The Progress of Treason

The Progress of Treason

Gov. Chase has sanctioned, justified, adopted and countenanced the infamous conduct of the Sheriff and people of the underground railroad counties, in their violent and outrageous conduct towards the United States Deputy Marshals, in the recent affair in Greene. He has instructed or requested the Attorney General of this State, who is of the same school of pestilent Abolition demagogues that Chase is proud of being at the head of, to appear, in behalf of the sheriff of Clark county, to resist the application for a writ of habeas corpus to relieve the United States Marshal from the custody of said Sheriff.

We trust that the President will order the Attorney General of the United States to appear in behalf of the authority and dignity of the United States, so that a distinct issue may be joined and the question settled at once, whether the Sheriff can, upon bogus writs from little State Courts, arrest and incarcerate officers of the United States for merely executing the writes of the Courts of the United States. This designation of the Attorney-General, by the Governor, to aid the three or four lawyers already retained for the Sheriff Of Clark is equivalent to a declaration of war on the part of Chase and his abolition crew against the United States Courts. Let the war come - the sooner the better.

There never was a more outrageous case of resistance to the authority of the United States. In other cases there has been some color or shade pretext: some vagueness in the la, or looseness in the execution of the writs, but in this there is no such pretense. The ground is openly taken that a fully, unconstitutional, nullifying act of the Legislature, giving to State Courts the power to issue writs of habeas corpus, serviceable in every part of the State against all persons as well as officers of the United States as all others, having individuals in custody shall be put into effect, so as to render null and void an act of Congress. Chase steps forward to justify and maintain this law. Nay, more he appears, through his instrument, the Attorney General, as the champion and defender of one of the most outrageous, audacious, and cowardly cases of wrong, insult, and continually to the officers of the United States that ever occurred in this century, in which the officers, having prisioners in their custody, under a lawful writ, were overpowered by force, were committed to a pestilential dungeon, and there kept until their prisoners could be taken twenty miles off, and then released by a pretended premise, in which the Marshals were called upon to appear and show cause. These acts are not only justified, but the further custody of the State's officers is claimed and insisted upon through the influence of some village pettifoggers who come to Cincinnati to advertise themselves for Abolition patronage, by denouncing the arrogance and usurpation of the United States executive in the Courts of the Union. Chase adds the Attorney General to them and today the patriotic citizens of this city are to be subject to the disgust of seeing the laws and the tribunals of this Government impugned, scoffed at, and defied by the officers of the State of Ohio.

It is no question of the right or expediency of the Fugitive Slave Law. There are many of us who do not approve that act: but still it is an act of Congress, and must be enforced. Jackson did not approve the tariff which South Carolina attempted to nullify, but he declared that sworn to execute the law, he would faithfully fulfill his oath and duty. The present day President has little of the decision of the old Hero of Hermitage, and we can assume the pestilent demagogues and incendiaries, who have got up this flagrant case of treason and resistance to the United Sates authorities , that they will be compelled to succumb and that too sometime before the fall elections, so that they will not be able to derive any political capital out of the issue.