffs. Says
the 5th Article of these Amendments:
‘No person shall be held to auswer for a
capital or otherwise infamous crime unless
on a presentment or indictment of a grand
jury, except in cases arising in the land or
naval forces or in the militia when mn actual
service in time of war or public danger,”
What is the scope of this exception? The
land or naval forces mean the regular mili-
tary organization of the Government—the
standing army and navy—into which citi-
zens arg introduced by military education
from boyhood or by enlistments, and be-
come, by their own consent, subject to the
military code, and liable to.be tried snd
punished without any of the forms or safe
guards of military law. In like manner the
militia when duly called out and placed in
“actual service" are subject to the rules ang
articles of war, all their common law rights
uf personal freedom being for the time sus-
pended. But when are militinmen 10 actual
service ? When they have been notified of
a daft 2 Judge Story, in speaking of the
authority of Congress over the militia, says
--*'The question when the authority of
Congress over the militia becomes exclu-
sive, must essentially depend upon the fact
when they are to be deemed in the actual
service of the United States, There is a
clear distinction between calling forth the
militia and their being in actual service, —
These are not contemporaneous acts nor ne-
cessarily identical in their constitutional
leanings. The President is not Communder-
in-Chief of the militia except when in ac-
of
duty, and the 13th section enacts “that If
tual service, and not merely when they are
ordered into service. They are subject to
martial law only when in actual service, and
not merely when they are called forth before
they have obeyed the call. The acts of 1795,
and other acis ¢n the subject manifestly
contemplate and recognize this distinction.
To bring the militia within the meaning of
being in the atdtual service there must be an
obedience; to the call, and some acts of or:
ganization, mustering, rendezvous, or mar-
ching done in obedience to the call in the
public service.—Story’s Con, Law, vol. 3,
sec. 1208 ) x
If 1t be suggested that this plain rule of
common sense and constitutional law is not
violated by the Conscription act because it
applies to the “‘narional forces,” T reply as
before, that this is only anew name for the
militia, and that the constitutional rights of
a citizen are rot to be sacrificed to an un-
constitittional name. When Judge Strong
was endeavoring (0 mark with so much
distinctness the time at which the common
law rights of the citizen ceased, and his li-
ability to military rule Legan —the time, in
a word, when he became a soldier, why did
it not occur to his fertile mind that Con-
gress could render this distinction valuless
and unmeaning by a nomenclature —by cal-
ling the militia ‘national forces 2’ It is
not difficult to conceive how such a sup ges-
tion would have fared had it occurred or
been made to him. But is difficult in the
presence of the grave issues of the present
day, to tieat so frivolous a suggestion with
the digni'y and forbearance the occasion
demands. I have shown what rights of
personal hberty these plaintiffs inherited
from a remote ancestry, and how they are
guarant:ed to them by our constitutions,
andat what time they are to give plaze to
martial law ; and surely if a wheat set in
motion by Congress, can crush and grind
those rights out of existence, without re-
gard to the limi‘ations of the Constitution.
some weightier reason should be found for
it than the misnomer which the act so sta-
diously applies to the militia —some reason
that deserves to stand instead of Magna
Charla, our Constitution and all our tradi-
tional freedom.
The only general reason that I have ever
heard suggested, and which is a,plicable
against all the views advanced in this opin-
ion, is called military necessity. The coun
try is involved in a great civil war which
can be brought to an honorable close on'y
by an energetic use of all our resources.
and no restraint, should b> tolerated, in such
circumstances, save only those which Chris-
tian civilizati'n has imposed on all warfare,
Whatever is according to the Constitution,
the argument claims may be doe, of course
whatever is over and beyond the Constitu-
tion is justified as military necessity, and
of that ihe President and Congress are ex-
ciusive and final judges.
The amount of the argument is that the
exigencies of the times justify the substi-
tution of martial law for the Constitution, —
But what is martial law ? Blackstone and
Sir Mathew Hale tell us *‘it is built upon
no settled principles, but is entirely arbi-
trary in its decisions, is in truth and reali-
ty no law, but something indulged rather
than allowed as Jaw.” The unrestramed
will of one or a number of men, then, is the
rule which the argument substitutes fo: the
Constitution. It is cf no consequence that
the will thus set up for supreme law is that
of men whom a majority of the people have
choser: beeause, according to our system, the
majority can only choose men to administer
the Constitution as it is written. Majorties
as a power recognized by law, have no more
right to establish a despotism than a minor-
ity would have, But may majorities or min-
orities set aside the Constitution under the
pressure of rebellion and insurrection. As
the Constitution anticipates and provides
for such calamities, it is a reproach to its
wisdom to say that it is a reproach to such
emergencies. No man has any historical
right to cast this reproach upon 1t. No cur-
rent experience proves it. It never can be
proved except by an unsuccessful use of the
legitimate powers of the Constution against
rebellion, and then the thing proved will be
that the instromert needssmendment which
1s machinery is flexible enongh to allow.
ilven such a melancholy demonstration
would do no mere than point out necsssary
amendments—it wounld not surrender the
peopled to the arbitrary willof anybody,—
Presidents and Congressmen are only ser-
vants of the people, to do their will, not as
that will may ve expressed under passion or
excitement, but as it stands recorded in the
Constitution. It is the Con:titation, in.
