ment as for prevention, to arrest these men in the injurious and perhaps fatal actions in which they were engaged, and in this action the administration was vindicated and fully justified by Congress.

A bill was introduced on the 8th of December, and passed, declaring the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus to have been required by the public safety, making all acts by the President, and all acts of his officers by his orders valid, and all prosecutions against them void. It also authorized the President, during the war, to declare the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus at such time and in such places and with regard to such persons as in his judgment the public safety should require. One of the most important acts of the session was that which provided for the creation of a National force by enrolling and drafting the militia of the whole country-each State being required to contribute its quota in the ratio of its population, and the whole force, when raised, to be under the control of the President. This measure seemed necessary by the revival of the party spirit throughout the loyal States, and by the active and effective efforts made by the Democratic party to discourage and prevent volunteering. So successful had they been in this work, that the Government seemed likely to fail in its efforts to raise men for another campaign, and it was to avert this threatening evil that the bill was brought forward in Congress. It encountered violent opposition and resistance from the Democratic party, and particularly from those members whose sympathies with the secessionists were the most distinctly marked. The bill passed the House by a vote of one hundred and fifteen to forty-nine, and being concurred in by the Senate, became a law. The Financial bill, as passed at this session, authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to borrow and issue bonds for nine hundred millions of dollars at not more than 6 per cent. interest, and payable at a time not less than ten nor more than forty years. It also authorized the Secretary to issue treasury notes to the amount of four hundred millions of dollars, bearing interest, and also notes not bearing interest to the amount of one hundred and fifty millions of dollars. A joint resolution was also passed authorizing the issue of treasury notes to the amount of one hundred millions of dollars to meet the immediate wants of the soldiers and sailors in the service. The President announced his approval of this resolution by a message to Congress, from which we make the following extract, giving his financial views: "That Congress has power to regulate the currency of the country can hardly admit of doubt, and that a judicious measure to prevent the deterioration of this currency, by a reasonable taxation of bank circulation or otherwise, is needed seems equally clear. Independently of this general consideration, it would be unjust to the people at large to exempt banks enjoying the special privileges of circulation, from their just proportion of the public burdens. In order to raise money by way

of loans most easily and cheaply, it is clearly necessary to give every possible support to the public credit. This and a uniform currency, in which taxes, subscriptions, loans and all other ordinary public dues may be paid, are almost, if not quite indispensable. Such a currency can be furnished by banking associations authorized under a general Act of Congress, as suggested in my message at the beginning of the present session. The securing of this circulation by the pledge of United States bonds, as herein suggested, would still further facilitate loans by increasing the present, and causing a future demand for such bonds." A second bill in relation to finance, to provide a National currency, secured by a pledge of United States stocks, and to provide for the circulation and redemption thereof, was passed under the conviction that so long as the war continued the country would require a large amount of paper money, and that this money should be National in its character, and rest on the faith of the Government for its security and redemption. An act of importance was also passed this session, admitting West Virginia into the Union. A bill was also introduced in the Senate proposing a grant of money to aid in the abolition of slavery in the State of Missouri. It gave rise to lengthy debates. Senators Sumner and Wilson and others in the Senate insisted that the aid should be granted on condition of immediate emancipation; while the Senators of Missouri and others favored gradual emancipation. Others opposed the measure on the ground that Congress had no authority to appropriate the public money for that purpose. The bill finally passed the Senate, but failed in the House. Two members from Louisiana were admitted to seats in the House of Representatives under circumstances which rendered the event of much importance. On the capture of New Orleans, the rebel forces were driven out of that city, and some of the adjoining parishes; and during the ensuing Summer the citizens were invited to resume their allegience to the Union; over sixty thousand came forward and took the oath of allegience, and were admitted to their rights as citizens. On the 3d of December General Sheply, acting as Military Governor, ordered an election for members of Congress in the city of New Orleans and adjoining parishes, embracing two districts. In one of these districts B. F. Flanders was elected, and in the other Michael Hahn was elected. A committee of the House to which the application of these members for admission was referred on the 9th of February reported in favor of their claim, and they were admitted to their seats by a vote of ninetytwo to forty-four.

Before the adjournment of Congress an Act was passed on the 3d of March authorizing the President, "in all domestic and foreign wars," to issue to private armed vessels of the United States letters of marque and reprisal said act to terminate at the end of three years from the date of the

Act. Resolutions were also adopted in both Houses protesting against every proposition of foreign interference, by proffers of mediation or otherwise, as "unreasonable and inadmissable," and declaring the "unalterable purpose of the United States to prosecute the war until the rebellion be overcome," passed the Senate thirty-one to five; in the House, one hundred and three to twenty-eight.

