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Thus did the head officers of a great and magnanimous nation, professing the Christian faith, and boasting of intelligence, league with the miniature politicians to hunt down all who should wear any device to distinguish them from their vile persecutors.

We may search every lane and alley of history for a parallel of this small greatness.

THE EVIDENCES OF APPROACHING DESPOTISM.

comes necessary for the people to dissolve the official bands that have bound them to an unjust, unwise and tyranical Administration, and to assume to change that Administration, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all citizens of the loyal states, are, by the fundamental law, free and equal, and endowed by their Creator and the Magna Charta with cer

When COLUMBUS was on his first voyage to America, his faith in the existence of land to the west of him was confirmed by various float-tain inalienable rights, that among these are ing weeds, logs, &c., and the appearance of birds, for he knew those things could not exclusively exist without land. So, in our voyage towards the unknown coast of the future, we know that despotism of some kind lies in our way, for we have seen so many floating evidences of it. As one of those evidences, we cite the following from the New York Tribune: "In times of war every blow struck at the measures of the Government [the Administration] though designed only to affect a change of Administration, really affords aid and comfort to the enemy."

These extravagant claims of unlimited acquiescence in everything the Administration may do or propose, are sure and certain evidences of approaching despotism, for the claim would not be set up, unless it was thought proper to enforce it. If it be true that any opposition to the measures of the Administration is “aid and comfort to the enemy," then it is treason as defined by the Constitution, and no matter what the President may do or propose, the least opposition is treason. Such a doctrine would land us in the lowest depths of despotism.

Again says the Tribune:

"To doubt the infallibilty of the royal or ministerial good judgment [of the President] is to doubt the greatness and glory of the country, and the smallest dissatisfaction be comes a kind of petty treason.??

We must be near the rocks and breakers of despotism, when we meet such arguments, floating on the tide of popular madness.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE REVISED.

The following was prepared by the author for a 4th of July occasion, and is here inserted as the most proper way to present the indictment against the radical policy:

the liberty of speech, liberty of the press, and the liberty to properly criticise the acts of all public officers. That to secure these rights,our Government was instituted, deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed, and whenever the administration of this government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right and the duty of the people to change such Administration, basing their policy on such principles and organizing power in such form, under the fundamental law, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that an honorable Administration in times of great public danger, should not be changed for slight and transient causes, and accordingly our experience hath shown that our people are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by any other than constitutional means. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations,pursuing invariably the same objects, evince the design to reduce the people under absolute despotism, it is their right—it is their duty-to throw off such Administration, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient suffering of this people, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to change the administration.

The history of the present Executive is a history of repeated wrongs, injuries and usurpations, all having a direct tendency to the establishment of an absolute tyranny and despotism over these states; to prove which, let

facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by requiring his subordinates-creatures of his own will-to resist, vi et armis, the legal mandates of the loyal judiciary.

He has arbitrarily usurped power to subject the liberties of our citizens, who acknowledge

When, in the course of political events, it be- full allegiance to our laws, to the whim or ca

price of military tribunals, wholly the offspring of his own choice.

He has forcibly arrested and held in durance vile, judges on the bench, while in the exercise of their loyal and legal functions. [See the case of Judge CONSTABLE.]

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unknown to our laws, by instructing subalterns, subject to his own pleasure, to create by proclamation a criminal code, in direct antagonism to our laws.

He has created a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers, to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power, in direct violation of the fundamental law.

He has, in innumerable instances, deprived our citizens of the benefit of trial by jury.

He has, arbitrarily, and without excuse suspended that great charter of civil liberty, the Writ of Habeas Corpus, in violation of the Constitution, as solemnly declared by the Supreme Court.

He has endeavored to extinguish state sovereignty, by giving his assent to law obliterating state lines, without the assent of the people, thus striking down the last constitutional safeguard of a free people.

He has practically annulled laws enacted over his own signature, providing against arbitrary arrests and illegal seizures.

He has, for many months, pursued a line of policy which, if not arrested, will alter, fundamentally our form of Government.

He has appointed men to fill the highest offices of trust, responsibility and honor, notoriously incompetent and corrupt, as a remuner. ation for political services.

He has been, and now is, quartering among the loyal people of the North, large bodies of armed soldiery, without apparent necessity, but as it is believed, to sow the seeds of alarm among the people, to inaugurate a conflict, and to create a pretended necessity for a declaration of martil law, for purposes more safely imagined than described.

He has encouraged unprovoked assaults on defenelessc citizens by soldiers, incited by officers amenable alone to his power, by neglecting or refusing to issue his proclamation against such abuses, and failing to bring the offenders to justice.

