and pointed to those dark recesses upon whose gloomy thresholds there was
never seen a returning footprint.

"It was the plea of the austere and ambitious Strafford, in the days of
Charles I. It filled the Bastile of France, and lent its sanction to the
terrible atrocities perpetrated there. It was this plea that snatched
the mild, eloquent, and patriotic Camillo Desmoulins from his young and
beautiful wife, and hurried him to the guillotine with thousands of
others equally unoffending and innocent. It was upon this plea that the
greatest of generals, if not men,--you cannot mistake me,--I mean him,
the presence of whose very ashes within the last few months sufficed to
stir the hearts of a continent,--it was upon this plea that he abjured
the noble wife who had thrown light and gladness around his humbler days,
and, by her own lofty energies and high intellect, had encouraged his
aspirations. It was upon this plea that he committed that worst and most
fatal acts of his eventful life. Upon this, too, he drew around his
person the imperial purple. It has in all times, and in every age, been
the foe of liberty and the indispensable stay of usurpation.

"Where were the chains of despotism ever thrown around the freedom of
speech and of the press but on this plea of STATE NECESSITY? Let the
spirit of Charles X. and of his ministers answer.

"It is cold, selfish, heartless, and has always been regardless of age,
sex, condition, services, or any of the incidents of life that appeal to
patriotism or humanity. Wherever its authority has been acknowledged, it
has assailed men who stood by their country when she needed strong arms
and bold hearts, and has assailed them when, maimed and disabled in her
service, they could no longer brandish a weapon in her defence. It has
afflicted the feeble and dependent wife for the imaginary faults of the