Annotation
[1] ADf, DLC-RTL; New York Tribune, June 15, 1863. The autograph draft in the LINCOLN Papers lacks certain revisions which LINCOLN must have made in the copy prepared for the press, as well as in the original letter sent to Corning, which has not been located. The draft has been followed, with LINCOLN's significant emendations as they appear in the draft and those additional ones which appear in the text of the Tribune indicated in footnotes. The cover page of the draft bears LINCOLN's endorsement, ``Albany letter Manuscript & something about Proclamation.'' The other manuscript referred to has not been located.
On June 23, Corning acknowledged receipt of LINCOLN's letter, ``I have deemed it proper to hand your communication to the Committee who reported the Resolutions, for such action as in their judgment, the case may seem to demand. . . .'' (DLC-RTL). On June 30, Corning and the committee conveyed their reply, which reads in part: `` . . . We have carefully considered the grounds on which your pretensions to more than regal authority are claimed to rest; and if we do not misinterpret the misty and clouded forms of expression in which those pretensions are set forth, your meaning is that while the rights of the citizen are protected by the Constitution in time of peace, they are suspended or lost in time of war, or when invasion or rebellion exist. You do not, like many others in whose minds, reason and love of regulated liberty seem to be overthrown by the excitements of the hour, attempt to base this conclusion upon a supposed military necessity existing outside of and transcending the Constitution, a military necessity behind which the Constitution itself disappears in a total eclipse. We do not find this gigantic and monstrous heresy put forth in your plea for absolute power, but we do find another equally subversive of liberty and law, and quite as certainly tending to the establishment of despotism. Your claim to have found not outside, but within the Constitution, a principle or germ of arbitrary power, which in time of war expands at once into an absolute sovereignty, wielded by one man; so that liberty perishes, or is dependent on his will, his discretion or his caprice. This extraordinary doctrine, you claim to derive wholly from that clause of the Constitution, which, in case of invasion or rebellion, permits the writ of habeas corpus to be suspended. Upon this ground your whole argument is based.
``You must permit us, to say to you with all due respect, but with the earnestness demanded by the occasion, that the American people will never acquiese in this doctrine. . . .'' (Ibid.).
[2] The date is in Nicolay's handwriting. Welles' Diary on June 5 records that ``The President read to-day a paper which he had prepared in reply to Erastus Corning and others. It has vigor and ability and with some corrections will be a strong paper.''
[3] The Tribune gives ``occurence.''
[4] The draft has the following sentence deleted at this point: ``May I be indulged to submit a few general remarks upon this subject of arrests?''
[5] The first clause of this sentence, emended to the present reading in the draft, was originally as follows: ``The present civil war soon followed;''
[6] ``Make a question'' is substituted in the draft for ``raise a squabble.''
[7] ``Clamor'' is substituted in the draft for ``howl.''
[8] This sentence, emended to the present reading in the draft, originally began as follows: ``Again, a jury can scarcely be empannelled, that will not have at least. . . .''
[9] The remainder of this sentence, revised in the draft to the present reading, originally read as follows: ``men might be held in custody in spite of the courts, and whom the courts if allowed, would release.''
[10] The Tribune reads ``It is asserted.''
[11] An additional phrase is deleted in the draft, ``and a great merit.''
[12] ``During temporary illness'' is substituted in the draft for ``while temporarily sick.''
[13] This paragraph and the next are autograph insertions in the draft.
[14] The Tribune reads ``an instance.''
[15] Louis Louaillier, member of the Louisiana legislature.
[16] Pierre L. Morel.
[17] Dominick A. Hall, U.S. district judge.
[18] Hollander was a New Orleans merchant.
[19] The clause set off by dashes appears in the Tribune, but is not in the draft.
[20] The Tribune has ``strong'' instead of ``arbitrary.''
[21] The last sentence and signature are from the Tribune and do not appear in the draft.