He has invaded the sanctity of private dom-· icils at the dead and criminal hour of nightdragged forth their occupants, guilty of nocrime, as he himself publicly affirms-and then after a mock trial, before a picked military commission, that dare not offend their su-periors, transported the victim beyond his civil jurisdiction.

He has endeavored to suppress the liberty of speech, and only failed to suppress the liberty of the press through fear of the dreadful consequences.

He has forced citizens into extradition be-yond the limits of their own states, and without the pale of laws to which they owed fealty, without charges or legal trial, to be imprisoned in loathsome dungeons, for pretended of fences.

He and his radical advisers have endeavored to mould the popular branch of Congress to their own partizan purposes by a no less dishonorable scheme than a "rotten borough" system, so long the standing reproach to the British crown. This has been done by admitting members chosen by small fractions of the people in the seceded states, under military coercion, after first extorting pledges to give their votes for measures the most radical and destructive.

He and his political confrers have rendered the elective franchise a mockery and the ballotbox a fraud, by counting a pretended army vote, given hundreds of miles beyond their state jurisdictions, managed, controlled and returned hy partizan zealots, without legal restraint and beyond the reach of sanitary lawsto set aside the known will of the people.

He has sought to render the military-the joint sacrifice and pride of all parties-a political engine, by discharging from the service. of their country, and affecting to dishonor and disgrace good and valiant officers, for no other offense than exercising the elective franchise as they deemed proper for the public weal.

He has subjected loyal citizens to harsh and unusual punishment for no other offensethan opinion's sake.

He boldly claims the right to exercise summary authority over the personal liberty of every citizen, in defiance of courts and law; thus assuming an autocratic power that no prince or potentate on any other continent, would dare exercise, to render the tenure of personal freedom alone dependant on his will.

He has also, through a subordinate officer, declared martial law on the eve of an important State election, with no other ostensible object than to control the will of the people by the force of bayonets.

He has sought to intimidate the people in the lawful exercise of their political rights, and to prevent their counselling together, by masssing large bodies of armed troops in line of battle, to overawe a reaceful convention of loyal citizens, convened under the broad ægis of the constitution, to deliberate on matters of great public concern, and to petition for redress of grievances.

He has, in one of these loyal states, dispersed by armed force, a political convention called in the usual and time-honored way, to nominate officers of state, thus wickedly and unlawfully employing the military for partizan purposes.

He has also, by orders and edicts of his subordinates, annulled State laws, and prescribed new and unusual tests for exercising the elective franchise, thus rendering the tenure of office dependent on his pleasure.

He has, by proclamation, established a rotten Borough system by which less than 70,000 persons in nine of the rebel states-and for aught that is known, a large portion of these may be enfranchised negroes,--may control over onehalf the entire population of all the states, and that 1,400 persons in Florida may have as much power in one branch of our government as the great state of New York, with three millions of people.

He has done numerous and sundry other unlawful and despotic things, against the peace, the dignity, and the quietude of this sorely oppressed people.

In every stage of these oppressions and usurpations, the people have remonstrated in the most humble terms. Their remonstrances have been answered only by repeated wrongs and injuries.

An administration that is thus marked by every act that may define tyrants, is unfit to manage the affairs of a free people, and should be changed, in a peaceful and lawful manner, as soon as our charter will permit.

Nor have the people-the whole peoplebeen wanting in duty to the Administration and the country. During every stage of oppress. ion and insult, they have poured out their blood and their substance, free as the air of heaven;

and notwithstanding nearly three years of war's fiery ordeal, that our adversary hovers as near our hearth-stones as ever before, the people are yet willing to bleed and be taxed, in the hope that the God of Battles will, ere it be too late, ordain a change of rulers, when a more enlightened policy shall infuse confidence and vigor into the war for the maintenance of the most liberal system of government on this planet.

And for this purpose, and to break up the most wicked rebellion that ever reared its hydra head against a parent government, we pledge each to the other, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

