Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: January 15, 1864

We have no news. But there is a feverish anxiety in the city on the question of subsistence, and there is fear of an outbreak. Congress is in secret session on the subject of the currency, and the new Conscription bill. The press generally is opposed to calling out all men of fighting age, which they say would interfere with the freedom of the press, and would be unconstitutional.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 129

Diary of William Howard Russell: July 10, 1861

To-day was spent in a lengthy excursion along the front of the camp in Virginia, round by the chain bridge which crosses the Potomac, about four miles from Washington.

The Government have been coerced, as they say, by the safety of the Republic, to destroy the liberty of the press, which is guaranteed by the Constitution, and this is not the first instance in which the Constitution of the United States will be made nominis umbra. The telegraph, according to General Scott's order, confirmed by the Minister of War, Simon Cameron, is to convey no dispatches respecting military movements not permitted by the General; and to-day the newspaper correspondents have agreed to yield obedience to the order, reserving to themselves a certain freedom of detail in writing their despatches, and relying on the Government to publish the official accounts of all battles very speedily. They will break this agreement if they can, and the Government will not observe their part of the bargain. The freedom of the press, as I take it, does not include the right to publish news hostile to the cause of the country in which it is published; neither can it involve any obligation on the part of Government to publish despatches which may be injurious to the party they represent. There is a wide distinction between the publication of news which is known to the enemy as soon as to the friends of the transmitters, and the utmost freedom of expression concerning the acts of the Government or the conduct of past events; but it will be difficult to establish any rule to limit or extend the boundaries to which discussion can go without mischief, and in effect the only solution of the difficulty in a free country seems to be to grant the press free license, in consideration of the enormous aid it affords in warning the people of their danger, in animating them with the news of their successes, and in sustaining the Government in their efforts to conduct the war.

The most important event to-day is the passage of the Loan Bill, which authorizes Mr. Chase to borrow, in the next year, a sum of £50,000,000, on coupons, with interest at seven per cent., and irredeemable for twenty years — the interest being guaranteed on a pledge of the Customs duties. I just got into the House in time to hear Mr. Vallandigham, who is an ultra Democrat, and very nearly a Secessionist, conclude a well-delivered argumentative address. He is a tall, slight man, of a bilious temperament, with light flashing eyes, dark hair and complexion, and considerable oratorical power. “Deem me ef I wouldn't just ride that Vallaridiggaim on a real,” quoth a citizen to his friend, as the speaker sat down, amid a few feeble expressions of assent. Mr. Chase has also obtained the consent of the Lower House to his bill for closing the Southern ports by the decree of the President, but I hear some more substantial measures are in contemplation for that purpose. Whilst the House is finding the money the Government are preparing to spend it, and they have obtained the approval of the Senate to the enrolment of half a million of men, and the expenditure of one hundred millions of dollars to carry on the war.

I called on Mr. Cameron, the Secretary of War. The small brick house of two stories, with long passages, in which the American Mars prepares his bolts, was, no doubt, large enough for the 20,000 men who constituted the armed force on land of the great Republic, but it is not sufficient to contain a tithe of the contractors who haunt its precincts, fill all the .lobbies, and crowd into every room. With some risk to coattails, I squeezed through iron-masters, gun-makers, clothiers, shoemakers, inventors, bakers, and all that genus which fattens on the desolation caused by an army in the field, and was introduced to Mr. Cameron's room, where he was seated at a desk surrounded by people, who were also grouped round two gentlemen as clerks in the same small room. “I tell you, General Cameron, that the way in which, the loyal men of Missouri have been treated is a disgrace to this Government,” shouted out a big, black, burly man — “I tell you so, sir.” “Well, General,” responded Mr. Cameron, quietly, “so you have several times. Will you, once for all, condescend to particulars?” “Yes, sir; you and the Government have disregarded our appeals. You have left us to fight our own battles. You have not sent us a cent ———” “There, General, I interrupt you. You say we have sent you no money,” said Mr. Cameron, very quietly. “Mr. Jones will be good enough to ask Mr. Smith to step in here.” Before Mr. Smith came in, however, the General, possibly thinking some member of the press was present, rolled his eyes in a Nicotian frenzy, and perorated: “The people of the State of Missouri, sir, will power-out every drop of the blood which only flows to warm patriotic hearts in defence of the great Union, which offers freedom to the enslaved of mankind, and a home to persecuted progress, and a few-ture to civil-zation. We demand, General Cameron, in the neame of the great Western State ———” Here Mr. Smith came in, and Mr. Cameron said, “I want you to tell me what disbursements, if any, have been sent by this department to the State of Missouri.” Mr. Smith was quick at figures, and up in his accounts, for he drew out a little memorandum book, and replied (of course, I can't tell the exact sum), “General, there has been sent, as by vouchers, to Missouri, since the beginning of the levies, six hundred and seventy thousand dollars and twenty-three cents.” “The General looked crestfallen, but he was equal to the occasion, “These sums may have been sent, sir, but they have not been received. I declare in the face of ———” “Mr. Smith will show you the vouchers, General, and you can then take any steps needful against the parties who have misappropriated them.”

“That is only a small specimen of what we have to go through with our people,” said the Minister, as the General went off with a lofty toss of his head, and then gave me a pleasant sketch of the nature of the applications and interviews which take up the time and clog the movements of an American statesman. “These State organizations give us a great deal of trouble.” I could fully understand that they did so. The immediate business that I had with Mr. Cameron — he is rarely called General now that he is Minister of War ——— was to ask him to give me authority to draw rations at cost price, in case the army took the field before I could make arrangements, and he seemed very well disposed to accede; “but I must think about it, for I shall have all our papers down upon me if I grant you any facility which they do not get themselves.” After I left the War Department, I took a walk to Mr. Seward's, who was out. In passing by President's Square, I saw a respectably-dressed man up in one of the trees, cutting off pieces of the bark, which his friends beneath caught up eagerly. I could not help stopping to ask what was the object of the proceeding. “Why, sir, this is the tree Dan Sickles shot Mr. ——— under. I think it's quite a remarkable spot.”

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, Vol. 1, p. 399-401

Resolutions of the New York Democratic Committee, May 16, 1863

Resolved, That the Democrats of New York point to their uniform course of action during the two years of civil war through which we have passed, to the alacrity which they have evinced in filling the ranks of the army, to their contributions and sacrifices, as the evidence of their patriotism and devotion to the cause of our imperiled country. Never in the history of civil wars has a Government been sustained with such ample resources of means and men as the people have voluntarily placed in the hands of this Administration.

