imposing of these meetings was the one held at Albany, under the auspices of Governor Seymour, and presided over by Erastus Corning, a prominent Democratic member of Congress. The proceedings of this meeting were laid before the President, and he deemed them of sufficient importance to make to them an elaborate reply.

President Lincoln thus stated the necessity of preventive

arrests:

"Of how little value the Constitutional provisions I have quoted will be rendered, if arrests shall never be made until defined crimes shall have been committed, may be illustrated by a few notable examples. General John C. Breckinridge, General Robert E. Lee, General Joseph E. Johnston, General John B. Magruder, General William B. Preston, General Simon B. Buckner, and Commodore Franklin Buchanan, now occupying the very highest places in the rebel war service, were all within the power of the Government since the rebellion began, and were nearly as well known to be traitors then as now. Unquestionably, if we had seized and held them, the insurgent cause would be much weaker. But no one of them had then committed any crime defined in the law. Every one of them, if arrested, would have been discharged on Habeas Corpus, were the writ allowed to operate. In view of these and similar cases, I think the time not unlikely to come when I shall be blamed for having made too few arrests, rather than too many.

6

"By the third resolution the meeting indicate their opinion, that military arrests may be Constitutional in localities where rebellion actutually exists, but that such arrests are unconstitutional in localities where rebellion or insurrection does not actually exist. They insist that such arrests shall not be made outside of the line of necessary military occupation, and the scenes of insurrection.' Inasmuch, however, as the Constitution itself makes no such distinction, I am unable to believe that there is any such Constitutional distinction. I concede that the class of arrests complained of can be Constitutional only when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require them; and I insist that in such cases they are Constitutional wherever the public safety does require them; as well in places to which they may prevent the rebellion extending, as in those where it may be already prevailing; as well where they may restrain mischievous interference with the raising and supplying of armies to suppress the rebellion, as where the rebellion may actually be; as well where they may restrain the enticing. men out of the army, as where they would prevent mutiny in the army;

equally Constitutional at all places where they will conduce to the public safety, as against the dangers of rebellion or invasion.” *

He puts the case very strongly of preventing men from inducing desertion. He says:

"Must I shoot a simple minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, a brother, or friend into a public meeting, and there working on his feelings till he is persuaded to write the soldier boy that he is fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked administration of a contemptible Government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think that, in such a case to silence the agitator and save the boy, is not only Constitutional, but withal, a great mercy."†

He concludes a very able defence of his course, by saying, that in his own discretion he did not know whether he would have caused the arrest of Vallandigham; but while he would not shift the responsibility, he yet held that the Commander in the field was the better judge of the necessity of the arrest.

To a delegation from Ohio, urging the release of Vallandigham, Mr. Lincoln said:

"The earnestness with which you insist that persons can only, in times of rebellion, be lawfully dealt with, in accordance with the rules for criminal trials and punishments in times of peace, induces me to add a word to what I said on that point in the Albany response. You claim that men may, if they choose, embarrass those whose duty it is to combat a giant rebellion, and then be dealt with only in turn, as if there were no rebellion. The Constitution itself rejects this view. The military arrests and detentions which have been made, including those of Mr. Vallandigham, which are not different in principle from the other, have been for prevention and not for punishment; as injunctions to stay injury; as proceedings to keep the peace-and hence, like proceedings in such cases and for like reasons, they have not been accompanied with indictments or trials by juries, nor in a single case by any punishment whatever, beyond what is purely incidental to the prevention."

*McPherson's History, p. 165. †McPherson's History, p. 166.

McPherson's History, p. 171.

After a very full and learned discussion, both in the Senate and the House, a bill became a law, on the 3d of March, 1863, authorizing the President, whenever, during the existing rebellion, in his judgment, the public safety might require it, to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, throughout the. United States, or any part thereof. The bill further provided that the orders issued by the President, or under his authority, made at any time during the rebellion, should be a defense to any action civil or criminal, for any search, arrest, or imprisonment under such order, or under color of any law of Congress.

