806 



PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



ley, 8th Dist ; W. J. Gordon, 18th Dist. ; John O'Neill, 

 13th Dist. ; C. A. White, 6th Dist. ; W. E. Finck, 12th 

 Dist. ; Alexander Long, 2d Dist. ; J. W. White, 16th 

 Dist. ; James B. Morris, 15th Dist. ; George S. Con- 

 verse, 7th Dist. ; Warren P. Noble, 9th Dist. ; George 

 H. Pendleton, 1st Dist. ; W. A. Hutchins, llth Dist. ; 

 Abner L. Backus, 10th Dist. ; J. F. McKinney, 4th 

 Dist. ; F. C. Le Blond, 5th Dist. ; Louis Schaefer, 17th 

 Dist. 



\VA8nraoTOir, June 29<A, 1863. 

 Messrs. M. Burchard, David A. Houck, George Bliss, 



T. W Bartley, W. J. Gordon, John O'Nefll, C. A. 



White, W. E. Finck, Alexander Long, J. W. White, 



George H. Pendleton, George S. Converse, Warren P. 



Noble, James R. Morris, W. A. Hutchins, Abner L. 



Backus, J. F. McKinney, P. C. Le Blond, Louis 



Schaefer: 



GENTLEMEN : The resolutions of the Ohio Democratic 

 State Convention, which you present me, together with 

 your introductory and closing remarks, being in po- 

 sition and argument mainly the same as the resolu- 

 tions of the Democratic meeting at Albany, New York, 

 I refer you to my response to the latter as meeting 

 most of the points in the former. 



This response you evidently used in preparing your 

 remarks, and I desire no more than that it be used 

 with accuracy. In a single reading of your remarks, 

 I only discovered one inaccuracy in matter which I 

 suppose you took from that paper. It is where you 

 say, " The undersigned are unable to agree with 

 you in the opinion you have expressed that the Con- 

 stitution is different in time of insurrection or in- 

 vasion from what it is in time of peace and public 

 security." 



A recurrence to the paper will show you that I have 

 not expressed the opinion you suppose. I expressed 

 the opinion that the Constitution is different in its ap- 

 plication in cases of rebellion or invasion, involving 

 the public safety, from what it is in tiroes of profound 

 peace and public security ; and this opinion I adhere 

 to, simply because by the Constitution itself things 

 may be done in the one ( case which may not be done in 

 the other. 



1 dislike to waste a word on a merely personal point, 

 but I must respectfully assure you that you will find 

 yourselves at fault should you ever seek for evidence 

 to prove your assumption that I " opposed in discus- 

 sions before the people the policy of the Mexican 

 war." 



You say : " Expunge from the Constitution this 

 limitation upon the power of Congress to suspend the 

 writ of habeas corpus, and yet the other guarantees of 

 personal liberty would remain unchanged." Doubtless 

 if this clause of the Constitution, improperly called, as 

 I think, a limitation upon the power of Congress, were 

 expunged, the other guarantees would remain the 

 same : but the question is, not how those guarantees 

 would stand with that clause out of the Constitution, 

 but how they stand with that clause remaining in it, 

 in case of rebellion or invasion, involving the public 

 safety. If the liberty could be indulged in expunging 

 that clause, letter and spirit, I really think the consti- 

 tutional argument would be with you. 



My general view on this question was stated in the 

 Albany response and hence I do not state it now. I 

 only add that, it seems to me, the benefit of the writ 

 of habeas corpus is the great means through which the 

 guarantees or personal fiberty are conserved and made 

 available in the last resort ; and corroborative of this 

 view is the fact that Mr. Vallandigham, in the very 

 case in question, under the advice of able lawyers, 

 saw not where else to go but to the habeas corpus. 

 But by the Constitution the benefit of the writ of 

 habeas corpus itself may be suspended, when, in 

 case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may 

 require it. 



