o 1 . s I . • 4 l' ''4 3 .!' 41 ~'',!'., ' ' ' . . ' -', I 1 . • .. W. . • , • ,I . 1 ) . S . , . 0 1 . : , . . G.EIRRINSON, Proprie,tor.l MOH TES MONTROSE lIZMOORAT 411. ,•xic x 'JP C. Na. Of Vim: great Straggle between Liberty and Des potion for the lest Hundred Years. "President Johnson," say the 'Republi cans, " after the elections of 1866, no leas than before, has made veto follow veto, until, in a year there were twelve or morel, sod this in a Republic. In England— crowned monarchy as she is—there has not been a veto in 160 years. Britons, though their Constitution permits it, will not brook the executive throttle upon acts of parliament. Vetoes were hateful to the men who cut off Charles' head, and to the men who dethroned James for granting amnesty to traitors. The Pres ident means usurpation as much as Louis, of France, when he said, The State—that is me.' The executive grasp is clutching unlawful and dangerens forms ; the act ing President of the United States, and those whose creature he is, are assuming forbidden prerogatives, meaning to wield them not only to the public detriment, but for purposes aimed against the securi, ty if not against the existence of the gov erment." What an awful tyrant is President John son ! No wonder the people, who are made to believe these lying hypocrites, are frightened to think such a man sits in the Presidential chair. But what are the facts of the ease ? Let a signer of the Constitution answer these charges against the President and those who sustain him. Alexander Hamilton says in his exposi tion of "The Power of the President:" "The first thing that offers itself to our observation, is the qualified negative of the President upon the acts or resolutions of the two Houses of the Legislature; or in othet-words, tiffs power of returning all bills with his objections, which will have the effect of preventing their becoming laws, unless they should afterward be rat ified by two thirds of each of the compo nent members of the legislative body.— The propensitysof the legislative depart ment to intrude upon the rights and to absorb the powers of the other depart ments, has. already been more than once suggested ; the insufficieney of a mere parchment delineation of each, has also been remarked upon, and the necessity of furnishing each with constitutional arms for its own defence, has been inferred and proved. From these clear and indubita ble principles results the propriety of a negative, either absolute or qualified, in the executive, upon the acts of the legis lative branches. Without the one or the other, the President would be absolutely unable to defend himself against the dep redations of the legislature. He might gradually be stripped of his authority, by successive resolutions, or annihilated by a single vote. And in one mode or the oth er, the legislative and executive powers might speedily come to be blended in the same hands." Congress has been acting out for the_ last two years the very propensity the Constitution has given the President pow er to guard against, by vetoing their acts. He has proclaimed in every veto message, that Congress was attempting to absorb the powers of all the other departments of government—even those of the Su• preme Court. The " insufficiency of the parchment"— the Constitution of the United States, to deter them in their propensity to usurpa-. tionAms been fully demonstrated to the people of this nation, to their great sor row ; and even with the aid of the veto, the President has been unable to defend himself against their depredations, and has gradually been stripped of his onsti tutional authority, and threatened with impeachment for even daring to remain in office, and not resign the executive chair into the hands of Coogress. "Bat the power of a negative," says Hamilton, "has a further use. It not on ly serves as a shield to the Executive, but it furnishes an additional security against the enactment of improper laws. It es tablishes a salutary check upon the legis lative body, calculated to guard the com munity against the effects of-faction, pre cipitancy, or of an impulse unfriendly to to the public good, which may happen to influence a majority of that body. "The propriety of a negative has, upon some occasions, been combatted by an ob servation, that it was not to be presumed that a single man would possess more vir the and wisdom than a number of Men ; and that, unless this presumption should be entgrtained, it, would be improper to give the executive magistrate any speCies of control over the legislative body. But this observation, when examined, will ap pear rather specious than solid. " The propriety of the thing does not turn upon the supposition of superio,Vir tue or wisdom in the executive, but upon the supposition that the legislature may not be infallible • that the love of power may sometimes betray it into a disposi tion to encroach upon the:members .of the government ; that a spirit of faction