NP, RD 6/29B/1861

From the Richmond Dispatch
 
June 29, 1861
 
Trade of Louisville, Ky.
   We have already published the announcement of the new Surveyor of the port of Louisville -- one Cotton — notifying shippers that a "permit" from him will be necessary to enable them to ship anything over the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. The Louisville Courier thus notices this act of despotism:
   There isn't a respectable lawyer in the State who doesn't know that this interference with our trade is illegal — who doesn't know that the Administration has just as much authority to order Mr. Cotton to have the first half dozen men he meets in the street in the morning beheaded as to order him to stop any shipments over the railroad to Nashville.
   And if the Administration is permitted to do this thing, to what extent may it not go ? If it may prevent us from sending goods away, may it not prevent us from receiving goods from elsewhere? If it may do one palpable illegal act, shall it he restrained from doing others?
   We don't know, either, that this is all this accursed despotism contemplates doing. We suppose the next thing will be to examine trunks and carpet-bags, as is now done in New Albany and Jeffersonville. We suppose they will soon search persons for contraband goods, and that even ladies will be compelled to submit to indignities, such as are imposed on ladies in St. Louis by the ruffian soldiery there.
   And if quiet submission to these acts should convince the powers that be that we are really slaves, then heaven only knows what else is in store for us.
   One thing is certain — there is no law for this interference with shipments; and resistance to any extremity to any unlawful acts is proper, and may become an imperative duty.
   One other thing is certain — that any community that does submit to an illegal exercise of power by the Administration, must be considered as subjects and not as citizens, as slaves and not as freemen.

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