MEMORIAL TO CONGRESS
Setting Forth the Reasons Assigned by the Legislators for Asking an Investigating Committee.Following is the text of the memorial to Congress adopted by the Legislative Assembly on Saturday:
To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress Assembled:
We, your memorialists, the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah, respectfully represent that in consequence of baseless rumors and monstrous exaggerations, the people whom we represent have been placed in jeopardy, and are now threatened with the deprivation of the right of local self-government. Persons whose aim is to gain control of this now wealthy and prosperous Territory and manipulate its finances, have succeeded in arousing the ire of the clergy and through them the anger of many people against the large majority of the citizens of Utah, and thus a pressure has been brought to bear upon your honorable body which shows its effects in proposed measures containing provisions utterly at variance with the fundamental principles of republican government, and which, while ostensibly aimed at the marriage relations of but a small portion of the people will, if carried into effect, deprive the whole Territory of the vested rights secured to it by the Organic Act, and the Constitution of the United States.
For many years the people of Utah have patiently endured the misrepresentations and slanders of unscrupulous persons who have located at different times in the Territory, and who from various unworthy motives have formed themselves into political and religious cliques, avowedly to represent the liberal and progressive element of the Territory, but really, as the story of their transactions plainly shows, to vex and annoy the majority of the people and deprive them, if possible of their civil, religious and political rights.
The executive and judicial powers of the Territory being vested in the hands of government appointees and the legislative trammeled by the absolute veto power of the Governor, it is not difficult to realize how comparatively powerless the people have been when attempting to foster the interests of the Territory.
While bearing all the burdens imposed under influences created by officials wholly irresponsible to them, the people of Utah have waited hoped and prayed for better things under a government less like the colonial bondage to which their fathers were subjected, and more in harmony with true republican institutions. When accused of exercising undue influences over the female portion of the population, and the idea was advanced that if women in Utah were granted the right to vote, a remedy would at once be found, the Territorial Legislature promptly anticipated the proposed action of Congress, and passed an act conferring upon women in Utah over 21 years of age, and with other proper qualifications, the elective franchise. Again when accused of making the church dominate the state, by permitting ecclesiastical influence or priestly authority to assert influence at the polls by means of the marked ballot--which had been approved and, which many still believe to be the cheapest and best means of preventing illegal votes--the Legislature enacted a law providing for the registration of voters, repealing all election laws requiring numbered or otherwise marked ballots and making them strictly secret.
The registration law having failed to change the vote of the people in favor of their accusers, Congress is now urged under pressure of public opinion incited by unscrupulous persons to enact laws disfranchising in this Territory many native born and other loyal citizens of the republic. The fraudulent certificate issued by Utahs present Governor having thus far failed to disfranchise the people, Congress is asked to do what duplicity and unblushing fraud have failed to accomplish, and we call the attention of your honorable body to the fact that previous to the passage of the anti-polygamy act of 1862, there was no law in force local or Congressional, against the marriage of plural wives in Utah. There are many persons who contracted plural marriages before that time who have never violated that statute and who have remained unmolested in their family relations. They cannot be convicted of crime because they have broken no law, yet the legislation proposed to your honorable body would disfranchise them of the inalienable rights of citizens, which, we submit, is both unnecessary and unjust. Under these cruel circumstances the future can alone develop what unhappy events may yet be in store for a people so long subjected to the evils growing out of usurpations and the abuse of power by officers of the general government wholly irresponsible to the people.
While reviewing the grievances which caused the revolutionary fathers to place on the altar their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor as proof of the truths contained in the bill of indictment, brought against the British King, the people of Utah, revering that declaration of rights, venerating the Constitution and honoring the flag of their common country, claim the protection of the nation whose noble sires made human liberty not only desirable, but possible.
And while claiming "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as bequeathed rights, they do solemnly declare that governors in Utah have repeatedly, on trivial pretexts, refused their assent to laws most wholesome and necessary for the public good. They have abused the pardoning power by turning loose upon the community convicts dangerous to the public peace. They have sought to obstruct the functions of the territorial government by refusing their approval of legislative appropriations and their signatures to needed enactments unless handicapped by unusual and unreasonable measures. They have attempted to render the military hostile and superior to the civil power, by calling on troops to enforce orders depriving citizens of the right to bear arms even when celebrating the anniversary of our national independence. When soldiers stationed near us have been arrested for grossly violating municipal laws they have been forcibly released by military authority. Others have quietly enjoyed their quarters even when the general was appealed to for military aid, while the militia of the Territory were compelled to defend the homes of the people from the hostile encroachments of Indians who had plundered and killed defenseless citizens.
The district and supreme judiciary of the Territory, depending alone upon the will of the general government for the tenure of their offices, and for the amount and payment of their salaries have frequently obstructed justice by ruling in the interest of debauchery, prostitution and kindred crimes, and have rendered vexatious unprecedented and contradictory decisions against municipal regulations and in favor of lawless liquor venders. They have hindered the naturalization of foreigners by requiring religious tests, and thereby have discouraged immigration. By specious rulings, invading even the boundless domain of belief, they have sought to deprive citizens when accused of crime, of the right of trial by an impartial jury of their peers. In other cases they have packed juries in order to secure convictions. These unlawful, extreme and hurtful measures having been carried to such an unbearable extent the National Supreme Court on appeal in many instances has reversed the decisions of the Territorial courts and remanded the causes for new trial.
Other government officials have endeavored to dripple and break up our co-operative, mercantile and industrial institutions, by illegal imposition of revenue taxes to the amount of many thousands of dollars, requiring expensive suits at law for the recovery of the large sums extorted. Some of our most honored citizens have been imprisoned upon trivial pretexts, and without support of law or precedent, other than that established by the malice of bigotry and hatred; and when their incarceration has been by higher powers pronounced unlawful, unjust and cruel, the sufferers have remained without redress.
Officials, bound by their oath of office to sustain the Constitution and laws of the country, have disregarded their sacred obligations, and persistently arrayed themselves against the people whom they have been paid to serve, losing sight of law, justice and equity, and often of humanity, they have frequently joined with scheming adventurers, whose greed for spoil has only been equaled by their malevolence, and in order to acquire influence have persistently misrepresented the opinions, aims and practices of the people. Thus they have succeeded in arousing jealousies and heart-burnings of the fiercest kind, and have rendered alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.
Government officials, in many instances instead of administering the law, have overridden their constitutional powers, exceeded their authority, and in the most vexatious manner annoyed, harassed and trammeled the people in the exercise of their political, religious and civil rights. They have taunted our best citizens with the charges of disloyalty, called them traitors to our country, reproached, insulted and incarcerated them under pretence of crimes repulsive and foreign to their nature, and have prosecuted others under laws enacted against offences totally different from those alleged. Thus men have been punished for the United States offense of polygamy, under the territorial laws against lewd and lascivious cohabitation; and the reason such laws are not now upon our statute books is because prosecutions have been conducted under their provisions in cases to which they were never intended to apply and to which they were entirely foreign. They have designated our citizens as the scum and offscourings of the world, morally debased and physically corrupt; and yet drinking saloons, gambling dens, billiard halls and houses of assignation, harlots, libertines and prostitutes have been urged as a means best adapted for the "regeneration" and "Christianizing" of Utah's people that they might better harmonize with "the civilization of the age."
It has been frequently said and widely published that the affairs of the Territory are under the control of foreign born citizens; yet the present Legislative Assembly contains twenty-seven American-born and but nine naturalized citizens. We are accused of being opposed to education. Statistics demonstrate the contrary, and a territorial tax equal to that from which the entire revenue of the Territory is derived is annually assessed, collected and disbursed exclusively for payment of school teachers in district schools, open to the children of all citizens, irrespective of creed, color, or party, while in addition, a local option law permits a tax not exceeding 2 per cent for general school purposes to be annually assessed in the district where the people so elect by popular vote.
The country has rung with cries of "Mormon" atrocities, and the Mountain Meadow massacre is cited as an instance. The truth is that no western state or territory has been settled with so little lawlessness and bloodshed, and so little expense to the government, as Utah; and the shocking catastrophe alluded to, occurring in an Indian country, over three hundred miles from the capital of a territory then without railroads or telegraphs, is no more to be charged upon the people here, or their leaders, than the bloody scenes of the frontier, in which a few renegade whites have joined in the raids of tho red men, are chargeable to the government at Washington. We repudiate with all our souls, the foul charge, and declare that all the reliable evidence ever adduced is entirely opposed to the popular belief. We court investigation on this and other vile and infamous slanders.
We respectfully urge that while this territory is deprived of any representation in Congress, through the act of the Executive, generally recognized as usurpation and fraud, it is most unfair to us that measures should be rushed through the National Legislature, no voice from the people against whom this special legislation is designed being lifted in their behalf or heard in their defense.
We respectfully remind your Honorable body that there are instances in recent history which demonstrate the evil consequences of hasty action unjustified by fair inquiry. In 1857 an army was sent to Utah to support the inauguration of government officers under the mistaken impression that the "Mormons" were in revolt, and that they would resist the new officials. It had been falsely represented by officers who had left their posts in this Territory that Utah was in rebellion, that court records had been burned, and that other overt acts against law and good order had been committed. The army was dispatched the government appointees arrived, it was found that the reports were incorrect, a commission was then appointed, and it was clearly proven that there had been no cause whatever for the agitation, the army or the expense of the expedition. A commission to investigate before instead of after the action of the government would in that case have saved the country many millions of dollars, and the administration from an act which no informed person will now declare to have been wise or politic.
In 1875 it was falsely represented to Congress that the Legislative Assembly of Utah had not made any provision, and would not provide for jurors' and witnesses' fees and other expenses of courts in criminal cases. Without sufficient investigation Congress diverted the amount appropriated for legislative expenses of this Territory to the uses of the courts, with the provision that if the Legislature would appropriate $23,500 for such uses the money might be recovered. The Assembly appropriated $22,000 for court expenses, and at its next ses sion a deficiency appearing $18,000 more was appropriated to cover it, making $40,000, instead of $23,500, and yet the members and officers of the Assembly have not received one dollar for their per diem and other legislative expenses of the session of 1876. A proper understanding of these facts would doubtless have prevented this injustice. Every statement set forth in this memorial can be substantiated by competent documentary evidence.