may sometimes pervert, its deliberations. It is also remarked that the liiog of Great Bri tain has not, vetoed a bill of Parliament in , twiny .yews. But, there would be greater, danger of tbe,President's- not using his; poweroarbei neeeteary,,tben of- using it too often." :- If twelve vetoes then were needed in one year to. secure the people against the enactment of improper laws, the framers of the Constitution say the President has not used the veto power too often. " Ve toes were hateful to the men who cut off the head of Charles I," but they were not hateful to Washington and the other pat riots who founded our government,which proves that they were not followers of Cromwell, who beheaded a King that he might himself become the monarch, and rule over England as Puritanism now rules over the South in the form of a mili tary despotism. These truths will all be brought to light in this history, which Is designed to reveal the awful 'nature of Puritanism— which is now rendered still more alarm ing by its alliance with Jacobinism. Crom well and RobeSpierre are fighting hand in hand against 'Washington and Liberty in America. Reflections for December. FORMATION OF SNOW Snow is a species of hoar frost • it dif fers, however, in this particular, t hat the hoar frost falls in the form of snow, upon the surface of certain cold bodies, which attract its moisture, and to which it ad heres ; whilst the snow, before it falls, is already formed in the upper region of the atmosphere by congealed vapors, which observe the same laws in falling as fogs, dews and rains. The air is often very cold, and this may be increased to a con siderable degree by the density of the atmosphere, and the accession of acid va pors. It is thus very easy to understand bow the aqueous particles become congealed. What, perhaps, contributes the most to give this freezin g property to the air are the clouds; and generally every snowy day is cloudy ; and the thicker the clouds are, the more they interrupt the rays of the sun, and prevent their ac tion ; whence must naturally result a degree of color great enough to make the vapors lose their fluidity, and convert them into snow. But, upon the same principle, ought it not sometimes to snow in summer ? No doubt this may happen, and snow may be really formed in the superior regions of the atmosphere, but the cold in that sea son is never sufficiently strong to coun terbalance the effects of that reflected frinin the earth, which meets the congeal ed vapors as they approach the Ith4r re gions of the atmosphere, consequently they cannot thus appear in the form of Snow. This is far from being the case in win ter ; as it is then so cold in the lower re gions of the atmosphere, and upon the surface of the earth, that the frozen va pors in falling can no longer receive a suf ficient degree of heat to melt them. It is a pleasing sight to contemplate the flakes of snow as they fall • in a few months covering the whole surace of the earth, far as the eye can reach; and it ad mirably justiSes what was- said by the pious Brookes when he told us that "even snow has its charms" and winter its sweets. Pure and innocent pleasures may be enjoyed by all men, except those who, for want of cultivating their facil ities, are become incapable of reflecting, and never regard the works of God.— Svc BM'S REFLECTIONS. 'The first great duty of Democrats everywhere is to subscribe for and circu late Democratic newspapers. This work should be commenced at once and in real earnest. Three weeks before election is not the time to sow the seed that makes votes. That is harvest time when the fruit should be gathered in. The long winter eveningoishould be made servicea ble in circulating and reading Democrat ic newspapers. More effective campaign ing pould be accomplished in this way than is possible in the month or two pre ceding election.—Seneca Falls Reveille. —The Reveille is right to a dot. Du ring the few months intervening between the present time and the political cam paign of next year, the one - great and im portant duty of Democrats is to subscribe for sound Democratic newspapers and see that they are extensively circulated among their friends and acquaintances, whether they be Democrats or Republi cans. This work may not make as much show as the stirring meetings during an exciting canvass with their speeches and music and shouts and processions, but it is far more beneficial and effective. We have repeatedly pressed this matter upon our leaders, and the result of the late elec tions in this and other States is convin cing•proof of its importance. rir Three years ago General Hovey announced in Indiana that he would pre vent the McClellan men from carrying the State by his direct use of military force, mid, a few weeks after, Kilpatrick, the Radical candididate for tate Treasur er in that State, made the following dec laration : "Th e ballot-box in this coun try is played oat; the country's interests are to be