From the beginning of the war the current of power set steadily from the Confederate States to the Confederate Government; and with each year of the war, the current flowed on with increasing tide. Within its just bounds, no man yielded a heartier allegiance to that government than Mr. Graham; but on the other hand, no man stood ready to oppose a firmer resistance when that government overstepped those bounds. The war had been begun and was then prosecuted for the maintenance of great principles, and it was his fixed purpose that civil liberty should not, at the South as at the North, be engulfed in its progress. In the year 1862 a minister of the gospel--a man of learning and of irreproachable character--was arrested in the county of Orange, under a military order, sent to Richmond, and cast into prison. He was not in the military service of the Confederate States, and therefore not amenable to military law. As a proceeding against a citizen, such an arrest, without charge made on oath and without warrant, was in violation of all law; while his deportation beyond the limits of the State, for trial by military tribunal, was in contempt of the dignity and sovereignty of the State. Mr. Graham, being then Senator from Orange, introduced a resolution demanding a return of the prisoner to the State, which was passed at once. On introducing the resolution, he expressed the opinion that the proceeding was without the sanction of the Confederate Executive, or of the Secretary of War. The sequel proved this supposition to be correct. The prisoner was sent back with a disavowal of any knowledge of the proceeding on the part of the President or the Secretary, until the confinement of the prisoner in the military prison at Richmond. The Secretary frankly admitted the erroneous nature of the arrest and imprisonment, and disclaimed all intention to interfere with the rightful jurisdiction of the State. On the 22d of January, 1863--upon the incoming of the message with the accompanying documents, touching the case--Mr. Graham paid a merited tribute to the enlightened comprehension of the relations existing between the Confederate Government and the States, evinced by these sentiments, and in the further remarks submitted by him, he took occasion to re-state the great principles of personal liberty--daily more and more endangered in the course of the war--and to impress them upon the public mind by apt comments upon the case to which the public attention was then so strongly directed. This was the first, and is believed to have been the last case, in which military power was used to override civil law.