HABEAS CORPUS. 



509 



ART. 4. The right of the people to be secured in 

 their persons, houses, papers and effects against un- 

 reasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated : 

 and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, 

 supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly de- 

 scribing the place to be searched, and the persons or 

 things to be seized. 



ART. 5. No person shall be held to answer for a 

 capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a pre- 

 sentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in 

 cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the 

 militia when in actual service, in time of war or public 

 danger ; nor shall any person be subject, for the same 

 offence, to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb: nor 

 be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness 

 against himself; nor be deprived of life, liberty, or 

 property without due process of law ; nor shall private 

 property be taken for public use without just compen- 

 sation. 



ART. 6. In all criminal prosecutions the accused 

 shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by 

 an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the 

 crime shall have been committed, which district shall 

 have been previously ascertained by law, and to be 

 informed of the nature and cause of the accusation ; to 

 be confronted with the witnesses against him ; to have 

 compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his 

 favor; and to have the assistance of counsel for bis 

 defence. 



A large number of the arrests of the pre- 

 vious year had been niade by orders issued 

 from the Secretary of State, but the matter 

 was early in the year transferred to the War 

 Department. On the 3d of December, 1861, 

 the commanding officer at Fort Lafayette came 

 to the prisoners' quarters and read a document 

 of which the following is a copy : 



To the Political Prisoners in fort Lafayette : 



I am instructed by the Secretary of State to inform 

 you that the Department of State of the United States 

 will not recognize any one as an attorney for political 

 prisoners, and will look with distrust upon all applica- 

 tions for release through such channels ; and that such 

 applications will be regarded as additional reasons for 

 declining to release the prisoners. 



And further, that if such prisoners wish to make 

 any communication to Government, they are at liberty 

 to make it directly to the State Department. 



SETH C. HAWLEY. 



The prisoners, it would seem, were by the 

 activity of their friends, becoming troublesome 

 to the Government, and this notice had the ef- 

 fect to suspend their activity. 



The following order is the only instance 

 during the year in which an official statement 

 was made of the arrest of any citizen. In this 

 instance, the party arrested was soon after set 

 at liberty. 



WAE DEPAETSTCKT, Wasm>*GTOs, Feb. 10, 1S62. 



Ordered that a person calling himself Dr. Ives, a 

 native of a rebel State, whose brother, lately in the 

 military service of the United States, is now an officer 

 in the rebel army, and who pretends to be a special 

 representative of the New York " Herald " for Washing- 

 ton, be arrested and held in close custody at Fort Mc- 

 Henry as a spy, and for violating the rules and regula- 

 tions of this Department in this : 



That on Saturday, the 8th of February, 1S62, against 

 the public and well known regulations for the safe 

 transaction of Congressional business, he intruded 

 himself into the War Department and into the cham- 

 bers where the Secretary and his assistants were trans- 

 acting business with members of Congress, for the 

 purpose of spying and obtaining war news and intelli- 

 gence in regard to Cabinet consultations, telegraphs, 



Ac., for publication, which he knew was not authorized 

 to be published ; and having so intended, he conducted 

 himself insolentlv, making threats to the As- 

 Secretary, Peter ll. Watson, of the hostility of the New 

 York " Herald " against the administration of the 

 War Department, unless he was afforded special privi- 

 leges and furnished intelligence by the Department in 

 respect to Cabinet consultations, telegrams, official 

 communications, and all news the moment it was re- 

 ceived by the Department, in advance of all other 

 papers. 



The War Department is the place where the Presi- 

 dent, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy 

 and his subordinates, the Secretary of War, and other 

 public officers, are earnestly engaged in the business 

 of overcoming treason and rebellion against the Gov- 

 ernment of the United States. It is not a place were 

 spies or traitors, or any person, but for public pur- 

 poses, can be suffered to enter or harbor. 



Newspapers are valuable organs of public intelli- 



fence and instruction, and every proper facility will 

 e afforded to all loyal persons to procure, on equal 

 terms, information of such public facts as may be 

 properly made known in time of rebellion. But no 

 matter how useful or powerful the press may be, like 

 everything else, it is subordinate to tbe national safety. 

 The fate of an army or the destiny of the nation may 

 be imperilled by a spy in the garb of a newspaper 

 agent. The nation is" in conflict with treason and 

 rebellion may be threatened by foreign foes. 



The lives and fortunes of twe'nty millions of people, 

 and the peace and happiness of their posterity, in the 

 loyal States the fate of public liberty and republican 

 government forever are staked upon tbe instant issue. 

 The duties of the President and his Secretary, of every 

 officer of the Government, especially in the War De- 

 partment and military service, are at this moment 

 urgent and solemn th'e most urgent and solemn that 

 ever fell upon men. No news gatherer, nor any other 

 person, for sordid or treasonable purposes, can be suf- 

 fered to intrude upon them at such a time to procure 

 news by threats, or spy out official acts which the 

 safety of the nation requires not to be disclosed. 



For these reasons the aforesaid Ives has been arrest- 

 ed and imprisoned, and all persons so offending will 

 be dealt with in like manner. 



(Signed; EDWIN M. STANTON, 



Secretary of War. 



On the 14th of February, an order was issued 

 transferring the matter of all arrests to the 

 "War Department, offering to release political 

 prisoners on parole, and directing that future 

 arrests shall be made by military authority. 

 The order was as follows : 



Executive Orders in Relation to State Prisoners. 3~o. \. 

 WAK DEPARTMENT, WASHLSGTOX, Feb. 14. 



The breaking out of a formidable insurrection, based 

 on a conflict of political ideas, being an event with- 

 out precedent in the United States, was necessarily 

 attended by great confusion and perplexity of the 

 public mind. Disloyalty, before unsuspected, sudden- 

 ly became bold, and" treason astonished the world by 

 bringing at once into the field military forces superior 

 in numbers to the standing army of the United States. 



Every department of the Government was paralyzed 

 bv treason. Defection appeared in the Senate, in the 

 flouse of Representatives, in the Cabinet, in the 

 Federal Courts ; Ministers and Consuls returned from 

 foreign countries to enter the insurrectionarv councils, 

 or land or naval forces : commanding and other officers 

 of the army and in the navy betrayed the councils or 

 deserted their posts for commands in the insurgent 

 forces. Treason was flagrant in the revenue and in 

 the post office service, as well as in the territorial 

 governments and in the Indian reserves. 



Not only Governors, Judges, Legislators, and minis- 

 terial officers in the States, but even whole States, 

 rushed, one after another, with apparent unanimity, 