controlled by a centralizedpow er." Although the leaders of the Radi cal party have labored industriously to de stroy the ballot bor and place the people under a centralized deepptieni, they, have made a notable failure in the Northern 'States. MONWROSE, PA., TUESDAY, DEC. 24, 1867. From Alabama. THE RECENT INSURRECTIONARY MOVE MENTS IN BULLOCK COUNTY. MorrrGIOMEIZT, Dec., 18. The Advertiser contains reliable infor mation of the arrest of George Shorter, a negro of this city, who was the leader of the recent insurrectionary movement in Bullock county. The negro, Sborter, claims to be from Illinois, or one of the Northwestern States, and says that he was sent by the radicals of that region to organize a government in the South. The blacks gave information of his wherea bouts, and he was captured by whites and blacks. When the deluded negroes of neighboring plantations beard of it they gathered in considerable numbers, and clamored for its delivery to them for sum mary punishment. They would have put him to death, but the whites interfered and persuaded them to let the law take its course. Shorter was imprisoned in the county jail at Union Springs. A letter of Shorter's to the negroes, whorn'he called officers of his govern ment, has been published, showing the nature of the organization he bad effec ted. In this letter, Shorter decreed the death of Jerry, treasurer of the revolu tionary organization. There are other letters of Shorter's in possession of the civil authorities, and the whole of them, with the evidence of the blacks examin ed, will expose to the country, in all its atrocity, a radical plot to organize the blacks of the South in a revolutionary conspiracy against the whites. The fol lowing is Shorter's letter : " I drop you a few lines on this case about that man Jerry. Call all the men together, and take Jerry and that money from him, and if he don't give it up kill him. Kill him; don't let him get away from you all. I send these men down to Perote, Bullock county, Ala., to hunt for him. He has stolen some amount of money. He has been going about and telling more lies uubeknowingly j.o me. He also had a full lie wrote agin me, and I want ten more men to come down to Pine Level with George, gild bring your guns; tell all Ow men to go and take him or kid him. Jeff don't fail. (Signed,) " GEORGE SHORTEE." Captain Bryce, Agent of 'the Freed men's Bureau at Greensboro, recently took keys and • liberated a number or prisoners confined by the proper civil au thorities. His action is severely con demned. At the Sheriff's sale to day, real estate, railroad stocks, &c., sold at remarkably low figures. Land at from five cents to ten cents an acre, and railroad stock at ten cents on a dollar. The Bloody Issue. • The Richmond Whig, which is a staunch advocate of reconstruction upon the Congressional plan—so much so that it is regarded as a convert to the radical faith—since the negro triumph at the re cent election says : " The election returns show with pain ful distinctness that the negroes have drawn a deep red blood line between themselves and the whites, and that with them principles are nothing, color every thing. Under the leadership of a few pestilent and infamous whites, who will, no doubt, live long enough to suffer in this world the punishment due to their crimes, the negroes (with few, very few exceptions) have arrayed themselves in hostility against the whites, and have left us no choice but to regard them henceforth as enemies. In the language of the Charlottville Chronicle, " every conceivable effOrt has been made here to harmonize the two races. Every form of overture has been made to the blacks by the whites. Every appliance was resor ted to to carry the election. All has been in vain. Drilled like an army, maneuver ed like a body of disciplined troops, obeying an order from the central league like a sign from a marshal baton, the na groes have delivered their vote like a 'concentrated broadsidd' Now that the negroes have drawn a blood line between themselves and the whites, and have manifested a fierce and stubborn determination to establish their supremacy at the hazard of ruin to all our interests, it becomes us to cast about for the means of self protection. * * The negroes (with some few honorable exceptions, never to be forgotten) have raised their hands against the whites, and threaten us with ruin, simply because we are white. They have embarked in a wild crusade against all whites—the Northern white and the for eigner as well as the whites of the South. There is but one way of arresting and turning back this threatening tide of ne grolanaticism and ignorance, and that is by presenting to white people at the North and abroad such inducements as they will be unable to resist. No matter where the whites shall come from or what may be their antecedents, they will make common cause- with us, for it is against their skin, color, and kiudred,, that this crusade has been set afoot," These