802 



PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



favor of suppressing the rebellion by military force 

 by armies. Long experience has shown that armies 

 cannot be maintained unless desertion shall be pun- 

 ished by the severe penalty of death. The case re- 

 quires, and the law and the Constitution sanction, this 

 punishment. 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, or brother, or friend, into a public meeting, and 

 there working upon his feelings until he is persuaded 

 to write the soldier boy that lie is fighting in a bad 

 cause, for a wicked Administration of a contemptible 

 Government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he 

 ghall desert. I think that in such a case, to silence 

 the agitator and to save the boy, is not only constitu- 

 tional, but withal a great mercy. 



If I be wrong on this question of constitutional 

 power, my error lies in believing that certain proceed- 

 ings 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 appli- 

 cation, 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 con- 

 stitutionally take no strong measures in time of re- 

 bellion, 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 

 tor 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 Ameri- 

 can people will, by means of military arrests during 

 the rebellion, lose the right of public discussion, the 

 liberty of speech and the press, the law of evidence, 

 trial by jury, and habeas corpus, throughout the indefi- 

 nite peaceful future which I trust lies before them, any 

 more than I am able to believe that a man could con- 

 tract so strong an appetite for emetics during tempo- 

 rary 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 overlook the fact 

 that the meeting speak as " Democrats." Nor can I, 

 with full respect for their known intelligence, and the 

 fairly presumed deliberation with which they prepared 

 their resolutions, be permitted to suppose that this oc- 

 curred 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, I would have preferred to meet you upon a level 

 one step higher than any party platform ; because I 

 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 self- 

 ish 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 con- 

 stitutional view expressed in these resolutions, by re- 

 fusing to discharge Mr. Vallandigham on habeas cor- 

 pus, is a Democrat of better days than these, having 

 received his judicial mantle at the hands of President 

 Jackson. And still more, of all those Democrats who 

 are nobly exposing their lives and shedding their 

 blood on the battle field, I have learned that many ap- 

 prove the course taken with Mr. Vallandigham, while 

 I have not heard of a single one condemning it. I can 

 assert that there are none such. And the name of 

 President Jackson recalls an incident of pertinent his- 

 tory. 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, Gen. Jackson still maintained mar- 

 tial 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. LouaiUier published a denuncia- 

 tory 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 om- 

 cer undertook to serve the writ of habeas corpus, Gen. 

 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 encamp- 

 ment, and set him at liberty, with an order to remain 

 till the ratification of peace should be regularly an- 

 nounced, or until the British should have left the 

 Southern coast. A day or two more elapsed, the rati- 

 fication 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 ar- 

 rested 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 Rep- 

 resentatives, 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 rebel- 

 lion; and, thirdly, that the permanent right of the 

 people to public discussion, the liberty of speech and 

 of 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 ap- 

 proval 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 respon- 

 sibility from myself, I hold that, as a general rule, the 

 commander in the field is the better judge of the neces- 

 sity 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 the effect to di- 

 vide and distract those who should be united in suppres- 

 sing the rebellion, and I am specially called on to dis- 

 charge Mr. Vallandigham. I regard this act as at least 

 a fair appeal to me on the expediency of exercising a 

 constitutional power which I think exists. In response 

 to such appeal, I have to say it gave me pain wnen 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 public safety will not suffer by 

 it. I further say that, as the war progresses, it ap- 

 pears to me that opinion and action, which were in 

 great confusion at first, take shape and fall into more 

 regular channels, so that the necessity for strong deal- 

 ing with them gradually decreases. I have every rea- 

 son to desire that it should cease altogether, and far 

 from the least is my regard for the opinions and wishes 

 of those who, like the meeting at Albany, declare their 

 purpose to sustain the Government in every constitu- 

 tional and lawful measure to suppress the rebellion. 

 Still I must continue to do so much as may seem to be 

 required by the public safety. A. LINCOLN. 



AtBAirr, June 8WA, 1868L 



To His Excellency the President of the United States : 



SIB : The undersigned, officers of the public meeting 



held in this city on the 16th day of May last, to whom 



your communication of the 12th of this month, com- 



