" Hon. Erastus Corning and others :

" Gkntlemen : Your l^^tter of May 19th, inclosing the resolutions of a public meeting held at
Albany, New York, on the 16th of the same month, was received several days ago.

" The resolutions, as I understand them, are resolvable into two propositions — first, the expres-
sion of a purpose to sustaja the cause of the Union, to secure peace through victory, and to support
the Administration in evei-y constitutional and lawful measure to suppress the rebelhon ; and second-
ly, a declaration of censure upon the Administration for supposed unconstitutional action, such as
the making of military arrests. And from the two propositions a third is deduced, which is, tliat
the gentlemen composing the meeting are resolved on doing their part to maintain our common Gov-
ernment and country, despite the folly or wickedness, as they may conceive, of any Administration.
This position is eminently patriotic, and as such, I thank the meeting and congratulate the nation
for it. My own purpose is the same ; so that the meeting and myself have a common object, and can
have uo difference, except in the choice of means or measures for effecting that object.

"And here I ought to close this paper, and would close it, if there were no apprehension thai
more Jnjtirious consequences than any merely personal to myself might follow the censures systemat-
ically cast upon me for doing what, in my view of duty, I could not forbear. The resolutions prora-
y^ to support me in every constitutional and lawful measure to suppress the rebellion ; and I have
»^t knowingly employed, nor shall knowingly employ, any other. But the meeting, by their resolu-
tions, assert »iDd argue that certain military arrests, and proceedings following them, for which I am
ultimately t«»sipQiiidble »ce uqiconstitutional. I think they are not. The resolutions quote from the



468 THE LOST CAUSE.

Vallandigham, the laws of the country have been ontra£ced, the name of
the United States disgraced, and the rights of every citizen menaced, and

Constitution the definition of treason, and also the limiting safeguards and guarantees tbereip pro-
vided for the citizen on trial for treason, and on his being held to answer for capital or otherwise
infamous crimes, and, in criminal prosecutions, his right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial
jury. They proceed to resolve ' that these safeguards of the rights of the citizens against the pre-
tensions of arbitrary power were intended more especially for his protection in times of civil commo-
tion.' And, apparently to demonstrate the proposition, the resolutions proceed : ' They were secured
substantially to the English people after years of protracted civil war, and were adopted into our
Constitution at the close of the Revolution.' Would not the demonstration have been better, if it
could have been truly said that these safeguards had been adopied and applied during the civil wars
and during our Revolution, instead of after the one and at the close of the other ? I, too, am devo-
tedly for them after civil war, and before civil war, and at all times, ' except when, in cases of rebel-
lion or invasion, the public safety may require ' their suspension. The resolutions proceed to tell us
that these safeguards ' have stood the test of seventy-six years of trial, under our republican system,
under circumstances which show that while they constitute the foundation of all free government,
they are the elements of the enduring stability of the republic' No one denies that they have so
stood the test up to the beginning of the present rebellion, if we accept a certain occurrence at New
Orleans ; nor does any one question that they will stand the same test much longer after the rebel-
lion closes. But these provisions of the Constitution have no application to the case we have in
hand, because the arrests complained of were not made for treason — that is, not for the treason
defined in the Constitution, and upon the conviction of which the punishment is death ; nor were
*^he proceedings following, in any constitutional or legal sense, ' criminal prosecutions.' The arrests
were made on totally different grounds, and the proceedings following accorded with the grounds of
the arrests. Let us consider the real case with which we are dealing, and apply to it the parts of
the Constitution plainly made for such cases.

