fhe dlorfh Stanch il cultural. SARVEY SlCKliEß,Proprietor.] NEW SERIES, tgortji ffcaitcjj fJemccrat. A wsskly Deraocratle BY HARVEY SICKLER. Terms—l copy 1 year, (in advance) 51.50. If Wit pain within six months, **2.00 will be charged ADVETITISING. 10 lines ort f 1 1 / lest, make three four ■ tiro 'three ) six j one one square ireeks ireeks mo th mo th moHh\year I Square 1,00 1.25 2,25 3,00 5,00 £ do. 2,00 2.50 3.25 350 4,50 6,00 3 do. 3,00 3,75 4,75 5,50 7,00. 9,00 | Column. 4,00J 4,50 6.50) 8.00 10,00. 15,00 do. 6,00 7,00 10,00 12.00 17.00 25,00 do. 8 ,00 9,50 14.00 18,00 25,00 35,00 1 do. 10,00 12,00 17,00 22,00:28,00 40,00 Business Cards of one square, with paper, 85. JOB WORK of all kinds neatly executed, and at prices to suit the tiuies. BACON STAND.—Nicholson, Pa. C. L JACKBOS, Proprietor. [vln49tf] GEO. S. TIJTTON, ATTORNEY AT LAW. Tunkhannock, Fa. Office in Stark's Bliek Block, Tioga street. WM. M. PIATT, ATTORNEY AT LAW, Of fice in Stark's Brick Block, Tioga St., Tunk- Aanneck, Pa. RR. A s, W, LITTLE ATTORNEY'S AT. LAW, Office on Tioga street, Tunkhannock Pa. JV. SMITH. M. D, PHYSICIAN A SURGEON, • Office on Bridge Street, next door to the Demo crat Office, Tnnkhannock, Pa. - j HS. COOPER, PHYSICIAN A SURGEON i • Newton Centre, Luzerne County Pa. I>R. J. C. HECKKK * Co., PHYSICIANS A SURGEONS, Would respectfully announce to the citizen? of Wv micg that they have located at Tunkhannock wher boy will promptly attend to all calls in the line of weir profession. May be found at his Drug Staro wJw mot professionally absent. JM. CAREY, M. D.— (Graduate of the 3 • M. Institute, Cincinnati) would respectfully mnnonnce to tho citizens of Wyoming and Luzerne Counties, that he continues his regular practice in tho various departments of his profession. May oe found mt his office or residence, when not professionally ab cnt Particular attention given to the treatment Chronic Diseas. entremoreland, Wyoming Co. Pa.—\2n2 WALL'S HOTEL, LATE AMERICAN HOUSE, TUNKHANNOCK, WYOMING CO., PA. j THIS establishment has recently been refitted and ■ furnished in tbe latest style Every attention | will be given to tho comfort and convenience of those ! wr'ao patronize the Houe. T. B. WALL, Owner and Proprietor. Tunkhannock, September 11, 1861. MAYNARD'S HOTEL, TIT NKHAN N OC K, WYOMING COUNTY, PENNA. JOHN MAYS AKD, Proprietor. HAVING taken the Hotel, in the Borough of Tunkhannock, recently occupied by Riley Warner, the proprietor respectfully solicits a share of pablic patronage. The House has been thoroughly repaired, and the comfort? and accomodations of a Bret class Hotel, will be found by all who may favor t with their custom. September 11, 1861. NORTH BRANCH HOTEL, MESIIOPPEN, WYOMING COUNTY, PA Wb. 11. C'ORTRIGHT, Prop'r HA\ ING resumed the proprietorship of the above Hotel, the undersigned will spare no effort to reader the house an agreeable place of sojourn for •U who may favor it with their custom. Wm. II CCRTRIimT. June, 3rd, 1863 GAITS' TOWA.NDA., . D- B- BARTLET, (Late of the BBRAIN ARD Horse, ELMIRA, N. Y.J PROPRIETOR. Ths MEANS HOTEL, h one of the LARGEST I and BEST ARRANGED Houses in the country—lt I i fitted up in the most modern and improved style, I and no pains are spared to make it a pleasant and > agreeable etopping-place for all, _ r 3. n2l. IT ' M. OILMAN, M OILMAN, has permanently located in Tunk- ! • bannock Borough, and respectfully tenders his (professional services to the citizens of this place and .arrounding country. ALL WORK WARRANTED, TO GIVE SATIS FACTION. Office over Tutton's Law Office, wear th e Pos !>•. 11,1861. JO NERYOi/8 SUFFERERS OF BOTH , SEXES. A REVEREND GENTLEMAN IIAVING BEEN I petered to health in a few days, after undergoing all usual routine and irregular expensive modes of reatmeut without success, considers it his sacred du yto communicate to his afflicted iellow creatures fhe means <}f cure. Hence, on the receipt of an ad irewed envelope, he will send (free) a copy of the hreaenption used. Direct to Dr Jomn M DAOWAPL, JJP fultoa Ifcee*, Brooklyn. >* fnrk -i?n?4Jj SPEECH OF HON. D. W. VOORHEES, OF INDIANA, Delivered In the House of Representatives of the United St .tea. March S, 1864. The House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union— Mr. VOORHEES said: Mr. CHAIRMAN : I arise to address the lIoue to-day with feelings of profound de prtssion and gloom. It is a melancholly spectacle to behold a free government die The world it is true is filled with the evi dences of decay. A'l nature speaks the voice of dissolution, and the highway of his tory and of life is strewn with the wrecks which time, the great despoiler, has made But hope of the future, bright visions of re viving glory are no where denied to the heart of