We further respectfully represent that there is no cause for the disruption of our local government. The taxes are light, good order is maintained, no person is deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law; the ballot is free and secret; all religious and political societies are equal before the law; peace prevails; property is secure; industry abounds, and the material interests of the Territory are in a flourishing condition. We submit, therefore, that it is impolitic and unstatesmanlike to disarrange the political machinery of this whole commonwealth in an effort to punish the alleged offenses of a few individuals, and that a full investigation of our internal affairs will show that a widespread excitement has been raised on a very small and fragile basis. It is evident to all who understand the situation that notwithstanding the endeavors of many members of Congress to arrive at correct conclusions concerning Utah, they are yet misinformed as to condition, our laws and our necessities, some of the bills introduced in either house bearing unmistakable evidence of this. We therefore respectfully ask your Honorable Body to suspend action upon Utah affairs until by a committee of investigation the facts are learned, and a tangible foundation is laid for rational proceedings in which no violence will be done to the institutions which cost so much so establish, or to that glorious instrument which should guard the liberties of all people in this favored land.
And as in duty bound your memorialists will ever pray, etc.
The following resolution was offered by Councilor Wells and adopted:
Resolved, The House concurring, that three duplicate copies of the resolution be ordered enrolled and that it be presented to be signed by the members and officers of both Houses.
Councilor Caine moved the following which was also adopted:
Resolved, The House concurring, that one thousand copies of the Memorial to Congress adopted this day be printed in pamphlet form and that copies thereof be forwarded to the President of the united States, each member of his cabinet, each senator and representative and other government officers and influential persons.[The Salt Lake Herald, Salt Lake City, Sunday Morning, February 26, 1882. Vol. XII No. 226 Page 13]
Showing posts with label tyranny. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tyranny. Show all posts
Monday, March 17, 2014
"depriving citizens of the right to bear arms even when celebrating the anniversary ot our national independence...."
Sunday, March 16, 2014
"it is a good thing for Governments to know that the people possess arms...."
Nice article! However, I would have chosen the following quote from the Federalist as being far more applicable to the topic:Is Rebellion Ever Justifiable In a Republic?From the World.
The Times contends that it is not. Its argument, if we correctly apprehend it, is, in substance, that inasmuch as the aggrieved are represented, they have a remedy in the elections if they are a majority, while, if they are a minority, they are bound to submit. We do not undertake to define the justifiable causes of rebellion, since they involve a question of degree, and therefore do not admit of very exact statement. But whatever may be the amount of oppression which justifies armed resistance, we cannot see why it should make any difference, in the moral aspect of the question, whether the oppressors be few or many. The majority in a republic will never rebel, since they have an easier and less hazardous mode of attaining their wishes. When minorities rebel, they do so with the odds against them; and it is only a deep sense of wrong, or a firm confidence in the justice of their cause, that can induce them to take the risks. Majorities are but aggregates of individual men; and as individual men may be unjust and tyrannical, majorities composed of such individuals may be so too. The absolute will of a majority is even more intolerable than the absolute will of a monarch, since it may consist of infinite strands of individual tyranny twisted together into one tremendous cable.
Republican government is, to be sure, the government of majorities; but it quickly degenerates into an engine of oppression unless the will of the majority is restrained by a fixed constitution. Constitutions are not meant for the protection of majorities, who, in a republican government, can always protect themselves through the ballot-box, but for the protection of minorities against the tyranny of the majority. So long as the majority, or the government which is their agent, respects the limits thus set to its authority, rebellions can never be justifiable if the Constitution is just and wise. But if a hot-headed and over-bearing majority refuse to be bound by the constitution, and erect their own will into the supreme law, will the Times tell us what would, in that case, be the effectual means of resisting oppression and redressing injustice? The government of an unrestrained majority is the worst of all possible tyrannies. When all constitutional restraints are cast off and scoffed at, what are the minority to do ? For our part, we do not hesitate to affirm that no people are fit for republican government who have not in their composition a spice of the rebel. The knowledge that the majority will resist if injured, is a salutary restraint on the governing power. It was Jefferson's opinion that there ought to be at least one rebellion in a generation, to purify the political atmosphere, and remind rulers of the necessity of moderation.
The Times' notion that rebellion is never justifiable under a representative Government, is one of those hasty half-thoughts caught up by looking at a subject in one of its aspects, instead of a comprehensive survey. The Federal Constitution itself indirectly recognizes the right of rebellion in extreme cases. It declares that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." The right of the people to bear arms implies their right to use arms, otherwise the guarantee would be as idle as a right to keep guns without triggers. It is a good thing for the people to have arms in their hands to use, in the last resort, against oppression; and it is a good thing for Governments to know that the people possess arms of which this use can be made. Whether any particular occasion justifies resistance, is quite a different question from whether resistance is ever permissible. The Times, by inculcating the slavish doctrine that the tyranny of the majority is never to be resisted, precludes all consideration of particular grievances as a ground of rebellion. If rebellion is never permissible in a republic, it cannot be permissible against this or that wrong, how ever flagrant and intolerable.
This slavish doctrine is new in American politics, but it is a natural enough corollary from the high-handed action of the Government during the last six years. All former expounders of our institutions have recognized the right of rebellion. The Federalist, for example, in discussing the means of the State to resist Federal encroachments, gives a prominent place to physical force, and winds up in this spirited strain of truly republican eloquence: "Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the supposition that they would be less able to defend the right of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors. Let us rather no longer insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment by a blind submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it." [Federalist No. 46 by James Madison]
Mr. Webster, in both of his great speeches against nullification that in reply to Hayne and that in reply to Calhoun explicitly and fully acknowledged the right of rebellion as unquestionable, as did also Mr. Clay in connection with the same subject. Mr. Seward, in discussing the militia system, said that among the three occasions for the exercise of the right of rebellion was: "First. The attempt by the Government or its officers to exercise tyranny over the people." It marks a great decline in the spirit of liberty in this country, and betokens the demoralizing influence of the period through which we have been passing, that a popular newspaper has become imbued with sentiments so abject and servile.[The Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia, Thursday, March 28, 1867. Vol. VII---No. 70. Pg. 2]
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government . . . The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms..."--Alexander Hamilton, [The Federalist Papers No. 28]
Saturday, March 15, 2014
"Any man has a right to resort to arms to defend the law, or to protect a citizen from violence...."
Another Man Lynched
And The Murderers, As Usual, Go Unpunished
WHILE STATE AND FEDERAL OFFICERS ARE
CHASING BOOTLEGERS MOB LYNCHES NEGROAgain Oklahoma has been disgraced with a lynching, committed by 50 or more unmasked men and yet, as usual, the officers of the law have put forth no effort to bring the [murderers] to justice. Even Gov. Cruce from his lofty peak of State authority looks down with little or no concern on the crimes of these degraded hellbounds who continue to ply their trade without any fear of the law. Bootlegers and race track gamblers are the only class of criminals who have anything to fear from Gov Cruce.
The State Militia stands at the command of Gov. Cruce who will certainly invoke its service to suppress the sale of whiskey or race track gambling, but never once has he raised his voice or hand to put down the lynch crime.
The lynching of Crockett Williams at Eufaula last Friday night by a mob of 50 cowardly murderers is just another good reason why Negroes of this State should form an armed organization to protect themselves and uphold the law. Any man has a right to resort to arms to defend the law, or to protect a citizen from violence.
If the Negroes of Eufaula had done as they should, knowing the feeling against Williams at the time, they would have protected him at any cost. We believe in upholding the law at all times even if to do so means death. Therefore we are inalterably opposed to mob violence.
These mobs are invaribly composed of the lower element of white men-the brutal, cowardly. murderous element. But one or two determined men amply armed can easily disperse them.
These lynchings are geting to be far too common in Oklahoma, and something must be done to stop it.
There is no hope of protection from the State authorities, and the federal government is silent on the question. Women and children have been lynched in Oklahoma, to say nothing of the scores of negro men who have been murdered, and not a single man of these infernal mobs has been punished-nor have the officers of the law made any effort to suppress the crime or punish the criminals. Negro men, it's up to us to act. We must have justice! Our wives and children are not safe in a country so rent with outlawry.
Let us respect the law and enforce it at the point of guns. When a negro is charged with crime let us aid the officers in apprehending him and then take our guns and protect him against mob violence. If bloodshed must come, let us welcome it, and die if need be in defense of the law and justice. Mobs have no right to take the law in their hand to kill a person, but we have a perfect right to kill the mob in defense of the law and the prisoners life. Such action on the part of negros might bring protection from the federal government.
The better element of both white and colored people of Oklahoma should band themselves together to suppress this crime. It can be done: It must be done!![The Tulsa Star, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Saturday, August 8, 1914. Vol. 2, No. 41. Pg. 1]
"All men, without distinction of color, have the right to keep arms to defend their homes, families or themselves...."
* - According to the Laws of War. However, once the threat has ceased, and the lawful sentence of punishment imposed has been served. Then the offender is entitled to full restoration of their right to have arms for their defense. For that is the exact intention of the 2nd Amendment.Mobs In Indiana.General Tilson, Acting Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, lately issued a circular from his headquarters at Augusta, Georgia, in which occurs the following passage:
"4. Article 2, of the amendments to the Constitution of the United States, gives the people the right to bear arms, and states that this right 'shall not be infringed.'--Any person, white or black, may be disarmed if convicted of making an improper and dangerous use of weapons*; but no military or civil officer has the right or authority to disarm any class of people, thereby placing them at the mercy of others. All men, without distinction of color, have the right to keep arms to defend their homes, families or themselves."
