rebuked, the heart of the nation was reassured, a sense of security grew up, and the storm was stilled. Listen to his words:

"Miserable is the condition of individuals, dangerous is the condition of the State, where there is no certain law, or, what is the same thing, no certain administration of law, by which individuals may be protected, and the State made secure.'"

It is easy to indulge in rhapsodies over, or to sentimentalize upon the beauties of the common law, and such efforts appear well enough in juvenile law schools, or with beginners at the bar; but when invoked as a means of conquering such a rebellion, they are as ridiculous as would be a homily on moonshine to arrest an earthquake, an apostrophe to the dews of evening amidst a hurricane, or a prescription of Mrs. Winslow's soothing syrup for the Asiatic cholera. If the speaker himself had read, or had permitted his hearers to read a little deeper into this scrap of history, it would have appeared that it was a mere riot or mob, over the repeal of the penal laws against Catholics -a question concerning a particular measure under the British government, and having no relation whatever to the question. of the existence of the government, or its integrity, or its fundamental laws; that Lord Mansfield was one of the victims of violence, and uttered what was excellent sense for the occasion, but which, if it had been proposed as an antidote for a rebellion with half a million of men in arms against the government, with the avowed intention of subverting it, would have appeared as cheap and puerile, as shallow and pedantic, as its suggestion for the same purpose does now.

Our Constitution and written laws are the emanations of government, prescribing rules and regulations for its ordinary administration and guidance, and defining and limiting its powers for the protection of its citizens. But governments make constitutions and laws; constitutions and laws do not make governments. Constitutions and laws are to be observed in all its civil policy, and ordinary exigencies even in war; but among the first rights and privileges and highest and holiest duties and obligations of government is the preservation of its own existence. Constitution, law, freedom of speech, liberty of the press, usurpation, tyranny, &c., are words easily prated, and even parrots can be taught them. But men should know

that the instincts of a government, as of an individual when assaulted, are self-defence. The father and protector of a dependent family who should fail to employ all his energies when assailed by a murderer or bandit, and instead thereof proceed to recite from a law book, would, if slain, rank with suicides in the sight of God and man; and a Chief Magistrate who should fail to protect his government against foreign or domestic foes, armed or unarmed, whether avowed or secret, whether wielding openly the instruments of death, or insidiously acting as the advocate and apologist of rebellion, would himself be guilty of treason, and would deserve impeachment, conviction, and execution.

Those who volunteer as exponents or oracles of constitutions and laws should at least understand the subjects they are discussing; should know that in times of peril to the nation martial law inheres in the very essence and existence of every government as a great necessity, and may and should be asserted, when requisite, for the preservation of its life and being. A war of rebellion is a fearful and alarming reality, and is neither to be run away from nor quieted by reciting boardingschool homilies. It demands and should receive every element of power which slumbers in the bosom of the nation. When Lord Wellington upon an exigency proclaimed martial law, on being asked what it was, he replied that it was the discretion of the commanding general. Military law is the law for the government of the military forces of a nation. Martial law is more rigorous still, wider in its application, and is defined by Smith, an early and eminent writer, in his "English Republic," and by others who have compiled its best definitions, as follows:

"Martial law is the law of war, that depends on the just but arbitrary power of the king. For though he doth not make any laws but by common consent of the Parliament, yet, in time of war, by reason of the necessity of it, to guard against dangers that often arise, he useth absolute power, so that his word is law. When in time of extreme peril to the State, either from without or within, the general safety cannot be trusted to the ordinary administration, or the public welfare demands the adoption or execution of extraordinary measures, it may become necessary to declare the existence of martial law."

The President has no sucn power as a civil magistrate, in

the ordinary administration to the government; but, in a time of conspiracy, rebellion, and war, as Commander-in-Chief, when in his judgment the public safety demands it, he possesses, and may and should exert if necessary, as much power as the autocrat of all the Russias, for the purpose of preserving from destruction the government confided to his care. It is a power dangerous and liable to abuse-should always be exercised with caution, and only in times of danger; but in such a period it is the government's salvation and rock of defence.