Resolved, That as Democrats we are determined to maintain this patriotic attitude, and despite of adverse and disheartening circumstances to devote all our energies to sustain the cause of the Union; to secure peace through victory and to bring back the restoration of all the States under the safeguard of the Constitution.

Resolved, That while we will not consent to be misapprehended upon these points we are determined not to be misunderstood in regard to others not less essential. We demand that the Administration shall be true to the Constitution; shall recognize and maintain the rights of the States and the liberties of the citizen; shall everywhere outside of the lines of necessary military occupation and the scenes of insurrection exert all its powers to maintain the supremacy of the civil over the military law.

Resolved, That in view of these principles we denounce the recent assumption of a military commander to seize and try a citizen of Ohio, Clement L. Vallandigham, for no other reason than words addressed to a public meeting in criticism of the course of the Administration and in condemnation of the military orders of that general.

Resolved, That this assumption of power by a military tribunal if successfully asserted not only abrogates the right of the people to assemble and discuss the affairs of government, the liberty of speech and of the press, the right of trial by jury, the law of evidence and the privilege of habeas corpus, but it strikes a fatal blow at the supremacy of the law and the authority of the State and Federal Constitutions.

Resolved, That the Constitution of the United States — the supreme law of the land — has defined the crime of treason against the United States to consist “only in levying war against them or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” and has provided that “no person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of witnesses to the same overt act or on confession in open court.” And it further provides that “no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury except in cases arising in the land and naval forces or in the militia when in actual service in time of war or public danger;” and further that “in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right of a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime was committed.”

Resolved, That these safeguards of the rights of the citizen against the pretensions of the arbitrary power were intended more especially for his protection in times of civil commotion. They were secured substantially to the English people after years of protracted civil war and were adopted into our Constitution at the close of the Revolution. They have stood the test of seventy-six years of trial under our republican system under circumstances that show that while they constitute the foundation of all free government they are the elements of the enduring stability of the Republic.

Resolved, That in adopting the language of Daniel Webster we declare “it is the ancient and undoubted prerogative of this people to canvass public measures and the merits of public men.” It is a “homebred right,” a fireside privilege. It had been enjoyed in every house, cottage and cabin in the nation. It is as undoubted as the right of breathing the air or walking on the earth. Belonging to private life as a right, it belongs to public life as a duty, and it is the last duty which those whose representatives we are shall find us to abandon. Aiming at all times to be courteous and temperate in its use except when the right itself is questioned we shall place ourselves on the extreme boundary of our right and bid defiance to any arm that would move us from our ground. “This high constitutional privilege we shall defend and exercise in all places — in time of peace, in time of war, and at all times. Living, we shall assert it; and should we leave no other inheritance to our children by the blessing of God we will leave the inheritance of free principles and the example of a manly, independent and constitutional defense of them.”

Resolved, That in the election of Governor Seymour the people of this State by an emphatic majority declare their condemnation of the system of arbitrary arrests and their determination to stand by the Constitution. That the revival of this lawless system can have but one result: to divide and distract the North and destroy its confidence in the purposes of the Administration. That we deprecate it as an element of confusion at home, of weakness to our armies in the field and as calculated to lower the estimate of American character and magnify the apparent peril of our cause abroad. And that regarding the blow struck at a citizen of Ohio as aimed at the rights of every citizen of the North we denounce it as against the spirit of our laws and Constitution and most earnestly call upon the President of the United States to reverse the action of the military tribunal which has passed a “cruel and unusual punishment” upon the party arrested, prohibited in terms by the Constitution, and to restore him the liberty of which he has been deprived.

Resolved, That the president, vice-president and secretary of this meeting be requested to transmit a copy of these resolutions to His Excellency the President of the United States with the assurance of this meeting of their hearty and earnest desire to support the Government in every constitutional and lawful measure to suppress the existing rebellion.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series II, Volume 5 (Serial No. 118), p. 654-6

Abraham Lincoln to Erastus Corning and Others, June 12, 1863

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, June 12, 1863.

Hon. ERASTUS CORNING,  and others:

GENTLEMEN: Your letter of May 19,* inclosing the resolutions of a public meeting held at Albany, N.Y., on the 16th of the same month, was received several days ago.

The resolutions as I understand them are resolvable into two propositions — first, the expression of a purpose to sustain the cause of the Union, to secure peace through victory, and to support the Administration in every constitutional and lawful measure to suppress the rebellion; and secondly, a declaration of censure upon the Administration for supposed unconstitutional action, such as the making of military arrests. And from the two propositions a third is deduced, which is that the gentlemen composing the meeting are resolved on doing their part to maintain our common Government and country despite the folly or wickedness, as they may conceive, of any Administration. This position is eminently patriotic, and as such I thank the meeting and congratulate the nation for it. My own purpose is the same; so that the meeting and myself have a common object, and can have no difference except in the choice of means or measures for effecting that object.

And here I ought to close this paper and would close it if there was no apprehension that more injurious consequences than any merely personal to myself might follow the censures systematically cast upon me for doing what in my view of duty I could not forbear. The resolutions promise to support me in every constitutional and lawful measure to suppress the rebellion, and I have not knowingly employed nor shall I knowingly employ any other. But the meeting by their resolutions assert and argue that certain military arrests and proceedings following them for which I am ultimately responsible are unconstitutional. I think they are not. The resolutions quote from the Constitution the definition of treason, and also the limiting safeguards and guarantees therein provided for the citizen on trials of treason, and on his being held to answer for capital or otherwise infamous crimes, and in criminal prosecutions his right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury. They proceed to resolve “that these safeguards of the rights of the citizen against the pretensions of arbitrary power were intended more especially for his protection in times of civil commotion.” And apparently to demonstrate the proposition the resolutions proceed:

They were secured substantially to the English people after years of protracted civil war, and were adopted into our Constitution at the close of the Revolution.

Would not the demonstration have been better if it could have been truly said that these safeguards had been adopted and applied during the civil wars and during our Revolution instead of after the one and at the close of the other! I, too, am devotedly for them after civil war and before civil war and at all times, “except when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require” their suspension.

