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might be, at least, of some service to the insurgent cause.
It needed no very keen perception to discover this part of
the enemy's programme, so soon as, by open hostilities,
their machinery was fairly-put in motion. Yet, thoroughly
imbued with a reverence for the guaranteed rights of individuals, I was slow to adopt the strong measures which by
degrees I have been forced to regard as being within the
exceptions of the Constitution, and as indispensable to the
public safety. Nothing. is better known to history than
that courts of justice are utterly incompetent to such cases.
Civil courts are organ'ized chiefly for trials of individuals,
or, at most, a few individuals acting in concert; and this
in quiet times, and on charges of crimes well defined in
the law. Even in times of peace, bands of horse-thieves
and robbers frequently grow too numerous and powerful
for the ordinary courts of justice. But what comparison,
in numbers, have such bands ever borne to the insurgent
sympathizers even in many of the loyal States? Again:- a
jury too frequently has at least one member more ready to
hang the panel than to hang the traitor. And yet, again,
he who dissuades one man from volunteering, or induces
one soldier to desert, weakens the Union cause as much as
he who kills a Union soldier in battle. Yet this dissuasion
or inducement may be so conducted as to be no defined
crime of which any civil court would take cognizance.
Ours is a case of rebellion —so called by the resolutions
before me-in fact, a clear, flagrant, and gigantic case of
rebellion; and the provision of the Constitution that "the
privilege 6f the writ of habeas corpus shall not, be suspended, unless when, in cases. of rebellion or invasion, the
public safety may require it," is the provision which
specially applies to,our present case. This provision
plainly attests the understanding of those who made the
Constitution, that ordinary courts of justice are inadequate
to "cases of rebellion"-attests their purpose that, in such
cases, men may be held in custody whom the courts, acting
on ordinary rules, would discharge. Habeas corpus does
not discharge men who are proved to be guilty'of defined
crime; and its suspension is allowed by the Constitution
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