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THE SENATE AND MESSRS. HYATT AND HOWE. – The attempt of Thaddeus Hyatt and Dr. Howe to resist the authority of the Senate, by refusing to appear and testify relative to the Harper’s Ferry outrage, is truly absurd. Hyatt denies the power of the Senate to compel his appearance, and, it appears, is about to appeal to the authority of a State court to maintain him in his recusancy by a habeas corpus. If the Senate has no power to make witnesses testify in a case like this, it has no power at all; and by invoking the aid of a State tribunal, Hyatt is taking issue with the constitution of the country. Any State Judge who would grant a writ of habeas corpus in this case would be grossly violating the constitution; and if Congress cannot compel Mr. Hyatt to go to Washington and tell what he knows about the insurrection at Harper’s Ferry, or, on his refusing, cannot inflict punishment upon him, then we have no government at all.
Hyatt and Howe are valuable witnesses in this investigation. They were the confederates and friends of John Brown; and we all know – for Hugh Forbes has told us – that before he went to Kansas to teach the anti-slavery party there how to use Sharpe’s rifles, and shoot and murder their fellow men, there was a dinner party – a private, comfortable dinner party – came off at New York, at which he and Thaddeus Hyatt and Horace Greeley were present. They enjoyed themselves mightily, and discussed the whole coming affairs of Kansas; and when Forbes got up to start for the train on his journey to Kansas, he was short of money, and Greeley put his hand in his picket and generously gave him twenty dollars, wished him godspeed in his undertaking – saying at the same time: - “Now, Forbes, when you get to Kansas I want you to write me everything that goes on there, particularly about the fighting, for if there is to be any fighting I want to be there.” The Senate Committee should certainly subpoena Greeley. He can tell all about that dinner party, how he sent Forbes to Kansas to teach John Brown to fight, and about the plans of Old Brown and his confederates. Dr. Howe also can give a great deal of information, for it was to him Forbes wrote that long letter, which we published, in which he informed him that he told all about John Brown’s project to Senator Seward, some time before. The Senate should insist upon having all these witnesses before the Committee.