man save as he gazes upon the down fall of lesral liberty. He listens sorrowfully to the autumn winds as they sigh through dismantled forests, but he knows tnat their breath will be 6oft and vernal in the spring, and|that the dead flowers and the withered foliage will blossom ami bloom again. He sees the sky overcast with the angry frown of the tempest, but lie knows that the sun will reappea**, and the stars, the bright em blazonry of God, cannot perish. Man him self, this strange connecting link between dust and deity, totters wearily onward under the weight of years and pain toward the gap ing tomb, but how briefly his mind lingers around that dismal spot. It is filled with tears and grief, and the willow and the cy press gather around it with their loving, hut mournful embrace. And is this all ? Not so. If a man die shall he not live again ? Beyond the grave, in the distant Aideti, hope provides an elysiutn of the soul where the mortal assumes immortality and life becomes an endless splendor. But where, sir, in all the dreary regions of the past, filled with convulsions, wars, and crimes, can you point your finger to the tomb of a free commonwealth on which the angel of resurrection ha ever descended or fnun whose mouth the stone of despotism has ever been roiled away? Where, in what age and in what clime have the ruins of c institutional freedom renewed their youth and regained their lost estate ? By whose strong grip has the dead corpse of a Republic once fallen ever been raised ? The merciful master who walked upon the waters and bade the winds be still left no ordained apostles with power to wrench apart the jaw* of national death and release the victims of despotism. The wail of the heartbroken over the dead is not so sad to me as the rea iiza'ion of this fact But all history, with a loud unbroken voice, proclaims it, and the ev.denceof what thn past has been is conclu sive to my mind of what the future will be. Wherever in the wide domain of human con duct a people once possessed oi liberty, with all power in their own hands, have snrren dertd these great gifts of God at the com tnand of the usurper they have never after wards proven themselves worthy to regain their forfeited treasures. Sir, let his'ory speak <>n this point. Bend i your ear, and listen to ihe solemn warnings ; which distant ages perpetually utter in their uneasy slumbers. Four thousand years <>t human experience are open and present for. the study of the American people. Standing a we do the last and greatest Republic in the midst of the earth, it becomes us most deeply in this crisis of our destiny to exam ine well the career and the final fate of Kin dred governments in the past The principles of self government are of ancient origin. They were not created by the authors of the American Constitution— They were adopted by those wise and gifted minds from the models of for ..er times and applied to the wants of the American people. Far back in the gray, uncertain dawn of his tory, in the land of in3 f stery and of miracles, the hand of Almighty benevolence planted the seeds of constitutional government by which life, liberty, and property were made I secure. Abraham and Lot each governed | his household and his herd men tv law : and j although they became offended at each other, yet under the divine sanction they refrained from the pleasures of conquest, subjugation, confiscation. They divided the country be fore them by a primitive treaty, and the grass continued to grow for their flocks un stained by fraternal blood and uncrushed by i the hoof of war- AnJ in long after year>, when the descendants of the patriarchs broke j their prison doors in Egypt and lay encamp j ed in the wilderness, the Omniscient pres ence came down and gave them a frame-work of fundamental law in which the popular will was largely recoinized. A system of jurisprudence was devised for the people of Israel which protected liberty and adtninis tered justice. Under its influence the feeble fugitives and homeless wanderers without bread and without water in the desert be came an empire of wisdom, of wealth, and of power. The liberal institutions of the Jew ish theocracy produced statesmen, poets, his torians, and warriors, who will continue to challenge the admiration of posterity by the splendor of their achievements as long as generations come and go on the waves of time. They lived within the immediate ju risdiction of Jehovah. They possessed the ark of the covenant and took counsel with ministering angels directly from the portals of Paradise, With all these evidences of ce lestial favor in their behalf, it is not to be wondered that they claimed an exemption from the changes and mutations of human af fairs, and