PROFESSIONS OF EQUAL RIGHTS TO THE NE- in the time of war to do WHAT HE DEEMS | tion, and thus prevent all enquiry. This was FIT AND PROPER. He alluded to the re- carried by a strict party vote, 85 to 46. voking order. Probably the President thinks the time has not yet come when Chicago shall be put under martial law. But if any newspaper opposes the enforcing of the conscription law, or any other order the President thinks proper to give, that paper will be suppressed, and if need be, martial law proclaimed. We desire, if possible, to have the loyal people of the North united as one man, and we must have it practically so, or it is of no avail. He regretted that there were still two political parties [suppression is a good way to get rid of one]-there should be but one, and that one united with a determination to put down the rebellion, but as it is, the President must control all men of all parties, and those that oppose the administration must suffer the consequences. If the time comes. and it becomes necessary, Mr. LINCOLN will declare martial law, even in Chicago." Now, let the reader judge of Political DooLITTLE'S "heresy," by Senator DOOLITTLE'S declaration, above, as to martial law being "fatal to free government." We confess we are naturally too nervous to comment further upon such whiffling inconsistencies. They are degrading to the high character of an American Senator. PRESIDENT LINCOLN VS. POLITICIAN LINCOLN. Look on this Picture. "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.-President Lincoln in his Inaugural. Then on This. "I order and declare that all persons held as slaves in the said designated states and parts of states, are, and hereafter shall be free.Politician Lincoln in the Emancipation Proclamation. Several years ago the Republicans of Wisconsin passed a law, in pursuance to the Constitution, submitting the question to the people whether the negroes should vote, and notwithstanding the professions of that party to be in favor of the move, and their having 12,000 majority, the negro was voted down by 27,000 majority. In Illinois the disparity between profession and practice is vastly greater. In 1862 that State voted on a new constitution, two clauses of which related to the negro-one to exclude him from all privileges in the State, to prohibit him from being on Illinois soil. Below is the vote in several intensely negroized counties: Just before the election in Wisconsin, No vember, 1863, the Sentinel, a Jacobin journal printed in Milwaukee, declared that “he who votes must fight." Fortunately an opportunity occurred to test the sincerity of this vociferously patriotic or gan. One of its editors was drafted, and in the next issue of the paper appeared the follow The Republicans have always professed to be for law and order, and Mr. LINCOLN in his VALLANDIGHAM and Springfield correspond-ing: ence, scouted the idea that he intended to violate law and the Constitution. This was the profession. What of the practice. In defiance of law a military Governor was appointed for the District of Columbia, which by the very terms of the Constitution, was to be forever under the exclusive control of Congress. Mr. WICKLIFFE (Dem.) introduced a resolution in Congress to enquire under what law said Governor was appointed. "While Mr. L., (the editor) would make a tip-top soldier, he is too valuable to be spared for that occupation just now." Mr. This is a specimen of a large class. TILDEN, of the N. Y. Independent, who had been vociferously abusing the "Copperheads" for not going to the war, was among those who drew a "prize" from the wheel of fortune, but instead of following his own precepts, he proved the value of his patriotism to be just $300, under the pressure of a dire "neces Mr. Oris (Rep.) moved to table the resolu- sity." REVELATIONS OF COTTON SPECULATION TRADING NEGROES FOR COTTON. That was our duty. We had nothing to do with the negroes at all. "Q. On what date was this? "A. It was about the 24th of September. "Q. Was any military officer on board the boat besides the officers of your company? "A. I think not, There was a man on board, but I don't aid to Col. Hovey. His name is Washburne. think he was a commissioned officer. He was acting as "Q. How many negroes acting as deck hands were there on board the boat when you went aboard with your com "A. Fifteen. For years the Abolition politicians have been rocking the cradle of liberty, and singing the lullaby of freedom, and the idea of buying and selling "human flesh" as "chattels" was most terribly shocking to them. The follow-pany? ing, from a publication during the summer of 1863, will speak for itself. The matter was hushed up, because Gen. CURTIS was a political General, but "when this cruel war is over" many facts blacker than the following will appear in the great record book of recorded facts: "A commission is now in session at the west with Maj. Gen. McDowell at its head, investigating the conduct of Maj. Gen. Curtis and other Republican officials, in conducting their military operations so as to secure the largest amount of cotton possible for their own private benefit. One of the richest revelations made is in reference to the trading off of negroes for cotton! The specification alleges that negro slaves had been taken from the plantations upon the pretense of giving them freedom under the President's emancipation edict," and thus used as a substitute for coin. It has been fully proven before the investigating court. The officer charged with this lucrative speculation was Col. Hovey of Illinois, formerly the principal of the State Normal School at Bloomington. The following is the testimony upon the subject. "Brice Suffield being called and sworn, testified as follows: "Q. State whether you ever made an expedition for cotton on the steamer Iotan, in September, 1862, and if so, state what occurred at that time? "A. I did. Our company, commanded by Capt. Twining, was ordered out from a camp near Helena, to go down on the steamer latan. The captain of the boat told us the intention was to take us down to get some wood for fuel. We landed on the Mississippi side of the river, opposite the cut-off-White river. There was aboard the boat one Brown, an overseer of Col. McGee's plantation; he was on the boat when we went aboard. After the boat was tied up, Brown went ashore; this was after dark. Some of our company, supposing him to be a rebel soldier. asked him where he got his clothes. He told them he got them in the Mexican war. He went to the captain of the Loat and told him it was all right-that the cotton would be in, in the course of a few hours. In due time Crown returned, bringing with him twenty-six bales of cotton. After the cotton was delivered, the boatmen, by order of the captain, put on shore fifteen nogroes that had been used as boat hands. "After getting them on shore, they tied them,'after considerable struggling on the part of the negroes. In the tying operation one of the negroes escaped. After they were tied, Brown took them away. I was on picket post, and Brown, with the negroes, stopped at the post and bid me good evening, and then went on, Some time after taking the negroes away, Brown came back and went aboard the boat and stayed till daylight. A member of my company (don't recollect his name) told me he saw Capt. Weaver pay Brown some money-we supposed for the cotton. in the transaction of putting off the negroes? "A. Merely acting under orders. They put us out on shore to guard against surprise. We guarded the boat. "Q. After these fifteen negroes were put ashore, did any other negroes come back with you as deck hands iu the service of the boat? "A. No sir. These negroes were taken on an expedition to the same place some weeks before from the same plantation. "Q. Under whose charge was that expedition? "A. Col. Hovey. It would crowd the dimensions of our volthis chapter to the ume to unreasonable proportions to continue full; we must therefore close it, to make room for more important matter. CHAPTER XXXIII. HAVE WE A MILITARY DESPOTISM? General Remarks... Educating the Army to the New Role ...Adjutant General Thomas Preaching Politics to the Soldiers... Punishes Soldiers for Political Opinions... How the Soldiers View it... Anti-Copperhead Letters and Resolves from the Army... How Manufactured...General Remarks...General Halleck on "Crushing the Sneaking Traitors of the North"...Seward, Chase, Blair, &c., at the Cooper Institute Meeting...Case of Lieut. Edgerly... Abolitionism a Test of a Soldier's Duty...The Conscription Act intended to Ignore the Constitution..." Boston Commonwealth" Admits that the Administration Employed Bayonets to Carry Elections... Difference between Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy... Atrocious Sentiments of Senator Wilson...A Leaf from French History... A Fact by Sallust...Gov. Seymour on the Rotten-Borough System His Message of Jan. 5, 1864...A Flexible Platform... Henry Clay's Opinion... Free Speech Abolished...Senator Howe on... Petty Despotism... Arrests for Wearing Badges ...Several Instances in Point...The Evidences of Approaching Despotism...A Link from "New York Tribune"...To Doubt the Infallibility of the President is "Treason"...Declaration of Independence Revised, &c. HAVE WE NOT A MILITARY DESPOTISM? but the worst species known to civilized naThat we have not only a military despotism, tions, is a fact that will not only soon be generally known, but universally felt, unless a swift and radical change takes place in the aims and policy of the Administration. We say this in no spirit of controversy, nor do we utter it with factious feelings or ulterior purposes; but, we declare it in unutterable grief founded on the "logic of events." We see in the modes and measures of the Administration that silent, yet sure, tiger-like tread in the path so often pursued by the tyrants and despots of the Old World, that we cannot mistake their purpose. The ingenuity of sophistry cannot make white appear black, | in prison, and keep him there so long as it nor transform a substantive.ponderable reality into a chimera or imponderable phantom. Those that have eyes, not totally blinded by passion, by prejudice, or by self-interest can see; those that have ears may hear-and hearing and seeing give evidence against a world of scepticism. We complain not of those measures of force necessary to meet and subdue force, when and where it shall be criminally exerted against the government. We grant that the laws of war should govern where war exists. We would withhold no necessary power to arrest and punish treason wherever it raised its guilty head. We have heard, in fact, no one complain of the existence of martial law whenever and wherever a hostile force is too powerful for the civil law. But we do complain, with fear that amounts almost to despair, of the striking down the great writ of innocence" in states that are loyal, and where no hostile force menaces the courts, or interferes with their peaceful functions. We know there is no "necessity" for this. shall suit his pleasure; or he may order the seizure of his property and the scattering it to the four winds. He may order any man or any number of men, though as innocent as the unborn infant, to be shot and quartered, and there is no power to punish him or to call him to account. If he or the officers under him are prosecuted for malicious arrest, and imprisonment, all that is necessary is, to plead that the act was done by order of the President or by one acting under his order. That ends the case. But says one, that law is unconstitutional, and can never stand the test of judicial scrutiny. We grant it. Any Constitution that could tolerate the exercise of such power in peaceful communities, would be nothing but a charter of despotism. But how are you to get before the proper tribunal to determine the unconstitutionality of that act? You cannot do it; for the same act authorizes the President to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, a license he has exercised to the fullest extent; so that no civil powers can have effect. And this was the very object of that law. No human being can see any necessity for suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, where the courts are free to act—no reason has been given, and none can be given, except the one reason that despotism always finds a means to accomplish its ends. We do complain at the exercise of that power which seizes any citizen without process or legal charges, and immures him in some bastile, or deports him beyond the reach of our laws, while our courts are free to try all crimes and have power to punish all offences. We complain of this because we know there is no "necessity" for it. We do most seriously complain of military interference in elections, because there is not only no necessity" for it, but such interference is despotism. It is using the terror of the bayonet to prevent the people from choosing representatives opposed to the policy of those in power-a feat that the Emperor Napoleon III has not dared to perform, for it was but a few weeks since the people of Paris-right at the very throne of power-ard. elected representatives opposed to the Emperor, by over six thousand majority. If absolute monarchs suffer a people to poll a free ballot, it seems that it might be tolerated in this land, under the forms of Republicanism. The Indemnity Act which we publish in another portion of this work, is the cap shief of despotism. Under that act the President has unlimited, absolute power over the life and liberty of his "subjects." He may order one of his appointees to seize any man and put him Our government is undergoing a revolution at the North as well as at the South. The party in power, as we have fully shown in the foregoing pages, have put themselves on record in favor of a different government from that of our fathers. They spit upon and deride the Constitution. But they knew they could not change this government to that of a military despotism, except by and through the means of military power. Hence, they have stricken down the civil and erected the military standWe are now virtually under martial law. We can exercise no civil functions that do not suit the pleasure of the Military Dictator. This is the land-mark we have reached to-day. No man can deny this fact, and if this power is not exercised in every particular, it only shows that the historian was correct when he asserted as a general maxim that "New born despotism is both timid and cautious, and seldom reaches its altitude at one bound, but chooses rather to approach it by slow but sure degrees." It is a shrewd policy to allow the people for a while some of their rights, lest a counter revolution might be inconvenient and troublesome. EDUCATING THE ARMY TO THE NEW ROLE. Look to our army. Has it been only the object of the "powers," to educate that army in the arts and sciences of war, and to make it efficient as against the foe? By no means. That from the first, that army has been tampered with, and more pains has been taken in certain quarters to bring it up to the required standard of political discipline, than to make it efficient in military acquirements cannot be doubted. Let us cite a few facts from the scores we have in store. ADJUTANT GENERAL THOMAS PREACHING In 1862, Adjutant General Thomas was sent out to the West, ostensibly to look after contrabands, and organize negro regiments; but his real object seems to have been to make political speeches to the soldiers, and to require of them unequivocal recognition of the political policy of the Administration. try to his brother in the Legislature of 1863, which was published in the Wisconsin Patriot * "Some of our officers got together last Sunday and passed a number of resolutions, which I presume you have seen before this, for they were sent to the State Journal* to be publish. ed. * * Some of the resolutions were voted on by some of the soldiers, and some were strongly opposed to them, but they have since come to consider on the political object of the resolutions, and that the real purpose is to keep them longer a fighting for the negro, without one ray of hope for the Union, and all to give certain officers a certain share of ths spoils of cotton and other trophies, and from a pretty general conversation with the boys of the regiment, I believed that if called upon to-day to vote on those resolutions, that not five of the rank and file in the whole regiment would vote for them, though from the reign of terror which prevails over the soldier who is not much better in the eyes of the officers than a nigger, they would remain passive, as many of them do, when called upon by shoulder straps to aid political schemes or cotton forays. * * diers-the 'boys,' I mean, dared to speak their We have hundreds of such articles before us, but this must suffice as a sample, which demonstrates the fact that the army is being used to propogate political ideas and dogmas. After Adjutant General THOMAS had succeeded in getti: g a series of threatening reso About the time when he first made his appearance in the army of the West, the celebrated "anti-copperhead resolutions" began to pour forth from the army, deluging the whole North, with the most blood-thirty denunciations and threats against a majority of the people at home, threatening that as soon as the army should return they would exterminate the "copperheads" (meaning Democrats,) with fire and sword. These epistles and resolves, it is believed were instigated by this Adjutant Gener-lutions issued from each camp, he took to haral THOMAS, who set that bail in motion to effect the Northern elections. But, although many of those bloodthirsty resolves were represented to have been passed by a unanimous vote in most instances, yet it is in proof, and as soon as we dare publish a long array of private correspondence, and not subject good brave soldiers to the severe punishments that would follow their exposure, we shall give to the world evidence that in most cases the soldiers either silently permitted those diabolical resolutions to pass, without protest (for fear of the consequences) or by their silence were claimed as having assented. HOW THE SOLDIERS VIEW IT. Below we give an extract from a letter written by a member of the 12th Wisconsin Infan ranguing the soldiers, to get expressions from them direct in favor of the political policy of the Administration, punishing such as refused to hurra for such measures. Startle not, readfor we shall let er, GEN. THOMAS SPEAK FOR HIMSELF. After Adjutant General THOMAS returned to Washington, he rendered his own account in his own way, of his acts in the West: "I was compelled to speak to the troops, [who "compelled" him, except it was the Presing in one day some seven or eight times. ident, his superior?] along the route-speak During my tour I met an Irish Regiment, the 90th Illinois, from Chicago-men who read the Chicago Times. After talking to them awhile, *This paper had published he resolutions as having been unanimously passed. I proposed three cheers for the President of the United States. These were given heartily, Three cheers were then proposed for the settled policy of the United States, [the Administration] in regard to negroes. This was met by cries of No!' 'No!' "The Colonel was absent, and the Lieut. Colonel was in command. I enquired what such conduct meant? The Lieut. Colonel endeavored to excuse the men by saying that they had no opportunity to look over the matter. I replied you are not telling the truth, sir! I know that they have been discussing this question for a week past. I know the fact if you do not. The officer was coniderably mortified. [It is well for Adjutant Gen. Thomas that he did not provoke that kind of "mortification" which an Old Hickory would have manifested.] "I ordered those who were opposed to this policy of the government, to step forward, and said I knew the regiment had seen consider ble service and fought well! but I also knew there was but little discipline observed among them -that I wanted a distinct recognition of this doctrine-that was the first with me. Several stepped forward. They were instantly seized and sent to the guard-house. "I then left the regiment, telling them I would give them a week to consider what they would do. At the next Station I met the Col. of the regiment, who begged that I would leave the matter in his hands, and he would see that the men were taught the duty of soldiers. I complied with the request." Such is the confession (we use the term in its legitimate sense) of this political avant courier-this man, who supported the traitor BRECKINRIDGE on the platform that the constitution carried slavery everywhere, and protected it. This is the man who attempted to abolitionize the army, and what he lacked in offers of promotion he made up in "military discipline," threats and punishment. Now, let us enquire what right has the Administration to own and control the private opinions of those who fight the battles of the country? This political Ajax admits they fought well-no complaint ever rested against them for any dereliction of military duty-but they were "instantly seized and placed in the guard house," and for what? Because they could not forswear heir manhood-deny their political principles-as sacred to them as their religion, and acknowledge what they believed to be a lie. Who will have the courage to face posterity in the mirror of history, and say this was right? If soldiers "fight well" and obey all the lawful military commands of their superiors, in the name of God and their country, what more ought to be required of them? But no, this will not do. The Administration has a purpose in view. No one can be so foolish and illogical as to believe the "powers" care a fig for the private opinions of soldiers so long as they do not come in contact with the purpose of said "powers." But, suppose we are correct in awarding motives of despotic dominion in the radical leaders, whould we not look for just such measures? A despotism could not be consummated without the aid of the army. That army must be moulded to the very purpose in view. All conservatism must be forced out of the army by the pressure of discipline, so that when the time for action shall come, that army can be relied on, in every emergency. If it should become necessary to march into the North and murder the "copperheads" (the Democrats) the soldiers must be first prepared for it. Hence the "anti-copperhead resolutions," committing the army by threats to this very thing. Hence, the bloodthirsty epistles of Secretary STANTON to the Cooper Institute meeting, and the bloodthirsty speeches of Senators WILSON, Lane, and others-hence, the bloodthirsty and inflammatory articles in the radical press. GEN. HALLECK AS A TUTOR. The Republicans had a meeting in Union Square, in April, 1863. A great number of Abolition celebrities were there, who threw out bloody threats and hints. Gen. HALLECK was not present, but he wrote a letter from which we seclect the following Robesperrian threat: "We have already made immense progress in this war-a greater progress than was ever before made under similar circumstances. Our the voice of the patriotic millions at home, they armies are still advancing, and if sustained by will ere long crush the rebellion in the south, and then place their heels upon the heads of sneeking traitors in the North. "Very respectfully, your ob't serv't "W. H. HALLECK, General-in-Chief," Not content with uttering this bloodthirsty, threat against two millions of voters in the north, as Mr HALLECK, but he adds the weight of his high office, as "General-in-Chief." OTHER SENTIMENTS AND THREATS. Mr. SEWARD also wrote a letter in which he remarked, in his most grandiloquent eloquence: "Let us ask each other no questions about how the nation shall govern itself," or "who |