A CRIME TO SUSTAIN THE LAW AS EXPOUNDED BY THE FEDERAL COURT. Just after the Supreme Court of the United States had decided the DRED SCOTT case, the Republicans of Racine county held a grand council, and Resolved, That the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, and the endorsement thereof by the Democratic party, is an insult to the memory of the founders of our country-a violation of the plainest principles of natural and constitutional law-a perversion of history and an encroachment upon the rights of the States, and a blow struck at the inalienble rights of man." So much for the arrogance of a political party that failed to inform the world from whence they derived their authority, to sit in judgment to revise the "natural laws" of God, and the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. JUDGE PAINE ELECTED WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO HIS VIEWS. We have before stated that Judge PAINE was elected to the Supreme Bench, not so much on account of his judicial lore, as because he was pre-committed against the validity of the Fugitive law, or because his supporters awarded him that position. When the second BooтH case came before the Court, Judge P. from a professional and judicial sense of the impropriety, refused to sit in the case, having been counsel for the defendant. For this the State Rights disunionists soundly berated him, as it left the Court without a majority to get up an actual conflict with the General Government. The next morning after Judge PAINE refused to sit in the case, the Milwaukee Free Democrat, a most violent Republican sheet, issued the following bull of excommunication: "The news from Madison informs us that Judge Paine refuses to sit in the habeas corpus with reference to Booth, leaving the decision of the case to Cole and Dickson. The result of this will probably be, the ultimate failure of the application [which was true, and the only thing that saved the State from the terrors of civil war.] The State Rights men of the State have got themselves into a peculiar position. With a majority of from seven to twelve thousand in the State, they are, nevertheless, paralyzed and powerless. [This shows that they relied on the caucus-room to govern the bench.1 They, themselves, appear to have made a mistake in electing a man to the bench. who finds himself unable to be of any service in the matter, for which almost exclusively he was pre ferred to many others; while the Governor finds he made a mistake with reference to his appointee (Dickson.) Doubtless the delicacy of Judge Paine will be appreciated by the profession, but we fear the great mass of the people [the politicians] will fail to understand it. He is not ruled off by any statute or positive prohibition. He was once counsel for Booth in connection with this matter, though not upon this particular point, if we understand it, and retires in obedience to custom or common law. Ile was elected, however, with special reference to his views on this point. His views are no better known than those of Cole, who has once decided the case." THE DISUNIONISTS IN MASS CONVENTION. Several years ago the Republicans held a Mass State Convention, and closed their resolutions by declaring that the decision of the Supreme Court in the DRED SCOTT case: "Has absolved the state from all obligation to regard them [fugitives from labor] as belonging to that class of "persons" who are to be delivered up as owing service or labor." Capt. BROWN, of Kansas, and GERRIT SMITH aderessed the Convention. BooтH Was Chairman of the Committee on Resolutions. Several collections were taken up to aid the spread of the "cause" in Kansas and Kentucky. THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT AGAIN DEFIED. January 1857 the Republicans put forth a "platform," from which we take the following "plank." The heading or preamble sets out that "The people of Wisconsin in Mass Convencroachments of the slave power, manifested tion assembled, in view of the alarming enthrough the Legislative, Executive and Judi cial Departments of the Federal Government," | tween the states, granting to the United States &c. One of the planks is the following: "That we cling to the sovereignty and rights of the states and to the pretecting power of the state courts against the encroachments and usurpations of the Federal Government, as the sheet anchor of our liberties, and that we pledge ourselves to sustain the state courts and the state government in protecting the liberties of the people [that is the liberty of the politicians to violate law] at all hazards and in all emergencies!" REPUBLICANS QUOTE SOUTHERN NULLIFIERS The following article appeared in the Milwaukee Free Democrat. It shows from what source the Republicans drew their nullification sustenance: certain powers or attributes of sovereignty, and to that extent the states severally divested themselves of those powers and attributes, but all powers not so granted are withheld by the states severally. * * * * * * * * "Such have been the uniform doctrines of the most brilliant statesmen and party leaders of the South, and such are the only doctrines by which this Federal Government can maintained. be "The positions taken by Judge SMITH are eminently in the right." GOV. RANDALL RECOMMENDS "RESISTANCE." The tendency of the action of the Federal Government has been for many years, aided by the Federal Courts, to centralization, and to an absorption of a large share of the soverignty of the States. It has trspassed upon the reserved rights of the States and the people of-assuming a jurisdiction over them in their exercise of power undelegated. The Federal Government, so far as there is any sovereignty under our form of Government, is sovereign and independent in the exercise of its delegated powers, and