boasted that the seal of perpetuity had been impressed by the Divine hand on the pillars of their government. But public v rtuc became debauched ; the popular heart corroded with the lust of conquest and of gain ; primitive purity faded aw iy under the baleful breath of embittered factions; the fires of patriotism were smothered by rank ling hate and the 'hirst for revengtf; and all these evil passions broke forth in the voice of a malignant majority clamoring for a king. In that hour of disastrous eclipse, the spirit of liberty took her flight foraver from the hills of Judea. Thousands of years have rolled awav since then. The Iloly Land has been the theatre of conflicts which rocked the world as the throes of an earthquake. Genius and heroism have there blazed as stars in the Eastern skies. There, too, was enacted the sublime tragedy of redemption that tragedy which summoned the inhabit ants of all worlds aa its witnesses, end filled "TO SPEAK HIS THOUGHTS IS EVERY FREEMAN'S RlGHT."—Thomaa JifltrMOt TUNKHANNOCK, PA., WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 1864. nature with agony in all he pirts. The eyes of mankind hare been turned back and fixad upon those scenes of immortal interest of more than thirty centuries. But who has lifted up an! restored her fallen system of liberal institutions ? The people surrender ed their rights, their franchises, their self control, and welcomed the power of one man. The base act has never been reversed. As the tree fell so it lies. It died at the root. Despotism reigns undisturbed and unbroken, in darkness and t n silence, where once the light and music of freedom gladdened the s >uls of the stately sons and dark eyed daughters of l-rael. And leaving the land of sacred history, what similar scenes of human weakness and human folly meet us at every step in the on ward pathway of time. Where now are those splendid structures which once adorned the shores of the Aegean, the Etixints, and the Mediterranean? Athens, the eye of Greece, the school of the world—has her dis mal fate impressed no lesson tn ihe thoughts of mankind ? Fifteen hundred yeats before the birth of our Saviour, the light of civil or der and civil freedom arose in the Island of Crete, and sent its rays through the vale of Temple, the rich plains of Tliessalf, over the fruitful fields of Attica and the Bte >tia, and hovered with an everlasting and imperishable radiance around the beads of Olinypus, llel licon, and Parnassus. It is true that k.ngs governed in those early days, but absolute power in one man was unknown. Laws made by the people chained the licentious hand of oppression. The proudest monarchsof those warlike ages governed in obedience to the wili of the legislative departments. They enacted no laws; they executed them as they found thorn A house of peers aid an assembly of the people shared the supreme authority and ensured safety and liberty to the citizen. Ulvssus speaks of one chief'* to whom Jupiter hath intrusted the sceptre and the laws, that by them he may govern."— But he recognizes that these instruments of government are bestowed be the popular fa \ >r. for, when shipwrecked upon a strange coast and addressing himself as as tpplicini to its nueen, he says : " May the G >Js grant you and your guests to live hippily: and may you all transmit to your children your possessions in your houses and whatsoever honors the people hath given you." But even this limited and constitutional system of monarchy was not long borne by that proud race which drank in the 'ove of liberty from the free air of the mountains over their heads, and the breath of the restless and stormy ocean at their feet. " Those vigor ous principles of Democracy which had al ways existed in the Grecian governments he uan to ferment ; and, in the course of a few ages monarchy was abolished ; the very name of king was very generally prescribed ; a commonwealth was thought the only g>v eminent to which it became men to submit, and Hie term tyrant was introduced to de note those who, in opposition to these new | political principles, acquired m marchical sway." Then sprang iato existence that wonderful cluster of republics whose memo ry yet fills the earth with its fragrance of no ble deeds and '-x tiled genius. Liberty hov ered over that cla-sic peninsula of Southern Europe like the angel of creation hovering ■ ver night and chaos.and from the fostering warmth of her embracec me forth an imin tr ial world of letters, of art, of science, and of law. ihe Macedonian, the Spartan, the Athenian, and all lifted their heads among the stars, and barely condescended to pity and despise neighbor ng nations who were less free than themselves. They p iuted to Marathon and Salami*, Thermopyle, and Platea, as the American points to Saratoga and Bunker Hill, Yorktown and New Or leans. They kept their festive days of na tional deliverance and jov as the fourth day of July and eighth of January have been commemorated and hallowed by us. They Miunded all the dep'hs and shoals oi honor; • Irank deep draughts from the very fountains ni freedom ; achieved immortality in every department of human thought and action.