According to Mahony the four acts of despotism were: I, Tax bill; 2, conscription bill; 3, finance bill; 4, indemnity bill. Late in April, 1863, the provost Marshal at St. Genevieve, Missouri, issued an order suppressing the Dubuque Herald at that point. The order of General Hascall broke the hearts of the Dubuque Herald editors. They called it the "last act of the tragedy." All disloyal newspapers were to be suppressed. The order said: "All newspapers and public speakers that counsel or encourage resistance to the conscription act, or any other law of Congress passed as a war measure, or that endeavor to bring the war policy of the government into disrepute, will be considered as having violated the order above alluded to and treated accordingly." The Dubuque Herald said: "If this order of Hascall's means anything it means that we are now at his mercy. Because we take the risk of the action does it render it less dangerous? We do talk to see if we cannot arouse the people to action, in order that they may not be shot down like dogs or driven like cattle."

The "death of civil liberty'' was the arrest of Vallandingham and his sentence to be sent South, said the Dubuque Herald savagely and bitterly. "We might as well speak plainly respecting this affair and let the consequences which follow plain speaking follow this. That the administration have the power to punish recusants we are well aware and we refrain from saying a great many things we are impelled to say because we do not wish to invite its attention or the exercise of its arbitrary power. But there are times, however, when to fail to speak is criminal, and this is one of them. A crime has been committed against the most vital right of the poor and the rich, the humble and exalted--the right to think, to speak, to live. When this thing is consummated then plainly before the American people does Abraham Lincoln stand--the murderer of the nation. The plea of military or governmental necessity is a flimsy screen which will command no respect. No necessity can justify the monstrous outrage."

--(Dubuque Herald, May 15, 1863)