Nine out of every ten of the mobs in Indiana, during the past four years, were provoked by Morton, Carrington & Co., in lawlessly invading, without process of law or legal warrant, the houses, families, and the members thereof, of innocent citizens of this State, and arresting and imprisoning them; by which innocent citizens, those thus arresting them, according to the above declaration, ought to have been shot down. A mob in resistance to lawless official force is a constitutional right, or a Russian despotism is already established. The Constitution gives the right of arms to defend ourselves with.[The Plymouth Weekly Democrat, Plymouth, Indiana, Thursday, January 18, 1866. Volume 11. Number 20. Pg. 2]
"The right of free speech; the right of assembly; the right of trial by jury, the right to carry arms, the right of habeas corpus...."
WAR SITUATION IN WEST VIRGINIA
Proclamation of Governor Presents Real Position Among Strikers And Coal Magnates of The State--Militiamen Are Keeping Order in DistrictCHARLESTON, W Va., Sept. 6.-The Kanawha river today divides the Government of the United States from the benevolent military satrapies of Cabin creek and Paint creek, fifteen miles from Charleston, both of which are in West Virginia, but at present not of it; the only territory within the United States where the Constitution is not in effect.
By decree of Governor Glasscock the coal creek county is in a state of war; until civil law, destroyed by the anarchy of the mine guards, is reconstructed martial law--the laws of war--will prevail. "Martial law" sounds romantically terrifying. It's romantic, but not terrifying.
It is even fun. The creek folks enjoy it. In the coal creek country it in blessed as a deliverance. It has banished the mine guard and his automatic revolver; it has taken from the hands of the coal barons several machine guns, with which the barons had planned to bust the strike--machine guns that could shoot lead with the cumulative effect of a hall storm.
It's funny this martial law like grandma's hoop skirt dress, like great-great-great-great-great-grandpa's steel-riveted suit of armor and other antiquities. It's a free trip into the morning of Anglo-Saxon civilization, way back before the days of King John, who was the father of habeas corpus, the right to which is one of the things you lose the moment you step out of the United States into the "state of war."
Immediately us you leave the skiff that carries you across the Kanawha you are stripped of all your constitutional guarantees, your revolver and the bottle of whiskey. If you have any.
The constitutional rights you lose, as you walk into the benevolent and even gentle military despotism and which 4,000 driven men of the mines have gladly sacrificed temporarily are;
The right of free speech; the right of assembly; the right of trial by jury, the right to carry arms, the right of habeas corpus, that's martial law.
You are ferried across the Kanawha, an American citizen, and, presto! you're nothing. You can't make a speech, and if you and your friend and your friend's friend stop to discuss the weather or the sylvan beauties of Paint creek, you are in an unlawful assembly that may land you in the guard house, to be tried, not by a jury, but by six soldiers, constituting a court martial, and the Supreme Court of the United States could not habeas corpus you out.
The methods of punishment for crimes and misdemeanors under martial law are entirely within the discretion of the military court. All statutory forms of punishment are null.
Possibly tho Czar of Russia, or mayhap the President of Nicaragua, has more authority than Adjutant General Elliott, but King George of England and the President are more 1-horse-power rulers compared to Elliott, governor general of 16,000 men, women, and children. His kingdom is the smallest in the world-- fifteen miles long and four miles wide.
The courthouse is in a tent. The court-martial is in continuous session. Col. C.F. Jolliffe, chief justice, and Lieut. Col. George B. Wallace, judge advocate or prosecutor.
"We are going to make life safe along the creeks," says Wallace.
A commission investigating mining conditions in the mines will attempt to solve the problem. It consists of bishop P.J. Donohue, of the Catholic diocese of Wheeling: Capt. S.L. Walker, of the State militia, and Tax Commissioner Blue. Bishop Donohue announced today that not only the guard system but also the living conditions of the miners are to be investigated.
The strike is now a siege. It depends on who can hold out the longest. The miners are being supported through strike benefits contributed by all the miners in the United States. They can hold out a number of years.
The mines are standing idle. By decree of the Governor no strike breakers can be imported. The vast properties are producing nothing and are suffering loss through physical depreciation.
Many mine operatives have volunteered to aid the commission in its investigation. There are nearly sixty-nine operators in the territory, all opposed to martial law. They held that it was not necessary and that the guards were required to protect mine property from irresponsible rioters.[The Washington Times, Washington [D.C.], Friday Evening, September 6, 1912. Last Edition, Number 7564. Pg. 9]
"contains no grant of power to the Federal Government over the right to keep and bear arms...."
The Enforcement Acts Declared Unconstitutional by Messrs. Johnson and Stanbery--The Government Counsel Evading the Issue.The last case of the Ku Klux trials that was attempted to be brought before the Supreme Court for final disposition, is entitled the United States vs. Avery et al, and came to the Supreme Court upon a certificate of division from the Circuit Court for District of South Carolina. The defendants in this case were indicted for conspiracy under the Acts of May 87, 1870, known as the Enforcement Or Ku Klux Act. The particular act charged was the murder of one Jim Williams, while attempting to prevent colored citizens voting, and to hinder and prevent their exercise of the right to keep and bear arms.
Motion having been made to quash the indictment, the court were divided in opinion on the question whether it had jurisdiction of the crime of murder charged, and whether the right to keep and bear arms is a right granted and secured by the Constitution of the United States so as to support the charge in the indictment, and render the offence cognizable by the court.
The Government submits that the questions having arisen upon a motion to quash, this court cannot take cognizance of them, the motion being preliminary in its character, and determinable by the court below us a matter of pure discretion.
It is then contended that the Act was intended merely to visit with increased punishment offenders against the laws of the United States, who, in the act of violating those laws, shall also commit offences against the laws of the States, and this it has power to do; and it necessarily follows that the courts of the United States have jurisdiction to inquire into this additional fact. Nor is it any answer to say that in so doing they take jurisdiction of an offence against State laws, and of which Congress cannot give them jurisdiction. The court merely admits evidence of a fact, as matter of aggravation of another offence. The criminal laws of several of the States are cited to show that in those States where any person is convicted of a criminal offence, who has before been punished by the United States or other States for a like offence, such person is sentenced to an additional penalty; and it is said that the difference between taking into account the conviction of a first offence, with a view to fix the punishment of a subsequent one, as in those eases, and taking into account the commission of an offeuoe with a view to fix the punishment of another offence contemporaneously committed, considered merely as facts constituting matter of aggravation, as in this case, is only a difference in time, and is wholly immaterial. In neither case is the punishment, in contemplation of law, applied to the offence, which is regarded as an aggravating circumstance merely.
In respect of the right to bear arms, it is said that the United States, by reason of the power given to Congress to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, has a direct interest in seeing that the right which the Constitution itself declares to be essential to a well-ordered militia is not infringed by unlawful authority, and, in the absence of State legislation, to punish violations of the right, and it is but a reasonable construction of the Act to construe it as applying to this Act as well as to any other.
For the defence, it is urged, after controverting the theory of the Government, that the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution contains no grant of power over the right of suffrage, but is in the nature of a restriction or abridgement of such power in one respect only and that is in the power to discriminate on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. It is to enforce that section and prevent such discrimination, that by the second section Congress is authorized to enact appropriate laws. And this article contemplates only legislative action, and does not expressly apply to individuals. Before the Act in question can take effect, then it must appear that the State has authorized the discrimination prohibited by the amendment, and that such discrimination is attempted to be carried out by an individual. If the State has not violated the article, and has passed no law to authorize such discrimination, the unauthorized act of an individual, or combination of individuals, makes no case for Federal cognizance. An individual cannot deny or abridge the right to vote in the sense of this amendment. It is a right that can only be given or denied or abridged by law. South Carolina has not violated the amendment; she has passed no Act to discriminate on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude, and admits citizens of all color, race and conditions, who have the qualifications of voters, to the full enjoyment of the right of suffrage. But if it be held that it would be appropriate legislation to enforce this amendment against individuals, where the State had passed no Act, then it is contended that the conspiracies charged are not within the jurisdiction of the court, because they are offenses not within the purview of the amendment, nor appropriate legislation to enforce the amendment, and are, therefore, void. It is, then, submitted as too clear for argument, that within the legitimate sphere of the rights reserved to the States is included the right of exclusive legislation in the matter of suffrage; the very existence of the States depends upon it, and they have never surrendered the jurisdiction.
It is declared that not a single offense defined in the Act in question comes within the provisions of the amendment. When the States, by the amendment surrendered the right to discriminate the matter of suffrage on the ground of color, race, &c., , and authorized Congress to enforce that amendment, they surrendered no other right touching the suffrage, and gave Congress no further power over the subject, and hence the Enforcement Act is not appropriate legislation.
The constitutional provision in respect to the right of the people to bear arms contains no grant of power to the Federal Government over the right to keep and bear arms. On the contrary, the established constitution is, that it only recognizes a pre-existing right in the people of the States, and is merely a restriction on the Federal Government against any interference with that right, and consequently a subject matter exclusively within the cognizance of the States.
As to jurisdiction, it is contended that the jurisdiction attempted to be given by the Act over another "felony," committed in the attempt to do the acts prohibited, and in this case murder, belongs exclusively to the Courts of South Carolina, and that consequently so much of the Act is unconstitutional and void, as an exercise of a legislative power not in pursuance of the Constitution.[The Daily Phoenix, Columbia, S.C., Saturday Morning, March 23, 1872. Vol. VIII--No. 2. Pg. 3]
"Let us see what our ancestors thought of this indefeasible right of carrying arms...."
