In the ensuing political campaign the Democrats made the greatest possible use of the issue thus presented, and they showed large gains in the congressional elections in the autumn of 1862. They carried New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Horatio Seymour was elected governor of the Empire State, and William A. Richardson (Democrat) was chosen by the legislature of Illinois as Senator in place of Browning, who was filling the vacancy caused by the death of Senator Douglas. It is impossible to say how much influence the arbitrary arrests had in producing these results, but it is certain that the Republican leaders were alarmed. Stanton fell into a panic. The general jail delivery apprehended by Wilson took place by a stroke of Stanton's pen on the 22d of November, without waiting for the final vote on Trumbull's bill, and Wilson himself voted for the bill. In the House, Thaddeus Stevens introduced a bill to indemnify the President and all persons acting under his authority for arrests and imprisonments previously made. This was passed under the previous question, December 8, unfairly and without debate. When Congress reassembled in December, Trumbull called up the House bill and offered a substitute for it. He held that under the Constitution Congress must authorize and regulate the suspension of the writ of _habeas corpus_. He would not, however, limit the exercise of the executive power to the time of meeting of the next Congress, as the House bill provided. His substitute proposed that the suspension of the writ should be left to the discretion of the President as to time and place during the continuance of the rebellion, but that political prisoners should not be held indefinitely without knowing the charges against them. The second section provided that lists of all prisoners of this class in the loyal states should be furnished, within twenty days, to the courts of the respective districts and laid before the grand juries with a statement of the charges against them, and if no indictments should be found against them during that term of court they should be discharged upon taking an oath of allegiance to the United States, and (if required by the judge) giving a bond for good behavior. Future arrests for political offenses were to be regulated in like manner. Collamer moved to strike out the second section, but failed by two votes.