POLITICAL ARRESTS. Undoubtedly there was much cause for complaint. In assuming the right to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and applying the suspension to States outside the sphere of hostile operations, Lincoln went beyond the Constitution, though in his defence it was said that this was done under the pressure of necessity. The number of arrests of political persons must be counted by thousands. These infractions of the Constitution greatly concerned the Republicans and were the subject of earnest debates. Moved by the criticism not only among the Democrats but among the Republicans, Congress passed an act which became law March 3, authorizing the President during the war and whenever in his judgment the public safety required it to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in any case throughout the United States or any part thereof. The Secretary of State and the Secretary of War were directed to furnish lists of political prisoners confined within their jurisdiction to the judges of the United States circuit and district courts. After they had taken the oath of allegiance to the National Government those prisoners not indicted by the grand jury at the regular session were to be discharged by the judge. If the lists *For a very hostile view of Lincoln's act in this and other respects, see Harris, The Political Conflict in America, chaps. xiv.-xviii. Regarding these arbitrary arrests see Rhodes, United States, vol. iv., pp. 227-234; Harris, The Political Conflict in America, p. 276 et seq. 349 were not furnished within 20 days from the time of the arrest and if no indictment were found, relief was provided for any citizen who suffered from the arbitrary action of the authorities. The most celebrated of arbitrary arrests during the war was that of Vallandigham. In January of 1863 Burnside had been relieved of the command of the Army of the Potomac, and late in March had been placed over the Department of the Ohio, having his headquarters at Cincinnati. Besides having to contend with the side came in contact with considerable border ruffians and guerillas, Burndisaffection and lukewarmness toward the Government. The" copperheads" of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois were exerting every effort to annoy and hinder the Government in its efforts to subdue the Confederates. Believing this opposition to amount to positive aid and comfort to the enemy Burnside on April 13 issued General Order No. 38, in which he said: # * “The commanding general publishes for the information of all concerned that hereafter all persons found within our lines, who commit acts for the benefit of the enemies of our country, will be tried as spies or traitors, and, if convicted, will suffer death. The habit of declaring sympathy for the enemy will not be allowed in this department. Persons committing such offences will be at once arrested with a view to being tried as above stated, or sent beyond our lines into the lines of their friends. It must be distinctly understood that treason expressed or implied will not be tolerated in this department; all officers and soldiers are strictly charged with the execution of this order." * * Official Records, vol. xxiii., pt. ii., p. 237. 350 THE ARREST AND TRIAL OF VALLANDIGHAM. At this time Vallandigham was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor and was continually making speeches of an irritating nature. General Order 38 furnished him an excellent excuse for assailing the Government and at various Democratic meetings throughout the State he availed himself of this opportunity. On May 1 a Democratic mass meeting was to be held at Mount Vernon, Knox County, Ohio. Vallandigham was the chief speaker and aroused much enthusiasm. He said that the government intended to establish a despotism and there was no intention to effect a restoration of the Union; that the war was for the liberation of the blacks and the enslavement of the whites; that General Order 38 was "a base usurpation of arbitrary authority"; and that "the sooner the people inform the minions of usurped power that they will not submit to such restrictions upon their liberties. the better." He referred to the President as 66 King Lincoln " and advised the people to rally at the ballot box to hurl the tyrant from his throne. Two of Burnside's captains in citizen's clothes attended the meeting to take notes. Though their report to Burnside was of little value as historical evidence, Burnside was convinced that Vallandigham had violated General Order 38. Accordingly on his own initiative he sent a detachment to Dayton to arrest Vallandigham. Early on the morning of May 5 the detachment broke into Vallandig ham's house, arrested him, and took 484. * Appleton's Annual Encyclopedia for 1863, p. LINCOLN'S JUSTIFICATION OF THE ARREST. continuance of the war. Burnside approved the sentence and designated Fort Warren in Boston harbor as the place of confinement. Lincoln, however, commuted the sentence to banishment and directed that he be sent beyond the Union military lines to the Southern Confederacy. Accordingly Vallandigham was sent to Tennessee and, on May 25, was escorted by a small cavalry force to the Confederate lines, in Murfreesboro. No further legal steps were taken in the case, save an application by Vallandigham's counsel for a writ of certiorari to bring up the proceedings of the commission before the United States Supreme Court, but this motion was denied.* The arrest, trial and sentence of Vallandigham took Lincoln by surprise. Probably had he been consulted before proceedings were instituted he would not have permitted. them. However, finding himself in the presence of an accomplished fact, he sent a quasi approval of it through the Secretary of War, and in a letter *For details see J. L. Vallandigham, Life of Clement L. Vallandigham (1872); Trial of C. L. Tallandigham by a Military Commission (Cincinnati 1863); Rhodes, United States, vol. iv., p. 245 et seq.; Nicolay and Hay, Life of Lincoln, vol. vii., p. 328 et seq.; Clement L. Vallandigham, Copperhead, in Putnam's Monthly, vol. ii., pp. 590-599 (1907). In a letter to Erastus Corning he says: "In my own discretion I do not know whether I would have ordered the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham. It gave me pain when I learned that he had been arrested (that is, I was pained that there should have seemed to be a necessity for arresting him)."-Complete Works, vol. ii., p. 351. Official Records, vol. xxiii., pt. ii., p. 316. 351 to Burnside, May 29, 1863, said: "Al! the Cabinet regretted the necessity of arresting, for instance, Vallandigham, some perhaps doubting there was a real necessity for it; but, being done, all were for seeing you through with it."'