The Right of Carrying Arms.The evidence so far heard by the United States Commissioner in the case of the Baton Rouge disturbance on election day, has, we believe, established no fact implicating the parties before him of any crime. At most it has only been testified that some of these citizens were on the streets of Baton Rouge on the evening of election day, after the polls closed, with arms on their person. That is about the substance of the testimony of that swaggering Bobadil of the army, who disgraces his profession by making cowardly threats against the women and children of Baton Rouge, and who has given evidence in the case, admitting he had contemplated laying that town in ashes, burying in one common ruin all who might determine to stand by their homes, be they guilty or be they innocent. Brave soldier, this Capt. Meyers seems to think it is a crime in a citizen to carry arms, and that the carrying of arms is proof of a criminal intention. He does not seem to know that the bearing of arms is the right of every free man, secured to him by the Constitution of the country, a right which never has been questioned and which never will be surrendered. In the times in which we live, and in the circumstances in which we are placed, it is the bounden duty of every white man to have his arms at hand and ready for use. When we are ruled over by such wicked men as Warmoth and his associates, who would have no hesitation in instigating the negroes to a riot were it their interest to provoke one, it becomes necessary at all times to stand upon our defense. These wretches adopt measures designed to goad the people into resistance and then wish to punish them because they cannot bear the oppression. If there be any disposition to disturb the public peace in this State it is Warmoth and his gang of vultures who have awakened that spirit; it is they who have aroused and encouraged the negroes in their antipathy to the white people and who have given the latter cause for alarm. Then when they find us with arms in our hands ready to sell our lives only at the highest price, if we must lose them, they wish to make it a crime and would infer felonious intentions. Let us see what our ancestors thought of this indefeasible right of carrying arms. Hallam, in his Constitutitonal History of England, speaking of proposed restraints upon personal liberty, made in Parliament in 1737, says:
A bill having been brought in by the ministers to prevent smuggling, which contained some unusual clauses, it was strongly opposed, among other peers by Lord Chancellor Talbot, himself, of course, in the Cabinet and by Lord Hardwicke, then Chief Justice, a regularly bred crown lawyer, and in his whole life disposed to hold very high the authority of government. They objected to a clause subjecting any three persons traveling with arms to the penalty of transportation, on proof by two witnesses that their intention was to assist in the clandestine landing. or carring away prohibited or unaccusted goods."
"We have in our laws, said Lord Hardwicke, then Chief Justice of England, no such thing as at crime by implication, nor can a malicious intention ever be proved by witnesses. Facts only are admitted to be proved, any from those facts the judge and the jury are to determine with what intention they were committed; but no judge or jury can ever, by our laws, suppose, much less determine, that an action in itself innocent or indifferent, was attended with a criminal or malicious intention. Another security for our liberties is, that no subject can be imprisoned unless some felonious and high crime be sworn against him. This, with respect to private men, is the very foundation stone of all our liberties; and if we remove it, if we but knock off a corner, we may probably overturn the whole fabric. A third guard for our liberties is that right which every subject has, not only to provide himself with arms proper for his defense, but to accustom himself to the use of these arms, and to travel with them whenever he has a mind." But the clause in question, it was contended, was repugnant to all the maxims of free government. No presumption of a crime could be drawn from the mere wearing of arms, an act not only innocent, but highly commendable; and, therefore, the admitting of witnesses to prove that any of these men were armed, in order to assist in smuggling, would be the admitting of witnesses to prove an intention, which was inconsistent with the whole tenor of our laws."
How very like this proposed English law is section No. 6 of the act of Congress known as the Enforcement law, which prohibits two or more persons from banding or conspiring together with intent to violate its provisions. We think. However, when it comes to be analyzed and applied in practice, like the English statute it will be found very difficult of enforcement as all such indefinite laws must be.
If these Baton Rouge citizens have done nothing more than carry arms for their defense, they need be under no apprehension of being condemned by public opinion whatever pliant magistrate may do in their case.--N.O. Bee[The Opelousas Courier, Opelousas, Paarish of St. Landry, La., December 3, 1870. Vol. XVIII. No. 12. Pg. 2]
Friday, March 14, 2014
""The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall never be abridged" will soon be nothing but a memory...."
WATCH THE DESPOTS.Senator Chandler of Maine, has introduced a bill making it unlawful for any body of men of ten or more, any of whom are subject to enrollment as a part of the militia of any state of the United States, to assemble, or drill, or bear arms as a military squad, company, battalion or other military organization, unless they are called forth by some civil or military officer lawfully authorized to call them out.
Since the infant days of the republic there has been no such bold attempt to make of this nation a military despotism. Our fathers and grandfathers were accustomed to organize independent military companies, and their right "to keep and bear arms" were never questioned, nor were they forbidden to assemble in squads of "ten or more" and have military drills.
Senator Chandler's bill makes it too apparent to doubt that the people are to be robbed of the last vestige of freedom. Little by little are the fetters being forged. The National Guard--the militia of the states--are to be placed under the control and subject to officers of the regular army.
To most men these movements may have but little significance, but they are certainly ominous of evil days for the people.
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall never be abridged" will soon be nothing but a memory, if the people do not call the conspirators down. Plutocrats can and do conspire to oppress the people, and when they resist, the National Guard is called to aid them in their work.
This last move, if consummated, would leave the people at the mercy of thugs, for the man who will enlist in the National Guard to serve under such laws will be of the element composing the Pinkerton thugs.
Watch the despots![Kansas Agitator, Garnett, Kansas, January 26, 1893. Vol. 3. No. 36. Pg. 4]
"The unconstitutionality of the recently made law prohibiting private free possession of firearms in the State...."
ANOTHER LEGAL NOTION.To the Editor of The Tribune.
Sir: The unconstitutionality of the recently made law prohibiting private free possession of firearms in the State of New York appears perfectly clear when we read the first clause of the second section of Article IV, which says:
"The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens of the several states."
This being the letter of the Constitution, nowise changed, or even indirectly borne upon by any amendment thereof, it stands entirely plain and not to be disputed that no law curtailing any citizen's privilege can be constitutionally made by a single state to day.
None of the other states of this Union has any such law as this New York curiosity. It therefore follows, under the above quoted clause, that it is unconstitutional and should not have been enacted.
ALFRED LAURENS BRENNAN.
New York, Sept. 17, 1911.[New-York Tribune, New-York, Tuesday, September 19, 1911. Vol. LXXI.....No. 23,683. Pg. 6]
"He contended that labor had a right to use arms to resent the impositions of capital...."
[El Paso Daily Herald, El Paso, Texas, Tuesday, November 8, 1898. Vol. XVIII, No. 251. Third Edition, Pg. 8 - Excerpted from the article; "A Very Light Vote Cast, The Election In This City Is Progressing Very Quietly. Democrats Are Glum"]
"as the United States constitution guarantees to every citizen the right to bear arms...."
"Anarchy From Montana."Since the scene that happened in Denver, Russia (formerly Colorado) on the 21st when Chas. H. Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners was escorted before the supreme court of that place by a military coterie of hirling despicable thugs and members of the citizens alliance, the thought is called to mind about an article that appeared in the Miners Magazine some few months ago, from the pen of Al Sellers of this county.
The Miners Magazine headed it as above suggested, "Anarchy From Montana." But a brief review will throw a side light that will fully explain that Mr. Sellers was not far from the right proceeding, when the military is to trample over all free American constitutional rights. His import of the article was for the union men to arm themselves with Mausers and about 500 rounds of ammunition, and which act would be absolutely constitutional, as the United States constitution guarantees to every citizen the right to bear arms in his home, except in "Russiado," where union men vote all tickets but the Socialist, scab at the ballot box and starve in the bull pen. He then made plain that the militia usually called out on these occasions was composed of ruffians, cheap clerks, rounders and thugs of all sorts, and who were all cowardly if they were forced up against a proposition that an "equal break" would be experienced. This class of debauched criminals then, knowing that if they forced trouble and persisted in a reign of Peabody anarchy, would get into a fight where no odds would be in their favor, and in place of bayoneting men into the bull pen and shooting down defenseless humanity, their own bodies would be forced to the position of a lead target. To this he contended that every hired militiaman would shrink from duty.
Does it not look about true when you think of the following told in the associated press dispatch from Denver, Russiado?
Defying the attachment of cavalry which brought Charles H. Moyer of Telluride to appear before the supreme court, W.D. Haywood secretary treasurer of the federation attempted to hold a conversation with the prisoner while he was being taken from the train at the union depot this morning. Ordered to stand back by Captain Bulkley Wells, commanding the guard, he struck the officer in the face. In a second he was surrounded by a cordon of angry troopers who struck at him with the butts of their carbines and beat him with six shooters. That he was not killed by the excited soldiers is due to the action of Bert Givens, the orderly of Captain Wells, who struck up the muzzle of a gun aimed at Haywood and rescued him from his position between two cars where the guardsmen had him cornered.
Placed under arrest he was put in the middle of a hollow square of militiamen, and marched to the Oxford hotel near the depot. Here he again showed fight and was beaten into submission. His injuries consist of a deep cut on the left side of the head and one on the right side of nis head which almost severed the lower lobe of his right ear.
When a demand was made by Police Captain Frank Lee for the release of Haywood on the ground that the militia rule did not extend to Denver, General Sherman Bell replied that he intended to hold Haywood as a military prisoner and would shoot any one who attempted to take him. But, nevertheless, under orders from Gov. Peabody, Haywood was surrendered to Sheriff Armstrong and placed in the county jail this afternoon.
Mr. Haywood made a mistake, even though the army officer had no absolute right there in Denver under the existing circumstances, he made the mistake of not being ready for the trouble if he expected to precipitate the same. The army officer had no military authority in that county, but when struck by Mr. Haywood, the lickspittles in the soldier garb several in number sprang to the man to beat or possibly kill him. But had he had a few fighters with him on the ground where man to man was an equal break the damnable curs who beat him up with guns would have gone so fast that you could not have seen the cowards for dust behind them.
Always be right, but once right go ahead, stop for nothing. Had the above trouble occurred in San Miguel county an entirely different aspect would have been cast upon the part of Mr. Haywood. But why continue this kind of a farce fight. Let us drop all this and get down to business. Let us proceed to educate the laboring people, or possibly more properly put, the exploited class, and realize that the present condition must exist until we can capture the government through the ballot box
President Gompers of the grand annex to Parry's citizens alliance circus, says as follows regarding Gov. Peabody of Russiado:
The violation of the fundamental principles of our country has made Colorado the laughing stock of the country, as well as the rest of the civilized world. Besides, it robs men of the actual rights and protection guaranteed them by the constitution. It appears that if civil law continues to be overriden as it has in the past the fight will soon develop from a technical legal conflict to a physical one. That would be the most deplorable thing we could have in a state or country with a republican form of government.
