GRANT CAMPAIGN
THE Democratic party, so-called, have several charges which they make against the Republican party. They give us a variety of reasons why the Republican party should no longer be entrusted with the control of this country. Among other reasons they say that the Republican party during the war was guilty of arresting citizens without due process of law—that we arrested Democrats and put them in jail without indictment, in Lincoln bastiles, without making an affidavit before a Justice of the Peace—that on some occasions we suspended the writ of habeas corpus, that we put some Democrats in jail without their being indicted. I am sorry we did not put more. I admit we arrested some of them without an affidavit filed before a Justice of the Peace. I sincerely regret that we did not arrest more. I admit that for a few hours on one or two occasions we interfered with the freedom of the press; I sincerely regret that the Government allowed a sheet to exist that did not talk on the side of this Government.
I admit that we did all these things.
It is only proper and fair that we should answer these charges. Unless the Republican party can show that they did these things either according to the strict letter of law, according to the highest precedent, or from the necessity of the case, then we must admit that our party did wrong. You know as well as I that every Democratic orator talks about the fathers, about Washington and Jackson, Madison, Jefferson, and many others; they tell us about the good old times when politicians were pure, when you could get justice in the courts, when Congress was honest, when the political parties differed, and differed kindly and honestly; and they are shedding crocodile tears day after day—praying that the good old honest times might return again. They tell you that the members of this radical party are nothing like the men of the Revolution. Let us see.
I lay this down as a proposition, that we had a right to do anything to preserve this Government that our fathers had a right to do to found it. If they had a right to put Tories in jail, to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, and on some occasions corpus, in order to found this Government, we had a right to put rebels and Democrats in jail and to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in order to preserve the Government they thus formed. If they had a right to interfere with the freedom of the press in order that liberty might be planted upon this soil, we had a right to do the same thing to prevent the tree from being destroyed. In a word, we had a right to do anything to preserve this Government which they had a right to do to found it.
Did our fathers arrest Tories without writs, without indictments—did they interfere with the personal rights of Tories in the name of liberty—did they have Washington bastiles, did they have Jefferson jails—did they have dungeons in the time of the Revolution in which they put men that dared talk against this country and the liberties of the colonies? I propose to show that they did—that where we imprisoned one they imprisoned a hundred—that where we interfered with personal liberty once they did it a hundred times—that they carried on a war that was a war—that they knew that when an appeal was made to force that was the end of law—that they did not attempt to gain their liberties through a Justice of the Peace or through a Grand Jury; that they appealed to force and the God of battles, and that any man who sought their protection and at the same time was against them and their cause they took by the nape of the neck and put in jail, where he ought to have been.
The old Continental Congress in 1774 and 1776 had made up their minds that we ought to have something like liberty in these colonies, and the first step they took toward securing that end was to provide for the selection of a committee in every county and township, with a view to examining and finding out how the people stood touching the liberty of the colonies, and if they found a man that was not in favor of it, the people would not have anything to do with him politically, religiously, or socially. That was the first step they took, and a very sensible step it was.
What was the next step? They found that these men were so lost to every principle of honor that they did not hurt them any by disgracing them.
So they passed the following resolution which explains itself:
Resolved. That it be recommended to the several provincial assemblies or conventions or councils, or committees of safety, to arrest and secure every person in their respective colonies whose going at large, may, in their opinion, endanger the safety of the colony or the liberties of America.—Journal of Congress, vol. 1, page 149.