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of the Constitution and law has he done this? The power is not in the Constitution, nor granted by law. . . . The resolution goes on to recite that the President has suspended the writ of habeas corpus, and proposes to ratify and make that valid.

This latter power Mr. Breckinridge affirmed to belong solely to Congress, and cited authorities supporting this view, including a recent decision of Chief Justice Taney in the case of one Merryman, arrested for raising rebel recruits in Maryland and confined in Fort McHenry. Application being made to Judge Taney for a writ of habeas corpus in the case, he ordered General Cadwallader, commanding in that quarter, to bring Merryman into court. This was refused until after the General had consulted his superiors at Washington, and thereupon the Judge ordered Cadwallader's arrest for contempt. The Marshal sent to serve the writ of attachment against the General was refused admission to Fort McHenry. On receiving this return from his officer, Judge Taney declared that the President had no authority to "suspend the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus," and that "a military officer has no right to arrest and detain a person, nor to subject him to the Rules and Articles of War, for an offense against the laws of the United States, except in aid of the judicial authority"; but to proceed with posse comitatus against a "notoriously superior force" was impossible, and the Marshal had done all in his power to discharge his duty.

On the first point authorities differ, but the concluding opinion is indisputable. When war rules, the man on the bench has no chance with the man on horseback.

There were other acts against which the ex-VicePresident protested in the name of the Constitution and of the people he represented:

You have martial law all over the land. . . . Individuals are seized without legal warrant and imprisoned. The other day, since Congress met, a military officer in Baltimore was appointed a marshal of that city. Will any one defend the act? . . . Has not the President of the United States, by one broad, sweeping act, laid his hands upon the private correspondence of the whole country?

. We may have this joint resolution to approve these acts and make them valid, but we can not make them valid in fact.

And upon this "usurping" Abraham Lincoln, duly elected President of the thirty-four States of the Union, Mr. Breckinridge — having set the tune for Vallandigham and other successors in opposition went a few days later to acknowledge and fight for Jefferson Davis as President of eleven of those States, who had not even a claim of being elected to that office by their people. Nor had Breckinridge even the excuse of "going with his own State."

Mr. Kennedy, of Maryland, during the debate, expressed his belief that the Union could not be reconstructed by war; and coming more directly to the resolution, he asked Mr. Wilson if he was "apprised of any necessity for, or any reasons that require or justify, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in Maryland." As might have been expected, the Massachusetts Senator, thus invited, found no lack of material for his

*This referred to the seizure (May 20th) of dispatches accumulated at certain telegraph offices during the year preceding.

response, concluding: "If there ever was in any portion of the republic any spot of earth, or any time, where and when the writ of habeas corpus ought to be suspended, the city of Baltimore was the spot, and the last few weeks the time, for its suspension."

The main purposes of the resolution, which did not come to a final vote, were accomplished in another form, with but few opposing voices in either house. An act was passed authorizing the President to call out the militia to suppress rebellion, and another giving him power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus - obviating objections from those who differed from the majority as to the executive power in the premises.

Secretary Cameron's report showed that the total force mustered into the military service for three months under the call of April 15th was "not less than eighty thousand"; and under the call of May 3d for “volunteers to serve during the war," two hundred and eight regiments had been accepted-all being mustered in except fifty-five regiments, which would be "in the field in twenty days." Adding the regular army, including the new regiments, twenty-five thousand strong, he gives the aggregate of troops "now at command of the Government" as three hundred and ten thousand, and "after the discharge of the three months' men, two hundred and thirty thousand." On the 2d of July (the day after the date of Mr. Cameron's report) the President issued a proclamation calling for three hundred thousand additional volunteers.

No financial suggestions were made by the President in his message, that subject being left to the report of Secretary Chase, required by law to be made directly

to Congress. Mr. Chase had no inspired utterance to make on the methods of raising a revenue to meet the extraordinary demands on the treasury, which he had found in so disheartening a condition. He stated the plain facts of the case, with well considered estimates of receipts to be expected under existing laws. His main reliance for funds, of course, was on Congressional authority to borrow that being further dependent on the confidence of capitalists and on his own skill in bargaining. On the 10th of July the House passed a bill, reported from the Committee of Ways and Means by its chairman, Thaddeus Stevens, which—as finally modified, concurred in by the Senate, and approved by the President on the 17th-authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to borrow, within one year from the date of the act, a sum not exceeding two hundred and fifty million dollars, either on bonds bearing not exceeding seven per cent. interest, payable semi-annually, and redeemable in twenty years, or at any time after five years at the pleasure of the Government; or on Treasury notes of not less than fifty dollars, payable three years after date, with interest at seven and three-tenths per cent. For the faithful and punctual payment of the interest, in both cases, the import duties on tea, coffee, sugar, spices, wines and liquors were specially pledged, as well as such excises and other internal taxes as should be received into the treasury. The only Representatives voting against this bill on its passage were Messrs. Burnett, Norton, Reid, Vallandigham, and Benjamin Wood. Mr. Vallandigham preceded his vote with a violent speech in opposition to the Administration and the war. Mr. Burnett (of Kentucky) soon after, like Mr.

Breckinridge, joined the Confederate army. Messrs. Norton and Reid were from Missouri, and took a like course. The remaining two, one from Ohio, the other from New York, continued according to this beginning, in Congress or out of it, until the war ended.

By an act approved on the 5th of August, the list of dutiable articles of import was enlarged, and an act was passed levying a direct tax of $20,000,000, apportioned among the States, including those in insurrection, to which fell a share amounting to $8,000,000.

The Secession Congress met on the 20th of July at Richmond, to which place the executive offices had been transferred from Montgomery on the 21st of May. There was now but one more step as the Confederates seem to have supposed—and that a short one, for the new government on its way to the city of Washington. The State of Virginia, at the time of Davis's arrival there, before the end of May, had already thirty thousand troops either in camps of instruction or on duty, some at Norfolk, some on the Peninsula, and others at different points farther north,- under the chief command of General Robert E. Lee. He and his second in command, General J. B. Magruder, were classmates of Jefferson Davis at West Point, and under the auspices of the three the work of organizing the Confederate army was rapidly pushed forward.

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