You ask, in substance, whether I really claim that I 

 may override all the guaranteed rights of individuals, 

 on the plea of conserving the public safety when I 



may choose to say the public safety requires it. This, 

 question, divested of the phraseology calculated to re- 

 present me as struggling for an arbitrary personal 

 prerogative, is either simply a question who shall de- 

 cide, or an affirmation that nobody shall decide, what 

 the public safety does require in cases of rebellion or 

 invasion. The Constitution contemplates the question 

 as likely to occur for decision, but it does not express- 

 ly declare who is to decide it. By necessary implica- 

 tion, when rebellion or invasion comes, the decision ia 

 to be made, from time to time ; and I think the man 

 whom, for the time, the people have under the Con- 

 stitution, made the commander-in-chief of their army 

 and navy, is the man who holds the power and beara 

 the responsibility of making it. If he uses the power 

 justly, the same people will probably justify him ; if 

 Le abuses it, he is in their hands, to be dealt with by 

 all the modes they have reserved to themselves in the 

 Constitution. 



The earnestness with which you insist that persons 

 can only, in times of rebellion, be lawfully dealt with, 

 in accordance with the rules for criminal trials and 

 punishments in times of peace, induces me to add a 

 word to what I said on that point in the Albany re- 

 sponse. You claim that men may, if they choose, em- 

 barrass those whose duty it is to combat a giant rebel- 

 lion, and then be dealt with only in turn as if there 

 w_ere no rebellion. The Constitution itself rejects this 

 view. The military arrests and detentions which have 

 been made, including those of Mr. Vallandigham, 

 which are not different in principle from the other, 

 have been for prevention, and not for punishment as 

 injunctions to stay injury, as proceedings to keep the 

 peace and hence, like proceedings in such cases and 

 for like reasons, they have not been accompanied with 

 indictments, or trials by juries, nor in a single case by 

 any punishment whatever beyond what is purely inci- 

 dental to the prevention. The original sentence 'of im- 

 prisonment in Mr. Vallandigham's case was to prevent 

 injury to the military service only, and the modifica- 

 tion of it was made as a less disagreeable mode to him 

 of securing the same prevention. 



I am unable to perceive an insult to Ohio in the case 

 of Mr. Vallandigham. Quite surely nothing of this 

 sort was or is intended. I was wholly unaware that 

 Mr, Vallandigham was, at the time of his arrest, a can- 

 didate for the Democratic nomination for Governor, 

 until so informed by your reading to me the resolu- 

 tions of the Convention. I am grateful to the State 

 of Ohio for many things, especially for the brave sol- 

 diers and officers she has given in the present national 

 trial to the armies of the Union. 



You claim, as I understand, that according to my 

 own position in the Albany response, Mr. Vallandig- 

 ham should be released; and this because, as you 

 claim, he has not damaged the military service by dis- 

 couraging enlistments, encouraging desertions, or oth- 

 erwise; and that if he had, he should have been turned 

 over to the civil authorities under the recent acts of 

 Congress. I certainly do not know that Mr. Vallan- 

 digham has specifically and by direct language ad- 

 vised against enlistments, and in favor of desertion and 

 resistance to drafting. We all know that combina- 

 tions, armed in some instances, to resist the arrest of 

 deserters, began several months ago; that more re- 

 cently the like has appeared in resistance to the enrol- 

 ment preparatory to a draft ; and that quite a number 

 of assassinations have occurred from the same animus. 

 These had to be met by military force, and this again 

 has led to bloodshed and death. And now, under a 

 sense of responsibility more weighty and enduring 

 than any which is merely official,! solemnly declare 

 my belief that this hinderance of the military, includ- 

 ing maiming and murder, is due to the course in 

 which Mr. Vallandigham has been engaged, in a 

 greater degree than to any other cause; and it is due 

 to him personally in a greater degree than to any other 

 man. 



These things have been notorious, known to all, and 

 of course known to Mr. Vallandigham. Perhaps I 

 would not be wrong to say they originated with hi* 