MORE OF THE ROLE OF DESPOTISM. Abolition Schemes to Control Elections...Army Voting... Julius Cæsar the Originator of...Dr. Lieber on...Louis Napoleon and Army Voting...Army Vote for... General Tuttle and Vallandigham...Mr. V. Ahead...N. Y. World thereon...Tricks of the Administration to Saddle their Electioneering Expenses on the People...Governor Salomon of Wisconsin in the role...The Army Weakened ...Soldiers sent home to Vote...Proofs in Connecticut... Proofs in New York, &c...Stanton Boasts of sending more Soldiers than Curtin's majority... The Contractors perform their part...Martial Law in Kentucky to force the Election... How a "loyal" Paper Views it...From Louis ville Journal...Statements of Clerk of the Election... How a Congressman was elected by an "overwhelming majority"... Further evidences...The Administration carries Maryland by the Bayonet...Gov. Bradford's Proclamation on the Subject...The Great Frauds Practiced on New York by the Enrollment and Quota process..... New York Overdrawn as compared with other States... Frauds in the Pennsylvania and Ohio Elections... Punishing officers for Voting the Democratic Ticket... Case of Capt. Sells...Officers' Threats to control Elections ...Bribery at Elections... War on the "Copperheads", Republican Organ Justifies Military Interference in Elections...The Politics of this War...Discharging disabled and dying Soldiers from Office of Sutler for Voting the Democratic Ticket... Abolition claim of "Those who Vote must Fight"... Abolition Roorbacks to Effect Elections...The Union League Machinery...Forney on Their Purposes...Dr. Lieber on Soldiers Voting...Gen. Milroy on "Home Traitors"...John Brough's Appeal from the Ballot to the Bullet... More Threats... New York Independent Boasts of the Infamy, &c.

ABOLITION

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DESPOTISM AND SCHEMES ΤΟ
CONTROL ELECTIONS.

The facts and documents now before us bearing on this point, would surfeit the largest folio volume. Our already over-crowded space admonishes us to shear down this matter to its lowest dimensions-barely giving here and there samples of the general whole, without particular reference to chronological dates.

That the Administration while crying "no party," has constantly sought to use the Army and every available means-legitimate and illegitimate-within its power, to perpetuate its

reign, no man, not absolutely blinded by partizan zeal, can deny.

ARMY VOTING.

Our

When LOUIS NAPOLEON had got his "snare to strangie a nation in a night time fairly set, and had got his army well distributed throughout France, at every poll, it was an easy matter to accomplish the balance of the programme. He then submitted the question to the people-soldiers and all-whether they approved of his breaking his oath, and of the despotism which he proffered in exchange for their Republican Constitution. The vote stood

as follows:

Army voting is not a recent invention. New York World cotemporary gives LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE the credit of having discovered the art of Army voting, but we trace the discovery to a more remote date. PLUTRARCH, in his life of MARCUS CRASSUS, gives a striking illustration of the truth that history repeats itself in all ages, and in no The Adtimes more fully than in civil wars. ministration, in its recent interference in the elections, has but followed, not only LOUIS NAPOLEON, but the tricks and intrigues of JULIUS CÆSAR. In speaking of the intrigues and dissensions that marked the Republic of Rome at the time of the Triumvirate of POM-pear as though the people had voted "freely." PEY, CESAR and CRASSUS, PLUTARCH says:

"On Cæsar's coming from Gaul to the city of Lucca, numbers went to wait upon him, and among the rest Crassus and Pompey. These, in their private conferences, agreed with him to carry matters with a higher hand_and_to make themselves absolute in Rome. For this purpose Cæsar was to remain at the head of his army, and the other two chiefs to divide the rest of the army between them. There was no way, however, to carry their scheme into execution, without suing for another consulship, in which Cæsar was to assist by writing to his friends, and by sending a number of

his soldiers to vote in the election."

LOUIS NAPOLEON, following in the lead of CESAR, set up what he called "universal suffrage," but which Mr. KINGLAKE called a "snare" to "strangle a nation in a night time with a plebiscite." Dr. LIEBER, (whom Mr. LINCOLN has chosen as the author of his army code) commenting on the fraud of which LOUIS NAPOLEON "strangled a nation in a night time," submits the following forcible conclu

sions:

"Votes without liberty of the press have no meaning; votes without liberty of press and with a vast standing army itself possessing the right to vote, and considering itself above all law, have a sinister meaning; votes without an unshackled press, with such an army, and with a compact body of officials, whose number with those directly depending upon them or upon Government contracts, amounts to nearly a million, have no meaning whether he who appeals to the people says that he leaves 'the fate of France in the hands of the people' or not."

Substitute the fate of America for the words "the fate of France," and the picture suits our mould to a T.

The number voting Yes...
The number voting No........
Annulled votes.....

The number not voting.

7,438,216

630,737

36,820

393,590

No doubt these returns were manipulated by faithful officials, but it was an object to show a few votes in the negative, so as to make it ap

And when, soon thereafter NAPOLEON again
set the snare which he called "universal suf-
frage," in submitting the question whether he
should assume the royal purple, the published
returns stood as follows:
Voting Yes....
Voting No.......
Votes declared void..

