Life of Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United StatesCrosby, Frank
History
Life of Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States
Crosby, Frank
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
“And the name of Jackson recalls an incident of pertinent history:
After the battle of New Orleans, and while the fact that the treaty
of peace had been concluded was well known in the city, but before
official knowledge of it had arrived, Gen. Jackson still maintained
martial or military law. Now that it could be said the war was
over, the clamor against martial law, which had existed from the
first, grew more furious. Among other things, a Mr. Louiallier
published a denunciatory newspaper article. Gen. Jackson arrested
him. A lawyer by the name of Morrel procured the United States
Judge Hall to issue a writ of _habeas corpus_ to relieve Mr.
Louiallier. Gen. Jackson arrested both the lawyer and the judge. A
Mr. Hollander ventured to say of some part of the matter that ‘it
was a dirty trick.’ Gen. Jackson arrested him. When the officer
undertook to serve the writ of _habeas corpus_, Gen. Jackson took
it from him, and sent him away with a copy. Holding the judge in
custody a few days, the general sent him beyond the limits of his
encampment, and set him at liberty, with an order to remain till
the ratification of peace should be regularly announced, or until
the British should have left the Southern coast. A day or two more
elapsed, the ratification of a treaty of peace was regularly
announced, and the judge and others were fully liberated. A few
days more, and the judge called Gen. Jackson into court and fined
him $1,000 for having arrested him and the others named. The
general paid the fine, and there the matter rested for nearly
thirty years, when Congress refunded principal and interest. The
late Senator Douglas, then in the House of Representatives, took a
leading part in the debates, in which the constitutional question
was much discussed. I am not prepared to say whom the journals
would show to have voted for the measure.
“It may be remarked: First, that we had the same Constitution then
as now; secondly, that we then had a case of invasion, and now we
have a case of rebellion; and, thirdly, that the permanent right
of the people to public discussion, the liberty of speech and of
the press, the trial by jury, the law of evidence, and the _habeas
corpus_, suffered no detriment whatever by that conduct of Gen.
Jackson, or its subsequent approval by the American Congress.
“And yet, let me say that, in my own discretion, I do not know
whether I would have ordered the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham. While
I can not shift the responsibility from myself, I hold that, as a
general rule, the commander in the field is the better judge of
the necessity in any particular case. Of course, I must practise a
general directory and revisory power in the matter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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