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the Militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States.' The propriety of this provision is so evident in itself, and it is, at the same time, so consonant to the precedents of the State constitutions in general, that little need be said to explain or enforce it. Even those of them which have in other respects coupled the chief magistrate with a council have for the most part concentrated the military authority in him alone.

Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand. The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength, and the power of directing and employing the common strength forms a usual and essential part in the definition of the executive authority.

War is a one-man business. The maxim that a nation at war should be directed by a single man, not by a council, which the greatest statesmen and soldiers of all times have recognised and which Hamilton and Washington have preached, has sunk deeply into the American mind. President Lincoln illustrated the necessity of unity in the direction of national affairs in time of war in his homely and inimitable way. He wrote in his Message to Congress of December 3, 1861:

It has been said that one bad general is better than two good ones, and the saying is true if taken to mean no more than that an army is better directed by a single mind, though inferior, than by two superior ones at variance and cross-purposes with each other.

And the same is true in all joint operations wherein those engaged can have none but a common end in view and can differ only as to the choice of means. In a storm at sea no one on board can wish the ship to sink, and yet not infrequently all go down together because too many will direct and no single mind can be allowed to control.

President Lincoln, though a great character and a great citizen, can scarcely be called an exceptionally great statesman. He certainly was not brilliant. He

was endowed with homely common sense and was honest, unprejudiced, industrious, conscientious, fair-minded, painstaking, patient, warm-hearted, fearless, determined, patriotic, a democrat but by no means a demagogue. He was a model citizen who quietly and resolutely would do his duty, would do his best, and who was not afraid of responsibility if an important decision had to be taken. At the outbreak of the Civil War, when all the factors supporting the Government's authority had broken down, President Lincoln fell back on the Constitution. He rather relied on its spirit as it appears in The Federalist than on its wording, and he did not hesitate to strain his powers to the utmost in order to save the State. On April 15, immediately after the bombardment and fall of Fort Sumter, he called upon the governors of the individual States to raise 75,000 men of State Militia in proportion to their inhabitants and to place them into the service of the United States and under his command. These 75,000 men were called upon to serve only for three months, not because the President or his Cabinet believed that the War would last only ninety days, but because, according to the Act of 1795, the President had authority which permitted the use of the Militia so as to be called forth only for thirty days after the commencement of the then next session of Congress.'

A musty law circumscribed and hampered the President's action but it did not hamper it for long. Very soon it became evident that that preliminary measure was totally insufficient, that energy and novel measures were required to overcome the dangers which threatened the Northern States from without and from within. Relying on the spirit of the Constitution and on his duty to defend the Union at all costs, President Lincoln, to his eternal honour, did not hesitate to make illegal, but not unscrupulous, use of dictatorial powers. On April 27 he directed General Scott to suspend the privilege of Habeas Corpus, if necessary, in order to be able to deal with treason and with opposition in the Northern States. On May 3 he decreed by procla

mation that the regular army should be increased by 22,714, or should be more than doubled, and that 18,000 seamen should be added to the Navy. At the same time he called for forty regiments, composed of 42,034 volunteers, to serve during three years. President Lincoln candidly explained the necessity for these high-handed and obviously illegal measures as follows in his Message to Congress of July 4, 1861:

Recurring to the action of the Government, it may be stated that at first a call was made for 75,000 militia, and rapidly following this a proclamation was issued for closing the ports of the insurrectionary districts by proceedings in the nature of blockade. So far all was believed to be strictly legal. At this point the insurrectionists announced their purpose to enter upon the practice of privateering.

Other calls were made for volunteers to serve for three years, unless sooner discharged, and also for large additions to the regular army and navy. These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon under what appeared to be a popular demand and a public necessity; trusting then, as now, that Congress would readily ratify them. It is believed that nothing has been done beyond the constitutional competency of Congress.

Soon after the first call for militia it was considered a duty to authorise the commanding general in proper cases,' according to his discretion, to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or, in other words, to arrest and detain, without resort to the ordinary processes and forms of law, such individuals as he might deem dangerous to the public safety. This authority has purposely been exercised but very sparingly. Nevertheless, the legality and propriety of what has been done under it are questioned, and the attention of the country has been called to the proposition that one who has sworn to take care that the laws be faithfully executed' should not himself violate them. Of course, some consideration was given to the questions of power and propriety before this matter was acted upon. The whole of the laws which were required to be faithfully executed were being resisted and failing of execution in nearly one

third of the States. Must they be allowed to finally fail of execution, even had it been perfectly clear that by the use of the means necessary to their execution some single law, made in such extreme tenderness of the citizen's liberty that, practically, it relieves more of the guilty than of the innocent, should to a very limited extent be violated? To state the question more directly, are all the laws but one to be unexecuted and the government itself go to pieces lest that one be violated? Even in such a case would not the official oath be broken if the government should be overthrown when it was believed that disregarding the single law would tend to preserve it? But it was not believed that this question was presented. It was not believed that any law was violated. The provision of the Constitution that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it,' is equivalent to a provision-is a provision that such privilege may be suspended when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety does require it. It was decided that we have a case of rebellion, and that the public safety does require the qualified suspension of the privilege of the writ which was authorised to be made. Now it is insisted that Congress, and not the Executive, is vested with this power. But the Constitution itself is silent as to which or who is to exercise the power; and as the provision was plainly made for a dangerous emergency, it cannot be believed the framers of the instrument intended that in every case the danger should run its course until Congress could be called together, the very assembling of which might be prevented, as was intended in this case, by the rebellion.

Democracy loves strength, loves plain speaking, loves a man. The President's energetic though high-handed and unconstitutional action was enthusiastically approved by the people throughout the loyal States, and was later on legalised by Congress by means of a resolution.

At the beginning of the war the Northern States were almost unarmed. The Government had completely neglected the Army and Navy. In the country was only a

scanty supply of arms and ammunition. Under Buchanan's presidency an incapable, if not a treacherous, Secretary of War, who later on joined the Southern forces, had allowed large numbers of arms to be removed from arsenals in the North to arsenals in the Southern States, where they were seized by the Secessionists. For the supply of muskets the Government depended chiefly on the Springfield Armoury, and upon that at Harper's Ferry. The capacity of the private manufacturers was only a few thousand muskets a year, and after the destruction of the arsenal and armoury at Harper's Ferry on April 19, 1861, which contained 15,000 muskets, and which otherwise might have fallen into the hands of the Confederates, the resources of the Government were seriously diminished. The want of arms limited the call of the President on April 15 to 75,000 men, and many regiments were detained for a long time in their camps in the different States until muskets could be imported from Europe. Orders for weapons were hastily sent abroad, and many inferior arms were imported at high prices. The Springfield Armoury, the capacity of which was only about 25,000 muskets per year, was rapidly enlarged, and its production, assisted by outside machine shops, was brought up to about 8000 muskets per month at the end of 1861, and to about 15,000 per month shortly afterwards. The United States had to pay for their neglect of military preparations in the past. Everything had laboriously to be created. Meanwhile confusion was general. The Army which had been collected was merely a mob of ill-armed men. During 1861 the State of Indiana, for instance, had raised and sent into the field in round numbers 60,000 men, of whom 53,500 were infantry. The statement shown in the table on page 370, taken from Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia,' shows what arms they received during the year.

In their need, anything that had a barrel was used to arm their troops. The Southern States even fell back upon shot-guns and ancient fowling-pieces. Gradually order was evolved out of chaos. The inborn energy and talent for

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