al modes of conducting the war: are the men who
raise questions, and suggest scruples, so stupid as not to know that, so
far as the rebels are concerned, such a way of talking is the sheerest
of all possible absurdities? The war power is a power conferred by the
Constitution; but it is a power which, in face of an enemy, is above all
other constitutional powers. In granting the war power to Government,
the Constitution grants to it, without qualification or limitation, all
the powers necessary and proper to carry on war; this, of course, even
if there were no plain delegation of them. But there is; and the only
laws which limit the constitutional powers of Government in the conduct
of the war, are the laws of war. These laws lie outside of the
Constitution, in the consent and recognition of civilized nations. They
are now the supreme laws. All this, for the sufficient reason that the
constitutional grant of the war power under any other limitation than
the laws of war, would be idle and nugatory; and this for the sufficient
reason that the salvation of the republic is that to which every thing
else must be sacrificed. The constitutional guaranties of State and
personal rights were framed for a condition of union, order, peace--not
for one of secession, rebellion, and war. In such a time, they must all
give way to the supreme necessity of saving the national existence.
Constitution or no Constitution, the nation must not be destroyed. Who
but a fool would question the right of a man to strike a dagger to the
heart of the assassin whose grasp was on his throat, because there is a
law against the private use of deadly weapons? The clutch of a
parricidal rebellion is grappling at the national existence, and what
shall we think of those men who would stay the arm of Government from
stabbing at its vitals by interposing constitutional scruples? Even if
the Constitution did stand in the way, who but a fool or a traitor would
hesitate to go around it or over it to save the national existence?
_Salus reipublicae suprema lex._ Was the nation made for the
Constitution, or the Constitution for the nation? If both can not stand
together, which shall go down? Will you stick to the Constitution, and
let the nation be destroyed? Any thing more insanely preposterous than
such a putting of the wrong thing foremost, such a preference of the
means to the end, is hard to be imagined.

But the Constitution does not stand in the way. Neither i