— and'yet, with their cup full of glory for inore than a thousand years, sparkling to the brim with rights and privileges more sweet to their taste than the h>ney of Ilymettu*; I hey dashed it to the earth, and its shattered fragments remain as they fell. The lust of p >wer on the part of public rulers, and the luxury, sloth, and indifference of the people, nursed so long in the lap of prosperity that they allowed the usurper to march on in Ins lawless career unchallenged and unqiiestion ed, worked the overthrow of the Republics of Greece. And what traveler, standing up on those blighted and withered plains, has beheld a sign of resurrection for more than two thousand years ? Now and then, it is true, a murmur or a groan has disturbed the deadly sleep in which that land is embraced, but it oniy shows that she dreams of the past, not that she will awake to the future. Her birthright was abandoned by her own sordid hand, and it cannot be reclaimed. A petty power of Northern Europe now gives a king to the countrymen of Ilomer, Themisto cles, and Solon. But, sir, another name more prominent t!ian all o hers, presents itself to the student of antiquity in this connect ion. Roman his tory stands out upon the canvas of time as plainly marked as the events of in >deru ages. We see Tarquin, the Proud, expelled from his throne, and the foundations of the com monwealth laid five hnndre I yearn before the Christian era. F the next five centu ries we behold aiaceof men who "would have brooked the eternal devii lu keep his state in Rome, as easily as a king." How fondly the devotee of iiberty dwells upon that period ! With what grandeur the names of the mighty dead, and the sublime creations of their genius, arise to our view! In what does the boasted civilization of the present surpass the achievements of a race and an age to whom the revala: ions of God were msnown I Who nas spoken as Cicero spoke ? What historian has guided a pen so full of majesty and and of beauty as that which inscribed the annals of Taci'us ? Whose muse has winged a loftier flight or sung a nobler s'rain than Virgil's ? In arms too, what warriors have improved upon the skill and mign'ffitence of Sc.pio and Cao-ar ? ! But it was still more in the dignity and free dim of her print e citix ins that Rome was great than in the renown of her most illustri ous leaders, statesmen, and orators. King* of powerful nations bowed their uncovered heads before the Roman people. The maeis trate*, consul*, military commander* paid homage and obedience directly to tha public Will. Tbe severe.gnty of tho peo pie was absolute. The principles of self-govern ment were never in the history of nations more fully or clearly displayed. Jurispru dence became an enlightened science, from whose pages a light extends to the present hour, and under whose guardian protection the humblest citizen of R<>me was secure in every right neclared unalienable by the dec laration of American Independence. But why linger upon the well known story of Roman liberty and Roman greatness. I use it but to illustrate. The melancholly Conclusion came.— ! As the son of the morning fell from Heaven, so Rome fell from the luminous sphere of liberty never to hope again. The world grew dark as her light faded away, and ten centuries oi gloom succeeded her downfall. And why perished this mistress of the earth. Not because the vandal ravished her borders; not because the Goth beat her gates to pieces; but because her people submitted to the en croachments of executive authority, lulled by the Syren voice of a false security, until at last they awakened to find their chains and manacles forged and fastened. Their links yet fester in the flesh of the descundents of Brutus, and their clanking may yet be heard in the forum where Cato warned his coun trymen against the approach of despotic power No deliverer has ever arisen. Lib erty has never been wooed to return. Once abandoned surrendered by those whom she has crowned with honor and greatness, in the midst of the earth she goes forth with the air and feelings of insulted majesty to seek more wori hy objects of her love arid care. Sir, modern history c .ntains n > exception to the rule which the late of ancient repub lics has established. Aspirations for free dom have at different D-?rinI