Gov. Peabody is not half as ridiculous as Gompers was when he dined in a scab joint in Boston, and with a man who proclaimed, and reiterated his proclamation a year later that a "scab is a hero." Gompers is a traitor to organized labor and his criticism of Peabody is entirely out of order. He stands for trades autonomy and solely for a system of organization that will perpetuate the resent anarchistic system, and men like Peabody stand on the rulers side--the side of capital--to fight that kind of an organization on its own dung hill. Let Gompers and other leaders spend their time in educating the laboring men to unite at the ballot box, and soon this anarchistic system that prevails at the present will be wiped out and the cooperative commonwealth established. Peabody is true to the interest of the class he represents, while Gompers is a fakir to the class from which he draws a good salary.[The Montana News, Lewistown, Montana, Wednesday, April 27, 1904. Vol. II. No. 32. Pg. 4]
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
"The constitutions of the United States and of North Carolina both guarantee to all citizens the right to bear arms...."
And there is yet another putrid example of how the press has been historically employed in the destruction/diminshment of our right. In all my years of study concerning the right to bear arms. I have yet to read ANYTHING from ANY of the founders that decried carrying weapons concealed. That was something that only appeared later on, in the local and state legislatures as well as the courts.BACKBONE.The carrying of concealed deadly weapons is the result of pure cowardice--for no brave man will conceal a weapon about his person under ordinary circumstances--and mean liquor. Both practices are against the laws of North Carolina. Public sentiment against liquor is sufficiently aroused, in many localities, to prevent its use by the better class of young men. But public sentiments not sufficiently aroused to prevent the carrying of deadly weapons concealed about the person. The constitutions of the United States and of North Carolina both guarantee to all citizens the right to bear arms. That is, to bear arm openly and above board, so that all can see that the arms are there, ready for use. But there is no such guarantee in favor of bearing arms concealed. Why? Because the fathers of our fundamental law knew that the concealment of weapons is done for a mean and cowardly advantage, and so set their sturdy faces rigidly against it. If they could not settle their quarrels with their fist, they went to the courts. The man who really is in fear of his life carries his gun openly. The coward, who hopes to gain some advantage over any chance opponent he may encounter, conceals his. Liquor makes him a coward, for liquor tells him that he must swagger and bully and bluff, and curse and use vulgar language, and be overbearing, in Order to appear brave--things he would never do in his right senses--and that such conduct invites resentment. If he is armed, secretly, and the one who resents his insolence is not, then he has the advantage in the sense of superior physical force. Hence the deadly pistol in the concealed hip pocket.
The legislature and juries are not to blame for carrying concealed weapons. It is right that the legislature should give the judges some discretion in the punishment inflicted for violations of the law against concealed weapons, for there are often mitigating circumstances. But. if the judges would impose prison sentences on the kid-gloved cowards who come before them even one day in jail the same cowardice which prompted them to conceal their weapons would, restrain them from the stigma of a term in jail. For they would be afraid for the community to know them in their true characters as criminals and cowards. On the other hand, the low-down element, which carries its weapons concealed, usually cannot pay a tine, and is not disgraced by a term in jail or on the roads. Yet, it is the this class our judges sentence to prison while they impose a fine only on the kid-glovers, to whom a fine is no punishment at all. Juries seldom get a chance to try concealed weapon cases, which are usually "fixed up" between the defendant's attorney and the Solicitor, payment of the costs being generally the only penalty imposed, witnesses for the State having been dismissed, and the judge being ignorant of the facts.
And the pulpit--is it altogether blameless? Whoever heard a preacher denounce the carrying of concealed weapons from the sacred desk? And the newspapers? What editor handles this subject with gloves off? What one calls a spade a spade and a coward a coward?
What we all need, criminals, judges, editors and preachers is not a little more backbone, but some backbone--for really, we have had none whatever about this appalling and bloody business.[The Watauga Democrat, Boone, Watauga County, Thursday, June 4, 1914. Vol. XXV No. 45. Pg. 2]
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
"Whither is the spirit of America gone? Whither is the genius of America fled?"
This story began in No. 15. Subscribers can get back numbers.
Sydney Stone, Anti-Federal.
Copyright 1895,
By G. C. CLEMENS,
(Author of "The Dead Line.")
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER III.
FEDERALISM WINS.
Constitutions, charters, petitions of right, declarations of right, representative assemblies, electoral colleges, are not good government; nor do they, even when most elaborately constructed, necessarily produce good government. Laws exist in vain for those who have not the courage and the means to defend them. Electors meet in vain where want makes them the slaves of their landlord, or where superstition makes them the slaves of the priest."--Macaulay.
Woe worth the hour when it is crime
To plead the poor dumb bondman's cause;
When all that makes the heart sublime.
The glorious throbs that conquer time,
Are traitors to our cruel laws!
--Lowell.
Sydney Stone, Anti-Federal.
Copyright 1895,
By G. C. CLEMENS,
(Author of "The Dead Line.")
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER III.
FEDERALISM WINS.
Constitutions, charters, petitions of right, declarations of right, representative assemblies, electoral colleges, are not good government; nor do they, even when most elaborately constructed, necessarily produce good government. Laws exist in vain for those who have not the courage and the means to defend them. Electors meet in vain where want makes them the slaves of their landlord, or where superstition makes them the slaves of the priest."--Macaulay.
Woe worth the hour when it is crime
To plead the poor dumb bondman's cause;
When all that makes the heart sublime.
The glorious throbs that conquer time,
Are traitors to our cruel laws!
--Lowell.
The end had come. The day had arrived when the mighty question which had been three weeks under discussion was to be decided forever. The event was still in doubt. Neither side was certain of victory, and the greatest anxiety disturbed every mind. Ills emotion roused to the uttermost by the actual coming of the hour which was burdened with the announcement of the momentous decision, Patrick Henry, pale, serious and agitated, rose to make what he knew was to be his final effort to save the liberties of his country from those who purposely or ignorantly sought to destroy them.
"The honorable gentleman said that great danger would ensue if the convention rose without adopting this system. I ask, Where is that danger? I see none. Other gentlemen have told us within these walls that the Union is gone or that the Union will be gone. Is not this trilling with the judgment of their fellow citizens? Till they tell us the ground of their fears, I will consider them as imaginary. I rose to make inquiry where these dangers were. They could not answer. I believe I shall never have that answer. Let not gentlemen be told that it is not safe to reject this government. Wherefore is it not safe? We are told there are dangers; but those dangers are ideal; they cannot be demonstrated. Some minds are agitated by foreign alarms. Happily for us, there is no real danger from Europe; that country is engaged in more arduous business. From that quarter there is no cause of fear; you may sleep in safety forever for them.
"But, If, sir, there were danger, I would recur to the American spirit to defend us that spirit which has enabled us to surmount the greatest difficulties. It was but yesterday when our enemies marched in triumph through our country. Yet the people of this country could not be appalled by their pompous armaments; they stopped their career, and victoriously captured them. Where is the peril now compared to that ?
"Whither is the spirit of America gone? Whither is the genius of America fled? To that illustrious spirit I address my most fervent prayer to prevent our adopting a system destructive of liberty." During the speech, of which but extracts have been given, an incident occurred which illustrated the firm hold superstition retains upon even the most cultivated minds. Patrick Henry's biographer shall tell the story:
"The question of adoption or rejection was now approaching. The decision was still uncertain, and every mind and every heart was filled with anxiety. Mr. Henry partook most deeply of this feeling; and while engaged, as it were, in his last effort, availed himself of the strong sensations which he knew to pervade the house, and made an appeal to it which, in point of sublimity, has never been surpassed in any age or country of the world. After describing, in accents which spoke to the soul, and to which every other bosom deeply responded, the awful immensity of the question to the present and future generations, and the throbbing apprehensions with which he looked to the issue, he passed from the house and from the earth, and looking, as he said, 'beyond that horizon which binds mortal eyes,' he pointed with a countenance and action that made the blood run back upon the aching heart--to those celestial beings who were hovering over the scene, and waiting with anxiety for a decision which involved the happiness or misery of more than half the human race. To those beings with the same thrilling look and action he had just addressed an invocation that made every nerve shudder with supernatural horror, when, lo! a storm at that instant arose which shook the whole building, and the spirits whom he had called seemed to have come at his bidding. Nor did his eloquence or the storm immediately cease, but; availing himself of the incident with a master's art, he seemed to mix in the fight of his ethereal auxiliaries, and rising on the wings of the tempest, to seize upon the artillery of heaven and direct its fiercest thunder against the heads of his adversaries. The scene became insupportable."
Members rushed from their seat in confusion and dismay; and but for the timely arrival of a Federalist, who had been absent during the excitement, there would have been no one sufficiently collected to proceed with the debate.
Nor was this the only exciting episode. The Virginia anti-Federals had even contemplated a resort to arms rather than yield, and it was perfectly understood by the Federalists that the man whose eloquence had hurled the Colonies against Great Britain's trained forces was amply able, if he chose, to rouse his countrymen again. Hence, it is little wonder that Madison and others were startled and grew pale with apprehension when, while declaring that the Constitution would make an end of jury trial and put every champion of liberty at the mercy of the government, the fiery patriot declared he would not submit, and exclaimed:
"Old as I am, it is possible I may yet have the appellation of rebel!"
And, with a look of defiance, added suggestively: But my neighbors will protect me!"
A Federalist replied that "Virginia would be in arms to support the Constitution," but the others knew better, and, instead of replying, set themselves to work getting Patrick Henry's friends to induce him in to entertain more pacific sentiments.
"Their efforts succeeded; and in closing a brief address, just before the question was put, he thus quieted the fears of the opposition and allayed the war like spirit he had awakened in his followers:
"I beg pardon of this house for having taken up more time than came to my share, and I thank them for the patience and polite attention with which I have been heard. If I shall be in the minority, I shall have the painful sensations which arise from a conviction of being overpowered in a good cause. Yet I will be a peaceable citizen! My head, my hand and my heart shall be free to retrieve the loss of liberty, and remove the defects of that system in a constitutional way. I wish not to go to violence, but will wait with hopes that the spirit which predominated in the Revolution is not yet gone, nor the cause of those who are attached to the Revolution yet lost. I shall, therefore, patiently wait, in expectation of seeing that government changed so as to be compatible with the safety, liberty and happiness of the people."
The vote was taken; and in the convention of a hundred and and sixty-eight members, the Constitution was ratified by a majority of only ten. But that sufficed. The government of the United States of America had begun to exist.
The people, however, now showed their hostility to the Constitution by electing a Legislature made up of anti-Federals more than two to one; and Patrick Henry was allowed to name both United States Senators. Madison, who was Washington's candidate for the Senate, was overwhelmingly defeated. The
Assembly passed resolutions demanding that Congress should call a new federal convention for proposing amendments to the Constitution, sent copies of proposed amendments and of the resolutions to Governors and Legislatures of all the States, and instructed the Virginia Senators and Representatives to act in the meantime as if those amendments were already part of the Constitution.
The proposed amendments related to trial by jury, the right of the people to assemble, freedom of speech and of the press, the right to bear arms, and other matters proper in a bill of rights.
These amendments, soon after the organization of the government, were added to the Constitution. But what availed they? Mason, of Virginia, had proposed the same bill of rights to the Philadelphia convention, and it was rejected by a unanimous vote of the States. The same party which rejected those. restraints upon tyranny, organized the new government; and, save for rare and brief intervals, has controlled it to this day; and notwithstanding the amendments inserted by the people, a Federalist Supreme Court has, this very year (1895), declared that American citizens may be imprisoned without a jury trial for constructive treason; that it is a crime to advise a citizen to "buy a gun" to resist usurpation, and that Patrick Henry correctly judged that, under the Constitution, "a few neighbors can not assemble without the risk of being shot by a hired soldiery the engines of despotism!" That Federalist Supreme Court has declared that under that Constitution, notwithstanding its amendments, the federal standing army may serve as a national police force in any city or hamlet, regardless of the protests of the Governor of the invaded State. Notwithstanding those amendments, a federal standing army has this very year filled with hungry workingmen some graves in the State of Abraham Lincoln. Not far from Lincoln's tomb some American workingmen languish in prison for that crime abhorred by lovers of liberty constructive treason; and they were sent there by the will of a Judge--a tool of despotism-- without a trial by their peers. When the members of that Virginia convention refused to heed honest, patriotic Patrick Henry's warning, they gave us what we have to-day; a republic in name, a military despotism, in fact; a government by the people in form; in reality, a government of the people by the most contemptible among the rich;--a government of which even the President is but a salaried clerk, through whom the chiefs of great plundering organizations of corrupt wealth reign as absolute over the people as ever did Eastern despot reign; and spy upon their subjects as contemptibly and oppress them as mercilessly as ever did Dionysius the Tyrant spy upon and oppress the people of old Syracuse.
Alas! We cannot now go back to that old church in Richmond and undo the work of 1788! Nor have we the spirit to do so were it in our power. Could Patrick Henry come among us to-day and look upon the degeneracy of the people for whose good he labored and dared, would he not with tenfold emphasis again exclaim:
"Whither is the spirit of America gone? Whither is the genius of America fled?"
"The honorable gentleman said that great danger would ensue if the convention rose without adopting this system. I ask, Where is that danger? I see none. Other gentlemen have told us within these walls that the Union is gone or that the Union will be gone. Is not this trilling with the judgment of their fellow citizens? Till they tell us the ground of their fears, I will consider them as imaginary. I rose to make inquiry where these dangers were. They could not answer. I believe I shall never have that answer. Let not gentlemen be told that it is not safe to reject this government. Wherefore is it not safe? We are told there are dangers; but those dangers are ideal; they cannot be demonstrated. Some minds are agitated by foreign alarms. Happily for us, there is no real danger from Europe; that country is engaged in more arduous business. From that quarter there is no cause of fear; you may sleep in safety forever for them.
"But, If, sir, there were danger, I would recur to the American spirit to defend us that spirit which has enabled us to surmount the greatest difficulties. It was but yesterday when our enemies marched in triumph through our country. Yet the people of this country could not be appalled by their pompous armaments; they stopped their career, and victoriously captured them. Where is the peril now compared to that ?
"Whither is the spirit of America gone? Whither is the genius of America fled? To that illustrious spirit I address my most fervent prayer to prevent our adopting a system destructive of liberty." During the speech, of which but extracts have been given, an incident occurred which illustrated the firm hold superstition retains upon even the most cultivated minds. Patrick Henry's biographer shall tell the story:
"The question of adoption or rejection was now approaching. The decision was still uncertain, and every mind and every heart was filled with anxiety. Mr. Henry partook most deeply of this feeling; and while engaged, as it were, in his last effort, availed himself of the strong sensations which he knew to pervade the house, and made an appeal to it which, in point of sublimity, has never been surpassed in any age or country of the world. After describing, in accents which spoke to the soul, and to which every other bosom deeply responded, the awful immensity of the question to the present and future generations, and the throbbing apprehensions with which he looked to the issue, he passed from the house and from the earth, and looking, as he said, 'beyond that horizon which binds mortal eyes,' he pointed with a countenance and action that made the blood run back upon the aching heart--to those celestial beings who were hovering over the scene, and waiting with anxiety for a decision which involved the happiness or misery of more than half the human race. To those beings with the same thrilling look and action he had just addressed an invocation that made every nerve shudder with supernatural horror, when, lo! a storm at that instant arose which shook the whole building, and the spirits whom he had called seemed to have come at his bidding. Nor did his eloquence or the storm immediately cease, but; availing himself of the incident with a master's art, he seemed to mix in the fight of his ethereal auxiliaries, and rising on the wings of the tempest, to seize upon the artillery of heaven and direct its fiercest thunder against the heads of his adversaries. The scene became insupportable."
Members rushed from their seat in confusion and dismay; and but for the timely arrival of a Federalist, who had been absent during the excitement, there would have been no one sufficiently collected to proceed with the debate.
Nor was this the only exciting episode. The Virginia anti-Federals had even contemplated a resort to arms rather than yield, and it was perfectly understood by the Federalists that the man whose eloquence had hurled the Colonies against Great Britain's trained forces was amply able, if he chose, to rouse his countrymen again. Hence, it is little wonder that Madison and others were startled and grew pale with apprehension when, while declaring that the Constitution would make an end of jury trial and put every champion of liberty at the mercy of the government, the fiery patriot declared he would not submit, and exclaimed:
"Old as I am, it is possible I may yet have the appellation of rebel!"
And, with a look of defiance, added suggestively: But my neighbors will protect me!"
A Federalist replied that "Virginia would be in arms to support the Constitution," but the others knew better, and, instead of replying, set themselves to work getting Patrick Henry's friends to induce him in to entertain more pacific sentiments.
"Their efforts succeeded; and in closing a brief address, just before the question was put, he thus quieted the fears of the opposition and allayed the war like spirit he had awakened in his followers:
"I beg pardon of this house for having taken up more time than came to my share, and I thank them for the patience and polite attention with which I have been heard. If I shall be in the minority, I shall have the painful sensations which arise from a conviction of being overpowered in a good cause. Yet I will be a peaceable citizen! My head, my hand and my heart shall be free to retrieve the loss of liberty, and remove the defects of that system in a constitutional way. I wish not to go to violence, but will wait with hopes that the spirit which predominated in the Revolution is not yet gone, nor the cause of those who are attached to the Revolution yet lost. I shall, therefore, patiently wait, in expectation of seeing that government changed so as to be compatible with the safety, liberty and happiness of the people."
The vote was taken; and in the convention of a hundred and and sixty-eight members, the Constitution was ratified by a majority of only ten. But that sufficed. The government of the United States of America had begun to exist.
The people, however, now showed their hostility to the Constitution by electing a Legislature made up of anti-Federals more than two to one; and Patrick Henry was allowed to name both United States Senators. Madison, who was Washington's candidate for the Senate, was overwhelmingly defeated. The
Assembly passed resolutions demanding that Congress should call a new federal convention for proposing amendments to the Constitution, sent copies of proposed amendments and of the resolutions to Governors and Legislatures of all the States, and instructed the Virginia Senators and Representatives to act in the meantime as if those amendments were already part of the Constitution.
The proposed amendments related to trial by jury, the right of the people to assemble, freedom of speech and of the press, the right to bear arms, and other matters proper in a bill of rights.
These amendments, soon after the organization of the government, were added to the Constitution. But what availed they? Mason, of Virginia, had proposed the same bill of rights to the Philadelphia convention, and it was rejected by a unanimous vote of the States. The same party which rejected those. restraints upon tyranny, organized the new government; and, save for rare and brief intervals, has controlled it to this day; and notwithstanding the amendments inserted by the people, a Federalist Supreme Court has, this very year (1895), declared that American citizens may be imprisoned without a jury trial for constructive treason; that it is a crime to advise a citizen to "buy a gun" to resist usurpation, and that Patrick Henry correctly judged that, under the Constitution, "a few neighbors can not assemble without the risk of being shot by a hired soldiery the engines of despotism!" That Federalist Supreme Court has declared that under that Constitution, notwithstanding its amendments, the federal standing army may serve as a national police force in any city or hamlet, regardless of the protests of the Governor of the invaded State. Notwithstanding those amendments, a federal standing army has this very year filled with hungry workingmen some graves in the State of Abraham Lincoln. Not far from Lincoln's tomb some American workingmen languish in prison for that crime abhorred by lovers of liberty constructive treason; and they were sent there by the will of a Judge--a tool of despotism-- without a trial by their peers. When the members of that Virginia convention refused to heed honest, patriotic Patrick Henry's warning, they gave us what we have to-day; a republic in name, a military despotism, in fact; a government by the people in form; in reality, a government of the people by the most contemptible among the rich;--a government of which even the President is but a salaried clerk, through whom the chiefs of great plundering organizations of corrupt wealth reign as absolute over the people as ever did Eastern despot reign; and spy upon their subjects as contemptibly and oppress them as mercilessly as ever did Dionysius the Tyrant spy upon and oppress the people of old Syracuse.
Alas! We cannot now go back to that old church in Richmond and undo the work of 1788! Nor have we the spirit to do so were it in our power. Could Patrick Henry come among us to-day and look upon the degeneracy of the people for whose good he labored and dared, would he not with tenfold emphasis again exclaim:
"Whither is the spirit of America gone? Whither is the genius of America fled?"
[The Advocate, Topeka, Kansas, August 7, 1895. Vol. VII., No. 32. Pg. 2]
President Taft: "denying American citizens the right to keep arms...."
TAFT AND THE PHILIPPINES.There are probably but a small percent of the voters of the United States who ever think about the condition of the people of the Philippines. They are just forgotten in the daily exactions of our modern civilizations. But as we bought the Philippines and are continuing to be responsible for their welfare, we should know how the are faring under our "beneficent assimilation."
As Secretary Taft, the republican candidate for president, has been the virtual dictator of the policy of the United States toward the Philippines, the conditions there may take on political significance.
In a recent issue, the Inter-Island News published at Zamboanga, P.I., said:
"Taft's sympathies are altogether with the great and powerful, and, in his estimation, the rights of property are paramount to the rights of man. He is a natural born autocrat, and, with a hungry mob of place hunters back of him, would set about creating a strong centralized government Which would be the stepping-stone to the abrogation of the most cherished rights of the American people. In our estimation, his government of the Philippine Islands proves this beyond all dispute, since it was one continuous assault upon the rights of the people through arrogant control of the judiciary, abolishing trial by jury, appealing from verdicts of 'not guilty,' increasing punishment on appeal, denying American citizens the right to keep arms, and the enactment of severe libel and sedition laws. Let his record of despotism in these Islands be a warning to the American people to trust Taft in no position where he can demolish the structure of their government."
Whether this pen picture of Taft and his doings is true, or exaggerated, there must be enough truth in it to cast grave doubts about his fitness for president of the United States.[Aberdeen Herald, Aberdeen, Washington, June 29, 1908. Vol. XXII. No. 84. Pg. 4]
Monday, March 10, 2014
"That we unqualifiedly demand of the president that the right of citizens to carry arms as provided for in the constitution be not abridged...."
CHICAGO FEDERATION OF LABOR CALLS
WILSON TO SEIZE COLORADO MINESAn open war like the one now on in Colorado will reach Chicago unless Chicago newspapers and capitalists change their tactics.
John H. Walker, president of the Illinois State Federation of Labor and president of the Illinois United Mine Worker's, gave this as his opinion in a speech yesterday before the delegates of the Chicago Federation of Labor.
He said labor is trying to get away from violence, but it is forced on by greedy employers. "He declared:
"We want peaceful methods. But if they want the other way, and insist on it, then, by God, we'll give 'em that way."
He named the Chicago Tribune as "coming in the guise of a purveyor of news to poison the mind of the public" on the Colorado situation.
After Walker's speech, John Fitzpatrick, president of the C, F. of L., read resolutions naming the two Rockefellers, father and son, as connected with the murder and burning of men, women and children in the Ludlow tent colony April 21. The resolutions also call on President Wilson to seize the Colorado mines and run them till Congress enacts a law for the federal ownership of natural resources.
This is the most radical governmental action the Chicago central body has ever called for. The resolution was "unanimously adopted and there was not a murmur of dissent from any delegate on the question of the federal government confiscating the coal mines of Colorado.
The Tribune and Examiner were named by Walker as "hostile sheets" which are playing the mine owners' end. According to Walker, there is no limit to what Chicago newspapers will do to get what they want for the interests they serve.
"The Tribune is robbing children of its city of educational funds to which they are entitled. It is not strange the Tribune protests when robbers in Colorado are challenged by organized workmen.
"If the men who own and publish the Tribune had seen their own children among the bodies of the 25 men, women and children in the camp there at Ludlow with the red blood running from the holes of the bullet wounds, I doubt whether they would have stopped where the miners did.
"It's fearful when you stop to think what we're facing. You can go tomorrow here in Chicago and see hired servants of this city carrying guns and clubs, keeping girls from making a protest for the right to live decently. Go down on the South Side at the Goodman plant and you will see men whose salaries you are paying on duty there, and if men on strike speak to scabs who are coming to take their jobs they get the clubs.
"If the gentlemen on the other side persist in these tactics, if they generate the bitterness and go farther in their methods to keep the workers down, one of these days the same thing that's happened in Colorado will happen here, and the 400,000 trades unionists of Chicago will rise up as one man and all the hired gun men and thugs will not be able to prevail.
"They won't know where they are. The thing will be over before it's started.
"I don't want to see that day come. The labor movement is doing all it can to prevent that state of affairs.
"They know they are guilty. And we know they are guilty. And if the time ever comes when that process has to be gone through, there will he no, way to bribe that court."
Adolph Germer, organizer for the United Mine Workers, said: "I challenge the Chicago Tribune and Examiner or any other hostile sheet [Pg. 30] to show that miners in Colorado committed a single violation of law until their homes were burned and their women murdered. Then they defended their homes against the professional murderers sent in by the mine owners. The only mistake they made was in waiting a little too long."
Lt.-Gov. O'Hara declared: "I thought it was a challenge to you and to me as American citizens when John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was brought before a congressional committee and said arrogantly that he would spend his money to beat back union labor in Colorado. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., is a greater menace to this country than Mexico or any of the Central American states. In civilized Chicago we have seen men arrested for nothing except expressing sympathy with girls on strike for better conditions. In civilized Chicago we have seen the police brutally slug newsboys."
The resolutions read:
"Whereas, For more than six months the United Mine Workers have been on strike in the coal fields of Colorado, which coal fields are owned and controlled by the Rockefeller interests, and during this time, gunmen, thugs, criminals and state militiamen have been arresting, torturing and murdering these inoffensive and practically defenseless men, women and children; and,
"Whereas, With the aid and assistance of Governor Ammons of Colorado, the coal companies dominated by the Rockefellers and their military hirelings, have instituted a reign of military terror, civil government has been prostituted and replaced by 'gunmen government,' civil rights, justice and liberty have been denied; and the gunmen-militia, to show their contempt for the Stars and Stripes, riddled it with bullets, a salute to the American flag which is tolerated because it happened in Colorado; and
"Whereas, The constitution of the United States has been violated and treated with contempt by commanding officers of the militia, who claim to be the 'Jesus Christs' of Colorado which is certainly a new way of defining the 'Divine Right' to enslave the workers; and,
"Whereas, On April 21,. 1914, the Rockefeller mine guards, thugs and murderers at Ludlow, Col., perpetrated one of the most fiendish and dastardly massacres, when they set fire to the tent colony where the wives and children of the miners were sheltered; and these brutal and inhuman monsters stood guard, rifle in hand, to shoot down any one who attempted to escape, while the flame and smoke wiped out a score of lives; and,
"Whereas, This brutal warfare on defenseless women and children, the crowning of infamy, a most blood thirsty and merciless act, is the answer of the Rockefeller interests, assisted by the officials and militia of a sovereign state to the workers who through their organizations are striving to observe the law of the state and nation; therefore be it
"Resolved, By the Chicago Federation of Labor, at a regular meeting, May 2, 1914, that we condemn the brutal and inhuman actions of John D. Rockefeller and his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in maintaining a condition whereby the murdering and burning of men, women and children in Colorado is brought about; and be it further
"Resolved, That we believe it to be the duty of the president of the United States to confiscate the coal mines of Colorado and operate them in the interest of the people till Congress enacts legislation providing for the government ownership of natural resources; and be it further
"Resolved, That we ask the president of the United States that during the time the federal troops are in Colorado that the safeguarding of the lives and homes of the workers be paramount to the pretense of the protection of property now so boldly asserted by the anarchists and out-[Pg. 31]laws invading that state; and be it further
"Resolved, That we unqualifiedly demand of the president that the right of citizens to carry arms as provided for in the constitution be not abridged; and be it further
"Resolved, That we pledge our moral and financial support to the miners of Colorado in the absence Of civil government ,and in every lawful effort they make to elevate their material and moral conditions, and we urge them to be steadfast and true to themselves, their wives and children, their homes and their fellow workers."
The resolutions will be submitted to Congress and read into the record by Congressman Buchanan.[The Day Book, Chicago, Monday, May 4, 1914, Last Edition, Vol. 3, No. 184 Pgs. 29-31]
"the Constitution intended that men should use the arms to defend their homes and then families against oppression...."
The Right to Bear Arms.No act of the National government during the late civil war was fraught with more important consequences than the enlistment of negro troops. Nearly two hundred thousand of these were actually in service, and did well for their country, a country which by that act, for the first time in her history, acknowledged them us her people. Most of them were raised in the South, in the very worst of all the rebellious States, where their masters were in the field doing their utmost to destroy the republic, and they were liberated from their fetters to go out like the Greek bondmen in Persian war, and fight the battles of freedom. It was a bold step to make soldiers of such men in a region where they had been so long held to belong to an inferior race, and against their own oppressors. But it was a successful one. The stubborn prejudices of northern whites gave way, and recognized these black soldiers as brethren in a good cause, while even southern contempt was overcome, and the negro raised himself immeasurably in the eyes of the southern whites by fighting against them, and fighting well, too.
The real importance of the act, however, lay in the recognition thus afforded of the right of the blacks to bear arms, always disputed previously, notwithstanding the guarantees of the national Constitution. Not only were they conceded the right to bear arms, but arms were placed in their hands, the national uniform on their bodies, the national colors confided to their care, and they were ranked and paid as soldiers of the republic. This service performed and the need of their aid no longer existing, it now seems that the government chooses to ignore both them and their rights. The very men who were deemed fit to be soldiers of the Union are now disarmed by rebel State officials all over the South, acting by the connivance of Andrew Johnson and his reactionary cabal. This is no guess work. The statements rest upon military authority, and prove conclusively that those who fought for the Union when it was in peril are now allowed to be disarmed by disbanded rebel troops who have seized possession of the State powers, elected each other to office, and are now engaged in endeavoring to crush out all unionism both of blacks and whites.
