1815? Could that city have been saved without placing it under martial law, and making Judge Hall submit to it? I know that General Jackson submitted to be arrested, tried, and fined one thousand dollars; but what did Congress do in that case? It did just as we are called on to do in this case. By the restoration of his fine-an act passed by an overwhelming majority in the two Houses of Congress-the Nation said: "We approve what you did." Suppose, Mr. President (and it may have been the case), that the existence of the Government depended upon the protection and successful defense of New Orleans; and suppose, too, it was in violation of the strict letter of the Constitution for General Jackson to place New Orleans under martial law, but without placing it under martial law the Government would have been overthrown is there any reasonable, any intelligent man in or out of Congress who would not indorse and approve the exercise of a power which was indispensable to the existence and maintenance of the Government? The Constitution was likely to be overthrown, the law was about to be violated, and the Government trampled under foot; and whenever it becomes necessary to prevent this, even by exercising a power that comes in conflict with the Constitution in time of peace, it surely ought to be exercised. If General Jackson had lost the city of New Orleans, and the Government had been overthrown through a refusal on his part to place Judge Hall and the city of New Orleans under martial law, he ought to have lost his head. But he acted as a soldier; he acted as a patriot; he acted as a statesman, as one devoted to the institutions and the preservation and the existence of his Government; and the grateful homage of a nation was his reward.

Then, sir, the power which has been exercised in this instance is no new thing. In great emergencies, when the life of a nation is in peril, when its very existence is endangered, to question too nicely, to scan too critically, its acts in the very midst of that crisis, when the government is liable to be overthrown, is to make war upon it, and to try to paralyze its energies. If those who seem to violate the laws of the United States in their efforts to preserve the Government are to be called to an account, wait until the country passes out of its

peril; wait until the country is relieved from its difficulty; wait until the crisis passes by, and then come forward, dispassionately, and ascertain to what extent the law has been violated, if indeed it has been violated at all.

A great ado has been made in reference to the Executive proclamation calling out the militia of the States to the extent of seventy-five thousand men. That call was made under the authority of the Act of 1795, and is perfectly in accordance with the law. It has been decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that that act is Constitutional, and that the President alone is the judge of the question whether the exigency has arisen. This decision was made in the celebrated case of Martin vs. Mott. Let me read from the opinion of the Court, delivered by Judge Story:

It has not been denied here that the Act of 1795 is within the Constitutional authority of Congress, or that Congress may not lawfully provide for cases of imminent danger of invasion, as well as for cases where an invasion has actually taken place. In our opinion, there is no ground for a doubt on this point, even if it had been relied on; for the power to provide for repelling invasion includes the power to provide against the attempt and danger of invasion as the necessary and proper means to effectuate the object. One of the best means to repel invasion is to provide the requisite force for action before the invader himself has reached the soil.

"The power thus confided by Congress to the President is, doubtless, of a very high and delicate nature. A free people are naturally jealous of the exercise of military power; and the power to call the militia into actual service is certainly felt to be one of no ordinary magnitude. But it is not a power which can be executed without a correspondent responsibility. It is, in its terms, a limited power, confined to cases of actual invasion, or of imminent danger of invasion. If it be a limited power, the question arises, By whom is the exigency to be judged of and decided? Is the President the sole and exclusive judge whether the exigency has arisen, or is it to be considered as an open question, upon which every officer, to whom the orders of the President are addressed, may decide for himself, and equally open to be contested by every militia

man who shall refuse to obey the orders of the President? We are all of opinion that the authority to decide whether the exigency has arisen belongs exclusively to the President, and that his decision is conclusive upon all other persons. We think that this construction necessarily results from the nature of the power itself and from the manifest object contemplated by the act of Congress. The power itself is to be exercised upon sudden emergencies, upon great occasions of state, and under circumstances which may be vital to the existence of the Union. A prompt and unhesitating obedience to orders is indispensable to the complete attainment of the object. The service is a military service, and the command of a military nature; and in such cases every delay and every obstacle to an efficient and immediate compliance necessarily tend to jeopard the public interests." (Martin vs. Mott, 12 Wheaton's "Reports," p. 29.)

