“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 authorize 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 is 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 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 the innocent, should, to a very great extent, be violated? To state the question more directly, are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the Government itself to 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?