240 



CONGBESS, UNITED STATES. 



give my reasons for it to the propriety of the 

 investigation proposed. It would constitute 

 not the slightest objection with me, resting my 

 opinion on facts within my own knowledge, 

 that it may imply censure on one Department 

 of the Government ; for I believe that the time 

 has arrived when it is due to the people of this 

 country that Congress shall examine the extent 

 and manner in which the power of the Secre- 

 tary of War is exercised. I state it on my re- 

 sponsibility as a member of the House that an 

 order taken from the President to the Secretary 

 of War, for a certain object, has been met with 

 the reply ' I shall not do it, sir ; ' and when 

 an explanation has been asked it has been met 

 by the reply, ' I do not propose to argue the 

 question ; I am responsible to the President, 

 and to him alone, for my conduct.' When a 

 ^Representative of the people is met by a respon- 

 sible officer of the Government in that way, it 

 constitutes with me no objection to a proposi- 

 tion that it may possibly imply censure on the 

 head of an executive Department. 



" One thing more : if he be the man he is 

 charged with being, who could in June last 

 have exchanged prisoners of war of the United 

 States on terms recognized throughout all civil- 

 ized nations, yet left ten or twenty thousand 

 of our gallant men to perish in rebel pens dur- 

 ing the last summer, again I find a reason why 

 his administration of that Department should 

 be investigated. I do not want the letters to 

 increase on my table urging Congress to inves- 

 tigate some of these facts connected with the 

 exchange of our soldiers in rebel hands. For 

 the satisfaction of my own constituents, at least, 

 I desire to have an investigation wherever the 

 public interests may require it, and wherever 

 the military rights of the soldiers or the per- 

 sonal rights of citizens are involved." 



Mr. Davis, of Maryland, still further added: 

 " I do not desire to be understood as saying that 

 the law is violated under one Department of 

 the Government more than under another. 

 Nor must it be assumed that arrests are made 

 only under the order of the President, or of the 

 heads of Departments. Wherever the fault 

 may lie, they are made by every lieutenant and 

 every provost marshal, from one end of the 

 country to the other, at discretion, and almost 

 without complaint. I speak now directly of 

 what I know to he the case in Maryland. 

 These arrests are sometimes justifiable, and 

 sometimes unjustifiable; sometimes made by a 

 person calling himself a provost marshal, not 

 known to the laws of the United States, acting 

 absolutely without knowledge on the part of 

 the Secretary of War that he held authority 

 from him or from anybody else. And such is 

 getting to be the habit of everybody in the 

 country to act at the bidding of any provost 

 marshal or military officer that the very inde- 

 pendence of the American character is being 

 broken down under the unchecked license of 

 military arrests. The law, sir, is not so defi- 

 cient ; but the people have been educated with- 



in the last three years in the belief that the ex- 

 istence of a state of war justifies any thing and 

 every thing in the shape of discretionary and 

 arbitrary authority on the part of military offi- 

 cers, high and low, until the very laws of the 

 land intended for the protection of the citizen 

 are not invoked by the people, because they 

 fear that to invoke them will offend the mil- 

 itary power and bring its irresponsible ven- 

 geance on their heads. When I say that, I say 

 it on my personal knowledge. 



" Gentlemen have appealed to me to redress, 

 in the un-American mode of soliciting favor, 

 some of the grievances suffered in Maryland by 

 persons who are loyal citizens. I have pointed 

 them to the law on the subject, and asked, 

 ' Why do you not indict the wrong-doers ? The 

 law for the suspension of the habeas corpus is 

 your adequate protection. Why do you not 

 indict them? ' ' We are afraid,' the reply has 

 been, ' to incur the displeasure of the military 

 authorities.' I wish it to be understood that 

 there is a power higher than the military au- 

 thority, whether that authority be lodged in 

 the hands of a lieutenant, or of a provost mar- 

 shal, or of the President of the United States, 

 and that that power is here. I impeach no- 

 body ; I cast reflections upon nobody ; I speak 

 of things, not men ; of grievances, not of the 

 persons responsible for them ; but I say abuses 

 are committed by subordinates, if not by gentle- 

 men in superior authority, that require our in- 

 tervftntion, and I shall most cheerfully vote for 

 this resolution." 



Mr. Garfield, of Ohio, said: "Mr. Speaker, I 

 will detain the House for a moment only. The 

 resolution which passed the House yesterday I 

 will say is now being executed by the Commit- 

 tee on Military Affairs. I have this moment 

 arrived in the hall, after a visit of two hours to 

 one of the prisons in this city in obedience to 

 that resolution ; I am not now at liberty to dis- 

 close the action of that committee, for the in- 

 vestigation is still pending. But I earnestly 

 hope that the House will not reconsider the 

 vote by which that resolution was adopted, and 

 thus put a stop to the investigation." 



The motion to reconsider was laid on the 

 table ayes, 136 ; nays, 6. 



In the House, on February 20th, the follow- 

 ing resolution was offered : 



Resolved, That the President of the United States 

 be respectfully requested, and that the Secretary of 

 State and the Secretary of War be directed, to re- 

 port and furnish to this House the names of all per- 

 sons, if any there are, who have been arrested and 

 are now held in imprisonment or confinement in any 

 prison, fort, or other place whatsoever, for political 

 offences or way other alleged oflence against the 

 Government or authority of the United States, by 

 the order, command, consent, or knowledge of them*, 

 or either of them respectively, and who have not 

 been charged, tried, or convicted before any civil or 

 criminal, not military, court of the land, together 

 with the charge against such person, or cause for 

 such arrest and imprisonment, except only such per- 

 sons who may at tne time of their atreM luive been 

 in the military or naval service of the United States, 

 together with" the name of the prison, fort, or place 