ascended from almost every portion of the map of modern Europe. A system of confederated states built up and uu tured the free institutions of Holland for tnore than three hundred yea's, while the night of despot ism lay thick and heavy or. all the surr Minding horiz n. As revolted colonies, ae states in rebellion, tbe Dutch republic maintained a defensive war thirty years against the whole power of Spun when Philip If. c intruded the coun cil- and co:nmi'i led tbe wealth of the civi lized world. Their proudest cities were be sieged and fe'l a prey to pillage and murder. In pitched battlestbey seldom triumphed over the superior numbers and equipments of the p iwerful Spaniard. Their country was trod ded under foot; their houses plundered ; their fields laid waste ; and the wild b >ar and the wolf roamed unmolested through the streets of once p ipul >us towns. But the <*u lurance and patriotism of a people to whom no terms were offered except abject, unconditional submission, outlived and broke the rage of their opressors. A free common wealth, the United S'ates of Holland, arose and extended the spirit of enterprise, com merce and refinement into all the four qnar lers of the earth. She conquered the sea and subdued distance. The peaceful victo ries ol her trade were celebrated at the Cape ofG<od Hope, and in the harbor of New York, in the Indies of the East, and in every latitude of the Western Hemisphere. Nor was she less renowned in war. The broom at the masthead -wept the ocean of her ene lilies, and the only guns of a foreign power whose hosti e roar ever penetrated the Tow er f London, were the guns () f the free States of Holland. Louis XIV, the grand monarch of imperial France, when Turrene and Luxemburg and Conde led his armies, poured the torrents of his power against her for conquest and subjugation ; but they were poured m vain. She fought with the inspi ration of freedom, and made her history se cure and illustrious as long as a generous heart shall be found to throb in sympathy with the welfare and happiness of a heroic people. But where now is that noble prodl gy of liberal institutions ? Why does she lift her beautiful head to the Heavens no longer? Her glories declined under the burthen of unbounded wealth and overflow i g prosperity. II -r people relaxed the vigilance of their guard over the citadel of their liberties, and slumbered at their post* while unlawful power fort'fied itself beyond successful attack. Thus sbe perished igno bly by her own hind, having throughout her whole career defied and held at bay a world in arms. And how still and heavy has been her long repose ! No awakening convulsions shake her rigid litnbs, or disturb her frozen arteries. Once fallen, and forever lost is the mournful epic of her fate She takes her place in the dreary catalogue lurnished by an tiquity. , Hut cross the channel and take your stand on the soil of England. She too has furnish ed mankind with a short-lived experiment of republican povernmenr. Wrong* and out rages inflicted on the English people, similar in kind, but far less enormous than those which now oppress ihe Htrzan of the United States of America, wrought the volcanic erup tion of 1040. The best blood of England perished in the conflict between Magna Charta on one side and absolutism on the other. John Hampton bled on the plains of Chalgrave. hut the royal Stuari bled on the sG.aff.ld. When the strife died away, the British constitution was found to be possess ed and upheld bv those who partook of the sacrament of the Lord's supper with bloody hands, ami who enforced the sermon on the mount with fire and sword. They were rhe ancestors of th>>se who to day in this land are crucifying liberty afresh, and putting her to open shame. God does not allow Himself to he mocked, and Cromwell, and the Commonwealth of E-igland went out tr ether, while a wrathful tempest raged around the dying bed of the great, but bloody and tyranical Protestor. The incom ing wave, the reaction in the tide of human alia r*, b >re back ihe dissolute and worth less Charles If. to the home of his anceeters, and Englishmen have never from that time to this lifted their hands or their voices in b.*half of a republic. France points to the revolting blotch, the stain of mingled blood and tears, which her wild and mil attempts at freed 'tn have left up >n the cf history. We gaze at it bu for an instant, and turn away with horror.