are plain words from a journal which is not opposed to nerves using the ballot. The - Corder of the Pentane, The hanging of the three Fenians in Manchester, who were so hastily convic ted of murder in connection with the res cue of a prisoner and the death of a po licemen, says the Boston Post was one of the most ill advised acts, so far as mere policy goes, which the Britistgovern meat could have perpetrated; and so far as it is to judged by the stable standard of justice it is certain that it falls short in no degree of judicial murder. Whatever might be either the sympathies or the conduct of these unfortunate men, it was not Shown that the deliberate intent of murder was in their hearts, without the presence of which no conviction of mur der can be a just one. The English au thorities have therefore left the case open far review and decision by the entire body of Fenians and the Irish people. Worse than this, they have given mar tyrs to the cause of Fenianism, which it stood in particular need of; so thtit it is now well equipped for the next onset it would make against English power. When a government, professedly as strong as that of England; permits judg ment to be rendered against offenders in fear and executed in trembling, it makes public confession of its inability to -hold its ground. No other is so likely to bring it into contempt. The three vic tims to English trepidation are likely to spring to life again in the shape of thou sands of conspirators, scattered through all the principal towns and cities, and ex citing ceaseless alarms against an unpro tected people. If this be a wise policy for a government, that admits its danger by its precipitancy, it is after a novel or der of wisdom. Whether the aims of Fenianism be foolish or otherwise,the action of the English authorities is cer tain to compensate for any fault of its reputation, and elevate it at once to such a character as would otherwise require a tar longer time for it to command. Tribune Scrape. The following delicious scrap of poli tics we take from the New York Tribune , RETREDICEIMENT Tried bl the test which they apply to the President,' Congress might be peached, individually and collectively, ev ery session. Scarcely a week - passes but public money is used for some purposes fir. which there is no warrant in law or Constitution. To take an illustration from the present session : The first issue of the Globe, a week ago; contains a speech purporting to have been made'by Judge Lawrence in the House of Rep resentatives. It never was made, nor was permission ever given to have it printed. Yet it is printed and published at an expense of about 8200 to the gov ernment. Here is just as clear a viola tion of law as is proven against the Pres ident. Judge Lawrence has no more le gal right to print that speech at the pub lic expense than he has to print the stump speeches he makes in Ohio at the public expense. Yet no one thinks of impeaching him for haling done so. Take another case. For two years Mr. Foster, of Connecticut, drew a salary of $B,OOO, and 62,500 for a private secretary, when he was, by the letter of the law, entitled to no more than the salary of a Senator of the United Siates. Mr. Wade does the same now. He draws the salary of Vice President, and is known as " Act ing Vice President," an office not recog nized by the Constitution or any law of the United States. It is entirely a bre vet rank, the extra pay has been attached to it since 1865 by courtesy, and not by right; and so on to the end of the chap ter. Instances might be multiplied to show that no department of the govern ment could stand the test of strict ac countability for its expeniiitures to which the report of the Judiciary Committee seeks to hold Mr. Johnson. The Repub lican Congressional Committee have had in their employ, as Southern missionaries, for a year past, a large number of men paid as clerks and officers of the House of Representatives. Is there warrant of - law for this ? It' so, it would enlighten a great many anxious inquirers to - point out just where it is. Deplorable Condition of Florida. The Charleston Mercury gathers the followinc , from Captain Lewis M. Coxe ter who has just returned from an exten sive tour in Florida : He traveled from Jacksonvilla to Tal- ' lahassee and Fernanddia to . Gainsville, and along the varipus routes robbery and plunder were daily' reported. The cotton crop was a signal failure, and the little that matured is carried away by the ne groes, if not from the field, from the gin houses, scores, of which have been broken into and plundered. But little corn was raised, and that little is going the way of the cotton. Cattle, hogs and sheep are nightly mdssacred by the freedmen and carried off. One gentleman bad three cattle shot- on one day, but the wounded animals made their way borne before they were captured by the desperadoes. A lady, who a few months ago, had over eleven hundred bead of sheep, has