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.
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