— At the verv momen' almost that tho Presi dent of the French Directory declared "that monarchy would never more how its fright ful head in France, B maparto with hia grenadier* entered the palace of St. Claud, and dispersing with the bayonet the depu I ties of the people deliberating on the afiair* I of State, laid the foundation of that Taat fabric of despotism which over shadowed all Europe ? " Sir, I pause in this train of sorrowful illus tration*!. I tremble at their contemplation when ray mind is brought to embrace the Conclusions wince flow from them. But -hall we shrink back affrighted and appalled because the great lessons of uniform history comes to us with a voice of solemn and pro phetic warning ? Shall the universal expe rience of the human race bring us no wis dom? Shall we wrap ourselves in a sweet delusion and lie down to pleasant dreams when we know by every chart of navigation that the fatal maelstrom is just at hand? Will the proud and taring people of America close their eyes and ears against the teaching of ages, and wait for the fetters and gyves to convince thein that their liberies are in dar ger? Are they to be chained like Prometheus to the rock, while the vulture of despotism preys forever upon their bleeding vitals? Sir, in my hours of seclusion and study I have to the best of my humble capacity held up the lamp of the past to the face of the future, and I call G >d to witness lhat I would be re creant and faithless to my own conscience if I did not proclaim, as far as my voice will reach, that a danger is this hour upon the American pe qile tnore deadly than the juices of the hemlock or the b'te of the asp. This Government is dying; dying, sir, dying.— We are standing around its bed of death and soon will be wretched mourners at its tomb, unless the sovereign and heroic remedy is speedily applied. I will submit the in condensed array on which I make this assertion, that a candid public may judge between me and that pestilent class who. failing to answer, reso**t to slander. The Ameiican republic was established in order to accomplish avowed and specified purposes. The objects of its creation were left in no uncertainty. Its mission was clear and distinct by tbe terms of the Constitution. It came into existence, "m o rrler to form a mart perfect union, establish Justice insure domestic tranquility provide for the common defence, promote the general wel fwe, and secure he blessings oj tibettif to that and all suoci-eiling generations of Aiuer scan citizens. Who will dare to rise in his place and ay that this Government has been administered during the la-t three years in a mode even tending towards the accomplish ment of these grand results ? Has the es tablishment of justice been maintained?— The sword has been thrown into the scales of justice, and there is not this hour a court between the two oceans left free to decide the laws a they have uniformly been decided in Engl, n 1 and America for the last two hundred years. The very foundations ofciv ilized jurisprudence have been torn awav. and the whole edifice is in ruins. The Mag na Charla is erased ; the Habeas Corpus is dead ; the very soul and spirit of liberty is extinguished in the forum of the jud'eiary.— To this sacred sanctuary, more than to any other department of the Government, the blessings of liberty were entrusted. But bus the pre.-ent administration made them secure ? It is require itodoso by the terms of the Constitution. Let each mind give its ! own an-wer. Not one right which consti tutes the freedom and safety of the citizen but what has been wickedly and wantonly ! violated. Prisons filled without indictment j and without warrant ; long and bitter pun- ; islunenf inflicted without trial or conviction; ! the whole jury system abolished by a stroke of the pen in the hand of the Executive, or h's subordinates in crime; no witnesses brought to the face of the accused : nocoun se! permitted to appear in his behalf ; his house broken open and his papers searched in the midst of his pallid and terified wife and children ; such are seine of the evidences which exist oil ever f hand that our free institutions are hastening two their over throw. And not content with breaking d..wn all the ancient safeguards of liberty", new and malignant measures of legislation have been c mtniuall ydcvised by a slavish Congress by which to more effectually reach, anfl torture, and grind the citizen. The most inocent conduct, a harmless word, a a simple look has been eeacte I into guilt. I The hired hounds of arbitrary power find conspiracy and crime in the friendly greet ings of neighbors on their farms. Speaking of the period of 1795 in England, that great modern philosopher, Henry Thomas Buckle, in his History of Civilization, uses j the following language, which I adopt as ; faithfully descriptive oi the c induct of the j party now in power, and of the times in which we live: '•Nothing, however, eoull stop the Government in its headlong career. The ministers, recure of a ma- jority in both houses oi Parliament, were able to j carry their measures in defience of the people, wbo opposed them by every mode short of actua vio lence, And a* the object of these new laws was to j check the spirit of inquiry and prev.