The resolutions proceed to tell us that these safeguards “have stood the test of seventy-six years of trial under our republican system under circumstances which show that while they constitute the foundation of all free government they are the elements of the enduring stability of the Republic.” No one denies that they have so stood the test up to the beginning of the present rebellion if we except a certain occurrence at New Orleans, nor does any one question that they will stand the same test much longer after the rebellion closes. But these provisions of the Constitution have no application to the case we have in hand, because the arrests complained of were not made for treason — that is, not for the treason defined in the Constitution, and upon the conviction of which the punishment is death — nor yet were they made to hold persons to answer for any capital or otherwise infamous crimes, nor were the proceedings following in any constitutional or legal sense “criminal prosecutions.” The arrests were made on totally different grounds and the proceedings following accorded with the grounds of the arrests. Let us consider the real case with which we are dealing and apply it to the parts of the Constitution plainly made for such cases.

Prior to my installation here it had been inculcated that any State had a lawful right to secede from the National Union, and that it would be expedient to exercise the right whenever the devotees of the doctrine should fail to elect a President to their own liking. I was elected contrary to their liking, and accordingly so far as it was legally possible they had taken seven States out of the Union, had seized many of the U.S. forts, and had fired upon the U.S. flag, all before I was inaugurated, and of course before I had done any official act whatever. The rebellion thus begun soon ran into the present civil war, and in certain respects it began on very unequal terms between the parties. The insurgents had been preparing for it for more than thirty years, while the Government had taken no steps to resist them. The former had carefully considered all the means which could be turned to their account. It undoubtedly was a well-pondered reliance with them that in their own unrestricted efforts to destroy Union, Constitution, and law all together the Government would in great degree be restrained by the same Constitution and law from arresting their progress. Their sympathizers pervaded all departments of the Government and nearly all communities of the people. From this material, under cover of “liberty of speech, liberty of the press and habeas corpus, they hoped to keep on foot amongst us a most efficient corps of spies, informers, suppliers, and aiders and abettors of their cause in a thousand ways. They knew that in times such as they were inaugurating by the Constitution itself the habeas corpus might be suspended, but they also knew that they had friends who would make a question as to who was to suspend it, meanwhile their spies and others might remain at large to help on their cause. Or if as has happened the Executive should suspend the writ without ruinous waste of time instances of arresting innocent persons might occur, as are always likely to occur in such cases, and then a clamor could be raised in regard to this which might be at least of some service to the insurgent cause.

It needed no very keen perception to discover this part of the enemy's programme so soon as by open hostilities their machinery Was fairly put in motion. Yet thoroughly imbued with a reverence for the guaranteed rights of individuals I was slow to adopt the strong measures which by degrees I have been forced to regard as being within the exceptions of the Constitution and as indispensable to the public safety. Nothing is better known to history than that courts of justice are utterly incompetent to such cases. Civil courts are organized chiefly for the trials of individuals, or at most a few individuals acting in concert, and this in quiet times and on charges of crimes well defined in the law. Even in times of peace bands of horse-thieves and robbers frequently grow too numerous and powerful for ordinary courts of justice. But what comparison in numbers have such bands ever borne to the insurgent sympathizers even in many of the loyal States? Again a jury frequently has at least one member more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor. And yet again he who dissuades one man from volunteering or induces one soldier to desert weakens the Union cause as much as he who kills a Union soldier in battle. Yet this dissuasion or inducement may be so conducted as to be no defined crime of which any civil court would take cognizance.

Ours is a case of rebellion — so-called by the resolutions before me; in fact a clear, flagrant, and gigantic case of rebellion; and the provision of the Constitution that “the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it” is the provision which specially applies to our present case. This provision plainly attests the understanding of those who made the Constitution that ordinary courts of justice are inadequate to “cases of rebellion” — attests their purpose that in such cases men may be held in custody whom the courts acting under ordinary rules would discharge. Habeas corpus does not discharge men who are proved to be guilty of defined crime, and its suspension is allowed by the Constitution on purpose that men may be arrested and held who cannot be proved to be guilty of defined crime, “when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” This is precisely our present case — a case of rebellion, wherein the public safety does require the suspension. Indeed arrests by process of courts and arrests in cases of rebellion do not proceed altogether upon the same basis. The former is directed at the small percentage of ordinary and continuous perpetration of crime, while the latter is directed at sudden and extensive uprisings against the Government, which at most will succeed or fail in no great length of time. In the latter case arrests are made not so much for what has been done as for what probably would be done. The latter is more for the preventive and less for the vindictive than the former. In such cases the purposes of men are much more easily understood than in cases of ordinary crime. The man who stands by and says nothing when the peril of his Government is discussed cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered he is sure to help the enemy; much more, if he talks ambiguously — talks for his country with “buts” and “ifs” and “ands.”

Of how little value the constitutional provisions I have quoted will be rendered if arrests shall never be made until defined crimes shall have been committed may be illustrated by a few notable examples. General John C. Breckinridge, General Robert E. Lee, General Joseph E. Johnston, General John B. Magruder, General William Preston, General Simon B. Buckner, and Commodore Franklin Buchanan, now occupying the very highest places in the rebel war service, were all within the power of the Government since the rebellion began and were nearly as well known to be traitors then as now. Unquestionably if we had seized and held them the insurgent cause would be much weaker. But no one of them had then committed any crime defined in the law. Every one of them if arrested would have been discharged on habeas corpus were the writ allowed to operate. In view of these and similar cases I think the time not unlikely to come when I shall be blamed for having made too few arrests rather than too many.

By the third resolution the meeting indicates their opinion that military arrests may be constitutional in localities where rebellion actually exists, but that such arrests are unconstitutional in localities where rebellion or insurrection does not actually exist. They insist that such arrests shall not be made “outside of the lines of necessary military occupation and the scenes of insurrection? Inasmuch, however, as the Constitution itself makes no such distinction I am unable to believe that there is any such constitutional distinction. I concede that the class of arrests complained of can be constitutional only when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require them, and I insist that in such cases they are constitutional wherever the public safety requires them, as well in places to which they may prevent the rebellion extending as in those where it may be already prevailing; as well where they may restrain mischievous interference with the raising and supplying of armies to suppress the rebellion as where the rebellion may actually be; as well where they may restrain the enticing men out of the army as where they would prevent mutiny in the army; equally constitutional at all places where they will conduce to the public safety as against the dangers of rebellion or invasion.

Take the peculiar case mentioned by the meeting. It is asserted in substance that Mr. Vallandigham was by a military commander seized and tried “for no other reason than words addressed to a public meeting in criticism of the course of the Administration and in condemnation of the military orders of the general.” Now if there be no mistake about this, if this assertion is the truth and the whole truth, if there was no other reason for the arrest, then I concede that the arrest was wrong. But the arrest as I understand was made for a very different reason. Mr. Vallandigham avows his hostility to the war on the part of the Union, and his arrest was made because he was laboring with some effect to prevent the raising of troops, to encourage desertions from the army, and to leave the rebellion without an adequate military force to suppress it. He was not arrested because he was damaging the political prospects of the Administration or the personal interests of the commanding general, but because he was damaging the army upon the existence and vigor of which the life of the nation depends. He was warring upon the military and this gave the military constitutional jurisdiction to lay hands upon him. If Mr. Vallandigham was not damaging the military power of the country then his arrest was made on mistake of fact which I would be glad to correct on reasonably satisfactory evidence.

