"Great heavens! Mr. President, is it possible that such things can be, under a Constitution whose boast it has been that it was for the protection of the inalienable rights of man against oppression? If this boast has been in vain, then your Constitution has but a name to live, an outer seeming to beguile and deceive— it is but a delusion and a snare-it is the worthless husk, when the golden grain is gone-the now empty casket from which the jewel has been stolen.

"The liberty, sir, I claim, and those who act with me upon this floor, under our Constitution, is not the liberty of licentiousness, but the liberty united with law, the liberty sustained with the law, and that kind of liberty we have ever supposed was guaranteed to every man, rich or poor, high or low, proud or humble, under all exigencies, whether in peace or in war, or the state in the fearful throes of civil strife. This is my loyalty, and that of my friends upon this floor-the allegiance, the devotion to organic law. I know no other loyalty, and will never bow my self at the shrine of any other. In our republic, its Constitution declares: No citizen shall be deprived of his life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.' We may be made to part with all these by the power of the state; but that power must look well to it, sir, that, in its exercise, it does not transcend the limits within which it is appointed to move. If it does, it becomes despotic, and then among men who know their rights, and, knowing them, dare to maintain them, resistance follows, as naturally as light succeeds darkness. If by a simple mandate, nay by the lightning's flash over the telegraphic wires, as was my own case, any cabinet officer, in States where the people are obedient to law, and where the courts are open, may consign you or me for an indefinite time to the gloomy walls of a government. fortress; then the same mandate, or despatch, only altered in its phraseology, may consign us immediately to the hands of the executioner, or deprive us of our properties, confiscating them to the state. If not, why not? The right to have our lives secure against interference without due process of law, is equally guaranteed in the same clause which protects our liberty and our property. These privileges can trace their lineage back to the grassy lawns of Runnymede, where they were born many centuries ago. They were extorted then, and there, by the rebel

lious barons, and uttered in glowing language that has come down to us from the ages long ago, and is still sounding in our ears as the sweetest note ever sounded from the clarion of freedom. Listen, Senators, to its music, as it sounded 'strong, and without overflowing,' full in the ears of a tyrant king: 'No freeman shall be seized or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, or send upon him, except by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land. Our fathers caught the inspired strain, and it was prolonged in that sonorous sentence I have quoted above from our own Constitution."

Since Mr. Wall left the Senate, he has not been idle. He has been connected editorially with three daily Democratic journals, furnishing the chief editorial matter for all.

HON.

HON. ROBERT ELLIOTT.

ON. ROBERT ELLIOTT, one of the political prisoners of 1861, is a citizen of Freedom, Waldo County, Maine. He is a gentleman in independent circumstances, and about fifty years of age. Having entered into the mercantile business in the town of Freedom, nearly thirty years ago, he readily acquired a competency by his energy and industry, and there continues to own and superintend an extensive stock in trade. By his intelligence and integrity, he has made himself very popular, particularly in his own town, where he has for the past twenty years continued to fill the most important offices. His elections by the people, have always been by large majorities, and not unfrequently by an unanimous vote. He at one time represented his district in the Legislature, and was also a member of the Governor's Council.

In the latter part of the night of September 7, 1861, Mr. Elliott was aroused from his slumbers, at his residence in Freedom, by Chas. Clark, who was acting as Marshal for the State of Maine. The Marshal, after gaining admittance into the house, was quickly followed by ten or twelve men who had hitherto been invisible, having secreted themselves in the out-buildings, and under the fences, until their peculiar services were required. Not one of these men, it is proper to mention, resided in Waldo County. Mr. Elliott, thus surprised and surrounded at the hour of midnight, was ordered to dress and prepare himself to accompany Clark and his men; receiving no other explanation of his untimely arrest, than that it was done by authority of a despatch from Simon Cameron, Lincoln's Secretary of War. And long before his friends and neighbors had begun to break the stillness of the

morning, Mr. Elliott was far on his way to Fort Lafayette, a prisoner in the hands of his Government. Thus seized and carried away from his home, his family, and his friends, he was thrown into prison, where he remained nearly two months, without any charge having been preferred against him. Being unable to subsist on the rations furnished him here by the Government, because of their unwholesome nature, he united with other prisoners, and had suitable provisions furnished from New York, at their own expense.

From this noted Bastile he was conveyed to Fort Warren, and confined there one week. He was then unconditionally discharged on the 7th of November of the same year, without receiving intelligence from any official source, why the sanctity of his home had been invaded, and his personal liberty violated. Close confinement and its attendant horrors of impure atmosphere, and, for a portion of the time, unwholesome diet, made serious inroads upon his health and strength, but failed to weaken his fidelity and adherence to Democratic principles, or to diminish his sense of the wrong and injury which had been inflicted upon him.

During this vile and wicked persecution of his person for his political opinions, the Republican press of the country, under sanction of the Government at Washington, was filled with incendiary articles, false and libellous in their nature, calculated and intended to excite the prejudices and illfeelings of the mob, not only against him, but other similar victims of political cruelty. And who can question the right of the masses to practise mob law, when Government officials lead the way, and establish the rule that might is right?

How successful they were in their teachings, can be further seen in the destruction of Elliott's property by hirelings, desperate characters, and Government spies. During the night of August 16, 1863, his two barns, at the time well filled with hay, were fired, and the wind blowing in the proper direction, the flames were communicated to his dwellinghouse and other buildings, including a large amount of property, all of which were entirely destroyed. The loss which

he sustained was very heavy, as only a small portion of the property was insured. He then built a large barn, at great expense, on the same site, and stored away in it more than a hundred tons of hay. But before the workmen had more than half completed the task of pressing it, and while Elliott was in Boston to arrange for the sale of it, in the night of December 31, 1866, the barn was set on fire, and it, together with the hay, hay-press, and other property of value, entirely consumed. His loss, at this second fire, was also great, only about one-third of the property destroyed being covered by insurance. There can be no doubt that this diabolical treatment of Elliott, in his person and property, was nothing more or less than political persecution.