-nt reforms which the progress of society rendered indispensible, there were also brought into play otner means sub servient to the same end- It is no ex ggeration to say that for some yars England was ruled by a sys tem of absolute terror. The ministers of the day— tu rning a struggle of party into a war of proscrip tion, filled the prisons with their political opponents, and allowed them whe.i in confinement to be treated j with shameful severity. If a man was kn„wn to be j a reformer he was con: tantly in danger of be ng ar- j rested; and if he esaaped that, he was watched at I every turn, and his private letters were opened as they passed through the postoffice. In such cases no scruples were allowed Even the confidence of domestic life was violated. No opponent of Gov ernment was safe under his own roof against the tales of eaves-droppers and the gossip of servants. — Discord was introduced into the bosom of families— and schisms caused between parents and their chil dren. Not only were the most strenuous attempts made to silence the press, but the book sellers were so constantly prosecuted that they did not dare to publish a work if its author were obnoxious to the court, Indeed, whoever opposed the Government was proclaimed an enemy to his country. Political as sociations and public meetings were strictly forbid den. Every popular leader wis in personal danger, and evry popular assemblage was dispersed, either by threat or by military execution That hateful machinery familiar to the worst days of the seven teenth century, was put in motion. Spies were paid witness were suborned; juries were pack" I- The coffee-houses, the inns, and the clubs were filled with ! emissaries of tire Government, who reported the most : hasty expressions of common conversation. If by those means no sort of evidence ceuld be collected— there was another resource which was unsparingly used. For, the habeas corpus act being constantly suspended, the crown had the power of imprisoning without inquiry and without limitation tiry person offensive to the ministry, but of whose crime no pv jo f was attempted to bo brought." Sir, why are you, why am I out of the vaulta of a dungeon, and atandiug on this floor to day? Nut becanse we are guilty c r t nq offence; not because the broad sliic' law interp. sen its protection, h- ,Vj>ly be cause the Executive haa no' *1 ,_ n proper in the exerciae and ■TBRMSt 01.00 PXR ANSTIffM unrestrained will to lay ui in irons. This is the ultimate climax of deapotie power.— Each one of tffb twenty million of people within the control of the United States'holds his or her tenure to personal liberty—ths right to walk the green earth, to breathe ths air, and iook at the sun— not by virtue of s free Constitution, but depend upon tbeclem ency and pleasure of ond man. May I not be arrested to might? May not you or snjr one else to morrow? Has it not been doue in more than a thousand instances, and hays not the courts, ane the laws been powerless to save? While I erfn now Bpcaking, may net some minion who licks the hand of power— and whom it would honor to call a slave, be preparing notes from which to testify againet me before a military commission? Havens in the West forgotten Burnside, and the in* fainy of his reign in our midst? Will the in* habitants of the Western Circuit in Eng land ever forget the monster Jeffries and ths mtwdep of Alice Lisle? Will some poor era whng, despised sycophant and tool of Ex* cculive despotism dare to say that I ahsll not pronounce the name of Vailandighstn?— The scandal and stigma of his condemnation' and banishment have filled the civilized world; and the Lethean and oblivious wsves of a thousand years will not wash away ths shame and the reproach of that miserabls scene from the American name. Some mem* bers on the other side of this chamber have attacked with fierce clamor the great Ameri can s'atesmen and the Christian gentleman who suffers his exile in the cause of liberty on a foreign suil. So the basest cur that ever kenneled may bay, at the bidding of his master, the caged lion in the distance.— Protract this iniquity, this crime, as long as you will, however, tbe judgment -of history will at last overwhelm you with an unsuffers ble odium, as certainly, as the streams of truth emanates from beneath the great white throne of God. ' Establish justice !" Ob!