" Prior to my installation here it liad been inculcated that any State had a lawful right to secedfi
from the Union, and that it would be expedient to exercise the right whenever the devotees of the
doctrine should fail to elect a President to their own liking. I was elected contrary to their liking;
and accordingly, so far as it was legally possible, they had taken seven States out of the Union, had
seized many of the United States forts, and had fired upon the United States flag, all before I was
inaugurated, and, of course, before I had done any official act whatever. The rebellion thus begun
soon ran into the present civil war ; and, in certain respects, it begun on very unequal terms between
the parties. The insurgents had been preparing for it more than ^hirty years, while the Government
had taken no steps to resist them. The former had carefully considered all the means which could
be turned to their account. It undoubtedly was a well-pondered rehance with them that in their own
unrestricted eiForts to destroy Union, Constitution, and law, all together, the Government would, in
great degree, be restrained by the same Constitution and law from arresting their progress. Their
sympathizers pervaded all departments of the Government and nearly all communities of the people.
From this material, under cover of ' liberty of speech,' ' liberty of the press,' and habeas corpus^ they
hoped to keep on foot amongst us a most efficient corps of spies, informers, supphers, and aiders and
abettors of their cause in a thousand ways. They knew that in times such as they were inaugurat-
ing, by the Constitution itself, the habeas corpus might be suspended ; but they also knew they had
friends who would make a question as to who was to suspend it ; meanwhile their spies and others
might remain at large to help on their cause. Or if, as has happened, the executive should suspend
the writ, without ruinous waste of time, instances of arresting innocent persons might occur, as are
always likely to occur in such cases ; and then a clamor could be raised in regard to this, wliich
might be, at least, of some service to the insurgent cause. It needed no very keen perception fo di»
cover this part of the enemy's programme so soon as by open hostilities their machinery was fairly
put in motion. Yet, thoroughly imbued with a reverence for the guaranteed rights of individuals, I
was slow to adopt the strong measures which by degrees I have been forced to regard as being with-
in tLe exceptions of the Constitution and as indispensable to the public safety. Nothing is better



m\



DEMOCKATIO PROTESTS. 469

that it is now the duty of a law-respecting people to demand cf tho
Administration that it at once and forever desist from such deeds of des«

known to history than that courts of justice are utterly incompetent to such cases. Civil courts are
organized chiefly for trials of individuals, or, at most, a few individuals acting in concert ; and this
in quiet times, and on charges of crimes well defined iu the law. Even in times of peace, bands of
horso-thieves and robbers frequently grow too numerous and powerful for the ordinary courts of jus-
lice. But what comparison in numbers have such bands ever borne to the insurgent sympathizers
even in many of the loyal States ? Again, a jury too frequently has at least one member more ready
to hang the panel than to hang the traitor. And yet, again, he who dissuades one man from volun-
teering, or induces one soldier to desert, weakens the Union cause as much as he who kills a Union
soldier in battle. Yet this dissuasion or inducement may be so conducted as to be no defined crime
of which any civil court would take cognizance.

" Ours is a case of rebellion — so called by the resolutions before me — in fact, a clear, flagrant,
and gigantic case of rebellion ; and the provision of the Constitution that ' the privilege of the writ
of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public
safety may require it,' is the provision which specially applies to our present case. This provision
plainly attests the understanding of those who made the Constitution, that ordinary courts of justice
are inadequate to ' cases of rebellion ' — attests their purpose that, in such cases, men may be held in
custody whom the courts, acting on ordinary rules, would discharge. Habeas corpus does not dis-
charge men who are proved to be guilty of defined crime ; and its suspension is allowed by the Con-
stitution on purpose that men may be arrested and held who cannot be proved to be guilty of defined
crime, ' when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.' This is precisely
our present case — a case of rebellion, wherein the public safety does require the suspension. lo-
deed, arrests by process of courts, and arrests in cases of rebellion, do not proceed together alto-
gether upon the same basis. The former is directed at the small percentage of ordinary and con-
tinuous perpetration of crime, while the latter is directed at sudden and extensive uprisings against
the government, which, at most, will succeed or fail in no great length of time. In the latter case,
arrests are made, not so much for what has been done as for what probably would be done. The
latter is more for the preventive and less for the vindictive than the former. In such cases the pur-
poses of men are much more easily understood than in cases of ordinary crime. The man who
stands by and says nothing when the peril of his government is discussed cannot be misunderstood.
If not hindered, he is sure to help the enemy ; much more, if he talks ambiguously — talks for his
country with ' buts,' and ' ifs,' and ' ands.' 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 com-
mitted, may be illustrated by a few notable examples. General John C. Breckinridge, General Rob-
ert 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 tho 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 com-
mitted any crime defined in the law. Evei'y one of them, if arrested, would have been discharged on
habeas corptis, were the writ allowed to operate. In view of these and similar cases, I think the
time not unhkely to come when I shall be blamed for having made too few arrests rather than too
many.

" By the third resolution, the meeting indicate their opinion that military arrests may be consti-
tutional in localities where rebellion actually 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 lines 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.



