to have compulsory process for witnesses in my behalf, the assistance of counsel for my defence, and evidence and argument according to the common law and the ways of Judicial Courts.

And all these I here demand as my right as a citizen of the United States, and under the Constitution of the United States.

But the alleged "offence" is not known to the Constitution of the United States, nor to any law thereof. It is words spoken to the people of Ohio in an open and public political meeting, lawfully and peaceably assembled, under the Constitution and upon full notice. It is words of criticism of the public policy of the public servants of the people, by which policy it was alleged that the welfare of the country was not promoted. It was an appeal to the people to change that policy, not by force, but by free elections and the ballot-box. It is not pretended that I counselled disobedience to the Constitution, or resistance to laws and lawful authority. I never have.

Beyond this protest, I have nothing further to submit.

ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF OHIO UPON HIS GOING INTO EXILE.*

MILITARY PRISON, CINCINNATI, OHIO, May 22, 1863.

BANISHED from my native State for no crime save Democratic opinions and free speech to you in their defence, and about to go into exile, not of my own will, but by the compulsion of an arbitrary and tyrannic power which I cannot resist, allow me a parting word. Because despotism and superior force so will it, I go within the Confederate lines. I well understand the purpose of this order. But in vain the malice of enemies shall thus contrive to give color to the calumnies and misrepresentations of the past two years. They little comprehend the true character of the man with whom they have to deal. No order of banishment, executed by superior force, can release me from my obligations or deprive me of my rights as a citizen of Ohio and of the United States. My allegiance to my own State and Government I shall recognize, wheresoever I may be, as binding in all things, just the same as though I remained upon their soil. Every sentiment

* Upon arriving at the lines, on the 25th of May, Mr. VALLANDIGHAM said to the Confederate soldiers sent to meet him, the Federal officers also being present: "I am a citizen of Ohio, and of the United States, still claiming and owing allegiance to both. I am within your lines against my will and by military compulsion, and therefore surrender myself a prisoner of war."

and expression of attachment to the Union and devotion to the Constitution to my country-which I have ever cherished or uttered, shall abide unchanged and unretracted till my return. Meantime, I will not doubt that the people of Ohio, cowering not a moment before either the threats or the exercise of arbitrary power, will, in every trial, prove themselves worthy to be called freemen.

ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF OHIO, UPON ARRIVING IN CANADA.

CLIFTON HOUSE, NIAGARA FALLS, CANADA WEST,

ARRESTED and confined for three weeks in the United States, a prisoner of State; banished thence to the Confederate States, and there held as an alien enemy and prisoner of war, though on parole, fairly and honorably dealt with and given leave to depart, an act possible only by running the blockade at the hazard of being fired on by ships flying the flag of my own country, I found myself a freeman when upon British soil. And to-day under the protection of the British flag, I am here to enjoy and in part to exercise the privileges and rights which usurpers insolently deny me at home. The shallow contrivance of the weak despots at Washington, and their advisers, has been defeated. Nay, it has been turned against them; and I, who for two years was maligned as in secret league with the Confederates, having refused, when in their midst, under circumstances the most favorable, either to identify myself with their cause, or even so much as to remain, preferring rather exile in a foreign land, return now with allegiance to my own State and government, unbroken in word, thought, or deed, and with every declaration and pledge to you while at home, and before I was stolen away, made good in spirit and to the very letter.

Six weeks ago, when just going into banishment because an audacious but most cowardly despotism caused it, I addressed you as a fellow-citizen. To-day and from the very place then selected by me, but after wearisome and most perilous journeyings for more than four thousand miles by land and upon the sea, still in exile, though almost in sight of my native State, I greet you as your Representative. Grateful certainly I am, for the confidence in my integrity and patriotism, implied by the unanimous nomination as candidate for Governor of Ohio, which you gave me while I was yet in the Confederate States.

It was not misplaced; it shall never be abused. But this is the least of all considerations in times like these. I ask no personal sympathy for the personal wrong. No, it is the cause of constitutional liberty. and private right cruelly outraged beyond example in a free country, by the President and his servants, which gives public significancy to the action of your Convention. Yours was, indeed, an act of justice to a citizen, who, for his devotion to the rights of the States and the liberties of the people, had been marked for destruction by the hand of arbitrary power. But it was much more. It was an example of courage worthy of the heroic ages of the world; and it was a spectacle and a rebuke to the usurping tyrants, who, having broken up the Union, would now strike down the Constitution, subvert your present Government and establish a formal and proclaimed despotism in its stead. You are the RESTORERS AND DEFENDERS OF CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY, and by that proud title history will salute you.

I congratulate you upon your nominations. They whom you have placed upon the ticket with me, are gentlemen of character, ability, integrity, and tried fidelity to the Constitution, the Union, and to Liberty. Their moral and political courage-a quality always rare, and now the most valuable of public virtues-is beyond question. Every way, all these were nominations eminently fit to be made. And even jealousy, I am sure, will now be hushed, if I especially rejoice with you in the nomination of Mr. Pugh as your candidate for LieutenantGovernor and President of the Senate. A scholar and a gentleman, a soldier in a foreign war, and always a patriot; eminent as a lawyer, and distinguished as an orator and statesman, I hail his acceptance as an omen of the return of the better and more virtuous days of the Republic.