— bitter mockery. Justice has been dethroned and the blessings of liberty annihilated— There is not one square mile of tree soil is the American Republic. It is 6lave territo ry from the Aristook to the Columbia— Every man m all that vast expanse may be reduced in an instant to hopeless bondage— every home may be broken open and pilla ged, every dollars worth of property may be swept into that vawning and bottomless gulf —the National Treasury; and all under the sanction of the principles and practices daily exemplified by the Adminiatranion which n>>w hurls us on to ruin. But the "domestic tranquility," has it been insured? When the present party came into power the road to an honorable peace on' the basis of the Union was still open. Be- I fore the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln hia~ friends and supporters held the issues of life and death, peace and war in their hands in this eapttoi. The records of the last ses sion of the 36th Congress- are immortal.—' They cannot perish ; and as the woes and calamities of ihe people thicken and magnify by the frightful war in which we are engag ed, they increase in value to posterity mora rapidly than the leaves-of the sybilline book. The baleful brood of political destrtictionists who now unhappily possess the high seats of nationil authority did not then want public tranquility. They invoked the stonn which has since rained blood upon the land. Tbty courted the whirlwind which has prostrated the progress of a century in ruins. They danced with a hellish gee around the bub bling cauldron of civil war and welcomed with ferocious joy every hurtful mischief which flickered in its lurid and infernal flames. Compromise, which has its origin in Ihe love and mercy of God; which msdo peace and ratified the treaty on Calvary be tween Heaven and the revolted and rebell ious earth; whioh is the fundamental basis of all human association, and by which ail gov - ernments the world ever knew have beon created and upheld ; compromise, which foola pronounce a treas mab!e word, and skillful knaves cover with reproach, because they are enriching themselves at the expense of the national sorrow and blood, was discarded by the North and accepted by the South when offered by Mr. Crittenden. By it domestic tranquility could have been ensured. Bat an ulterior and destructive spirit ruled the hour and flooded the nation with misery And since the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep, who of this party have la bored to tranqu : lize our disordered affairs ? Who has endeavored, in the name of Christ and by the omnipotent power of the princi ples which he left his father's throne to pro claim and for which he drank the worm-wcod and the gall on the cross, to expel the cruel and ferocious demon of civil war that has howled so fiercely for the last three years anion.'the tombs of our young and heroic dead 7 N>t one, sir ; not one.. Wise and. Christian measures, looking to reconciliation and peace ami union, have besn repeatedly spurned by the Executive and this legislative department which he holds in duress. At no distant day. when the horror of this- war can no longer be borne, the various proposi tions which have been made and rejected in behalf of enlightened negotiation and a const i. tutiona' restoration will be gathered up and hurled at those in power as an accusation more appalling, an indictment more damning than was ever leveled against a murderer up 'on his trial. Nor can they, in that hour of | their fear and calamity, at which the right | eous world will laugh and tuoek hide their I guilty heads under the assertion that the I South will not treat for peace : yes, peace ! which shall restore the Union under the Con j stitution as it was written by the fhthers, and as it ha been interpreted by the su preme judicial tribunals. Why came that wasted figure, that gifted child of genius, ! tne pure and elevated Stephens, of Georgia, from Richmond on his way to this Capitol in the midsummer of 1863 ? Was it a tri fling cause that moved him ? AU Ih# world knows that his judgment and hia heart clung fondly ar,.i to the last to tha old Gov ernment, in whose counsils be had wov to much honor. It is equally well kaowa that he has never embraced the tuicidal doetrine iof State secession. The tight of revolution is the gp.una upon which ho stands. Tla 1 mali".itnt portion ol the Southern press, ton ' such mischievous ami damaging printaaa tha ' j Examiner and Inquirer at Richmond, and I the Remitter at mobile, who continually rrip. 1 j pie the interests and friends of humanity in 1 j (h' baleful contest, - assailed Mr. Stephens I for his attempt at degottoion, whic't they i averred would lead - to reunion. Yet. with these things well knn#n, and perhaps much 1 mora which now lumbers in tha secret VOL. 3, NO. 35
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers