PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



803 



meriting on the resolutions adopted at that meeting, was 

 addressed, have the honor to send to your Excellency 

 a reply to that communication by the committee who 

 reported the resolutions. The great importance to the 

 people of this country of the questions discussed, must 

 be our apology, if any be needed, for saying, that we 

 fully concur in this reply, and believe it to be in entire 

 harmony with the views and sentiments of the meeting 

 referred to. 

 We are, with great respect, very truly yours, 



ERASTUS CORNING, President. 



The following extracts from the reply of the 

 committee contain the points presented in that 

 document : 



The fact has already passed into history that the 

 sacred rights and immunities which were designed to 

 be protected by these constitutional guarantees, have 

 not been preserved to the people during your Adminis- 

 tration. In violation of the first of them, the_ freedom 

 of the press has been denied. In repeated instances 

 newspapers have been suppressed in the loyal States, 

 because they criticized, as constitutionally they might, 

 those fatal errors of policy which have characterized 

 the conduct of public affairs since your advent to 

 power. In violation of the second of them, hundreds, 

 and we believe, thousands of men, have been seized 

 and immured in prisons and bastiles, not only without 

 warrant upon probable cause, but without any war- 

 rant, and for no other cause than a constitutional exer- 

 cise of freedom of speech. In violation of all these 

 guarantees, a distinguished citizen of a peaceful and 

 loyal State has been torn from his home at midnight by a 

 band ofsold_iers, acting under the orders of one of your 

 generals, tried before a military commission, without 

 judge or jury, convicted and sentenced without even 

 the suggestion of any offence known to the Constitu- 

 tion or laws of this country. For all these acts you 

 avow yourself ultimately responsible. In the special 

 case of Mr. Vallandigham, the injustice commenced by 

 your subordinate was consummated by a sentence of 

 exile from his home, pronounced by you. That great 

 wrong, more than any other which preceded it, asserts 

 the principles of a supreme despotism. 



These repeated and continued invasions of constitu- 

 tional liberty and private right, have occasioned pro- 

 found anxiety in the public mind. The apprehension 

 and alarm which they are calculated to produce, have 

 been greatly enhanced by your attempt to justify them, 

 because in that attempt you assume to yourself a 

 rightful authority possessed by no constitutional mon- 

 arch on earth. We accept the declaration that you pre- 

 fer to exercise this authority with a moderation not 

 hitherto exhibited. But, believing, as we do, that your 

 forbearance is not the tenure by which liberty is en- 

 joyed in this country, we propose to challenge the 

 grounds on which your claim of supreme power is 

 based. While yielding to you as a constitutional ma- 

 gistrate the deference to which you are entitled, we 

 cannot accord to you the despotic power you claim, 

 however indulgent and gracious you may promise to 

 be in wielding it. 



We have carefully considered the grounds on which 

 your pretensions to more than regal authority are 

 claimed to rest ; and if we do not misinterpret the 

 misty and cloudy forms of expression in which those 

 pretensions are set forth, your meaning is, that while 

 the rights of the citizen are protected by the Constitu- 

 tion in time of peace, they are suspended or lost in 

 time of war, when invasion or rebellion exists. You do 

 not, like many others in whose minds reason and the 

 love of regulated liberty seem to be overthrown by the 

 excitements of the hour, attempt to base this conclusion 

 upon a supposed military necessity existing outside of, 

 and transcending the Constitution, a military necessity 

 behind which the Constitution itself disappears in a 

 total eclipse. We do not find this gigantic and mon-i 

 strous heresy put forth in your plea for absolute power, 

 but we do find another equally subversive of liberty 

 and law, and quite as certainly tending to the estab- 



lishment of despotism. Tour claim to have found, not 

 outside, but within the Constitution, a principle or 

 germ of arbitrary power, which in time of war expands 

 at once into an absolute sovereignty, wielded by ono 

 man ; so that liberty perishes, or is dependent on his 

 will, his discretion, or his caprice. This extraordinary 

 doctrine you claim to derive wholly from that clause 

 of the Constitution which, in case of invasion or rebel- 

 lion, permits the writ of habeas corpus to be suspended. 

 Upon this ground your whole argunfent is based. 



Correspondence "between President LINCOLN and 

 the Ohio Committee in the cae of Mr. VAL- 



LANDIGDAM. 



WASHINGTON, June 26<A, 1863. 

 To His Excellency the President of the United States : 



The undersigned, having been appointed a commit- 

 tee, under the authority of the resolutions of the State 

 Convention held at the city of Columbus, Ohio, on the 

 llth instant, to communicate with you on the subject 

 of the arrest and banishment of Clement L. Vallan- 

 digham, most respectfully submit the following as the 

 resolutions of that Convention bearing upon the sub- 

 ject of this communication, and ask of your Excel- 

 lency their earnest consideration. And they deem it 

 proper to state that the Convention was one in which, 

 all parts of the State were represented, one of the most 

 respectable as to numbers and character, and one of 

 the most earnest and sincere in support of the Consti- 

 tution and the Union, ever held in that State : 



Resolved, That the will of the people Is the foundation of 

 all free government : that, to give effect to this free will, 

 free thought, free speech, and a free press are absolutely In- 

 dispensable. Without free discussion there is no certainty 

 of sound judment; without sound judgment there can be 

 no wise government. 



2. That it is an inherent and constitutional right of the 

 people to discuss all measures of their Government, and to 

 approve or disapprove, as to their best judgment seems 

 right That they have a like right to propose and advocate 

 that policy which in their judgment is best, and to argue 

 and vote against whatever policy seems to them to violate 

 the Constitution, to impair their liberties, or to be detri- 

 mental to their welfare. 



8. That these, and all other rights guaranteed to them by 

 their constitutions, are their rights in time of war as well as 

 in time of peace, and of far more value and necessity in war 

 than in peace ; for in peace liberty, security, and property 

 are seldom endangered; in war they are ever in peril 



4 That we now say to all whom it may concern, not by 

 way of threat, but calmly and firmly, that we will not sur- 

 render these rights, nor submit to their forcible violation. 

 "We will obey the laws ourselves, and all others must obey 

 them. 



11. That Ohio will adhere to the Constitution and the 

 Union as the best it may be the last hope of popular 

 freedom, and for all wrongs which may have Deen commit- 

 ted, or evils which may exist, will seek redress, under the 

 Constitution and within the Union, by the peaceful but pow- 

 erful agency of the suffrages of a free people. 



14. That we will earnestly support every constitutional 

 measure tending to preserve the Union of the States. No 

 men have a greater interest in its preservation than we 

 have, none desire it more ; there are none who will make 

 greater sacrifices or endure more than we will to accomplish 

 that end. We are, as we ever have been, the devoted friends 

 of the Constitution and the Union, and we have no sympa- 

 thy with the enemies of either. 



15. That the arrest, imprisonment, pretended trial, and 

 actual banishment of Clement L. Vallandigham, a citizen of 

 the State of Ohio, not belonging to the land or naval forces 

 of the United States, nor to the militia in actual service, by 

 alleged military authority, for no other pretended crime thaa 

 that of uttering words of legitimate criticism upon the con- 

 duct of the Administration in power, and of appealing to 

 the ballot box for a change of policy said arrest and mili- 

 tary trial taking place where the courts of law are open and 

 unobstructed, and for no act done within the sphere of active 

 military operations in carrying on the war we regard as a 

 palpable violation of the following provisions of the Consti- 

 tution of the United States : 



1. "Congress shall make no law abridcine the freedom of 

 speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably 

 to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of 

 grievances." 



2. " The right of the people to be secure in their persons, 



