All these
conditions must be fulfilled before the people of any of these States
can be relieved from the bondage of military domination; but when they
are fulfilled, then immediately the pains and penalties of the bill are
to cease, no matter whether there be peace and order or not, and without
any reference to the security of life or property. The excuse given for
the bill in the preamble is admitted by the bill itself not to be real.
The military rule which it establishes is plainly to be used, not for
any purpose of order or for the prevention of crime, but solely as
a means of coercing the people into the adoption of principles and
measures to which it is known that they are opposed, and upon which
they have an undeniable right to exercise their own judgment.
I submit to Congress whether this measure is not in its whole character,
scope, and object without precedent and without authority, in palpable
conflict with the plainest provisions of the Constitution, and utterly
destructive to those great principles of liberty and humanity for which
our ancestors on both sides of the Atlantic have shed so much blood and
expended so much treasure.
Pages:
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469