CONGKESS, U. S. 



285 



to be justified in this body, and any man is 

 to be thanked for assuming an unconstitutional 

 and unwarranted authority? "What are we 

 coming to, if arrests may be made at the whim 

 or the caprice of a cabinet minister ? Do you 

 suppose he is invested with infallibility, so as 

 always to decide aright ? Are you willing to 

 trust" the liberties of the citizens of this country 

 in the hands of any man, to be exercised in 

 that way ? May not his order send the Senator 

 from Connecticnt or myself to prison ? Why not ? 



" Now, sir, I am for regulating this thing by 

 law. That is the object of my inquiry. If ad- 

 ditional legislation is necessary for the pur- 

 pose of punishing persons who sympathize 

 with treason in Connecticut, or in any other 

 loyal State of this Union, where the laws can 

 be enforced through the judical tribunals, I say 

 let us give that additional legislation, and let 

 us not sanction the exercise of such high pow- 

 ers as these outside of the law, and as the Sena- 

 tor says, ' on the plea of necessity. 1 "Why, 

 sir, I deny the necessity. The principle con- 

 tended for would justify riots and mobs in 

 punishing criminals wherever found. Suppose 

 a man has committed an offence apparent to 

 the whole country, shall the citizens of the 

 country get together and execute the man 

 without trial ; or imprison him and hold him 

 in prison without trial ? Is that the way the 

 laws of the country are to be administered ? 

 Has the Constitution no meaning, and are laws 

 to have no efficacy ? "We shall have anarchy 

 at once if such doctrine is to prevail." 



Mr. Dixon, of Connecticut, again replied: 

 " I confess I never have heard anything in the 

 Senate, which filled me with more astonish- 

 ment than the remarks which have fallen from 

 the Senator from Illinois ; and they have 

 strengthened me in the opinion that this reso- 

 lution ought not to pass. He talks about the 

 whim and caprice of the Secretary of State. 

 Sir, I deny here, on behalf of that officer of the 

 Government, that he has been actuated by 

 whim or caprice. I say he was compelled to 

 take the course he did ; and, if he had not, he 

 himself would have been a moral traitor. 

 Now, if we are told that we ought to pass laws 

 providing for such cases in the future, I have 

 not the least objection. If the Senator refers 

 to the future, very well. Let him make a law, 

 if he can, which shall define the powers of the 

 President in such a case. Let it be a prece- 

 dent for the future ; let it be a guide for the 

 future, if we should ever be placed hereafter 

 in similar circumstances. But when the Sena- 

 tor proposes to go back six months, and in- 

 quire of the Secretary whom he has arrested, 

 why he has arrested him, and for what rea- 

 son ; and when he talks about innocent per- 

 sons being arrested, and then discharged, I 

 cannot comment upon it. I can only express 

 my surprise that language like that should fall 

 from a Senator known to be so devoted as he 

 is to the cause of the country and the Consti- 

 tution." 



Mr. "Wilson, of Massachusetts, followed. He 

 said : " I regret, Mr. President, that the Sena- 

 tor from Illinois has introduced this resolution, 

 and I deplore the speech he has made in its 

 support. That Senator knows, as we all know, 

 that the Secretary of State, in obedience to the 

 order of the President of the United States, 

 has made arrests in 'he loyal States. Why 

 then ask the Secretary if such arrests have 

 been made, and the law upon which they were 

 made ? If the Senator does not approve of the 

 action of the Secretary of State in making 

 those arrests, or rather the action of the Presi- 

 dent of the United States in ordering those ar- 

 rests, instead of reflecting on the Secretary of 

 State or the President, why does not that Sena- 

 tor come into the Senate with a bill proposing 

 to enact a law that shall clothe the Government 

 of this country with ample powers to arrest 

 and imprison men who are in complicity with 

 traitors ? Why is it necessary at this time, in 

 this crisis of our country's history, threatened 

 by domestic traitors and by foreign Powers, to 

 come into the Senate of the United States with 

 a resolution that carries an implied censure 

 with it upon the executive Government of the 

 country ? " 



Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, immediately 

 rose and said : " Mr. President, instead of 

 feeling grief and mortification and regret at the 

 introduction of this resolution, I thank my 

 friend from Illinois for introducing it. I think 

 it eminently proper, eminently appropriate ; 

 and I shall feel mortified if the day has come 

 when any act of your Executive may not be 

 inquired into by his sworn constitutional ad- 

 visers, the Senate of the United States. If, in 

 answering that resolution, if it passes, the Sec- 

 retary of State or the President shall deem it 

 proper to send it to us under the seal of exec- 

 utive secrecy, I shall find no fault with that ; 

 but the right, the power, the propriety, and 

 the necessity of making this inquiry, to my mind, 

 eminently exists. What is the purpose of this 

 inquiry ? Have not arrests been made in vio- 

 lation of the great principles of our Constitu- 

 tion ? If they have, let us know it, and let us 

 know the necessity which impelled them. If 

 the fact be that such arrests have been made, 

 and if the necessity exists upon which they 

 were made, then I trust there is magnanimity, 

 there is justice, there is patriotism, there is for- 

 bearance enough in this Senate and in this Con- 

 gress to throw the mantle over every act that 

 has been prompted by a patriotic impulse to 

 serve the nation and preserve its liberties. You 

 may gain your victories on the sea, you may 

 sweep the enemy from the broad ocean and 

 from all its arms and from all its rivers, until 

 you may hoist, as the Dutch admiral once 

 hoisted at the head of his flag-staff, a broom, in- 

 dicative that you have swept the ocean of your 

 foes, and you may crush every rebel that is ar- 

 rayed against you and utterly break their 

 power ; and when you have done all that, when 

 you have established a military Power such as 



