As to the _Confiscation_ acts--it is enough to say that the Constitution gives Congress power 'to declare the punishment of treason.' Confiscation of property--as well as forfeiture of life--is a punishment attached to this great crime in the practice, I believe, of every Government that has existed. The rebels confiscate all the property of men in the South loyal to the Union, on which they can lay their hands; and their practice can be condemned by us only on the ground that the crime of rebellion makes all their acts in support of it criminal. But as you have no word of condemnation for the rebellion, so you have none for their confiscation acts. You would throw the shield of the Constitution only over the property of rebels. Loyal men, however, are of opinion that as the hardship of paying the expenses entailed by this accursed rebellion must fall somewhere, it is but just it should fall as far as possible on the rebels, rather than on us. If confiscation of rebel property chance to bear hard on the innocent children of traitors, it is no more than what constantly chances in time of domestic peace, in the pecuniary punishment of crimes far less heinous than treason; and loyal men see no good reason why the hardship should not fall in part on the children of traitors, rather than wholly (as in part it must) on our children. As to the suspension of the privilege of the writ of _habeas corpus_: many foolish and disloyal people, out of the folly and disloyalty of their hearts, talk as if the thing itself were something wicked and monstrous; although the Constitution plainly provides that it may be done, 'when, in cases of rebellion and invasion, the public safety may require it.' Who is to judge of the necessity, and who is to exercise the power of suspending it, the Constitution does not declare; and in the silence of the Constitution and in the absence of any legislation on the point, the President might well presume that the discretion of exercising a power constitutionally vested somewhere, and designed to be exercised in emergencies of public peril, liable to arise when Congress might not be in session, was left to him. At all events, he took the responsibility of deciding that the public safety required its exercise. Congress has since justified his course, and legalized the power in his hands. The loyal people of the nation approve its action.