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Eighth. That it was not within the intent of those who formed the constitution to revolutionize the states, to overturn the presumption that supported their authority, or to create a new government, with uncertain and undefined power. The purpose, on the contrary, was to perpetuate the states in their integrity, and to strengthen the union, in order that they might be perpetuated.

I take it to be indisputably true that in your able and valuable works on constitutional law, you have, in most unequivocal language advanced and supported all the above propositions, considered independently of any paraphase or inference of mine, connected with some of them, except the fifth-in stating which, with the explanation accompanying it, I have drawn an inference from your own language which I can but see to be fair, if not inevitable. But if in this I am mistaken, I trust you will not believe I have sought to do you any injustice. If I have erred in stating your doctrine of State Rights, as embraced in the above eight propositions, will you please point out specifically the errors, as I have sought in the past and seek now sincerely to understand you. If I have represented your views correctly, will you please be so kind as to indicate the points of difference between them and those on the same subject contained in the pamphlet - both sets of views of "State Rights" considered abstractly, as principles of construction, and disconnected with all party affiliations and party politics.

As to that part of the pamphlet which gives a history of the Democratic and Republican parties in connection with slavery, you will doubtless assent to the leading facts as stated, leaving the difference between us to arise from their application, and from the inferences I have drawn in favor of the one and against the other, of the two great parties which divide the country. However this may be, I am very sure we do most cordially agree in the charge against the Republican party for the perpetration of an act against civil and political liberty more perfidious and criminal than ever before disgraced and dishonored the name of an American party. Let me appeal to your own bold, brave words, in framing this indictment against the government called the "United States"-then in the hands of the Republican party. Commencing with the "Whereas" of your indictment (that no light may be lost to show its full extent), I quote from its very language as follows: "With the close of the great Rebellion the United States took what in some respects was a new departure in free government. Whither does it lead us? Perhaps a consideration of the case of one state, if it shall fail to answer for us this question, will at least furnish us occasion for serious reflection." "An order of United States District Judge E. H. Durell, Nov. 16th, 1872," "assumed to decide the Lynch Board to be the lawful returning board, commanded the

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Warmoth Board not to meet and act together as such, and enjoined McEnery from 'in any manner acting or pretending to act as Governor of the State of Louisiana,' &c. "A State House to be seized and held subject to the order of an inferior Federal Judge! If any act could be supposed too monstrous to be attempted, this seizure must certainly be such an act.' "A state government was set up under this midnight order by the aid of military force, and in a single day it had no difficulty in impeaching and removing one governor, and installing another suited to and ready to co-operate in its purposes." * * "The order has never been revoked (1875), and, though void in itself, and a most daring usurpation of the rights of the state, it has had an active and most powerful force and vitality to this day. The condition of things can only be properly indicated by saying that from the date when a state government was set up by force under this order, the affairs of the State have been managed by a semi-judicial receivership, with only the difference from ordinary receiverships that even the power that set it up can not call the receiver to account for any mismanagement or abuse of trust." * * "When, therefore, Gen'l De Trobriand's soldiers with muskets and bayonets forced these members from the house, they were guilty of as high-handed an outrage upon free institutions, and as glaring an invasion of representative privileges as was Charles I., when with like force he attempted the arrest of the five members of parliament whose course displeased him. Those who commend the one act should be prepared to join in reversing the condemnation which long since the public opinion of Great Britain and America passed upon the other." "The case was consequently the exact opposite of that in which the constitution contemplated federal action." "It is plain, therefore, that the constitution of the United States furnishes no justification whatever to the proceedings of the military force which broke up a legislature and led five members from the hall, as a king of England two centuries and a half ago hazarded his head in doing, hazarded and justly lost "But in the third place, even the Governor did not make application to the United States. He applied to General De Trobriand. Neither if he falls back upon the orders of General Emery, his immediate superior, can that officer be regarded as such representative." The Governor, in acting outside of his constitutional power, was no more to be regarded than any other individual, and all parties to whom he appealed were bound to know that he was inviting aid in support of usurpation." "The proper boundary between national and state powers was agreed upon after long discussion, with difficulty, as the result of a compromise, and it has been found so satisfactory that we have willingly endured a most destructive war in its defense. The cost of that war has been expended in vain, if, at its conclu

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sion, we propose to treat that boundary as a shadowy line, which none need regard. The only safety to our institutions consists in standing by their fundamental principles, of which the just division of local and general powers is by the constitution made first and most prominent.' "British statutes made careful provision against the interference of soldiers in elections, and these have their origin in a belief that military ideas are, to a large extent, antagonistic to those upon which civil government must be administered. Is this belief an idle prejudice? Let the case of Louisiana answer. In that State an eminent military commander, upon the heels of the military settlement of contested seats in the legislature, while the people were justly excited and indignant, gravely and seriously proposed that by act of congress or proclamation of the president, they should be turned over to him for trial as outlaws by military commission! Was this the proposition of one who revered the constitution, and proposed to observe it? And what shall we say of the military Secretary of War who could immediately telegraph his thorough approval of this officer's course?"

In your terrible indictment against this monstrosity in the annals of human crime, by the publication of an official document, you remind your readers of the fact that one hundred of the best citizens of Louisiana had signified their intention to go to Washington and appeal to the President to refrain from using the federal, army for the destruction of their state government. That document contains the response, and reads as follows:

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Dec. 13, 1872. HON. JOHN MCENERY, New Orleans, Lou.:

Your visit with a hundred citizens will be unavailing; so far as the President is concerned, his decision is made, and will not be changed, and the sooner it is acquiesced in, the sooner good order and peace will be restored. (Signed), GEORGE H. WILLIAMS, Att'y-General.

Thus you have shown, without the possibility of a doubt, that a republican administration, at the head of which stood their most illustrious leader, not only signified its "thorough approval," through the Secretary of War, of the course of the eminent military commander, of whom you speak, but sustained and executed, through its officers and the federal army, that great political crime on which you base your indictment, and declare that for no greater wrong Charles the First justly lost his head. Not only is this true, but Mr. Kellogg, as the republican representative of that crime of usurpation, was admitted into the Senate as such, and has ever since been sustained in that position by the republican party inside and outside of that body, against the protest of the democratic party, grounded on his being a guilty usurper. In contemplation of such fearful facts, let me quote again further from you these

words of wisdom in the following reflection: "The proper boundary between national and state powers was agreed upon after long discussion with much difficulty, as the result of a compromise, and it has been found so satisfactory that we have willingly endured a most destructive war in its defense. The cost of that war has been expended in vain, if, at its conclusion, we propose to treat that boundary as a shadowy line, wihch none need regard. The only safety to our institutions consists in standing by their fundamental principles, of which the just division of local and general powers is by the constitution made first and most prominent."

If I am right in the foregoing representation of your constitutional views, the differences between us, to which in general terms you allude, must, I am happy to say, be very few. In this conclusion I should be glad to be assured of your concurrence.

Yours truly,

J. B. WALLER,

164 LA SALLE ST., CHICAGO.

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