So Bright Is Expelled

The telegraph told us yesterday and we tell our readers to-day that Jesse D. Bright has been expelled from the United States Senate for writing a letter of introduction with one Mr. Lincoln to Jefferson Davis.  This act was derogatory to the Constitution of the United States, and on that principle the expulsion was proper.

Now, let the Senate purge itself of the Abolition traitors who have been offering violence to the Constitution for years every day of their term in Congress.  Let Sumner and Hale, and Wade and other violators of the Constitution be extruded from a chamber where none but patriots should dare to put his foot.  If the composition of the Senate as it now exists be such as to favor Abolition treason while ridding the Chamber of an offender who sympathized with traitors to the Union, then let the people arouse themselves and demand that every Abolition traitor be extruded from the Senate Chamber.  The Senate has set an example which must be followed up till that body be purged of traitors, whether to the Constitution or the Union.

Out, then, with those who have been the primary cause, by their attacks upon the Constitution, of the rebellion against the Union.  Out now with Sumner and Hale, with Wade and Chandler, or the people will put them out indignantly and with far less ceremony than Bright has been disposed of.

– Published in The Dubuque Herald, Dubuque, Iowa, Friday Morning, February 7, 1862, p. 1