the States are sovereign and independent in the exercise of their reserved powers. The safety of the States in the exercise of these powers, in defense of the lives and properties and liberties of the people, demands à fair, deliberate opposition and resistance to any attempt at usurpation or aggression [of which let the Republicans be the sole judges] by the Federal Government, its Courts, its officers, or agents upor the reserved rights of the States or the people." "SUPREME COURT OF GEORGIA. We perceive from our Georgia exchanges that Judge Benning decided that the Supreme Court Georgia is co-equal and co-ordinate with the Supreme Court of the United States, and not inferior and subordinate to that Court; that as to the reserved powers, the State Court is supreme; that as to the delegate powers, the United States Court is supreme; that as to the powers both delegated and reserved-concurTent powers-both Courts, in the language of Hamilton, are 'equally supreme,' and as a consequence, the Supreme Court of the United States has no jurisdiction over the Supreme Court of Georgia, and cannot therefore give it an order, or make it a precedent."-Charleston (S. C.) paper. "The above is the precise doctrine laid down by Mr. Justice Smith, of our Supreme Court, in his opinion announced verbally from written notes, iu the case of S. M. Booth's petition for habeas corpus, carried to Supreme Court by Ableman on writ of error. And it is undoubtedly the true doctrine. For if the Supreme Court--the highest judicial tribunal of the state-is inferior to that of the United States, the sovereignty of the state represented by that tribunal must be an inferior sovereignty, which would be no sovereignty. "The doctrine announced by the Georgia Judge, (and by Judge Smith, is to the effect that the opinions and decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States were of no more binding force on the Supreme Courts of the states than are the opinions and decisions of the latter on the former, and that neither have any more binding force on the other than the decisions of the highest court of England would have to control the action of the highest court of France. Each within its own sphere is the creation of a distinct sovereignty, between whom there is neither superiority nor inferiority, but exact equality. But the sphere of the action of these sovereignties is restricted, or limited by the provisions of the compact be And in his message to the Legislature of 1859, he thus reiterates his views: "My views, as expressed in my last annual Message, in regard to the relative powers and duties of the State and Federal Governments," &c., "remain unchanged." HOW THESE DISUNION RECOMMENDATIONS After having pressed this matter close upon the Legislature for two sessions, that body, being "full in the belief," moved in the matter, during its session of 1859. Mr. N. S. Murphy, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, introduced a series of "backbone" resolutions, on the 12th of March, which were thus noticed by the State Journal of that day: "REFRESHING A ROUSER. "Mr. N. S. Murphy introduced a resolution brim full of genuine Republican doctrine upon the subject of the illegality and unconstitutionality of the proeeding of the U. S. Court in relation to the case of S. M. Booth, which Here are the resolutions as finally passed: "Joint Resolution relative to the decision of the United States Supreme Court, regarding the Supreme Court of Wisconsin. 'Whereas, The Supreme Court of the United States has assumed appellate jurisdiction, in the matter of the application of Sherman M. Booth, for a writ of habeas corpus, presented and prosecuted to final judgment in the Supreme Court of this State, and has, without process, [see before, why they could not get "process"] or any of the forms recognized by law, assumed the power to reverse this judgment, in a matter involving the personal liberty of the citizen, asserted by, and adjudged to him by the regular course of judicial proceedings upon the great writ of liberty, secured to the people of each State by the constitution of the United States. "And Whereas, Such assumption of power and authority by the Supreme Court of the United States to become the final arbiter of the liberty of the citizen, and to override and nullify the the judgments of the State Courts' declaration thereof, is in direct conflict with that provision of the constitution of the United States which secures to the people the benefits of the writ of habeas corpus, therefore "Resolved, the Senate concurring, That we regard the action of the Supreme Court of the United States in assuming jurisdiction in the case before mentioned, as an arbitrary act of power unauthorized by the Constitution and virtually superceding the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus, and prostrating the rights and liberties of the people, at the foot of unlimited power. "Resolved, That the principle and construc tion contended for, by the party which now rules in the counsels of the nation-that the General Government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism, since the discretion of those who administer the Government, and not the Constitution, would be the measure of their powers-that the several states which formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction, and that a POSITIVE DEFIANCE of those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts, done, or attempted to be done, under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy! "Approved March 19, 1859. (Signed,) "ALX. W. RANDALL, Governor." MR. HORN'S SUBSTITUTE VOTED DOWN. While these resolutions were pending, F. W. HORN, (Dem.) offered the following as a substitute, which was rejected by ayes 36, noes 49-a strict party vote. See p. 863 Assembly Journal, 