not one-to her name to day—all killed and carried 9ff by the ogroes. The Captain tbillk4 that cotton planting on a Urge ecale / has ceased in Florida, at least on- der the present system of labor, over which the employer seems to have no control. With the failure of the great staple, and the plunder of the remnant of the crop, which might in part have paid the advances for raising , the same, and without corn to last longer than the opening of the year, the majority of the planters in Florida are truly in a pitiable condition. A Democratic Town. The town of Jackson, Auglaize comity, Ohio, at the recent election, polled four hundred and nine votes, all for the Dem ocratic ticket. This fact has called forth considerable criticism as to the character and intelligence of the citizens of that town. The New York Commercial Ad• vertiser made the following commentary, based on alleged personal knowledge of the ignorance prevailing in that region : " We had the occasion to travel Through that portion of Ohio a few years since, when a colporteur informed us, as the result of his observations and inquiries, that but one in thirty of the people could read, while, on an average, only one in fifty five possessed a Bible." The Democrat, published at Jackson, iu reply to the remarks quoted above, de clares that the informant of the Commer cial, the " colporteur," as he ;is called, was an itinerant vender of " Helper's Crisis" and other abolition tracts, for which he could not find a purchaser in the place. The Democrat adds that there is not one voter in Jackson who cannot read and write, and to back its assertion, of fers to give a silver cup for every voter who can be found there who cannot both read and write. 'There is not a person in that township, male or female, above the age of fourteen who cannot do the same! There is not another rural' township in Ohio, or anywhere else, with the same age of settlement, that has more industry, wealth and general intelligence. Besides the best of schools, the town has a fine Academic Institute, kept in successful operation ten months in the year,.that accommodates two hundred students. Among the cbvrch buildings one stands there that cost forty five thousand dol lars. In that township are model far mers, manufacturers and thrifty and ac complished merchants. Why should such people vote any other than the Demo cratic ticket ? Abraham Lincoln's i Opposition to Ne gro Suffrage, Abraham Lincoln was uniformly, and to the last hour of his life steadfastly hos tile to negro suffrage. He never aban doned the belief that it would be improp er and dangerous to incorporate so large a mass of ignorance in the body politic. On the very last day of his life the ques tion of reconstruction was discussed in a Cabinet meeting, and a plan partially ar ranged, loooking to the adjustment of the difficulties. There was no clause incor porating negro suffrage in it. At a cabi net meeting held very shortly after the accession of President Johnson the same subject came up, and the Cabinet were a unit then against negro suffrage. Secre tary Stanton, in his evidence before the Judiciary Committee, says : The President expressed his views very clearly and distinctly. I expressed my views, and other members of the Cabinet expressed their views. The objection of the President to throwing the franchise open to the colored people appeared to be fixed, and I think every member of the Cabinet assented to the arrangement as it was specified in the proclamation relative to North Carolina. After that I do not remember that the subject was laver dis cussed in the Cabinet. The insane project of making voters of all the barbarian negroes of the South came from Congaess. That body alone is responsible for the iniquitous and de structive system which is now work:ng ruin in the South. Stanton and some others who were members of Mr. Lin coln's Cabinet, after the adoption of ne gro suffrage by Congress, supported it. But it never received the sanction of Mr. Lincoln, General Grant on the Presidents Policy. Below we give a synopsis of tho testi mony of General Grant before the Judi ciary (impeachment) Committee, taken from the Philadelphia News. It is far from comforting to the radicals : • The General considers President John son's policy as to reconstruction identical with that of Mr. Lincoln. He says: "Mr. Lincoln prior to his assassination, bad in augerated a policy intended to restore those (the Southern State) governments. I was present once, before his murder, when a plan was read. The plan (idol). ted by Mr. Johnson, was substantially the plan which had been inaugurated by Mr. Lincoln, as the basis for his future notion. Ido not- know that it was ver batim the same. think the very paier which I heard read twice while Mr. Lin col%was President was the one which was carried right through V' The paper to which General Grant here referred was the proclamation with refer ence to the reconstruction of North Car