This session closed March 4, 1863. It was characterized by the same fixed and marked determination to prosecute the war by the use of the most effective and vigorous measures for the suppression of the rebellion and the perpetuity of the Union, and by the same full and prompt support of the President, which had been so signally manifested by the preceding session of Congress. Perhaps the most important measure passed at this session of Congress, on the recommendation of the President, was its financial policy, establishing National banks, a National currency secured by United States stock, or bonds, for the redemption thereof. The growth and prosperity of the country, unequaled in its former history, attests the wisdom and utility of those measures. Some adherents of the administration party becoming impatient of the delays and the slow progress which seemed to mark the conduct of the war and the suppression of the rebellion, were disposed to find fault and censure the President for his caution, and to insist upon bolder and more sweeping assaults upon the persons and property of the people of the rebel States, and especially upon the institution of slavery. On the other hand, the opponents of the administration denounced everything like coercion or severity as calculated to exasperate the South and prolong the war. The great body of the people, however, manifested a steady and firm reliance on the patriotic purpose and the calm sagacity evinced by the President in his management and conduct of public affairs. About this time two ladies, wives of rebel officers imprisoned on Johnson's island, called at the Executive Mansion and obtained an audience with the President, and applied for the release of their husbands with great opportunity, one of them urging that her husband was a very religious man. As the President granted their requests, he said to the lady who had testified to her husband's religion: "You say that your husband is a religious man; tell him when you meet him, that I am not much of a judge of religion, but that in my opinion the religion that sets men to rebel against their Government, because, as they think, that Government does not sufficiently help some men to eat their bread in the sweat of other men's faces, is not that sort of religion upon which men can get to Heaven." This, at least, was not Mr. Lincoln's religion. His was that which sympathized with all human sorrow, which lifted, so far as it had the power, the burden from the oppressed in every age and condition of life, without regard to age, sex or color. It may be expressed in the case of a

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poor woman who sought at the hands of the President, with the persistent affection of a mother, for the pardon of her son, condemned to death. She was successful in her petition. When she left the room the President turned and said: Perhaps I have done wrong, but at all events I have made that poor woman happy." A friend called upon Mr. Lincoln, and found him busily engaged in counting greenbacks. This, sir," said he, "is something out of my usual line, but a President of the United States has a multiplicity of duties not specified in the Constitution or Acts of Congress; this is one of them. This money belongs to a poor negro, who is a porter in one of the departments, and who is very sick at present with the small-pox. He is now in one of the hospitals, and could not draw his pay because he could not sign his name. I have been to considerable trouble to overcome the difficulty and get it for him, and have succeeded in cutting red tape, as you newspaper men say. I am now dividing the money, and putting by a portion labeled in an envelop with my own hands, according to his wish.”

CHAPTER XXXIII.

SUSPENSION OF WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS ARRESTS FOR DISLOYALTY.

One of the most formidable difficulties among the many which President Lincoln was compelled to face in the loyal States from the very outbreak of the rebellion, was that political, sympathetic, disloyal feeling, which was in harmony with the principles and actions of the conspirators against the Government. The toleration of President Buchanan's administration, while active preparations were being made for armed resistance to the Government, encouraged the secessionists in their nefarious designs, and evidences are not wanting that the rebels expected active co-operation of men and parties in their rebellious movements. When, in January, 1861, the rebels were preparing to ship large quantities of arms and munitions of war from New York for the contest, on which they had resolved, to the State of Georgia, and the same were seized by the police of New York, Fernando Wood, the Mayor of New York, apologized to Senator Toombs of Georgia, and assured him that, "if he had the power he should summarily punish the authors of this illegal and unjustifiable seizure of private property."

Upon the advent of President Lincoln's administration, prominent presses and politicians throughout the country began, by active hostility, to indicate their sympathy with those who sought to overthrow the Government, and it became manifest that there was sufficient treasonable sentiment in the loyal States to paralyze the authorities in their efforts, aided only by the ordinary machinery of the law to crush the secession movement. In this condition of affairs it was deemed necessary by the President that the "writ of habeas corpus "should be suspended, and that it was his duty to exercise the extraordinary powers with which the Constitution had clothed the Government. It was there provided that "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus should not be suspended unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety might require it." When the necessity arose, of course, the Government charged with the public safety must be judge of the necessity. And that branch of the Government, legislative or executive, when and where the