470 THE LOST CAUSE.

potism and crime." To a meeting in Philadelphia, Mr. Fernando "Wood
wrote : " Do not let us forget that those who perpetrate such outrages as

as well in places to which they may prevent the rebellion extending as in those where it ^ay
be already prevailing ; as well where they may restrain mischievous interference with the raising
and supplying of armies to suppress the rebelhon, 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. Take the particular case mentioned by the meeting.
It is asserted, in substance, that Mr. Vallandigham was, by a military commander, seized and tried
' for no other reason than words addressed to a public meeting, in criticism of the course of the
Administration, and in condemnation of the military orders of the general.' Now, if there be no
mistake about this — if this assertion is the truth and the whole trutli — if there was up other reason
for the arrest, then I concede that the arrest was wrong. But the arrest, as I understand, was made
for a very different reason. Mr. Vallandigham avows his hostility to the war on the part of the Union ;
and his arrest was made because he was labouring, with some effect, to prevent the raising of troops,
to encourage desertions from the army, and to leave the rebellion without an adequate military force
to suppress it. He was not arrested because he was damaging the political prospects of the Adminis-
tration, or the personal interests of the commanding general, but because he was damaging the army,
upon the existence and vigour of which tlie life of the nation depends. He was warring upon the
military, and this gave the military constitutional jurisdiction to lay hands upon him. If Mr. Vallan-
digham was not damaging the power of the country, then his arrest was made on mistake of fact,
which I would be glad to correct on reasonably satisfactory evidence.

" I understand the meeting, whose resolutions I am now considering, to be in favour of suppress-
ing the rebellion by military force — by armien. Long experience has shown that armies cannot be
maintained unless desertion shall be punished by the severe penalty of death. The case requires,
and the law and the Constitution sanction, this punishment. Must I shoot a si'iiple-miniled 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 wlien effected by getting a father or brother or friend into a public meet-
ing, and there working upon 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.

" If I be wrong on this question of constitutional power, my errour lies in believing that certain
proceedings are constitutional when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety requires them,
which would not be constitutional when, in absence of rebellion or invasion, the public safety does
not require them. In other words, that the Constitution is not in its appUcation in all respects the
same, in cases of rebellion or invasion involving the public safety, as it is in times of profound peace
and public security. The Constitution itself makes the distinction ; and I can no more be persuaded
that the government can constitutionally take no strong measures in time of rebellion, because it
can be shown that the same could not be lawfully taken in time of peace, than I can be persuaded
that a particular drug is not good medicine for a sick man, because it can be shown not to be good
food for a well one. Nor am I able to appreciate the danger apprehended by the meeting that the
American people will, by means of military arrests during the rebellion, lose the right of public dis-
cussion, the liberty of speech and the press, law of evidence, trial by jury and habeas corpus,
throughout the indefinite peaceful future, which I trust lies before them, any more than I am able
to believe that a man could contract so strong an appetite for emetics during temporary illness as to
persist in feeding upon them during the remainder of his healthful life.

" In giving the resolutions that earnest consideration which you request of me, I cannot over-
look the fact tVat the meeting speak as ' democrats.' Nor can I, with full respect for their known
mtelligenco, and tee fairly presumed deliberation with which they prepared their resolutions, be per-
mitted to suppose that this occurred by accident, or in any way other than that they preferred to
designate themselves ' democrats ' rather than ' American citizens.' In this time of national peril 1



DEMOCRATIC PROTESTS. 471

the arrest and banishment of Mr, Vallandigham do so as necessary war
measures. Let us, therefore, strike at the cause and declare for peace and

would have preferred to meet you upon a level one step liiirher than any party platform, because 1
am sure that, from such more elevated position, we could do better battle for the country we all love
than we possibly can from those lower ones where, from the force of habit, the prejudices of the
past and selfish hopes of the future, we are sure to expend much of our ingenuity and strength in
finding fault with and aiming blows at each other. But since you have denied me this, I will yet be
thankful, for the country's sake, that not all democrats have done so. He on whose discretionary
judgment Mr. Vallandigham was arrested and tried is a democrat, having no old party affinity with
me ; and the judge who rejected the constitutional view expressed in these resolutions, by refusing
to discharge Mr. Vallandigham on habeas corpus, is a democrat of better days than these, having re-
ceived his judicial mantle at the hands of President Jackson. And still more, of all those demo-
crats who are nobly exposing their lives and shedding their blood on the battle-field, I have learned
that many approve the course taken with Mr. Vallandigham, while I have not heard of a single one
condemning it. I cannot assert that there are none such. And the name of President Jackson
recalls an instance of pertinent history. After the battle of New Orleans, and while the fact that
the treaty of peace had been concluded was well known in the city, but before official knowledge
of it had arrived. General Jackson still maintained martial or military law. Now that it could be
said the war was over, the clamor against martial law, which had existed from the first, grew more
furious. Among other things a Mr. Louaillier published a denunciatory newspaper article. Gen.
Jackson arrested him. A lawyer by the name of Morel procured the United States Judge Hall to
order a writ of habeas corpus to relieve Mr. Louaillier. Gen. Jackson arrested both the lawyer and
the judge. A Mr. Hollander ventured to say of some part of the matter that ' it was a dirty trick.'
Gen. Jackson arrested him. When the officer undertook to serve the writ of habeas corpus, (ien.
Jackson took it from him, and sent him away with a copy. Holding the judge in custody a few
days, the General sent him beyond the limits of his encampment, and set him at liberty, with an
order to remain till the ratification of peace should be regularly announced, or until the British
should have left the Southern coast. A day or two more elapsed, the ratification of the treaty of
peace was regularly announced, and the judge and others were fully liberated. A few days more,
and the judge called Gen. Jackson into court and fined him a thousand dollars for having arrested
him and the others named. The General paid the fine, and there the matter rested for nearly thirty
years, when Congress refunded principal and interest. The late Senator Douglas, then in the House
of Representatives, took a leading part in the debates, in which the constitutional question was
much discussed. I am not prepared to say whom the journals would show to have voted for the
measure.