I understand the meeting whose resolutions I am considering to be in favor of suppressing the rebellion by military force — by armies. Long experience has shown that armies cannot be maintained unless desertion shall be punished by the severe penalty of death. The case requires 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 till he is persuaded to write to the soldier boy that he is fighting in a bad cause, for the wicked Administration of a contemptible Government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think that in such a case to silence the agitator and save the boy is not only constitutional but withal a great mercy.

If I be wrong on this question of constitutional power my error lies in believing that certain proceedings are constitutional when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety requires them, which would not be constitutional when in the absence of rebellion or invasion the public safety does not require them; in other words, that the Constitution is not in its application 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 constitutionally take no strong measures in time of rebellion 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 a good medicine for a sick man because it can be shown to not be good food for a well one. Nor am I able to appreciate the danger apprehended by the meeting that the American 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 indefinite peaceful future which I trust lies before them any more than I am able to believe that a man could contract so strong an appetite for emetics during temporary 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 speaks as “Democrats.” Nor can I with fall respect for their known intelligence and the fairly presumed deliberation with which they prepared their resolutions be permitted to suppose that this occurred 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 on 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 selfish 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 constitutional views expressed in these resolutions by refusing to discharge Mr. Vallandigham on habeas corpus is a Democrat of better days than these, having received his judicial mantle at the hands of President Jackson. And still more, of all these Democrats who are nobly exposing their lives and shedding their blood on the battle-field I have learned that many approve the course taken with Mr. Vallandigham, while I have not heard of a single one condemning it. I cannot assert that there are none such.

And the name of President Jackson recalls an instance of pertinent history. 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, General Jackson still maintained martial or military law. Now that it could be said the war was over the clamor against martial law which had existed from the very first grew more furious. Among other things a Mr. Louaillier published a denunciatory newspaper article. General Jackson arrested him. A lawyer by the name of Morel procured the U.S. judge (Hall) to order a writ of habeas corpus to relieve Mr. Louaillier. General 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.” General Jackson arrested him. When the officer undertook to serve the writ of habeas corpus General 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 encampment and set him at liberty with an order to remain till the ratification of peace should be regularly announced or until the British should have left the southern coast. A day or two more elapsed, the ratification of the treaty of peace was regularly announced, and the judge and the others were fully liberated. A few days more and the judge called General Jackson into court and fined him $1,000 for having arrested 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 Representatives, took a leading part in the debates in which the constitutional question was much discussed. I am not prepared to show who the journals would show 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 rebellion; 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 General Jackson or its subsequent approval 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 responsibility from myself I hold that as a general rule the commander in the field is the better judge of the necessity in any particular case. Of course I must practice a general directory and revisory power in the matter.

One of the resolutions expressed the opinion of the meeting that arbitrary arrests will have the effect to divide and distract those who should be united in suppressing the rebellion and I am specifically called on to discharge Mr. Vallandigham. I regard this 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 when 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 as 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 appears to me opinion and action which were in great confusion at first take shape and fall into more regular channels so that the necessity for strong dealing with them gradually decreases. I have every reason 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 constitutional 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.

_______________

* See Vol. V, this series, p. 654.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series II, Volume 6 (Serial No. 119), p. 4-10

The Ohio Democratic Committee in the Case of Clement Vallandigham to Abraham Lincoln, June 26, 1863

WASHINGTON, June 26, 1863.

His Excellency the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

The undersigned, having been appointed a committee under the authority of the resolutions of the State convention held at the city of Columbus, Ohio, on the 11th instant, to communicate with you on the subject of the arrest and banishment of Clement L. Vallandigham, most respectfully submit the following as the resolutions of the convention bearing upon the subject of this communication, and ask of Your Excellency 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 Constitution and the Union ever held in this 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 indispensable. Without free discussion there is no certainty of sound judgment; 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 the 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 detrimental to their welfare.

3. 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 a threat, but calmly and firmly, that we will not surrender 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 been committed or evils which may exist will seek redress under the Constitution and within the Union by the peaceful but powerful 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 will endure more than we will to accomplish that end. We are as we have ever been the devoted friends of the Constitution and the Union and we have no sympathy 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 than that of uttering words of legitimate criticism upon the conduct of the Administration in power and of appealing to the ballot box for a change of policy — said arrest and military 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 Constitution of the United States:

1. “Congress shall make no law abridging 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, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

3. “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment 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.

4. “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 we furthermore denounce said arrest, trial, and banishment as a direct insult offered to the sovereignty of the State of Ohio, by whose organic law it is declared that no person shall be transported out of the State for any offense committed within the same.

16. That Clement L. Vallandigham was at the time of his arrest a prominent candidate for nomination by the Democratic party of Ohio for the office of Governor of the State; that the Democratic party was fully competent to decide whether he is a fit man for that nomination, and that the attempt to deprive them of that right by his arrest and banishment was an unmerited imputation upon their intelligence and loyalty, as well as a violation of the Constitution.

17. That we respectfully, but most earnestly, call upon the President of the United States to restore Clement L. Vallandigham to his home in Ohio, and that a committee of one from each Congressional district of the State, to be selected by the presiding officer of this convention, is hereby appointed to present this application to the President.

The undersigned, in the discharge of the duty assigned them, do not think it necessary to reiterate the facts connected with the arrest, trial, and banishment of Mr. Vallandigham — they are well-known to the President and are of public history — nor to enlarge upon the positions taken by the convention, nor to recapitulate the constitutional provisions which it is believed have been contravened; they have been stated at length and with clearness in the resolutions which have been recited. The undersigned content themselves with brief reference to the other suggestions pertinent to the subject.

They do not call upon Your Excellency as suppliants, praying the revocation of the order banishing Mr. Vallandigham as a favor, but, by the authority of a convention representing a majority of the citizens of the Slate of Ohio, they respectfully ask it as a right due to an American citizen, in whose personal injury the sovereignty and dignity of the people of Ohio as a free State have been offended. And this duty they perform more cordially from the consideration that at a time of great national emergency, pregnant with danger to our Federal Union, it is all important that the friends of the Constitution and the Union, however they may differ as to the mode of administering the Government and the measures most likely to be successful in the maintenance of the Constitution and the restoration of the Union, should not be thrown into conflict with each other.

The arrest, unusual trial, and banishment of Mr. Vallandigham have created widespread and alarming disaffection among the people of the State, not only endangering the harmony of the friends of the Constitution and the Union and tending to disturb the peace and tranquillity of the State, but also impairing that confidence in the fidelity of your Administration to the great landmarks of free government essential to a peaceful and successful enforcement of the laws in Ohio.

You are reported to have used, in a public communication on this subject, the following language:

It gave me pain when 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.

The undersigned assure Your Excellency from our own personal knowledge of the feelings of the people of Ohio that the public safety will be far more endangered by continuing Mr. Vallandigham in exile than by releasing him. It may be true that persons differing from him in political views may be found in Ohio and elsewhere who will express a different opinion. But they are certainly mistaken. Mr. Vallandigham may differ with the President, and even with some of his own political party, as to the true and most effectual means of maintaining the Constitution and restoring the Union, but this difference of opinion does not prove him to be unfaithful to his duties as an American citizen. If a man, devotedly attached to the Constitution and the Union, conscientiously believes that from the inherent nature of the Federal compact the war in the present condition of things in this country cannot be used as a means of restoring the Union, or that a war to subjugate a part of the States, or a war to revolutionize the social system in a part of the States could not restore but would inevitably result in the final destruction of both the Constitution and the Union, is he not to be allowed the right of an American citizen to appeal to the judgment of the people for a change of policy by the constitutional remedy of the ballot box?

During the war with Mexico many of the political opponents of the Administration then in power thought it their duty to oppose and denounce the war and to urge before the people of the country that it was unjust and prosecuted for unholy purposes. With equal reason it might have been said of them that their discussions before the people were calculated to discourage enlistments, “to prevent the raising of troops,” and to induce desertions from the Army and to leave the Government without an adequate military force to carry on the war.

If the freedom of speech and of the press are to be suspended in time of war, then the essential element of popular government to effect a change of policy in the constitutional mode is at an end. The freedom of speech and of the press is indispensable and necessarily incident to the nature of popular government itself. If any inconvenience or evils arise from its exercise they are unavoidable. On this subject you are reported to have said further:

It is asserted, in substance, that Mr. Vallandigham was by a military commander seized and tried “for no other reasons than words addressed to a public meeting in criticism of the course of the Administration and in condemnation of the military order of the general.” Now, if there be no mistake about this, if there was no other reason for the arrest, then I concede that the arrest was wrong; but the arrest, I understand, was made for a very different reason. Mr. Vallandigham avows his hostility to the war on the part of the Union, and his arrest was made because he was laboring with some effect to prevent the raising of troops, to encourage desertions from the Army, and to leave the rebellion without an adequate military force to suppress it. He was not arrested because he was damaging the political prospects of the Administration or the personal interests of the commanding general, but because he was damaging the Army, upon the existence and vigor of which the life of the nation depends. He was warring upon the military, and this gave the military constitutional jurisdiction to lay hands upon him. If Mr. Vallandigham was not damaging the military power of the country, then his arrest was made on mistake of facts, which I would be glad to correct on reasonable satisfactory evidence.

In answer to this, permit us to say, first, that neither the charge nor the specifications in support of the charge on which Mr. Vallandigham was tried impute to him the act of either laboring to prevent the raising of troops or to encourage desertions from the Army; secondly, no evidence on the triad was offered with a view to support any such charge. In what instance and by what act did he either discourage enlistments or encourage desertions in the Army? Who was the man who was discouraged from enlisting and who encouraged to desert by any act of Mr. Vallandigham? If it be assumed that perchance some person might have been discouraged from enlisting, or that some person might have been encouraged to desert on account of hearing Mr. Vallandigham's views as to the policy of the war as a means of restoring the Union, would that have laid the foundation for his conviction and banishment? If so, upon the same grounds every political opponent of the Mexican war might have been convicted and banished from the country.

When gentlemen of high standing and extensive influence, including Your Excellency, opposed in the discussions before the people the policy of the Mexican war, were they “warring upon the military,” and did this “give the military constitutional jurisdiction to lay hands upon” them? And, finally, the charge in the specifications upon which Mr. Vallandigham was tried entitled him to a trial before the civil tribunals, according to the express provision's of the late acts of Congress, approved by yourself July 17, 1862, and March 3, 1863, which were manifestly designed to supersede all necessity or pretext for arbitrary military arrests.

The undersigned are unable to agree with you in the opinion you have expressed that the Constitution is different in time of insurrection or invasion from what it is in time of peace and public security. The Constitution provides for no limitation upon or exceptions to the guarantees of personal liberty, except as to the writ of habeas corpus. Has the President at the time of invasion or insurrection the right to ingraft limitations or exception's upon these constitutional guarantees whenever, in his judgment, the public safety requires it?

True it is, the article of the Constitution which defines the various powers delegated to Congress declares that “the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety requires it.” But this qualification or limitation upon this restriction upon the powers of Congress has no reference to or connection with the other constitutional guarantees of personal liberty. 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.

Although a man might not have a constitutional right to have an immediate investigation made as to the legality of his arrest upon habeas corpus, yet his “right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed” will not be altered; neither will his right to the exemption from “cruel and unusual punishment;” nor his right to be secure in his person, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable seizures and searches; nor his right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor his right not to be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous offense unless on presentment or indictment of a grand jury, be in anywise changed.

And certainly the restriction upon the power of Congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in time of insurrection or invasion could not affect the guarantee that the freedom of speech and of the press shall be abridged. It is sometimes urged that the proceedings in the civil tribunals are too tardy and ineffective for cases arising in times of insurrection or invasion. It is a full reply to this to say that arrests by civil process may be equally as expeditious and effective as arrests by military orders.

True, a summary trial and punishment are not allowed in the civil courts, but if the offender be under arrest and imprisoned and not entitled to a discharge on writ of habeas corpus before trial, what more can be required for the purposes of the Government? The idea that all the constitutional guarantees of personal liberty are suspended throughout the country at a time of insurrection or invasion in any part of it places us upon a sea of uncertainty, and subjects the life, liberty, and property of every citizen to the mere will of a military commander or what he may say that he considers the public safety requires. Does Your Excellency wish to have it understood that you hold that the rights of every man throughout this vast country are subject to be annulled whenever you may say that you consider the public safety requires it, in time of invasion or insurrection?