1859. "Whereas, The Supreme Court of the United States has totally reversed the decision of the Supreme Court of this State in the case of the United States against Sherman M. Booth; and "Whereas, Every law abiding citizen, no matter what his private views and feelings may be, should acquiesce in the decisions of the highest tribunals known by the Constitution of the United States, to whom the interpretation of the sacred document is especially confided; and Whereas, It would lead to anarchy and a dissolution of the Union, (how prophetic) if the interpretation of that instrument should be usurped by the different State Courts, in opposition to the Supreme Court of the United States [this was the Democratic doctrine then, and not as the Journal asserted that our Supreme Court could make no original decision of the kind] where it has been placed by those who mutually pledged to each other their "lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor;" there fore Resolved, by the Assembly, the Senate concurring, That we will abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States declarby said Court to be constitutional, without regard to our own private views and feelings. p. 778, Assembly Journal, 1859. "Resolved. That this usurpation of jurisdic-ed tion by the Federal Judiciary, in the said case, and without process, is an act of undelegated power, and therefore, without authority, void and of no force. "Resolved, That the Government framed by the Constitution of the United States, was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself [but that Wisconsin was] but that, as in all other cases, of compact among parties, having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself as well of infractions, as of the mode and measure of redress. -See This shows the determination of the Republicans of Wisconsin to "positively defy" the whole power of the General Government, which they proceeded to execute, as we have seen, by sundry armed mobs, &c. SENATOR DOOLITTLE'S VIEWS. In a speech by Senator DOOLITTLE in the U. S. Senate February 24th, 1860, he said: "The great question, in the science of American government is, when the jurisdiction of the state and federal governments came in conflict, who is to decide? It will never do to say that the decisions of the federal court should be received as conclusive. When it usurps power its decisions must not be respected, and are binding upon nobody." Again: speaking of the writ of habeas corpus by state courts to persons arrested and held by virtue of U. S. process, he said: Hartford, on the 15th of December, 1815. It put forth a disunion report, accompanied by a series of resolutions; from the former we select the following, seasoned with this apropos spice from HENRY IV: "Treason is but trusted like the fox, Who, ne'er so tame, so cherish'd, and lock'd up. Will have a wild trick of his ancestors." "In cases of deliberate, dangerous and palpable 'infractions' of the Constitution, affecting the 'sovereignty' of a 'state' and the 'liberties' of the people, it is not only the right but the duty of each state to interpose its authority for their protection, in the manner best calculated to secure that end. When emergencies occur which are either beyond the reach of judicial tribunals, or too pressing to admit of the delay incident to their forms, states, which have no common umpire, must be their own judges, and execute their own decisions." JUST WHAT THE SOUTH IS FIGHTING FOR. "Add this doctrine of the Senator from Georgia, and there would be no constitutional limit upon his (a U. S. district judge's) power-whether constitutional or unconstitutional-whether with or without authority of the United States; whether within or outside of his constitutional jurisdiction, with or without cause, by his warrant alone he could arrest any citizen of Wisconsin, try him, sentence him, even to death, and there is no appeal. No habeas corpus could reach the prisoner, whether in the state prison or at the foot of the gallows! Where are we? In the Uni-ern ted States of America, or at St. Petersburg, under the power of an autocrat, whose will is law, or under the Constitution of the United States, which declares that no person shall be deprived of his liberty but by the process of law, which law must itself be subject always to the constitution of the United States?" Mr. DOOLITTLE don't talk thus now; then it was your ox," &c.-now a different rule is urged. By such arguments were the people of the state educated up to the standard of open resistance to the Federal power, and we have not the least doubt that had the Republicans failed in electing their candidate in 1860, they would, provided they had the same courage, have done precisely what South Carolina did in 1860and precisely what the Republicans of Green county pledged themselves to do in 1856. This chapter is a sad one-it galls our state pride to record it, but we should be false to truth and unjust to history, did we omit it. We trust that hereafter, the Republicans of Wisconsin will not have the face to claim all the loyalty and all the patrotism. May God forgive them for the wrongs they have done their country. Upon which POLLARD, author of the Southside of the Rebellion, remarks: "This is the doctrine which the South had always held from the beginning, and for which the South is now pouring out her blood and treasure!" SOUTH CAROLINA ENDORSES JUDGE SMITH'S It will be observed that the substance of the Hartford Convention report, and the Republican resolutions of 1859, quoted above, are identical, while many of the words employed are the same, as well as certain phrases, leaving no doubt that their authors must have selected garbled sentences from the treasonable report of the Hartford Convention, as a foundation for their resolutions of "positive