PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S STATEMENT. can only be derived by implication, as there is no express delegation of the power in the Constitution; and it must be derived to that department whose functions are the most appropriate to it. Congress cannot executively suspend. All that a Legislative body can do, is to authorize suspension, by giving that effect to an Executive act; and the Constitution having authorized that, there is no room for the exercise of Legislative power. The Constitution intended, that for the defence of the nation against rebellion and invasion, the power should always be kept open in either of these events, to be used by that department, which is the most competent in the same events to say what the public safety requires in this behalf. The President being the properest and the safest depositary of the power, and being the only power which can exercise it under real and effective responsibilities to the people, it is both constitutional and safe to argue, that the Constitution has placed it with him." 243 down by President Jackson in 1834, in regard to the constitutional independence of the Executive department. It was evidently in reply to the remonstrance of Chief Justice Taney that President Lincoln in his message to Congress, at its session in July, presented the following explanation of his course. "Soon after the first call for militia," says he, "it was considered a duty to authorize the commanding general, in proper cases, according to his discretion, to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or, in other words, to arrest and detain, without resort to the ordinary processes and forms of law, such individuals as he might deem dangerous to the public safety. This authority has purposely been exercised but very sparingly. Nevertheless, the legality and propriety of what has been done under it are questioned, and the attention of the country has been called to the proposition that one who is sworn to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed,' should not himself violate them. Of course some consideration was given to the questions of power, and propriety, before this matter was acted upon. The whole of The positions taken by Chief Justice Taney were also ably reviewed, with some important additional illustrations of the subject, by the Hon. Reverdy the laws which were required to be faithJohnson of Maryland, in an elaborate fully executed, were being resisted, and essay on the power of the President to failing of execution in nearly one-third of suspend the habeas corpus writ. He of the States. Must they be allowed to maintained the constitutionality of the finally fail of execution, even had it been proceedings of the President as the direct perfectly clear, that by the use of the means and necessary discharge of his duty as necessary to their execution, some single the Executive, according to established law, made in such extreme tenderness of principles and precedents, instancing in the citizen's liberty, that practically, it particular the authority of Hamilton in relieves more of the guilty than of the reference to the interpretation of the innocent, should, to a very limited extent, powers of the President, when the ques- be violated? To state the question more tion arose in General Washington's Ad- directly, are all the laws but one to go ministration out of his Proclamation of unexecuted, and the government itself to Neutrality in 1793, and the position laid go to pieces, lest that one be violated? Even in such a case, would not the official oath be broken, if the government should be overthrown, when it was believed that disregarding the single law, would tend to preserve it? But it was not believed that this question was presented. It was not believed that any law was violated. 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 equivalent to a provision-is a provision-that such privilege may be suspended when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety does require it. It was decided that we have a case of rebellion, and that the public safety does require the qualified suspension of the privilege of the writ which was authorized to be made. Now it is insisted that Congress, and not the Executive, is vested with this power. But the Constitution itself is silent as to which, or who, is to exercise the power; and as the provision was plainly made for a dangerous emergency, it cannot be believed that the framers of the instrument intended that, in every case, the danger should run its course, until Congress could be called together; the very assembling of which might be prevented, as was intended in this case, by the rebellion." On the 10th of June General Cadwalader, having been ordered to active service on the line of the Potomac in cooperation with General Patterson, was succeeded in the command of the military department, including Baltimore, by Major-General Nathaniel Prentiss Banks. The career of this officer, who brought from civil life an eminent reputation for high moral and mental qualities, is of peculiar interest as an illustration of the facility with which, freed from the impediments which obstruct the way in other lands and older states of society, the individual, relying upon integrity, industry and ability, may, under the protection of the free institutions of America, rise from a humble position to offices in the State of the highest trust and honor. Born at the manufacturing town of Waltham, in Massachusetts, in 1816, the son of an overseer of a cotton mill, he was placed as a boy in the same factory, where he was employed in cleaning bobbins. But "the bobbin boy," as he was called, was not content to rest there. Like all New England youth of any spirit, however poor, he managed to divide his time between his daily labor and the village school, where he acquired those elements of knowledge which, after all, are the greatest acquisitions we ever obtain from our instructors so much does the rest depend upon ourselves and experience of the world and affairs. The boy was apt to learn, and, it is said, was such a proficient in recitation, as a member of a dramatic company formed by his associates, that he was offered inducements to become a professional actor. If there is any importance to be attached to the anecdote, it was something in evidence of the boy's character that he turned from a temptation so agreeable to youthful vanity, to the sober labors of a machinist, learning the trade and working at it as a journeyman in Boston. He also, we are told, taught an evening school some time, and edited a newspaper at Waltham, meantime occasionally lecturing before Lyceums, temperance meetings, and political gatherings, all which prepared him for public life on a larger scene. Presenting himself to his townspeople of Waltham as a Democratic can MAJOR GENERAL BANKS. 245 mainly engaged in civil life, his duties as Governor of Massachusetts had necessarily made him familiar, to a certain extent, with the routine of military affairs. didate for the State Legislature, he was six times defeated. At the next election, in 1849, he was successful. Previously, under President Polk's administration, he held an office in the Boston Custom- The most important acts of General House. In 1850, we find him admitted Banks's administration of his department a member of the Suffolk bar. He was, of Annapolis were connected with the the following year, chosen Speaker of the breaking up of the Board of Police in lower House of the Massachusetts Legis- Baltimore, an organization which had lature; and in 1852, by a coalition of shown from the beginning an active and the Free-Soil and Democratic parties, dangerous sympathy with the rebellior which he had done much to assist, was The motives which influenced him in this elected a Representative to Congress. In matter, the nature of the obstacles he 1853 he presided over the Massachusetts had to encounter, and the extent to Convention held to revise the State Con- which he was willing to carry his austitution. During his first term in Con- thority, are fully exhibited in the procgress he separated himself from the Dem- lamation which he set forth on the occaocratic party of that day by his vote in sion of the arrest, which he ordered on opposition to the passage of the Kansas- the 27th of June, of Mr. George P. Kane Nebraska Bill. He was returned to the the Chief of Police. "I deem it proper next Congress by a combination of the at this the moment of arrest," says he, in Native Americans with the Republicans, that document, "to make formal and and being put forward by the latter par- public declaration of the motive by which ty for Speaker of the House, was elected I have been governed in this proceeding. by a plurality vote, after an unprece- It is not my purpose, neither is it in condented contest of two months' duration, sonance with my instructions, to interfere in the course of which more than a hun- in any manner whatever with the legitidred ballots were taken. From Congress mate government of the people of Baltihe was called, in 1857, to be Governor more or Maryland. I desire to support of Massachusetts, to which high office he the public authorities in all appropriate was reëlected the succeeding term. At duties; in preserving peace, protecting the end of this period, in 1860, retiring property and the rights of persons, in from political life, he removed to Chicago, obeying and upholding every municipal having accepted the lucrative position of regulation and public statute, consistent General Superintendent of the Illinois with the Constitution and laws of the Central Railroad. Like McClellan, Burn- United States and of Maryland. But side and others, who held similar engage- unlawful combinations of men, organized ments, he left this post at the beginning for resistance to such laws, that provide of the war to offer his services to the hidden deposits of arms and ammunition, Government. His abilities were too well encourage contraband traffic with men at appreciated by the Administration for war with the Government, and while the offer to be neglected, and on the 30th enjoying its protection and privileges, May, 1861, he was created a Major-Gen- stealthily wait opportunity to combine eral of Volunteers. Though heretofore their means and forces with those in |