The Thirty-seventh Congress, most of the members of the lower House of which had been elected on the same ticket with Mr. Lincoln, drew to its close. It had been generally in close sympathy with him during its existence. It had unhesitatingly conferred upon him all the power asked for, to enable him to crush the rebellion. It never withheld any grant of men or money. It placed at the disposal of the Executive the resources of the country. In this connection it' is due to the truth of history to say, that in regard to the mode of raising troops, and the money to pay them, it folloved the suggestions of the President, Secretary Chase, and the Secretaries of War and the Navy, rather than originated

measures.

Upon the great question of the manner in which the war was conducted, Congress was impatient. It chafed under the long delays and slow and indecisive movements of McClellan. Upon the engrossing subject of slavery it reflected the feelings of the loyal masses of the American people. It early indicated its disposition to confiscate the property, and free the slaves of rebels. In abolishing slavery at the National Capital, and prohibiting it in all the territories, it prepared the way for the proclamation of freedom. A majority acted upon the profound conviction that through the death of slavery would come the regeneration and restoration of the Republic. It encouraged and directed the employment of colored soldiers, and held out as a reward for their valor, the liberty of themselves and their race.

The Pacific Railroad and the Homestead bills were among the great measures of this Congress, not directly connected with the war.

Mr. Speaker Grow, in adjourning this Congress sine die, took occasion, briefly to review the eventful days of its life. He said:

"We met as legislators of the Republic, on the threshhold of its most important era. Its sunshine of almost half a century was for the first time darkened with clouds. Grim-visaged war stalked through the land, which it has since drenched with blood.

"While grappling in a death struggle with this hydra-headed monster of civil discord, you have by your labors contributed not a little to the advancement of the industrial interests and promotion of the greatness and glory of the country. Few Congresses, if any, will hold a prouder position in its future. Though we separate with darkness lowering over the horizon, behind the clouds is the sun still shining. It seems to be a part of the plans of divine Providence, that every marked advance in - civilization must begin amid the carnage of the battle-field. Over the Marathons and through the Thermopylaes of the world's history, liberty has hewn out her victories, and the race has marched on to higher and nobler destinies.

"As the lightnings of Heaven rend and destroy, only to purify and invigorate, so freedom's cannon furrows the fields of decaying empires, and seeds them anew with human gore, from which springs a more vigorous race, to guard the hopes and cherish the rights of mankind. The boom of cannon on the plains of Lexington shook a continent, and bore an obscure militia Colonel from the shades of Mt. Vernon to the highest pinnacle of earthy glory, to stand forever on that proud pedestal, peerless among men; while it called Stark from his granite hills, Putnam from his plow, and Greene from his blacksmith's forge, to immortal fame.

"The iron hail beating on the walls of Sumter, again shakes a continent, and the genius of history is recording the names of those born not to die. The country's martyrs in this hour of its trial will live forever. Their tombs will be the hearts of the great and good of all time; their monuments the granite hills of a nation rejoicing in freedom. Whether the night of our adversity is to be long or short, there can be no doubt of the final dawn of a glorious day; for such is the physical geography of the continent, that between the Gulf and the Lakes there can be but one Nationality. No matter what changes may be wrought in its social organization, its territorial limits will continue the same. The

and

traditions of the past and the hopes of the future have crystalized in the American heart the fixed resolve of 'one Union, one country, one destiny,' from ocean to ocean. No human power can change that destiny, any more than it can stay the tide of the Father of waters as it rolls from the mountains to the sea:

Freedom's battle once begun,

Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won.

"Better one war, though it cost countless lives and untold treasure, than a dismembered Union, with its endless border conflicts, and final anarchy and ruin. If the people between the Gulf and the Lakes cannot live together in peace as one Nation, they certainly cannot as two. This war then must, in the nature of things, be prosecuted till the last armed rebel is subdued, and the flag of our fathers is respected on every foot of American soil."*

•Congressional Globe, 3d Sess. 37 Congress, vol. 47,p. 1552-3.