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Cbe JeFrersoiuait
Vol. 14, No. 33
Will the U. S. Judiciary Permit, and the People Ratify, the Congres
sional Overthrow of Our Constitutional System of Government?
Mr. Watson’s Argument Against
ilte Conscription Acts
Before Judge Emory Speer, at Mt.
Airy, Aug. 18, 1917
/ ZYV the 18th of August, 1917, Judge Emory
Speer, of the United States District
Court, heard argument in the cases of two
negro men, jailed in Augusta, .-Georgia, for
failure to register, as per the Acts of Con
gress, May 18, 1917.
The Judge held court under the trees in
front of the hotel, with a large crowd of peo
ple—many of whom were ladies—encircling
the improvised open-air court.
Probably no Federal Judge ever presided
under circumstances so unique and informal;
and the inborn respect of our people for legal
authority was never more beautifully illus
trated than by the perfect decorum of the
assemblage during the several hours of the
sultry day, when Judge Speer, without Mar
shal or Deputies, or other official attendants,
held court as our Germanic ancestors did a
thousand years ago—under the spreading
branches of a noble tree.
The District Attorney, Mr. Earl Donaldson,
replied to Mr AV at son by reading the decision
made by the Supreme Court of Georgia dur
ing the Civil War, and the obiter of the U. S.
/"AN Saturday, Judge Emory Speer at Mt.
Airy heard the application of The Jeffer
sonian Publishing Company for an injunc
tion, forbidding the Thomson postmaster
from refusing to receive The Weekly Jeffer
sonian in the mails.
The Government was represented by Judge
Lamar and Mr. Barnes: the Company was
represented by Mr. B. J. Stevens of the Thom
son bar, by lion. J. Gordon Jones of Cordele,
and S. G. McLendon.
The Government’s attorneys contended that
the Company had no legal standing in the
District Court, but should go to Washington
City, and apply for a mandamus there to
compel the Postmaster-General to restore its
mailing privilege.
Judge Lamar interrupted the proceedings
very often, without rising from his seat, to
prompt his associate —the urbane and able
Mr. Barnes —and to throw out information
for the enlightenment and guidance of man
kind, generally.
Mr. Barnes took the position, that when the
authorities in Washington came to the con
clusion that any issue of the weekly Jeffer
sonian was in law non-mailable, the legal con
tinuity of the issuance of said paper had been
broken, although that issue had in fact been
actually mailed and the postage paid to the
Government.
The Jeffersonian and the Mails
Thomson, Ga., Thursday, August 23, 1917
Supreme Court in the Tarble case, where a
STATE undertook to question an Act of Con
gress.
Mr. Donaldson did not attempt any de
fense of Section 6 of the Conscript law; nor
did he try to answer Mr. Watson's argument
on the 13 th Amendment; and he appeared to
evade studiously the claim that the citizen
Our Central Meeting at Macon
Is called off, owing to the host lity of the
City authorities and the impossibility of se
curing a place of meeting.
We have been threatened with military
violence, and I take the responsibility oi can
celling the meeting, to avoid bloodshed.
The world must be made safe for democra
cy, even though none is left’ in these United
States. THUS. E. WATSON.
cannot lawfully be sent out of the country
against his will.
the District Attorney did not seen
to realize that the President's proclamation of
July 10, 1917) had already FUSED THE
STATE MILITIA WITH THE REGULAR
ARMY) IN VIOLATION OF THE CON
STITUTION.
Judge Speer ashed that the briefs of the
Thus, a mental conclusion in Washington
annihilated a physical fact at Thomson!
According to that view, the Government
could (and, in this case, did) receive the paper
in the mails, collect the postage due on it, and
distribute the same according to custom,
but when afterwards the lawyers in Washing
ton decided that the paper ought not to have
been mailed, the same was not in laW) mailed.
Thus do we make the world safe for de
mocracy.
Messrs. Lamar and Barnes also contended
that only the second-class mail privilege had
been revoked, and that The Jeffersonian could
put up a deposit of cash for the third-class
postage, apply again for the second-class priv
ilege; and if the application were granted,
the Government would refund the overplus
from the cash deposited—regardless of the
increasing financial necessities of Uncle Sam.
Judge Speer seemed inclined to treat the
persuasive suggestion with some levity, re
marking that down in this part of the coun
try we do not have the surplus cash for lux
uries of that description.
Again and again, Judge Speer asked to be
informed of the accusations made by the Gov
ernment against The Jeffersonian.
What had the paper done to cause its ex
clusion from the mails?
Wherein had it violated the law?
attorneys be submitted to him, an J he stated
his purpose to carefully consider them before
rendering his decision.)
May it please your Honor:
We are here for no other purpose (han Io
discuss a question of law. We have nothing
whatever to do with the politics, or the senti
mental aspects of the Great War. Those
matters have no place in this forum and this
case.
We are here with one issue only, and that
issue is, whether Congress in exercising the
Constitutional grant of power to raise armies
has enlarged its own powers and those of
the Executive in a manner destructive to
other provisions of the Constitution.
Has Congress, wilfully or inadvertently,
adopted a method of raising armies which
overthrows the Constitutional scheme of
government? Does the method of 1917 nullify
the system created in 1787? Does the present
plan of Army increase practically abolish the
militia system of the States, which system
was in existence when the present Fedcral
Government was formed, and whose contin
ued existence, as a necessary part of State
machinery, is provided for in the Constitu
tion? Is it within the power of Congress to
authorize the Executive, by his Proclamation,
i CONTINUED ON PAGE TWO.)
The attorneys for the Government could
not —or at least did not —say. They pleaded
that they had come to Mt. Airy with only
three hours’ previous notice, and would re
quire time-) to specify the charges upon which
the paper had been suppressed.
In other words, the Washington officials
ruin your business and destroy your prop
erty) and then have to ask a continuance, be
fore they can tell the Court why they did it!
Thus do we make the world safe for de
mocracy.
Judge Speer finally informed the Govern
ment’s lawyers that they must file a bill of
particulars, and he granted them a week for
the purpose, adjourning the case to Sapphire,
North Carolina, Saturday, August 25th.
In the meanwhile, we have no other means
of reaching our subscribers, than by express.
Nearly 40.000 free Americans are denied
the privilege of getting through the mails
the kind of literature they want, and have
paid for, because the Washington autocrats
do not approve of their taste.
About the only time that Judge Lamar
stood up, in the midst of his puddles of am
bier, and addressed the Court, was when he
emphatically denied that his Department had
established a press censorship.
According to the Lamar-Burleson view, a
(continued on page six.)
Price, Five. Gents
