ve private rights of the people.

Such is the imperfect development of our own nationality in this
respect that we have really no right as yet to call ourselves a
nation in the true sense of the word, nor shall we have while
this state of things continues. Thousands have begun to feel this
keenly, of which a few illustrations may suffice. A communication
to the New York _Tribune_, June 9, signed "Merchant," said:

Before getting into a quarrel and perhaps war with Mexico
about the treatment of our flag and citizens, would it not
be as well, think you, for the government to try and make
the flag a protection to the citizens on our own soil?

That is what it has never been since the foundation of our
government in a large portion of our common country. The kind of
government the people of this country expect and intend to
have--State rights or no State rights, no matter how much blood
and treasure it may cost--is a government to protect the humblest
citizen in the exercise of all his rights.

When the rebellion of the South against the government began, one
of the most noted secessionists of Baltimore asked one of the
regular army officers what the government expected to gain by
making war on the South. "Well," the officer replied, laying his
hand on the cannon by which he was standing, "we intend to use
these until it is as safe for a Northern man to express his
political opinions in the South, as it is for a Southern man to
express his in the North." Senator Blaine, at a banquet in
Trenton, N. J., July 2, declared that a "government which did not
offer protection to every citizen in every State had no right to
demand allegiance." Ex-Senator Wade, of Ohio, in a letter to the
Washington _National Republican_ of July 16, said of the
president's policy:

I greatly fear this policy, under cover of what is called
local self-government, is but an ignominious surrender of
the principles of nationality for which our armies fought
and for which thousands upon thousands of our brave men
died, and without which the war was a failure and our
boasted government a myth.

Behind the slavery of the colored race was the principle of State
rights. Their emancipation and enfranchisement were important,