earnestness, promptitude, and energy it
displays--not, in short, for what it does not do, but for what it does
do, in striking down the rebellion. It is vain for you to justify your
conduct by professions of allegiance to the sovereign people and loyalty
to the Government. Why, it is the great will of the sovereign people (to
whom you profess such faithful allegiance) that the Government (to which
you profess such devoted loyalty) should be saved from destruction by
crushing to utter extinction the armed rebellion that seeks its
overthrow. And the Administration--and I may include Congress, since the
action of that body is also the object of your denunciation--is the
organ of the sovereign people, carrying out its sovereign will in all
the acts you denounce. I do not say that the conduct of affairs has been
in all respects satisfactory to the people. There have been too many
things that looked to them like want of heart, want of earnestness,
want of energy, want of wisdom, particularly in the earlier conduct of
the war--too many indications of a disposition, if not to protract the
struggle, yet to make this terrible crisis of the nation a time for
political combinations and contractors' gains. They have seen these
things with grief and stern displeasure. But the acts you denounce meet
their sovereign approval. They are in favor of all earnest and vigorous
measures for subduing the rebels, and for repressing and punishing
traitorous sympathy with them, and treasonable aid and comfort to them.

But you denounce these acts as unconstitutional. To a bare, unsupported
assumption it might be enough to say that the constitutionality of all
these acts has been again and again affirmed by authorities of far
greater weight than yours or mine--by scores of statesmen and judges of
the highest eminence in the land. But I will go a little into the
question.

I assert that it is perfectly constitutional to repress an armed
rebellion by force of arms. It is the sworn duty of the Administration
under the Constitution to do so. And all the acts you condemn come in
one way or another under powers delegated to Congress and to the
Executive. The constitutional right to make war carries with it the
constitutional right to employ all the means sanctioned by the laws of
war. This is the amply sufficient justification of each and every one of
the measures you denounce--the Emancipation Proclamation, the
Confiscation acts, the suspension of _h