The course of the President in arresting spies and the apologists of the rebellion, in suppressing treasonable presses, in suspending the habeas corpus, in laying his hands upon the aiders and comforters and abettors of treason and conspiracy, entitles him to the admiration and thanks of every good citizen. Let assassins whet their knives; let spies and traitors and pimps and informers scowl, and gibber, and whisper discontent because the "freedom of speech" is abridged; let conspiracy and treason plot at their infernal conferences; let politicans scheme and enlarge or contract their gum-elastic platforms to suit emergencies; let trimming, Joseph Surface candidates indulge in ground and lofty tumbling to divert popular attention from the true issue; let pestilent newspapers, engaged in stimulating rebellion, and sowing broadcast seeds of disunion and revolt among the people in the perverted name of the "liberty of the press," spread abroad their ill-concealed hatred of the government of their fathers because it fails to minister to their depraved wishes; and when all this has been done, the action of the President in these measures, though probably not free from mistakes and errors, will be approved by honest men and in the sight of Heaven, and will, when rebellion shall only be remembered for the blood it has shed and the wrongs it has perpetrated, stand the test of latest time. Loyal men find the rule no inconvenience. That the disloyal should condemn it, and hate it as they fear it, is natural:

"No rogue e'er felt the halter draw

With good opinion of the law."

The attempt to commit the Democratic party to this course of opposition is both spurious and impudent. It has always

heretofore been found on the side of the country in every emergency. The old Jacksonian Democracy, when organized upon its true faith, holds, and always has held the State of New York by a large majority. The scheming faction which now claims to represent it, years since debauched, broke up, and destroyed the Democratic party by contact with it. Last year it changed its platform four times to get it into good cheating shape, and was then beaten by more than a hundred thousand votes. This year it hopes to gain strength here in the city. Trade is reriving, and Tammany and Mozart, upon those elevated notions of Democratic principles which lately prevail, are endeavoring to drive a bargain to divide the offices. It is a proud exhibition before this country and the world just now, and will be successful if it can be determined which shall take the odd trick. The masses of the Democratic party are not now politically organized, but its members are always loyal, and when organized, the party is as true as was its great leader, Jackson. Its members swell the ranks of our brave armies in guarding the national Capital; in protecting the dear symbol of liberty and hope, the Stars and Stripes, from desecration, and in defending the Constitution and the Union. They are acting with the Union organization at home, and are endeavoring to exhibit to the rebellion and to the world the sublime moral spectacle of a whole people laying aside political partisan opinions and discussions, and acting together to preserve their revolutionary inheritance from destruction. The members of the narrow, trading, tricky faction who now strut the self-constituted leaders of the Democratic party-a name they have learned to mouth better than they have to practise its principles-were, nine out of ten, against it in the days of its organized action, or, if with it, were its mendicants, office-seekers, and camp-followers. The true Democrat has no fear that he shall be lost, if he acts in common with political opponents in subduing rebellion. He believes he can find himself when the war is over. The Democrat only in name, naturally enough, is fearful, if he once gets mingled with Republicans, he will never know himself again, and hence his necessity for keeping up party organization. But even spurious Democrats can be preserved from final loss with little care. Let them be chalked as farmers chalk sheep when they put flocks together which they may wish to

separate again, marking the black with white chalk and the white with red. Or write on them, as the Dutchman did on his picture of a bear, when he feared the outline of Bruin might not be recognized, "Dis ish von bear."

I will not presume to say what the true Democratic party will do when peace is restored and it is reorganized; but I may, perhaps, with propriety predict what it will not do. That it will not attempt to conquer a nefarious rebellion in arms by propositions of peace; that it will not, by every indirect means of assault upon the government and apology for the rebellion, afford aid and comfort and encouragement to an armed enemy tugging at the very heart-strings of the Republic; that it will not organize a factious political party of greedy, growling grumblers, to war upon the government, to embarrass its efforts, to predict its failure, and to exhibit to the enemy a people divided at home, and exhausting themselves in domestic strife; that it will not proclaim slavery paramount to the Union of our fathers, and declare that if one must go down it should be the Union and not slavery; that it will exhibit no limping, hesitating, half-and-half fidelity to the government; no fifth-rib loyalty, inquiring for the health, with a dagger under its garment. But, when it acts, its whole course will be direct, sincere and honorable, upward and onward, and all its energies and efforts will be directed and devoted to the preservation of the land our fathers loved, swearing upon their country's altar, "By the Eternal, this Union must and shall be preserved." A life-long Democrat, I do not hesitate to declare that the organized action of this knot of politicians, as the Democratic party in this State, has done and is now doing more to encourage the endurance and preservation of this rebellion than all the sympathies of France and England combined, and that such is the public judgment; more than all the vessels which have run the blockade together. The South know the old Democratic party of this State as a party of power and influence. They hope and believe this faction is its successor, and possesses some of its elements and influences, and await its triumph. Could the murderous tatterdemalions of rebellion attend our polls, they would give this ticket a unanimous vote. Could it succeed, Jefferson Davis would proclaim another day of thanksgiving (though it might have to be kept in fasting), and illuminate