" It may be remarked, first, that we had the same Constitution then as now ; secondly, that we
then had a case of invasion, and now we have a case of rebellion ; and thirdly, that the permanent
right of the people to public discussion, the liberty of speech and the press, the trial by jury, the
law of evidence, and the habeas corpus, suffered no detriment whatever by that conduct of Gen.
Jackson, or its subsequent approval by the American Congress.

" And yet, let me say that, in my own discretion, I do not know whether I would have ordered
the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham. While I cannot shift the responsibility from myself, I hold that,
as a general rule, the commander in the field is the better judge of the necessity in any particular
case. Of course, I must practise a general directory and revisory power in the matter.

" One of the resolutions expresses the opinion of the meeting that arbitrary arrests will have
tl e efl'ect to divide and distract those who should be united in suppressing the rebellion, and I am
Bpecifically called on to discharge Mr. Vallandigham. I regard this as, at least, a fair appeal to n:>e
on the expediency of exercising a constitutional power which I think exists. In response to such
appea. I have to say, it gave me pain when I learned that Mr. Vallandigham had been arrested—
that is, I was pained that there should have seemed to be a necessity for arresting him — and that it
will afford me great pleasure to discharge him so soon as I can, by any means, believe the pubhc
safety will not suffer by it. I further say that, as the war progresses, it appears to me, opinion and



472 THE LOST CAUSE.

ao-ainst tlie war." But these protests were within narrow limits ; they
effected nothing ; they were absolutely worthless. The savage wit of

action which were in great confusion at first, take shape and fall into more regular channels, st
that the necessity for strong dealing with them gradually decreases. I have every reason to desire
Uiat it should cease altogether, and far from the least is my regard for the opinions and wishes ol
those who, like the meeting at Albany, declare their purpose to sustain the Government iu every
constitutional and lawful measure to suppress the rebellion. Still I must continue to do so much
as may seem to be required by the pubhc safety. A. Lincoln."



REPLY OF THE ALBANY DEMOCRACY.

" To His Excellency Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States :

" Sir : Your answer, which has appeared in the public prints, to the resolutions adopted at a
recent meeting in the city of Albany affirming the personal rights and liberties of the citizens of
this country, has been referred to the undersigned, the committee who prepared and reported those
resolutions. The subject will now receive from us some further attention, which your answer seems
to justify, if not to invite. We hope not to appear wanting in the respect due to your high posi-
tion if we reply with a freedom and earnestness suggested by the infinite gravity and importance
of the questions upon which you have thought proper to take issue at the bar of public opinion.

" You seem to be aware that the Constitution of the United States, which you have sworn to
protect and defend, contains the following guarantees, to which we again ask your attention : First
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. Second. The right
of the people to be secure iu their persons against unreasonable seizures shall not be violated, and
no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath. Third. No person, except sol-
diers and mariners in the service of the Govermnent, shall be held to answer for a capital or infa-
mous crime, unless on presentment or indictment of a grand jury, nor shall any person be deprived
of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Fourth. In all criminal prosecutions the
accused shall enjoy the right of a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State or district
in which the crime shall have been committed, and to be confronted with the witnesses against him.

" You are also, no doubt, aware that on the adoption of the Constitution these invaluable provi-
sions were proposed by the jealous caution of the States, and were inserted as amendments for a
perpetual assurance of liberty against the encroachments of power. From your earliest reading of