of the press, and forthwith usurps authority, even in times of peace, to send out its edict to every postmaster, whether in the village or at the cross-roads, clothing him with a despotic and absolute censorship over one of the dearest rights of the citizen.  It degrades labor by giving it the badge of servility, and it impedes enterprise by withholding its proper rewards.  It alone has claimed exemption from the rule of uniform taxation, and then demanded and received the largest share of the proceeds of that taxation.  Is it any wonder, in such a state of facts, that there are this day, of those who have been driven from Virginia mainly by this system, men enough, with their descendents, and means and energy, scattered through the West, of themselves to make no mean State?...

It has been as a fellow-observer, and I will add as a fellow-sufferer, with the members of the Convention, that my judgment of the system of slavery among us has been formed.  We have seen it seeking to inaugurate, in many instances all too successfully, a reign of terror in times of profound peace, of which Austria might be ashamed.  We have seen it year by year driving out from our genial climate, and fruitful soil, and exhaustless natural resources, some of the men of the very best energy, talent and skill among our population.  We have seen also, in times of peace, the liberty of speech taken away, the freedom of the press abolished, and the willing minions of this system, in hunting down their victims, spare from degradation and insult neither the young, nor the gray-haired veteran of seventy winters, whose every thought was as free from offense against society as is that of the infant of days.

When an evil attains this extent, he is a poor citizen, a poor cowardly dallier with opinions, whatever his fighting mark may be, who can make up his mind to calmly acquiesce in establishing its permanence, or to stiffly oppose every movement and every suggestion tending in the least towards its abrogation.

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In the present number of the CONTINENTAL will be found an article on General LYON, in which reference is made to the generally credited assertion, that the deceased hero was not reinforced as he desired during the campaign in Missouri.  This is one of the questions which time alone will properly answer.  In accordance with the principles involved in audi alteram partem, we give on this subject the following abridgment of a portion of General FREMONT’S defense, published in the New York Tribune of March 6:—­

Lyon’s and Prentiss’s troops were nearly all three months men, whose term of enlistment was about expiring.  Arms and money were wanted, but men offered in abundance.  The three months men had not been paid.  The Home Guards were willing to remain in the service, but their families were destitute.  Gen. Fremont wrote to the President, stating his difficulties,