You are further reported as having said that the constitutional guarantees of personal liberty have—

No application to the present case we have in hand, because the arrests complained of were not made for treason — that is, not for the treason defined in the Constitution, and upon the conviction of which the punishment is death — nor yet were they made to hold persons to answer for capital or otherwise infamous crimes — nor were the proceedings following in any constitutional or legal sense “criminal prosecutions.” The arrests were made on totally different grounds and the proceedings following accorded with the grounds of the arrests, &c.

The conclusion to be drawn from this position of Your Excellency is that where a man is liable to “a criminal prosecution” or is charged with a crime known to the laws of the land he is clothed with all the constitutional guarantees for his safety and security from wrong and injustice, but that where he is not liable to “a criminal prosecution” or charged with any crime known to the laws if the President or any military commander shall say that he considers that the public safety requires it this man may be put outside of the pale of the constitutional guarantees and arrested without charge of crime, imprisoned without knowing what for and any length of time, or be tried before a court-martial and sentenced to any kind of punishment unknown to the laws of the land which the President or the military commander may see proper to impose. Did the Constitution intend to throw the shield of its securities around the man liable to be charged with treason as defined by it and yet leave the man not liable to any such charge unprotected by the safeguards of personal liberty and personal security?

Can a man not in the military or naval service nor within the field of the operations of the army be arrested and imprisoned without any law of the land to authorize it? Can a man thus in civil life be punished without any law defining the offense and describing the punishment? If the President or a court-martial may prescribe one kind of punishment unauthorized by law, why not any other kind? Banishment is an unusual punishment and unknown to our laws. If the President has the right to prescribe the punishment of banishment, why not that of death and confiscation of property? If the President has the right to change the punishment prescribed by the court-martial from imprisonment to banishment, why not from imprisonment to torture upon the rack or execution upon the gibbet?

If an indefinable kind of constructive treason is to be introduced and ingrafted upon the Constitution unknown to the laws of the land and subject to the will of the President whenever an insurrection or an invasion shall occur in any part of this vast country, what safety or security will be left for the liberties of the people?

The constructive treasons that gave the friends of freedom so many years of toil and trouble in England were inconsiderable compared to this. The precedents which you make will become a part of the Constitution for your successors if sanctioned and acquiesced in by the people now.

The people of Ohio are willing to co operate zealously with you in every effort warranted by the Constitution to restore the union of the States but they cannot consent to abandon those fundamental principles of civil liberty which are essential to their existence as a free people.

In their name we ask that by a revocation of the order of his banishment Mr. Vallandigham may be restored to the enjoyment of those rights of which they believe he has been unconstitutionally deprived.

We have the honor to be respectfully, yours, &c.,

M. BIRCHARD, Chairman, 19th Dist.

DAVID A. HOUK, Secretary, 3d Dist.

GEO. BLISS, 14th Dist.

T. W. BARTLEY, 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.

JAS. R. MORRIS, 15th Dist.

GEO. L. CONVERSE, 7th Dist.

WARREN P. NOBLE, 9th Dist.

GEO. H. PENDLETON, 1st Dist.

W. A. HUTCHINS, 11th Dist.

ABNER L. BACKUS, 10th Dist.

J. F. McKINNEY, 4th Dist.

F. C. LE BLOND, 5th Dist.

LOUIS SHAEFER, 17th Dist.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series II, Volume 6 (Serial No. 119), p. 48-53

Wendell Phillips's Freedom Speech: Faneuil Hall, Boston, Massachusetts December 8, 1837

MR. CHAIRMAN: — We have met for the freest discussion of these resolutions, and the events which gave rise to them. [Cries of “Question,” “Hear him,” “Go on,” “No gagging,” etc.] I hope I shall be permitted to express my surprise at the sentiments of the last speaker, — surprise not only at such sentiments from such a man, but at the applause they have received within these walls. A comparison has been drawn between the events of the Revolution and the tragedy at Alton. We have heard it asserted here, in Faneuil Hall, that Great Britain had a right to tax the Colonies, and we have heard the mob at Alton, the drunken murderers of Lovejoy, compared to those patriot fathers who threw the tea overboard! [Great applause.] Fellow-citizens, is this Faneuil Hall doctrine? [“No, no.”] The mob at Alton were met to wrest from a citizen his just rights, — met to resist the laws. We have been told that our fathers did the same; and the glorious mantle of Revolutionary precedent has been thrown over the mobs of our day. To make out their title to such defence, the gentleman says that the British Parliament had a right to tax these Colonies. It is manifest that, without this, his parallel falls to the ground; for Lovejoy had stationed himself within constitutional bulwarks. He was not only defending the freedom of the press, but he was under his own roof, in arms with the sanction of the civil authority. The men who assailed him went against and over the laws. The mob, as the gentleman terms it, — mob, forsooth! certainly we sons of the tea-spillers are a marvellously patient generation! — the “orderly mob” which assembled in the Old South to destroy the tea were met to resist, not the laws, but illegal exactions. Shame on the American who calls the tea-tax and stamp-act laws! Our fathers resisted, not the King's prerogative, but the King's usurpation. To find any other account, you must read our Revolutionary history upside down. Our State archives are loaded with arguments of John Adams to prove the taxes laid by the British Parliament unconstitutional,—beyond its power. It was not till this was made out that the men of New England rushed to arms. The arguments of the Council Chamber and the House of Representatives preceded and sanctioned the contest. To draw the conduct of our ancestors into a precedent for mobs, for a right to resist laws we ourselves have enacted, is an insult to their memory. The difference between the excitements of those days and our own, which the gentleman in kindness to the latter has overlooked, is simply this: the men of that day went for the right, as secured by the laws. They were the people rising to sustain the laws and constitution of the Province. The rioters of our day go for their own wills, right or wrong. Sir, when I heard the gentleman lay down principles which place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips [pointing to the portraits in the Hall] would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American, — the slanderer of the dead. [Great applause and counter applause.] The gentleman said that he should sink into insignificance if he dared to gainsay the principles of these resolutions. Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered, on soil consecrated by the prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should have yawned and swallowed him up.

[Applause and hisses, with cries of “Take that back.” The uproar became so great that for a long time no one could be heard. At length G. Bond, Esq., and Hon. W. Sturgis came to Mr. Phillips's side at the front of the platform. They were met with cries of “Phillips or nobody,” “Make him take back ‘recreant,’” “He sha'n't go on till he takes it back.” When it was understood they meant to sustain, not to interrupt, Mr. Phillips, Mr. Sturgis was listened to, and said: “I did not come here to take any part in this discussion, nor do I intend to; but I do entreat you, fellow-citizens, by everything you hold sacred, — I conjure you by every association connected with this Hall, consecrated by our fathers to freedom of discussion, — that you listen to every man who addresses you in a decorous manner.” Mr. Phillips resumed.]

