Congress Shall Establish Such Law Courts As Are
Not Established By The Constitution.
Under no circumstances is the
President to decree what shall be done.
But he is to do those
things which the Constitution has decreed or which Congress shall
decree. It is monstrous to suppose that power over the privilege of
the writ of habeas corpus would, among such a people, and under such
a Constitution, be given without limit to the chief officer, the
only condition being that there should be some rebellion. Such
rebellion might be in Utah Territory; or some trouble in the
uttermost bounds of Texas would suffice. Any invasion, such as an
inroad by the savages of Old Mexico upon New Mexico, would justify
an arbitrary President in robbing all the people of all the States
of their liberties! A squabble on the borders of Canada would put
such a power into the hands of the President for four years; or the
presence of an English frigate in the St. Juan channel might be held
to do so. I say that such a theory is monstrous.
And the effect of this breach of the Constitution at the present day
has been very disastrous. It has taught those who have not been
close observers of the American struggle to believe that, after all,
the Americans are indifferent as to their liberties. Such pranks
have been played before high heaven by men utterly unfitted for the
use of great power, as have scared all the nations. Mr. Lincoln,
the President by whom this unconstitutional act has been done,
apparently delegated his assumed authority to his minister, Mr.
Seward. Mr. Seward has reveled in the privilege of unrestrained
arrests, and has locked men up with reason and without. He has
instituted passports and surveillance; and placed himself at the
head of an omnipresent police system with all the gusto of a Fouche,
though luckily without a Fouche's craft or cunning. The time will
probably come when Mr. Seward must pay for this - not with his life
or liberty, but with his reputation and political name. But in the
mean time his lettres de cachet have run everywhere through the
States. The pranks which he played were absurd, and the arrests
which he made were grievous. After awhile, when it became manifest
that Mr. Seward had not found a way to success, when it was seen
that he had inaugurated no great mode of putting down rebellion, he
apparently lost his power in the cabinet. The arrests ceased, the
passports were discontinued, and the prison doors were gradually
opened. Mr. Seward was deposed, not from the cabinet, but from the
premiership of the cabinet. The suspension of the privilege of the
writ of habeas corpus was not countermanded, but the operation of
the suspension was allowed to become less and less onerous; and now,
in April, 1862, within a year of the commencement of the suspension,
it has, I think, nearly died out. The object in hand now is rather
that of getting rid of political prisoners than of taking others.
This assumption by the government of an unconstitutional power has,
as I have said, taught many lookers on to think that the Americans
are indifferent to their liberties. I myself do not believe that
such a conclusion would be just. During the present crisis the
strong feeling of the people - that feeling which for the moment has
been dominant - has been one in favor of the government as against
rebellion. There has been a passionate resolution to support the
nationality of the nation. Men have felt that they must make
individual sacrifices, and that such sacrifices must include a
temporary suspension of some of their constitutional rights. But I
think that this temporary suspension is already regarded with
jealous eyes; with an increasing jealousy which will have created a
reaction against such policy as that which Mr. Seward has attemped,
long before the close of Mr. Lincoln's Presidency. I know that it
is wrong in a writer to commit himself to prophecies, but I find it
impossible to write upon this subject without doing so. As I must
express a surmise on this subject, I venture to prophesy that the
Americans of the States will soon show that they are not indifferent
to the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. On
that matter of the illegality of the suspension by the President, I
feel in my own mind that there is no doubt.
The second article of the Constitution treats of the executive, and
is very short. It places the whole executive power in the hands of
the President, and explains with more detail the mode in which the
President shall be chosen than the manner after which the duties
shall be performed. The first section states that the executive
shall be vested in a President, who shall hold his office for four
years. With him shall be chosen a Vice-President. I may here
explain that the Vice-President, as such, has no power either
political or administrative. He is, ex-officio, the Speaker of the
Senate; and should the President die, or be by other cause rendered
unable to act as President, the Vice-President becomes President
either for the remainder of the presidential term or for the period
of the President's temporary absence. Twice, since the Constitution
was written, the President has died and the Vice-President has taken
his place. No President has vacated his position, even for a
period, through any cause other than death.
Then come the rules under which the President and Vice-President
shall be elected - with reference to which there has been an
amendment of the Constitution subsequent to the fourth Presidential
election. This was found to be necessary by the circumstances of
the contest between John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Aaron Burr.
It was then found that the complications in the method of election
created by the original clause were all but unendurable, and the
Constitution was amended.
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