We see, then, that the power is clear as to calling out the militia; and we have seen that we have precedents for the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.

The next objection made is that the President had no power to make additions to the navy and army. I say that in this he is justified by the great law of necessity. At the time I believe it was necessary to the existence of the Government; and it being necessary, he had a right to exercise all those powers that, in his judgment, the crisis demanded for the maintenance of the existence of the Government itself. The real question-if you condemn the President for acting in the absence of law-is, Do you condemn the propriety of his course? do you condemn the increase of the army? do you condemn the increase of the navy? If you oppose the measure simply upon the ground that the Executive called them forth anticipating law, I ask, What will you do now? The question presents itself at this time, Is it not necessary to increase the army and the navy? If you condemn the exercise of the power by the Executive in the absence of law, what will you do now, as the law-making power, when it is manifest that the army and navy should be increased? You make war upon the Executive for anticipating the action of Congress. Does not the Government need an increase of the army and the navy?

Where do gentlemen stand now? Are they for it? Do they sustain the Government? Are they giving it a helping hand? No; they go back and find fault with the exercise of a power that they say was without law; but now, when they have the power to make the law, and when the necessity is apparent, they stand back and refuse. Where does that place those who take that course? It places them against the Government, and against placing the means in the hands of the Government to defend and perpetuate its existence. The object is apparent, Mr. President. We had enemies of the Government here last winter; in my opinion, we have enemies of the Government here now.

I said that I agreed with the Senator from Kentucky that there was a design, a deliberate determination, to change the nature and character of our Government. Yes, sir; it has been the design for a long time. All the talk about slavery and compromise has been but a pretext. We had a long disquisition, and a very feeling one, from the Senator from Kentucky. He became pathetic on the hopelessness of compromises. Did not the Senator from California the other day show unmistakably that it was not compromises they wanted? I will add, that compromise was the thing they most feared; and their great effort was to get out of Congress before any compromise could be made. From the first their cry was for peaceable secession and reconstruction. They talked not of compromise; and, I repeat, their greatest dread and fear was, that something would be agreed upon; that their last and only pretext would be swept from under them, and that they would stand before the country naked and exposed. The Senator from California pointed out to you a number of these men who stood here and did not vote for certain propositions of compromise, and by their means those propositions were lost.

committee of thirteen? Some of the most ultra

What was the action before the Why did not that committee agree? mén from the North were members of that committee, and they proposed to amend the Constitution so as to provide that Congress in the future never should interfere with the subject of slavery. The committee failed to agree, and some of its members at once telegraphed to their States that they must go out

of the Union at once,

But after all that transpired in the early part of the session, what was done? We know what the argument has been, in times gone by, again and again. It has been said that one great object of the North was, first to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and the slave-trade between the States, as a kind of initiative measure; next to exclude it from the Territories; and when the Free States constituted three-fourths of all the States, so as to have power to change the Constitution, they would amend the Constitution so as to give Congress power to legislate upon the subject of slavery in the States, and expel it from the States in which it is now. Has not that been the argument? Now, how does the matter stand? At the last session of Congress seven States withdrew; it may be said that eight withdrew; reducing the remaining Slave States down to one-fourth of the whole number of States. The charge has been made, that whenever the Free States constituted a majority in the Congress of the United States sufcient to amend the Constitution, they would so amend it as to legislate upon the institution of slavery within the States, and that the institution of slavery would be overthrown. This has been the argument; it has been repeated again and again; and hence the great struggle about the Territories. The argument was, that we must prevent the creation of Free States; we did not want to be reduced to that point where, under the sixth article of the Constitution, three-fourths could amend the Constitution so as to exclude slavery from the States. This has been the great point; this has been the rampart over which it has been urged that the Free States wanted to pass. Now, how does the fact stand? Let us "render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's." We reached, at the last session, just the point where we were in the power of the Free States, and then what was done? Instead of an amendment to the Constitution of the United States conferring power upon Congress to legislate upon the subject of slavery, what was done? This joint resolution was passed by a two-thirds majority in each House:

"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States,