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and objects they had in view in the formation of the government, and those purposes and objects were “to establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty” to themselves and their posterity.
The Government has been so administered and directed as to defeat all these purposes and objects.
Justice has. not been established, nor is it respected by President Lincoln and his Cabinet.
Domestic tranquillity has not been insured, but domestic disturbance has been inaugurated and encouraged.
The common defence has not been provided for, but Northern arms have been levelled at Southern breasts, and the welfare of our people has been totally disregarded.
The blessings of liberty have not been secured to us, but we have found the Federal authorities exerting all their power and using all the means at their command to reduce the Southern people to abject submission to Northern numbers.
President Lincoln and his Cabinet have wilfully and deliberately proposed to violate every provision of the third section of the fourth article of the Constitution, which each one of them solemnly swore or affirmed, in the presence of Almighty God, to “preserve, protect, and defend.”
That section is in these words:
New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any State formed by the junction of two or more States or parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.They have deliberately proposed to annex certain counties in Maryland to Virginia, and thus form the new State of Kanawha, within the jurisdiction of Virginia, without the consent of the Legislatures of those States and of Congress. They have proposed to take the four counties lying in the Pan Handle from Virginia and attach them to Pennsylvania, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States interested and of Congress. They have proposed to join the eastern counties of Virginia to Maryland, and thus make a new State by the junction of parts of two States, without the consent of the Legislatures of those States and of Congress. These propositions present a most plain and glaring violation of the Constitution, and evidence an intensity of malignity toward Virginia and Virginians without a parallel in the history of the United States. The first amendment to the Constitution, declares “that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” President Lincoln, and his Cabinet, have wilfully disregarded the spirit of this article. Numerous instances could be cited to prove that the solemnities of an oath have not restrained them in their efforts to abridge “the freedom of speech,” and to muzzle “the press.” The numberless arrests made by them in Western and Eastern Virginia, in Kentucky, in Missouri, in Maryland, in Washington City, and also in the free States, when nothing more was charged against the parties arrested, than the declaration of their opinion, in condemnation of the policy of President Lincoln and his Cabinet, show that freedom of speech is not tolerated by them. The notorious fact that papers have been suppressed in New-York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, by the exercise of Executive power, fully attests a scandalous usurpation for the destruction of the independence of the press. The President, and his Cabinet, and the military officers under their direction and control, have violated the fourth article of the amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees “the rights of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” and declares that it “shall not be violated.” This. article has been habitually disregarded, and every observant man will call to mind numerous instances of the violation — the results of suspicion merely. He, and his Cabinet, have violated, as deliberately and wilfully, the fifth article of the amendments to the Constitution, which is in these words:
No person shall be held to answer 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 in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself; nor be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.Without a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, they have, on mere suspicion of crime, caused men and women to be arrested, and confined under strong guards, and have detained them for weeks and months. They have prostituted the telegraph to their uses, for the purpose of communicating orders for the arrest of suspected persons, repudiating all those safeguards which the law has wisely thrown around the citizen for his protection. Desolation has followed in the footsteps of the Federal army. Neither life, liberty, nor property, has been respected by them. They have murdered many of the best citizens of the country, they have incarcerated others in jails and forts, and they have seized and appropriated private property to public use without just compensation to the owner. He, and his Cabinet, have disregarded the injunctions of the sixth article of the amendments to the Constitution, not less flagrantly than those to which I have referred. That article declares:
In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses
