d the
powers of Law and Justice to an extent subversive of republican
institutions, and not to be borne by any free people. He has given
access to the vaults of prisons but not to the bar of justice. It is a
part of the nature of frail men to sin against laws, both human and
divine; but God Himself guarantees him a fair trial before punishment.
Tyrants alone repudiate the justice of the Almighty. To deny an accused
man the right to be heard in his own defense is an echo from the dark
ages of brutal despotism. We have in this the most atrocious tyranny
that ever feasted on the groans of a captive or banqueted on the tears
of the widow and the orphan.

"And yet on this spectacle of shame and horror American citizens now
gaze. The great bulwark of human liberty which generations in bloody
toil have built against the wicked exercise of unlawful power has been
torn away by a parricidal hand. Every man to-day from the proudest in
his mansion to the humblest in his cabin--all stand at the mercy of one
man, and the fawning minions who crouch before him for pay.

"We hear on every side the old cry of the courtier and the parasite. At
every new aggression, at every additional outrage, new advocates rise
to defend the source of patronage, wealth and fame--the department of
the Executive! Such assistance has always waited on the malignant
efforts of tyranny. Nero had his poet laureate, and Seneca wrote a
defense even for the murder of his mother. And this dark hour affords us
ample evidence that human nature is the same to-day as two thousand
years ago."

Such speeches could not be sent broadcast free of charge through the
mails without its effect on the minds of thousands. The great political
party in opposition to the administration was now arrayed in solid
phalanx against the war itself on whose prosecution the existence of the
Nation depended.

Again the Radical wing of his party demanded of the President the
impossible.

The Abolitionists had given a tardy and lukewarm support in return for
the issue of the Proclamation of Emancipation. Their support lasted but
a few days. Through their spokesman, Senator Winter, they demanded now
the whole loaf. They had received but half of their real program. They
asked for a policy of reconstruction in the parts of Louisiana and
Tennessee held by the Union army in accordance with their ideas. They
demanded the ballot for every slave, the confiscation of the property of
the white peo