bulwark of personal liberty, was really a matter of no great concern to the general public. An apologist for Mr. Lincoln wrote: "In such times the people generally are willing, and are often compelled, to give up for a season a portion of their freedom to preserve the rest; and fortunately, again, it is that portion of the people, for the most part, who like to live on the margin of disobedience to the laws, whose freedom is most in danger. The rest are rarely in want of a habeas corpus."

This astounding and atrocious doctrine had already been put in violent practice in certain parts of the North. We have already referred to the military arrest of the municipal officers of Baltimore. It was but the beginning of a reign of terrour. There is place here for the following remarkable document, under the authority of which were arrested many leading members of the Legislature of Maryland :

[CONFIDENTIAL]

"HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THe Potomac, "WASHINGTON, Sept. 12, 1861.

"GENERAL: After full consultation with the President, Secretaries of State, War, &c., it has been decided to effect the operation proposed for the 17th. Arrangements have been made to have a Government steamer at Annapolis to receive the prisoners and carry them to their destination.

"Some four or five of the chief men in the affair are to be arrested to-day. When they meet on the 17th, you will please have everything prepared to arrest the whole party, and be sure that none escape.

"It is understood that you arrange with General Dix and Governor Seward the modus operandi. It has been intimated to me that the meeting might take place on the 14th; please be prepared. I would be glad to have you advise me frequently of your arrangements in regard to this very important matter.

"If it is successfully carried out, it will go far toward breaking the backbone of the rebellion. It would probably be well to have a special train quietly prepared to take prisoners to Annapolis.

"I leave this exceedingly important affair to your tact and discretion-and have but one thing to impress upon you—the absolute necessity of secrecy and success. With the highest regard, I am, my dear General, your sincere friend,

"GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN,
"Major-General U. 8. A."

But the policy of arrests did not end with this singular violation of the freedom of a legislative body. Other citizens were taken. Military arrests were made in the dead hour of night. The most honourable and virtuous citizens were dragged from their beds, and confined in forts. Searches and seizures, the most rigorous and unwarrantable, were made without pretext of justification. Hopeless imprisonment was inflicted without accusation, without inquiry or investigation, and without the prospect of a trial. When, in the House of Representatives, at Washington, Mr. Vallandigham of Ohio moved a series of resolutions condemning these acts of despotic authority and intolerable espionage, including the seizure

of despatches in the telegraph offices, they were unceremoniously laid on the table.

There was an evident disposition of the Northern people to surrender their constitutional liberties to any government that would gratify their political passions. A true account of the despotism of these times indicates, indeed, what little love of liberty there was in the North, and its low stage of sentimentalism on this subject; for wherever it has been observed in history that a nation has been willing to surrender liberty in an attempt at territorial ascendancy, it has always been the evidence of a coarse and materialistic character that serves well the ambitious designs of Despotism, and prefers a false greatness to the humbler realities of honour and happiness. In remarkable contrast to this tendency of the Northern people to submit to a subtraction of their liberties, and even to applaud it, while they imagined that their greed of resentment and lust of territory were to be satisfied, were the declarations and spirit of the new government erected in the South. There the body of civil liberties was undiminished and untouched. The muniments of constitutional law were not disturbed. In the midst of a war" waged not to destroy, but to preserve existing institutions," the South was recurring to the past rather than running into new and rash experiments, and exhibiting a spirit of Conservatism that the world had seldom observed in so vast a commotion.

On this

In his message of July, 1861, Mr. Lincoln had referred to an attempt meditated by States at a position of "neutrality" in the war. subject he wrote, with more than usual acuteness:

66

"In the Border States, so called-in fact, the Middle States-there are those who favor a policy which they call' armed neutrality;' that is, an arming of these States to prevent the Union forces passing one way, or the Disunion the other, over their soil. This would be disunion completed. Figuratively speaking, it would be building an impassable wall along the line of separation-and yet, not quite an impassable one; for, under the guise of neutrality, it would tie the hands of the Union men, and freely pass supplies from among them to the insurrectionists, which it could not do as an open enemy. At a stroke, it would take all the trouble off the hands of Secession, except only what proceeds from the external blockade. It would do for the Disunionists that which, of all things, they most desire-feed them well, and give them disunion without a struggle of their own. It recognizes no fidelity to the Constitution, no obligation to maintain the Union; and, while very many who favored it are, doubtless, loyal citizens, it is, nevertheless, very injurious in effect."

This passage of Mr. Lincoln's message naturally introduces us to the remarkable part taken by the State of Kentucky at the period of hostilities and in the opening scenes of the war. Her Legislature had passed a resolution, to the effect that the State should remain neutral in the contest pending, and would not permit the troops of either party to pass over or occupy her soil for belligerent purposes.