defiance." The only real difference is that the Wisconsin resolutions go deeper into resistance and positive defiance than their Federal fathers. SOUTH CAROLINA QUOTES JUDGE SMITH. Mr. RHETT, of South Carolina, on the day that treasonable State seceded from the Union, thus endorsed the decision of Judge SMITH, as good enough doctrine for South Carolina to go out of the Union on: "Sir, the North threaten to fight us back into the Union, after we shall have taken our stand for Southern Independence. They now deny the right of a State to judge of its own grievances and to apply its own remedies, notwithstanding for years, many of the Northern States, Wisconsin in particular, have asserted this right for themselves. I want no better license for our action to-day than the decision of Judge SMITH in the Rescue cases of Wisconsin." CHAPTER XVI. REPUBLICANS TRUE TO OLD FEDERAL INSTINCTS. Classification of parties, principles and arguments, from 1798 to 1863... Thurlow Weed on Greeley... New York Tribune favors Secession...Greeley advocating Peace with Rebels... Mr. Lincoln Advocates the right of Secession...The Republican Congress vote down a Resolution against a Dictatorship...The Ayes and Noes on that Subject... The Constitution again the "Cause of all our Troubles"...Complete overthrow of the Public Liberties ...From the New York World...Republicans Raise a "Higher Standard than the Stars and Stripes"... Prefer "Their principles to Fifty Unions"... Who Discourage Enlistments... Reference to Aboltition Votes in Congress. DISLOYALTY AND REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT OF REPUBLICANS. [The crowd of other duties, and the necessary haste in which these extracts have been collected--involving the perusal of hundreds of books and newspapers-render it quite impossible to place them in chronological order, but by proper headings it is believed they will be convenient for reference.-COMPILER.] to read the pages of this book, shall not have it to say we slandered the leaders of the Republican or "Union" party, for we shall let them speak for themselves, as AGRIPPA permitted PAUL to plead his own case. If the well studied words and phrases of the leaders of the present party in power do not sustain our charge that they desire a dissolution of this Union, and have been using the slavery question as but a means to accomplish the end, then let the present and future readers sentence us to the ignominy due to a slanderer. THURLOW WEED'S TESTIMONY. THURLOW WEED, late editor of the Albany Journal, is good Republican authority. He denounces HORACE GREELEY, the principal leader of the Republican party, with whom the President condescends and delights to correspond with, as the "architect of ruin," and proceeds, "first, while SLIDELL, TOOMBS, MASON, DAVIS, etc.. etc., were maturing their schemes for rebellion, and the Gulf States, under their instructions, were seceding, Mr. GREELEY approved, justified, and invited them to go forward with their treasonable designs,” HERE IS THE EVIDENCE. * * * "If the cotton states shall become satisfied that they can do better out of the Union than The in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. right to secede may be a revolutionary one, but it exists nevertheless. We must ever resist the right of any state to remain in the Union and nullify or defy the laws thereof. To withdraw from the Union is quite another Whenever a considerable section of matter. our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep them in. We hope never to live in a Republic whereof one section is pinned to another by bayonets."-New York Tribune, Nov. We have already published enough to show that the leaders of the great party opposed to the Democracy desire the dissolution of the Government, by any means, and have been laboring to that end for seventy-five years.Under all the dodges and guises of a change of name-shifting of ostensible purposes and objects. they have steadily pursued their de-andstructive course-using the same class of arguments, and resorting to the same class of means to accomplish their purpose. The Federalists of 1812, though professing a different line of policy, used the same class of arguments, and hurled the same species of denunciation against the Government and the principles on which it was founded, as the Federals of 1798-always professing to be for the Constitution-yet insisting that Congress, the Executive and the courts had placed a wrong construction on its meaning. The Federal Republican of 1824 used the same class of arguments as the Federals of 1812. The Whig of 1833 was true to the reasoning of his Federal Republican progenitors of 1824, while the Republican or "Union" of the present era goes back to the Hartford Convention for the inspiration of his political history, and while this class of men (the leaders-we do not mean all) profess, as did their Federal progenitors, to revere the Constitution, they scout the idea of ever again enforcing it-laud those who wantonly violate it, and denounce as "traitors" and "copperheads" all who are sincerely devoted to it "as it is," or desire to maintain the "Union as it was." Future generations, that may chance 9, 1860. "If the cotton states unitedly and earnestly wish to withdraw peacefully from the Union, we think they should and would be allowed to do so. Any attempt to compel them by force to enunciated in the immortal Declaration of remain, would be contrary to the principles Independence--contrary to the fundamental ideas on which human liberty is based."-New York Tribune, Nov. 26, 1860. How easy it is for heretics to summon the Bible to their aid, or political disunion lunatics, to summon the "immortal Declaration" or the "fundamental ideas of humanity" as evidence that Dissolution is according to the true Union faith! Again: |