Fellow-citizens, I cannot take back my words. Surely the Attorney-General, so long and well known here, needs not the aid of your hisses against one so young as I am, — my voice never before heard within these walls!

Another ground has been taken to excuse the mob, and throw doubt and discredit on the conduct of Lovejoy and his associates. Allusion has been made to what lawyers understand very well, — the “conflict of laws.” We are told that nothing but the Mississippi River rolls between St. Louis and Alton; and the conflict of laws somehow or other gives the citizens of the former a right to find fault with the defender of the press for publishing his opinions so near their limits. Will the gentleman venture that argument before lawyers? How the laws of the two States could be said to come into conflict in such circumstances I question whether any lawyer in this audience can explain or understand. No matter whether the line that divides one sovereign State from another be an imaginary one or ocean-wide, the moment you cross it the State you leave is blotted out of existence, so far as you are concerned. The Czar might as well claim to control the deliberations of Faneuil Hall, as the laws of Missouri demand reverence, or the shadow of obedience, from an inhabitant of Illinois.

I must find some fault with the statement which has been made of the events at Alton. It has been asked why Lovejoy and his friends did not appeal to the executive, — trust their defence to the police of the city. It has been hinted that, from hasty and ill-judged excitement, the men within the building provoked a quarrel, and that he fell in the course of it, one mob resisting another. Recollect, Sir, that they did act with the approbation and sanction of the Mayor. In strict truth, there was no executive to appeal to for protection. The Mayor acknowledged that he could not protect them. They asked him if it was lawful for them to defend themselves. He told them it was, and sanctioned their assembling in arms to do so. They were not, then, a mob; they were not merely citizens defending their own property; they were in some sense the posse comitatus, adopted for the occasion into the police of the city, acting under the order of a magistrate. It was civil authority resisting lawless violence. Where, then, was the imprudence? Is the doctrine to be sustained here, that it is imprudent for men to aid magistrates in executing the laws?

Men are continually asking each other, Had Lovejoy a right to resist? Sir, I protest against the question, instead of answering it. Lovejoy did not resist, in the sense they mean. He did not throw himself back on the natural right of self-defence. He did not cry anarchy, and let slip the dogs of civil war, careless of the horrors which would follow.

Sir, as I understand this affair, it was not an individual protecting his property; it was not one body of armed men resisting another, and making the streets of a peaceful city run blood with their contentions. It did not bring back the scenes in some old Italian cities, where family met family, and faction met faction, and mutually trampled the laws under foot. No; the men in that house were regularly enrolled, under the sanction of the Mayor. There being no militia in Alton, about seventy men were enrolled with the approbation of the Mayor. These relieved each other every other night. About thirty men were in arms on the night of the sixth, when the press was landed. The next evening, it was not thought necessary to summon more than half that number; among these was Lovejoy. It was, therefore, you perceive, Sir, the police of the city resisting rioters, — civil government breasting itself to the shock of lawless men.

Here is no question about the right of self-defence. It is in fact simply this: Has the civil magistrate a right to put down a riot?

Some persons seem to imagine that anarchy existed at Alton from the commencement of these disputes. Not at all. “No one of us,” says an eyewitness and a comrade of Lovejoy, “has taken up arms during these disturbances but at the command of the Mayor.” Anarchy did not settle down on that devoted city till Lovejoy breathed his last. Till then the law, represented in his person, sustained itself against its foes. When he fell, civil authority was trampled under foot. He had “planted himself on his constitutional rights,” — appealed to the laws, — claimed the protection of the civil authority, — taken refuge under “the broad shield of the Constitution. When through that he was pierced and fell, he fell but one sufferer in a common catastrophe.” He took refuge under the banner of liberty, — amid its folds; and when he fell, its glorious stars and stripes, the emblem of free institutions, around which cluster so many heart-stirring memories, were blotted out in the martyr's blood.

It has been stated, perhaps inadvertently, that Lovejoy or his comrades fired first. This is denied by those who have the best means of knowing. Guns were first fired by the mob. After being twice fired on, those within the building consulted together and deliberately returned the fire. But suppose they did fire first. They had a right so to do; not only the right which every citizen has to defend himself, but the further right which every civil officer has to resist violence. Even if Lovejoy fired the first gun, it would not lessen his claim to our sympathy, or destroy his title to be considered a martyr in defence of a free press. The question now is, Did he act within the Constitution and the laws? The men who fell in State Street on the 5th of March, 1770, did more than Lovejoy is charged with. They were the first assailants. Upon some slight quarrel they pelted the troops with every missile within reach. Did this bate one jot of the eulogy with which Hancock and Warren hallowed their memory, hailing them as the first martyrs in the cause of American liberty?

If, Sir, I had adopted what are called Peace principles, I might lament the circumstances of this case. But all you who believe, as I do, in the right and duty of magistrates to execute the laws, join with me and brand as base hypocrisy the conduct of those who assemble year after year on the 4th of July, to fight over the battles of the Revolution, and yet “damn with faint praise,” or load with obloquy, the memory of this man, who shed his blood in defence of life, liberty, property, and the freedom of the press!

Throughout that terrible night I find nothing to regret but this, that within the limits of our country, civil authority should have been so prostrated as to oblige a citizen to arm in his own defence, and to arm in vain. The gentleman says Lovejoy was presumptuous and imprudent, — he “died as the fool dieth.” And a reverend clergyman of the city* tells us that no citizen has a right to publish opinions disagreeable to the community! If any mob follows such publication, on him rests its guilt! He must wait, forsooth, till the people come up to it and agree with him! This libel on liberty goes on to say that the want of right to speak as we think is an evil inseparable from republican institutions! If this be so, what are they worth? Welcome the despotism of the Sultan, where one knows what he may publish and what he may not, rather than the tyranny of this many-headed monster, the mob, where we know not what we may do or say, till some fellow-citizen has tried it, and paid for the lesson with his life. This clerical absurdity chooses as a check for the abuses of the press, not the law, but the dread of a mob. By so doing, it deprives not only the individual and the minority of their rights, but the majority also, since the expression of their opinion may sometimes provoke disturbance from the minority. A few men may make a mob as well as many. The majority, then, have no right, as Christian men, to utter their sentiments, if by any possibility it may lead to a mob! Shades of Hugh Peters and John Cotton, save us from such pulpits!