The second articles of the amendment made to the Constitution in 1789 says explicitly that "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Now what is here meant by "the people?"--Webster defines it as "the body of persons who compose a community, town, city or nation; the vulgar, the mass of illiterate persons; the commonalty as distinct from men of rank; persons in general," and so on. Whichever one of these definitions we take, not a black person in the South, or anywhere else in the country, can be excluded under it from the right to bear arms, though the rebel oligarchs who are now engaged in
disarming them could be.
Recurring, however to the language of the Constitution, we find that it couples this great right with the necessity for a militia, showing obviously enough that the people to be allowed to keep and bear arms are those of whom a militia can be composed. Of course, we shall here be answered that the militia is a State institution, regulated by State laws, and as no blacks are included in it by the laws of the Southern States, none of them are designed by this article of the Constitution. Why, then, does the Constitution deem it necessary to throw this safeguard around it? If the militia be wholly a State institution, why should national Constitution look after it thus? Moreover, if the militia belong wholly to the State, where is the republic to look for soldiers when the State orders the militia to rebel?
This is exactly what led so many southern Union men to sustain their States in rebellion. They hold the theory that the militia belonged of right to the State, and were bound to obey the orders of the State authorities even against those of the national government. When the conscription act was passed, the national authority took complete possession of all the arms-bearing population of the country. Where, then, was the State authority over the militia? If that authority had been superior the conscription act never could have been enforced, and the war must have been arrested for the want of men. To recognize the rebel theory now as valid would render us liable to this difficulty hereafter.
But if the negroes be not included in the militia, they are peculiarly the "people" of the nation, and under the words of the Constitution are entitled to bear arms. This is clear from the fact that they have so borne arms as soldiers of the republic. We find, then, that while the rebel State officials cling to their theories and demand and enforce the constitutional right of the white people of the South to bear arms, the national government abandons entirely the protection of those who are acknowledged to be peculiarly its charge, and who were its best friends at the South during the War. This Andrew Johnson does, we presume, on the principle that his duty is to protect the rebels and not the freedmen, for on no other theory can we account for his conduct.
But if these freedmen are not 'people' within the view of this article of the Constitution, they cannot be held to be 'persons' within the view of the article which prescribes ho[w] representatives in Congress shall be apportioned. If they are 'persons' at all, they clearly belong to the 'militia,' no matter what any one may say to the contrary. Whenever called upon to defend the State against invasion their refusal would avail them nothing, they would be obliged to serve. It is worthy of notice here that Gen. Lee strenuously urged the rebel government to arm the negroes and the question, of doing so was undecided when the confederacy fell. Gen Butler proved by rebel records that in Louisiana, the very State where the negroes are now being disarmed by rebels, they were during the war armed, enlisted and regularly trained as rebel troops.
Thus, however we regard this question we see but one conclusion--that the negroes of the South have the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. If they have not, then they cannot constitutionally be counted all in apportioning representatives to the South. If they have not, then no one south but a rebel has the right to bear arms, and the men whom we used for our own purposes in the war must be abandoned. In guaranteeing this inestimable popular right, the Constitution intended that men should use the arms to defend their homes and then families against oppression.
No class in the country stands more in need of such protection than the freedmen of the south, and it is exactly because the rebels know this that they deprive them of arms. We hold that in permitting this to be done Andrew Johnson has been grossly derelict to his duty, and in this respect, as in so many others, he has shown that while perpetually prating about the Constitution he totally disregards its most invaluable provisions. He has allowed the southern negroes to be disarmed, knowing as he did that if so disarmed the scheme to reduce them to a state of abject peonage could not be resisted by them. Whether this was accidental or not on his part may be seen by the fact that at the same time he did this he resisted to the uttermost the extension of civil rights to the freedmen, whereby they could peaceably defend their interests with some chance of success in courts of law and justice. The disarmament of the blacks is manifestly part of the general reactionary scheme.[American Citizen, Butler, Butler County, PA., Wednesday, November 7, 1866. Volume 3. Number 47 Pg. 4]
"the right to bear arms to protect the lives of themselves and their families from these professional gunmen...."
THE LATEST THING IN GOVERNMENT
IS GOVERNMENT BY GUNMEN
Big Employers Now Recruit Their Own Private Army in
the City Slams and Use It to Keep American
Workingmen in Slavery.
BY N. D. COCHRANDo YOU know that we now have government by gunmen in this land of the free and home of the brave?
As the United States government will have to investigate this rival government some day, it might be interesting to know just what it is.
I had a chance to see something of it a few days ago when I visited Calumet, Michigan, to study the copper miners' strike. And I had a chance to study government by gunmen right here in Chicago last year, when the gunmen were governing for the newspapers.
There are in this country numerous strikebreaking agencies, or so-called detective agencies, who make it their business to supply thugs, sluggers and gunmen to employers who resort to force to break strikes.
In Houghton County, Michigan, where the copper miners are on strike, the sheriff hired imported gunmen from the Waddell-Mahon Agency of New York and swore them in as as deputy sheriffs, arming them, with guns and official stars.
Sheriff Cruse told me he had 1,200 of them on duty, and that 400 of them were "company" men--that is, gunmen sworn in as deputy sheriffs, but on the pay-roll and working under the direction of the mining companies.
James A.Waddell told Walter B. Palmer, government statistician, that [Pg. 2] he had 108 men on duty in the county and that the Burns Detective Agency had 12 "detectives."
At the time I was there the State of Michigan had about 650 militia-men on duty. They were armed, of course.
While Waddell was not a citizen of Michigan and Sheriff Cruse had been elected by the people, Waddell was to all intents and purposes the actual sheriff and directed the work of the gunmen.
And the mine managers directed the work of Waddell. He was on their pay-roll.
Waddell himself said that forty per cent of his "men" were ex-members of the New York police force, who had retired on a pension of $57.50 a month which they can do after 20 years' service.
Ostensibly these armed gunmen, deputies and militiamen were there to protect property. Practically they were there to help the mine managers break the strike.
The Strange thing about it, when you think it over, was that all the striking miners had to protect was the lives of themselves and their families--and they were not permitted to be armed.
Six of the gunmen fired into a miners' boarding house during the supper hour and killed a miner and a 17-year-old boy. Not a shot was fired in return by any of the miners. Four of the six gunmen were Waddell men, imported by the mine managers to help break the strike.
When these six hired murderers were finally indicted for murder in the second degree, the mine managers gave bail for them in $10,000 each, and they are still on duty as gunmen--officers of the law, representing the County of Houghton in the great State of Michigan.
Since I came back from Calumet, part of the state troops have been withdrawn. Now the companies are importing more strikebreakers from Chicago and other cities. That means there will be more government by gunmen.
Bear in mind that it is against the principles of a professional strikebreaker to work. The men sent to Calumet from Chicago are not miners and won't work in the mines. They will be deputized, given guns and stars and lined up with the army of gunmen the multi-millionaire mine owners now have on the ground.
They will be used as officers of the law to help evict the striking miners from their homes, when the courts enforce the orders of eviction. They will be used against the miners' as the gunmen and sluggers were used against newsboys last year in Chicago to GOVERN citizens of this country who are exercising their right to strike for better wages and better working conditions.
It is a common practice now to break strikes with hired gunmen in the employ of employers. It is considered legal for employers to administer the law themselves through irresponsible thugs from the city slums.
IT WOULD BE TERMED ANARCHY IF STRIKERS ANYWHERE WERE TO HIRE GUNMEN TO ENFORCE THEIR WILL UPON EMPLOYERS.
Just Imagine the howl that would go up from the kept press all over the country if the striking copper miners of Michigan were to demand of the state or county the right to bear arms to protect the lives of themselves and their families from these professional gunmen.
Yet some day workingmen will demand belligerent rights, and appeal to the American sense of fair play against the injustice of an industrial war in which one army is armed and the other is not.
[Pg. 3] Run it over in your own mind. Why is it legal and proper for mine owners to hire gunmen to protect their PROPERTY and illegal and improper for miners to employ gunmen to protect their LIVES.
Or to put the situation as it actually is, why can employers hire professional gunmen to protect PROPERTY when employes are refused the right to bear arms to protect their own LIVES?
Murders were committed in the West Virginia coal fields by the imported gunmen who were called mine guards. Murder has been committed in the copper country of Michigan by these imported murderers. In nearly every big strike some innocent lives have been sacrificed because of the presence of professional gunmen, or strikebreak[e]rs. IT IS A PART OF THEIR VILLAINOUS BUSINESS.
Yet the public has been led to believe that the purpose of such strikebreakers was to take the places of men on a strike. But that isn't so. I had a long talk once with a professional strikebreaker. He had just come back from strike duty at St. Paul and Minneapolis during the railroad strike several years ago.
He told me he was a soldier of fortune, that he never worked; that it was against the principles of a professional strikebreaker to work, although he might pretend to work.
"It is easy money," he said. "After a strike has been broken, we drift back to Chicago, blow in the easy money and watch the Daily News for ads for guards. We know what that means. When broke we are ready for another job."
Most of the newspapers help the game along. They will report that new men are rapidly taking the places of the strikers; and in most instances these new men are strikebreaking gunmen who wouldn't work under any provocation.
And the men who resort to such tactics are the rich, prominent, influential and leading citizens who are stockholders in the big corporations that fight their battles with labor with these gunmen from the city slums.
They never take the places of striking workingmen. They merely go on strike duty to help slave-drivers drive their striking slaves back to-work.
And the law winks at it. Right here in Chicago desperadoes, ex-convicts, thugs, sluggers and gunmen were employed by the newspaper trust last year to drive the striking newsboys back to work as slaves for the rich newspaper owners.
Two innocent lives were sacrificed through murders committed by desperadoes deputized as officers of the law, wearing official badges and carrying guns. And nobody has been tried for either of those murders.
But government by gunmen can't go on forever. Money can't always rule. Humanity will have its inning. Soon or late, Uncle Sam will have to investigate, and the sunlight of publicity will help get rid of such parasites on human society as the Shaw, Agassiz and McNaughton families, and give the men and women of the copper country a fair chance to raise healthy, wholesome American boys and girls.
[The Day Book, Chicago, Saturday, September 27, 1913. Noon Edition, Vol. 2, No. 308 Pgs. 1, 2 & 3]
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