* Accordingly Lincoln assumed the responsibility of the arrest, and in another letter to Erastus Corning made the strongest possible argument in favor of his action: "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. # I think the time not unlikely to come when I The arrest and sentence of Vallandigham produced a profound sensation throughout the country. There was general rejoicing in the South, for it was thought that the North would be split upon the issue. In the North the feeling was equally intense. Many Republicans, particularly in the West, approved of the affair and believed that the sentence was not severe enough, but a large part of the Republican press of the East and the solid *Lincoln's Complete Works, vol. ii., p. 342; Nicolay and Hay, Life of Lincoln, vol. vii., p. 338. ' Lincoln's Complete Works, vol. ii., p. 347 et seq. See also Nicolay and Hay, Life of Lincoln, vol. vii., p. 343 et seq. 352 VALLANDIGHAM'S DEFEAT. Democratic press condemned the arrest and the tribunal before which Vallandigham had been arraigned. The Vallandigham episode was undoubtedly unfortunate. The Democratic papers were bitter in condemnation of the Administration and many public meetings were held to stigmatize the outrage. On June 11 the Democrats of Ohio met in convention at Columbus, and passed a series of resolutions affirming their devotion to the Union, protesting against the alleged wrong done Vallandigham as a violation of the Constitution and a direct insult offered to the sovereignty of the people of Ohio; and asserting that the Democrats of Ohio were fully competent to decide whether Vallandigham was fit to be nominated for governor and that the attempt to deprive them of this right by his arrest and banishment was an unmerited imputation upon their independence and loyalty. They therefore requested the President to restore Vallandigham to his home in Ohio and severely reprimanded Lincoln for his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, charging him with overriding the guaranteed rights of individuals.* Lincoln's reply was regarded as an evasion of the questions involved and the Democrats thereupon decided *Nicolay and Hay, Life of Lincoln, vol. vii., pp. 350-352. For which see Nicolay and Hay, Life of Lincoln, vol. vii., pp. 352-353. See also Raymond, Life of Lincoln, pp. 386-398; Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia for 1863, pp. 799-807; Duyckinck, Late Civil War, vol. iii., pp. 270-273. that the case must be laid before the people of Ohio in the form of a nomination of Vallandigham for governor. The Union party, meeting at Columbus, nominated John Brough, a war Democrat, and adopted a platform which favored a more vigorous prosecution of the war and pledged hearty support to the President. Meanwhile Vallandigham, having no desire to stay in the South, sailed to Bermuda and after a short stay there took passage for Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he arrived on July 5. From the Canadian side he issued an address to the people of Ohio in which he thanked the Democrats for the nomination, indorsed their platform, and spoke of himself as a martyr who, under the protection of the British flag, exercised "the privileges and rights which usurpers insolently deny me at home."'* At first the hearty response to his nomination seemed to indicate his election, but when the ballots were counted he was found to be defeated by the unprecedented majority of 101,000 votes.† In view of his defeat, therefore, he thought it prudent to remain during the winter beyond the jurisdiction of the United States. In June of 1864, however, he returned to the United States and was allowed to remain without hindrance. He indulged in a series of speeches more violent than those which had caused his arrest, defied the Govern Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. vii., Docs., pp. 438-439. Rhodes, United States, vol. iv., pp. 412-415. SUPPRESSION OF THE WORLD AND TIMES. ment and the army and made various threats.* He was not molested, however, and in August took a prominent part in the National Democratic convention at Chicago which nominated McClellan. Burnside was not satisfied at having stirred up a single hornet's nest. The President's approval of Vallandigham's arrest evidently stirred him to further acts of folly. On June 1 he issued an order prohibiting the circulation within the limits of his jurisdiction of certain newspapers which in his judgment were quite as active in doing mischief and quite as necessary to be restrained as popuular speakers like Vallandigham and others. Prominent among these was the New York World, whose articles and opinions it was alleged tended "to cast reproach upon the government and weaken its efforts to suppress the rebellion, by creating distrust in its war policy and its circulation in war time being calculated to exert a pernicious and treasonable influence." At the same time also the publication of the Chicago Times was ordered to be suppressed" on account of the repeated expressions of disloyal and incendiary sentiments." Accordingly on June 3 the office of the Chicago Times was entered by two companies of infantry who stopped the press, destroyed the newspapers which had been printed, placed a McPherson, History of the Rebellion, p. 176. † Official Records, vol. xxiii., pt. ii., pp. 381382; Woodbury, Burnside and the Ninth Army Corps, pp. 265-277. 353 guard over the establishment and during the remainder of the night patrolled the entire block. At a meeting of citizens the next day the President was requested to rescind Burnside's order and in the evening an immense gathering of citizens in Court House Square, Chicago, resolved that freedom of speech and of the press must not be infringed and that the military power must remain subordinate to the civil authority. Accordingly on the next day, June 4, Lincoln rescinded that part of Burnside's order which suppressed the Times and later the general revoked his order concerning the World. Stanton directed also that no more arrests of civilians be made and that no more newspapers be suppressed without first consulting the War Department." Contemporaneous with the Ohio elections, others were held throughout the Northern States. The field of politics had been greatly affected by the reverses sustained by the Union arms during the summer and autumn of 1862. The President's proclamation of September 22, 1862, had its influence also in exasperating and consolidating the opposition. In the autumn of 1862 the Democrats carried New York, electing Horatio Seymour governor by 10,000 majority, and New Jersey also went Democratic. There were heavy losses of Congressmen in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, and in the President's own State of Illi * Rhodes, United States, vol. iv., pp. 253-254. |