7,824,189, 258,115 63,326

Dr. LIEBER, Mr. LINCOLN's martial law giver, from whom the above figures are taken,

remarks with commendable sarcasm:

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"This is a state of harmony to which people of the Arylican tribe, with all their calmer temper, we venture to say, have never yet attained,"

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and yet we have cases of still greater 'harmony" in our army voting.

GEN. TUTTLE AND VALLANDIGHAM IN THE

"ARMY.

We select these two persons as the extremes, and give sufficient of the army vote for each to indicate the fact, that no matter how “loyal” and patriotic a candidate might be, if he did not vote with the Administration partizans, he stood no more chance than the worst "copperhead." Gen. TUTTLE, the Democratic candidate for Governor of Iowa, stood upon a platform that was the neplus ultra of war and loy-. alty. It was as strong "war to the knife," and support of the Administration in the conduct of the war, as any Republican ever could ask. No one doubted Gen. T.'s patriotism, for he had "won his spurs" in the field, at the head of the brave Iowa boys, with whom the Gener-al was a popular favorite, while Col. STONE, his opponent, was under a cloud, and was

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neither popular at home or in the army. Such | home, will tolerate no free suffrage in the army

was the standing and character of Gen. TUTTLE. Now, let us take a view of Mr. VALLANDIGHAM's position, as candidate for Governor of Ohio. He was denounced as the "prince of copperheads”—had been seized and banished by the Administration, as one too disloyal to be among loyal people, and every epithet that hate or ingenuity could invent, was heaped upon him. Officers were dismissed the service for speaking in his favor-soldiers were punished in the guard house for voting for him-and yet, after all these disparaging circumstances, he polled more votes, as will be seen below, in proportion to the number cast, than did Gen. TUTTLE, not only in the army, but also on the home vote:

OHIO AND IOWA VOTE.

The following are specimens of each:

Vallandigham, Dem.

25

18

70

Gen. Tuttle, Dem.

30

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4

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..189

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7

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41

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29

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4

Soldiers in Martinsburg.. 650

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10

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6

13

13

much less the free discussion and untrammeled political action without which voting is a fraudulent mockery. An administration that commissions major-generals, and then, instead of assigning them commands, uses them to carry elections in states of which they are not residents, will have no scruples in using the officers and sutlers of the army for similar purposes. Within the lines of the army, where no intelligence circulates but by its permission, where speaking disrespectfully of Government officials is a penal offense, where its control over the pay and comfort of the soldier is complete, and its power of life and death over them is nearly absolute, voting ought, under no circumstances to be allowed, unless accompanied by safeguards against its abuse.

"How easy it is for the administration to control votes in the army without exercising much seeming constraint is proved by the voting of Wisconsin soldiers, when the administration had no strong motive to exert its influnce.

THE TRICKS AND FRAUDS OF THE ADMINIS-
TRATION TO SADDLE THEIR ELECTIONEER-
ING EXPENSES ON THE PEOPLE.

The following appeared under the telegraphic head of

"CAIRO, ILL, Oct. 27, '63. "A short time before the recent elections a superannuated individual made his appearance at headquarters with a letter from Gov. Saloman, of Wisconsin, saying that he was travel387 ing on the business of the Sanitary Commission, and asking for such assistance as the military could afford him in the prosecution of his philanthropic purposes. While the officers were debating among themselves, the propriety of giving him transportation at the expense of 12 the government, they asked him some questions 9 whereupon he acknowledged that he was provided with election tickets for the soldiers of the different states, and on his way to distribute them, as had been arranged previously by parties at home. No doubt other agents of the re2 publican party, traveling under the guise of 2 Sanitary Commission agents and in other ways have been sent, at the people's expense, among the soldiers to distribute black republican Jickets and documents.”

88

10

42

..107

434

Thus, it will be seen, that Mr. V. has 88 more votes than his proportion, on the number above given.

The New York World thus pertinently refers to this subject.

This speaks for itself, and needs no comment. It is but a sample.

THE ARMY WEAKENED-SOLDIERS SENT HOME
TO VOTE.

We present below a few specimens of that "That the present administration would not political game which has cost the nation much scruple to interfere with the suffrage of the of its best blood, and vast treasures, by weaksoldiers and use it as an instrument for perpet-ening our armies at a most critical juncture uating its power, is proved by its unwarantable interference with the right of suffrage in the states. An administration that cashiered Lieutenant Edgerly, of New Hampshire, for distributing Democratic ballots at his own

and sending them home to vote the Republican ticket.

The following appeared among the news items of New York, of October 26, 1863:

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