I indorse your noble platform; elegant in style-admirable in sentiment. You present the true issue and commit yourselves to the great mission just now of the Democratic party-to restore and make sure FIRST the rights and liberties declared yours by your constitutions. It is in vain to invite the States and people of the South to return to a Union without a Constitution, and dishonored and polluted by repeated and most aggravated exertions of tyrannic power. It is base in yourselves, and treasonable to your posterity, to surrender these liberties and rights to the creatures whom your own breath created and can destroy. Shall there be free speech, a free press, peaceable assemblages of the people, and a free ballot in Ohio? Shall the people hereafter, as hitherto, have the right to discuss and condemn the principles and policy of the party-the ministry-the men who, for the time, conduct the Government-to demand of their public servants a reckoning of their stewardship, and to place other men and another party in

power at their supreme will and pleasure? Shall Order Thirty-Eight or the Constitution be the supreme law of the land? And shall the citizen any more, be arrested by an armed soldiery at midnight, dragged from wife and child and home, to a military prison; thence to a mock military trial; there condemned and then banished as a felon, for the exercise of his rights? That is the issue, and nobly you have met it. It is the very question of free, popular government itself. It is the whole question: upon the one side, liberty; on the other, despotism. The President as the recognized head of his party, accepts the issue. Whatever he wills, that is law. Constitutions, State and Federal, are nothing; acts of legislation nothing; the judiciary less than nothing. In time of war, there is but one will supreme-his will; but one lawmilitary necessity, and he the sole judge. Military orders supersede the Constitution, and military commissions usurp the place of the ordinary courts of justice in the land. Nor are these mere idle claims. For two years and more, by arms, they have been enforced. It was the mission of the weak but presumptuous Burnside—a name infamous forever in the ears of all lovers of constitutional liberty-to try the experiment in Ohio-aided by a judge whom I name not, because he has brought foul dishonor upon the judiciary of my country. In your hands now, men of Ohio, is the final issue of the experiment. The party of the Administration have accepted it. By pledging support to the President, they have justified his outrages upon liberty and the Constitution; and whoever gives his vote to the candidates of that party, commits himself to every act of violence and wrong on the part of the Administration which he upholds; and thus, by the law of retaliation, which is the law of might, would forfeit his own right to liberty, personal and political, whensoever other men and another party shall hold the power. Much more do the candidates themselves. Suffer them not, I entreat you, to evade the issue; and by the judgment of the people we will abide.

And now, finally, let me ask, what is the pretext for all the monstrous acts and claims of arbitrary power which you have so boldly and nobly denounced? "Military necessity." But if, indeed, all these be demanded by military necessity, then, believe me, your liberties are gone, and tyranny is perpetual. For if this civil war is to terminate only by the subjugation or submission of the South to force and arms, the infant to-day will not live to see the end of it. No, in another way only can it be brought to a close. Travelling a thousand miles and more, through nearly one-half of the Confederate States, and sojourning for a time at widely different points, I'met not one, man, woman, or child, who was not resolved to perish rather than yield to the pressure of arms even in the most desperate extremity. And whatever may

and must be the varying fortune of the war, in all which I recognize the hand of Providence pointing visibly to the ultimate issue of this great trial of the States and people of America, they are better prepared now every way, to make good their inexorable purpose, than at any period since the beginning of the struggle. These may indeed be unwelcome truths; but they are addressed only to candid and honest men. Neither, however, let me add, did I meet any one, whatever his opinions or his station, political or private, who did not declare his readiness, when the war shall have ceased and invading armies been withdrawn, to consider and discuss the question of reunion. And who shall doubt the issue of the argument? I return, therefore, with my opinions and convictions as to war or peace, and my faith as to final results from sound policy and wise statesmanship, not only unchanged, but confirmed and strengthened. And may the God of Heaven and Earth so rule the hearts and minds of Americans everywhere, that with a Constitution maintained, a Union restored, and Liberty henceforth made secure, a grander and nobler destiny shall yet be ours, than that even which blessed our fathers in the first two ages of the Republic.

LETTER TO THE DEMOCRATIC MEETING AT TOLEDO.

TABLE ROCK HOUSE,

NIAGARA FALLS, C. W., July 31, 1863.

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Messrs. THOMAS DUNLAP, H. P. PLATT, JOHN T. MAHER, JOHN G. ISHAM, J. C. WALES, and others, Committee, etc.

GENTLEMEN: Unable to attend your meeting, of the 5th of August, in person, permit me to address you by letter briefly.

I waste no part of your time in personal defence. To the candidates, speakers, and writers of the Administration party, I leave, undisturbed, the brave and chivalrous work of assailing an opponent, absent because the tyrannic power of their master, executed by military force, compels it. The great issue of the day ought not to be subordinated to things merely personal; and I recommend to my friends generally that they imitate the wise Romans, and "carry the war into Africa."

The Democracy of Lucas, postponing all other issues, and ignoring all differences of opinion in regard to them, assemble, of course, to consider what General Fremont, the candidate of the "free speech and free press" Republican party, of 1856, very aptly styles "the uppermost question of the day"-the question of their own constitutional rights