olina. It is not wonderful that the Washing. i VOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 52. ton correspondents say that Gen. Grant's testimony does not please the radicals. The fact that their proposed candidate for the next presidency swears that, ac cording to the best of his knowledge and belief, the reconstruction policy of Presi dent Johnson is exactly the same as that officially recommended by Abraham Lin coln, must be very disagreeable toi the radical politcians. It puts them in a very , uncomfortable position. They must et-• titer repudiate Grant,.or virtually endorse Johnson. We have been looking for the heavy point to be made against President John son and have at last foun4 it in the testi mony of Col. Matthews. If this testimo ny can be corroborated we have no hesi tation in saying the President ought not only to be impeached, but shot. Let a t n astonished world read ; The following is the testimony ofStanley Matthews, of Ohio, who commanded a reg iment in Tennessee, sworn July 1et,1867: State whether you saw Andrew John- son at Cincinnati in February', 1865. Answer—l had an interview with Mr. Johnson in February, 1865 at the Burnet House, in Cincinnati, Ohio. During our conversation, and while sitting togeather on a sofa, he (Mr. Johnson) remarked : " You and I were old Democrats." I said yes. Mr. Johnson said, " I will tell you what it is, if the country is ever to be saved it is to be done through the old Dem ocratie party." Immediately afterwards, I took my leave. Important to Executprs, Administra tors, Trustees, tr.o. In a cinder addressed to United States assessors the Commissioner of Internal Revenue says : " Pains should be taken to acquaint executors, administrators, trust ees, &c., of their persional liability for leg ancy taxes, and that it is not only their legal duty but for their own private inter est and protection to pay legacy taxes and succession taxes, under section 138, upon ecah sum before it is paid over to the leg atee, distrubutee or successor. All per sons should be informed that a succession tax is a fir st charge on the interest of the of the successor, and of all persons claim ing in his right in all the real estate in re. spect whereof such duty i§ assessed, and that snch estate is liable to seizure and sale, even in the hands of a bona fide par , chaser." Got it at List. " THE OLD DEMOCRATIC PARTY." ' West Virginia Diode of Voting. Under the system that prevails in this State, the radicals can always manage to keep the majority. The modus operandi is this : The Board of Supervisors meet, overheul the list of registered voters, and summon any citizen to come forward and show cause why bis name should not be stricken from the list. It is all the same whether be appears or not; his name must go off if the radical supervisors will it. Ia this way a gentlemen who was elected by tte Conservatives of Jefferson county to the House of Delegates last year was de prived of his right of suffrage,, though he had been a consistent Union man through out the whole period of the war. As a matter of course be was also ousted from his seat in the Legislature. This was ef fected by throwing out, for alleged infor mality or somerhing else, the vote of two precincts wherein be had a majority;and the seat was accorded to his radical op ponent. A reference to the returns of the re cent election held in this county, purloin. ed from Virginia, will show the whole strength of radicalism, and the extreme to which proscription is carried. The, full vote of the county, without disfranchise meet, would be about 2,500. At the re cent election 'there were polled for the two opposing candidates for the Senate 331 votes, the radicals electing their can didate by a majority of 11. I'm it will appear that seven . eighths of the old vo ters are disfranchised, while 171 radicals control a county having 2,500 men who should be voters, but are not. And this is but a sample of what we may expect from the Hunnicutt party in Virginia af ter they shall have a Constitution in ac cordance with their notions.—Lynchburg Virginian. A LOST MitirstEn.—While trudging along and day all alone, a soldier met a Methodist circuit rider, at once recogniz ed him as snob but affetced ignorance Of it. Preacher—" What command do you belongs to ?" Soldier—" I belg to the —th Texas regiment, Van Dora 's army. What army do you belong to ?" Preach. er—(very solemnly)—" I. belong to Abe army of the Lord.' .Soldier—"My friend, yeu have got a very long way fro.. head quarters." —The New York. Tribune late; Mad : If the blacks are not enfranchised, Vall andigham could beat General Grant for President. Then Greeley only wants the negroes to vote to help the Radicles to elect , a Piesi• dent. Grant or anybodp else who carries' the negro will be beaten for the,Presiden• cy. - —Garibaldi is again -taming from C*- prers, and another at,tompt:Otr Rom, is apyrobended.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers