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at the opinions of Daniel Webster and Judge Curtis on Constitutional questions. This is not only an offence against good manners, but it becomes an evil, by giving rise to new and unfounded dogmas, to false reasonings and conclusions, and to loose Constitutional notions in the community, at a time when there should be no tampering with our Constitutional rights and duties. I know you only as one of these offenders, and deal with you accordingly. You are, it seems, prominent among them, and a suitable representative, therefore, through and by whom a proper admonition may be given. As to the manner of administering the rebuke, your taste and mine may differ. I have only to say, that it was intended to be conveyed in terms which would fitly express my ideas on the subject, and in a manner which would represent, precisely, the exhibition which that class of clergymen seem to make of themselves. You have appropriated what I said of the class, as if I had said it of yourself, personally. I acquiesce in the propriety of the appropriation. You have also appropriated a part of my remarks which neither specified you nor the class. For that I am not responsible. It was Gerrit Smith, and not you, who said, "Let the Constitution go, and save the country." Others have made use of similar language.

The occasion of my reference to you, and the class, was the report of your Fraternity lecture. My reference was only to the report in "The Daily Advertiser." Another report represented you as saying, substantially, that there was no doubt that the President had a Constitutional right to issue the Proclamation; and the general tenor of still another left no reasonable doubt, that whatever might have been your precise language, you were correctly reported in substance. Your previous course confirmed the report.

You seem to imply, rather than to assert, that I acted on insufficient evidence, thus impugning the report of the Daily Advertiser. The two points presented by that report were, that you "spoke of the People's party with contempt," and that you represented that "the end of the People's party would be a rope's end, as it would of all who strove to thwart the onward march of liberty." Now, Sir, permit me to say, that so far as you give a report of your lecture, you

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fully confirm the faithfulness of the report of the Advertiser. You say that you "had been discussing the so-called People's party, and the possibility that they might not sustain · the President's emancipation policy." In what terms of contempt you spoke of the People's party in that discussion, you do not please to inform us; but I understand that you are the editor of the Congregationalist, and in an editorial article contained in the number before me is this passage:

"In these elections, then, [the Fall elections,] as things now are, we repeat it, the rebellion reaches its climax. If the People's party in Massachusetts with its cordial, though in justice be it conceded more rascally compeers in New York and elsewhere, can succeed, there is every probability that the South will triumph and subjugate a divided North. If the party of the Government succeed, this movement of treason through the North will be rebuked," &c.

The italics are mine. They serve to point to the characteristics bestowed upon the People's party. You are presumed to understand somewhat of the force of language, and to know, therefore, that this extract contains an implied assertion of the positive rascality of the People's party in Massachusetts. Their compeers in New York, and elsewhere, are only "more rascally." The whole movement is characterized as one of "treason." This surely expresses something stronger than contempt, and leads to a reasonable belief that in your discussion you at least verified the report. What excuse have you for thus becoming "a political prostitute?"

As respects the other part of the report, we have your remarks verbatim; given, you say, as if in answer to an objector, who is made to remark: "And so you think there is danger, do you, that the People's party will not sustain the President who is the Government?" And "What will the end be?" To which imaginary questions you answer: "Be? When you get to it, it will be a rope's end for them, or for anybody else who shall really and persistently attempt to thwart the onward march of liberty AND LAW." The italics and capitals are yours. The latter I suppose for the purpose of showing emphatically the addition which you made to what was reported in the Advertiser. The dramatic char

acter which you saw fit to give to the passage is not material. The "rope's end," as the end of the People's party, is there, significantly, and for anybody else who shall really and persistently attempt "to thwart the onward march of liberty." Admit that you added "AND LAW," which you place in small capitals, as if that addition made an essential difference. Under some circumstances, and in some connections, it might do so. But what LAW do you refer to? Why, of course, to your law-your emancipation proclamation law. It is the onward march of that law, and the liberty connected with that law, of which you are speaking. That is the law that is "marching on "; not the law as expounded by jurists and commentators and courts of law. Law of this last description is not generally spoken of as having an "onward march." You are of opinion, are you not, that that law, like Gen. McClellan, is rather slow. You are not speaking of the law as expounded by any one who does not believe in that "higher law" which has lately been set up, practically, as above even God's law. Having faith in the opinions of clergymen competent to decide, I conclude that God has not seen fit to prescribe the rules of municipal law for the people of the United States; and that Jesus Christ has not done so; that the teachings of the Bible, to us, are personal, not municipal, nor political. It has remained for other clergymen to set up those teachings as a higher municipal and political rule than the written Constitution; and if the matter were merely speculative I might leave it to be settled by the clergy. But when the latter class, usurping God's authority, undertake to overrule the Constitution by the assertion of this higher political law-when they thereby inculcate unsound doctrine, not only in politics but in morals - when they endeavor to make the people, instead of a lawabiding, a law-breaking community, and insist that the war shall be conducted on a basis which will greatly endanger, if not assuredly defeat its success, it is quite time that they should be exposed, as the "all-sufficient, self-sufficient," persons, which they make themselves, and the "insufficient" personages which they really are. If any of them have D. D. attached to their names, that does not disqualify them from being also A S S, and mischief-makers besides.

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You will say, perhaps, that it is undignified, to speak thus of dignitaries. I am almost inclined to admit it. But when one is striving to abate a nuisance, one must not stand on his dignity.

So much for the character of the charge, the proof of the facts on which it was founded, and the manner in which it was stated.

And now let me thank you for having kindly furnished, in the columns of your paper, full proof of the truth of the prominent characteristics which I attributed to the class of clergymen to which you seem to belong.

The remainder of your quotation from your Fraternity lecture not only shows, still further, your assumption of a superior knowledge of Constitutional law, but the mode in which you exhibit and prove that knowledge. It is in these words:

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"These People's party' men, some of them, are old men now, but they will all live to see the day when if they are loyal — they will repent in dust and ashes of this attempt at a flank movement; to see that there can be now but two honest parties in this land they who maintain the Constitution and the Government with entire fealty, and with all their hearts, and they who, traitors at heart, desire their overthrow. Those few men who do honestly think that the President has gone beyond his power, will revise their judgment in the further light of events. They may be trusted at last, to reach the decision which Patrick Henry reached at first, and announced in the Virginia Convention of '88, when he predicted that the time would come when Congress would search the Constitution to see if they have power of manumission. And have they not, Sir? Have they not power to provide for the general defence and welfare? May they not think that these call for the abolition of slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free, and will they not be warranted by that power ? This is no ambiguous implication, or logical deduction. The Constitution speaks to the point; they have the power, in clear, unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it.'"-[Elliot, Debates of Virginia, vol. iii. 590.]

You subjoin: "This is what I said," and you close with these words, addressed to me: "If you cannot say it- So much the worse for you."

Now, Sir, before examining your law, let me ask: Did

you or did you not, in thus speaking of the action of the "People's party men," as "this attempt at a flank movement,” intend to imply that the rebellion was the movement in front, in aid of which this movement in Massachusetts was an attack upon the flank of the Government, and thus to give significance to your talk about "treason" and the "rope's end?"

And now, let us examine, with reference to its law, what you thus said, and what it is so much the worse for me if I cannot say.

In the first place there is the implication that you have settled the Constitutional right of the President to issue a proclamation emancipating all the slaves. Those men who "honestly" differ from you" will repent in dust and ashes," and "revise their judgment in the further light of events." What these "events" are, which will give the benefit of a Drummond light upon Constitutional construction, you do not say. But in this revision and reversal of opinion, through and by which they are to believe that the President has not gone beyond his Constitutional authority, they are to reach the decision which Patrick Henry reached, and which you quote from his speech. It may be presumed from the citation of volume and page, that you had seen the book, and that you know that Patrick Henry was, in the Virginia Convention, an earnest opposer of the adoption of the Federal Constitution, that he used all the arguments which he could array, (not to say, conjured up all the bugbears which he could summon,) in order to create a jealousy of the powers proposed to be conferred on the new Government to be created by it. You should be presumed to have read some of the pages immediately following your extract, in which this very doctrine was denied by Governor Randolph; and to know, that notwithstanding the jealousy of Virginia for State rights, and notwithstanding Mr. Henry's opposition, the Constitution was adopted by that Convention, (which, by the way, it never would have been if his speech quoted by you had been supposed to give a true construction,) and you must also be presumed to know that this construction was not only thus substantially overruled at the time, but that it has never been received as sound from that day to

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