deed, which makes them Presidents snd
Crngressmen. They have no more power
to set up their will against the Constitu
tion, than 80 many private citizens would
have. . Guiside of that they are only private
citizens. :
1 do not, therefore, fecl the force of the
argument drawn from the distressing cir-
cumstances of the time. Bad as they are
we make them worse by substituting arbi-
| trary power for the constitutional rule, but
{if we made them be ter and not worse, the
! judicial mind aught not tobe expected to
approve the sunstitation, for it can recog-
nize no violation of the Constitution, as a
legitimate vindication or the Constitution. —
To place ourselves under a despotic sway in
order to bring back rebels to the Constitu-
tion we have given up, isa porcedure that
perplexes the student of political science.
and will quite confound the: historian of our
times,
i
Moper~ Fcoxony or Tie, —The Seieft
tific American thus shows how tine has
been economized by the application of ma.
chinery :
One man can ean spin more colton yarn
now than four hundred men could have done
in the same time in 1769, when Ar kwright,
the best coiten spinner, took out his first
patent;
One man can m.keas much flower in a
day now,as a hundred and fifty could a cen-
tury ago. :
. One woman can now make as much lace
in a day as a hundr.d women could a hun-
dred years ago.
It now requires only as many days™to re-
fine sugar as it did” months thirty years
ago.
_It once required six months to put quick-
silver on glass—rew it needs only fo ty
minutes,
The engine of a fir:t rate jron-clad frig:
ate will perform as much work as forty-two
thousand horses.
tT
Ag “Bly how did youlose your fin-
ger ©
Easy enough.”
“I suppose you did, but how 2’
“1 guess you'd lost yourn, if it had beer
where mine was.”
3 “That 18 not auswering my question
sir.”
Well, if you must know. T had to ent it
off or steal the trap.”
—————
300.000 MORE.
Uncle Abe wants “300.000 more” hy
the Sth of January—sce ‘the proclamna-
tion.
“Why should we mourn conscripted friend-.
Oc shake at drait’s alarms ?
Tis but the voice t'2* Ab'ram sends
To muke us shoul'er arms!”
[75 A frend of a soldier, who was gfe
fering forty a pamfn wound, ssid te him
the o her day »
Well, Tom, do von fi, 11 k. goliig back
to the army when yonr wonnd is well?
*No--not unless I con'd £0 84h nigser
or a Brigadier General,”
By The Frankfort Commonwealth, Gov,
Bramlette’s organ, $8yS
“We may as well tell Mr. Stanton that
he cannot recrait negroes in Kentucky; the
people and the autorities vill not permit it.
The uncond:tional Union men and the au,
thorities will never submit to the ou'rage.*’
Crrist was crucified as a Prencher of
Pence, and tor one thousand eight hundred
and sixty three years, the world eried out,
shame !' But ii is almost as great a crime
to preach peacs to-day as it wa« one thous-
and eight hundred and sixty three years
ago.— Ex,
SU
177 Gen. Rosecrans may be condemned
by the administration that makes and un.
makes Generals, but he will ever be held
in grateful remembrance by the people who
make and unmake administrations. — Pren-
tice.
beep -3 $150,
I= Tt has been thought that people are
degenerating becanse they don’t live as long
as the days of Methusalab, Bat nobody
can afford to live long at the current prices.
et meee ne en.
pax ‘Why don’t vou ask your swect-
heart (0 marry you 2"
“TI have asked her 2”
* What did she ‘say 7”?
“Oh! I have the refusal of her.”
Nb bob mi
A Republican paper says “the Demi.
ocrats have received stich a heking that
they cannot survive.” Tt does not fol-
ow. Lazarus survived after the dogs lick-
ed him |
se
EGS" Mrs. Partington hearing that a
young man had sct ap for bimselt, «Poor
fellow,” said she, “has he no friends that
will aet up for lim part of the time 2? and
she sighed to be young again.
[ZF A Dancing Master was taken up
lately in New York for robbing a fellow-
boarder. He said hz commenced by *cheat-
ing a printer, and after that everything ras-
cally came easy to him. \
BES One of the Ohio regiments went in.
fo the fight at Chickamauga witiout a eld
officer. They were all ia Ohio clectioneer-
ing for Brough,
Aud this is called war !
Wms paper 15 agaia “going up” on ace
count of an incressed demand for shoddy,
neccessiated by the last eal for 300,000
wore.— Fa,
A clergyman in New Yok has sued
his aur t for $7000 fos hitting him in the
back with a stone because he couldn't pay
his board.
The State of Maryland produces th's
year but 5.00 hogsheads of tobacco,
which is 45,000 less than the vsual prods
uct. ‘
Be iow we printers lie, 8s our davil said
when he got up too la.e for breakfast.
I= Laugh while you may—a merry heart
never grows old.
The men bear arms in war, the ladies
bear theirs in peace.
That man has no strength who doesn't
respect woman's weakness.
Cotton is 4 cents a pound in gold at Wi!-
mington, and 62 in Bermuda,
There are people no clotkes can fi: ; their
very skins hang loose about ther.
Expensive at this time—coftoe,
Sull unsettled — Gold.
I Cold ~The weather.