litical liberty. The Constitution is
a piece of parchment--sacred and to be revered--but it is, in its
outward presentment, material and inactive. The _spirit_ of the
Constitution is intangible and ideal, its interpretation alone is its
vitality. We the people--through equally material morsels of paper
entitled votes--raise the spirit of the Constitution by placing in the
halls of Congress the interpreters of that Constitution, over whom and
above all sits the Chief Magistrate, who, once endowed by us with power,
retains and sways it until another, by the same process, carries out at
our will the same eventualities. Our part as electors and adjudicators
is done, and it ill becomes us to weaken or hold up to the ridicule of
the world the power therein invested, by questions as to the President's
'right' or 'power' or 'ability' to enact this measure or that.

Away then with the unseemly cry of 'the Constitution as it is,' 'the
Union at it was,' the 'expediency' or 'non-expediency' of employing the
war power, the interference or the non-interference of the man and the
men established by us to represent us with the military leaders, the
finances, or the thousand and one implements of administration, _which
they are bound to employ_, not as we, but as they, holding our powers of
attorney for a specified and legalized period, in their human wisdom
deem best for the common good of the land. Let us have faith in the
motives and intentions of our political administration, or if we have
lost our faith, let us submit--patiently and with accord. Above all, at
a period like this, when the minds of the best men and the truest are
oppressed with a sense of the injustice with which a portion of our
countrymen regard us, it most behooves us to keep our social and
political ranks closed and in order, subject to the will of that
commander, disobedience to which is infamy and ruin. No matter with
what diversity of tongues and opinions we pursue our individual
avocations and aims, we are all pilgrims pressing forward like the
followers of Mohammed to the Kebla stone of _our_ faith--Peace founded
on Union.

What if a party clique utters sentiments adverse to our own on the never
ceasing topic of political policy? Is it not the expression of a mind or
a hundred minds forming a portion of the great body politic, of which we
ourselves are a part, and are they not entitled to their opinion and
modes of expressing it, providing it be done with d