Imprudent to defend the liberty of the press! Why? Because the defence was unsuccessful? Does success gild crime into patriotism, and the want of it change heroic self-devotion to imprudence? Was Hampden imprudent when he drew the sword and threw away the scabbard? Yet he, judged by that single hour, was unsuccessful. After a short exile, the race he hated sat again upon the throne.

Imagine yourself present when the first news of Bunker Hill battle reached a New England town. The tale would have run thus: “The patriots are routed, — the redcoats victorious, — Warren lies dead upon the field.” With what scorn would that Tory have been received, who should have charged Warren with imprudence! who should have said that, bred a physician, he was “out of place” in that battle, and “died as the fool dieth”! [Great applause.] How would the intimation have been received, that Warren and his associates should have waited a better time? But if success be indeed the only criterion of prudence, Respice finem, — wait till the end.

Presumptuous to assert the freedom of the press on American ground! Is the assertion of such freedom before the age? So much before the age as to leave one no right to make it because it displeases the community? Who invents this libel on his country? It is this very thing which entitles Lovejoy to greater praise. The disputed right which provoked the Revolution — taxation without representation — is far beneath that for which he died. [Here there was a strong and general expression of disapprobation.] One word, gentlemen. As much as thought is better than money, so much is the cause in which Lovejoy died nobler than a mere question of taxes. James Otis thundered in this Hall when the King did but touch his pocket. Imagine, if you can, his indignant eloquence, had England offered to put a gag upon his lips. [Great applause.]

The question that stirred the Revolution touched our civil interests. This concerns us not only as citizens, but as immortal beings. Wrapped up in its fate, saved or lost with it, are not only the voice of the statesman, but the instructions of the pulpit, and the progress of our faith.

The clergy “marvellously out of place” where free speech is battled for, — liberty of speech on national sins? Does the gentleman remember that freedom to preach was first gained, dragging in its train freedom to print? I thank the clergy here present, as I reverence their predecessors, who did not so far forget their country in their immediate profession as to deem it duty to separate themselves from the struggle of '76, — the Mayhews and Coopers, who remembered they were citizens before they were clergymen.

Mr. Chairman, from the bottom of my heart I thank that brave little band at Alton for resisting. We must remember that Lovejoy had fled from city to city, — suffered the destruction of three presses patiently. At length he took counsel with friends, men of character, of tried integrity, of wide views, of Christian principle. They thought the crisis had come: it was full time to assert the laws. They saw around them, not a community like our own, of fixed habits, of character moulded and settled, but one “in the gristle, not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.” The people there, children of our older States, seem to have forgotten the blood-tried principles of their fathers the moment they lost sight of our New England hills. Something was to be done to show them the priceless value of the freedom of the press, to bring back and set right their wandering and confused ideas. He and his advisers looked out on a community, staggering like a drunken man, indifferent to their rights and confused in their feelings. Deaf to argument, haply they might be stunned into sobriety. They saw that of which we cannot judge, the necessity of resistance. Insulted law called for it. Public opinion, fast hastening on the downward course, must be arrested.

Does not the event show they judged rightly? Absorbed in a thousand trifles, how has the nation all at once come to a stand? Men begin, as in 1776 and 1640, to discuss principles, to weigh characters, to find out where they are. Haply we may awake before we are borne over the precipice.

I am glad, Sir, to see this crowded house. It is good for us to be here. When Liberty is in danger, Faneuil Hall has the right, it is her duty, to strike the key-note for these United States. I am glad, for one reason, that remarks such as those to which I have alluded have been uttered here. The passage of these resolutions, in spite of this opposition, led by the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth, will show more clearly, more decisively, the deep indignation with which Boston regards this outrage.

_______________

* See Rev. Hubbard Winslow's discourse on Liberty! in which he defines “republican liberty” to be “liberty to say and do what the prevailing voice and will of the brotherhood will allow and protect.”

SOURCE: Wendell Phillips, Speeches, Lectures, and Letters, Volume 1, p. 2-10

Assistant-Adjutant General William D. Whipple to Edward McKenney Hudson, August 16, 1861

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA,

Baltimore, Md., August 16, 1861.

EDWARD McK. HUDSON, Aide-de-Camp:

SIR: I am directed by Major-General Dix to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 15th instant, addressed to Brigadier-General Dix, commanding Department of Baltimore, and inclosing paragraphs from newspapers published in this city.¹

He requests me to say that he is the major general commanding the Department of Pennsylvania, composed of the States of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and all of Maryland except the counties of Alleghany and Washington, which belong to the Department of the Shenandoah, and the counties of Frederick, Montgomery, and Prince George's, which belong to the Department of Washington. If any changes have been made in his command he has no information, official or unofficial, in respect to them. He received last evening a dispatch, signed Lawrence A. Williams, aide-de-camp, in the name of the commanding general of the division, and though it contained nothing more definite in regard to the authority from which it emanated, he assumed that it came to him by direction of the Government, and immediately sent for the agent of the Sun newspaper, The proprietor being absent, and he thinks the result of the interview will be to cause a discontinuance of exceptionable articles like those which have recently appeared in that paper.

Major-General Dix requests me to say to Major-General McClellan that his attention, since he assumed the command of this department, has been so engaged by official duties that the course of the secessionist papers in Baltimore was not noticed by him until the early part of this week. He has been considering whether the emergency would not warrant a suppression of the papers referred to, if, after warning them of the consequences of a persistence in their hostility to the Union, they should refuse to abstain from misrepresentations of the conduct and motives of the Government and the publication of intelligence calculated to aid and encourage the public enemy. It was his intention in a matter of so much gravity – one affecting so deeply the established opinions of the country in regard to the freedom of the press – to ask the direction of the Government as soon as he should feel prepared to recommend a definite course of action. In the mean time it will give him pleasure to do all in his power to suppress the publication of information in regard to the movements, position, and number of our troops, as Major-General McClellan requests, as it is possible that orders may have been issued affecting his command and by accident not have reached him.

Major-General Dix will be glad to receive any information you may have in regard to the modification, if any has been made, of General Orders, No. 47.²

I am, very respectfully, yours,

 WM. D. WHIPPLE,

 Assistant Adjutant-General.

_______________

¹ Not found.

² Of July 25, 1861. See p. 763, Vol. II, of this series.

SOURCES: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Volume 5 (Serial No. 5), p. 562-3; Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John Adams Dix, Volume 2, p. 29-30