ound, if necessary, to
assume; and even if the Constitution stood in the way, they would be
bound to go over it in order to save the national existence. It is one
of those cases in which necessity gives sovereign right. It is doubtless
a very illegal thing to blow up people's houses, yet what civic
magistrate, not a fool, would hesitate to do it when nothing else could
arrest the conflagration of a city; and what court of law is there
(outside of _Liliput_, where poor Gulliver was condemned to death for
saving the royal palace by an illegal fire engine) so foolish as to
sustain an action against the magistrate in such a case? What must be
thought, then, of the good sense and loyalty of those who would
interpose the Constitution to prevent the suppression of a gigantic
rebellion, which puts the Constitution, the Government, and the national
existence in imminent peril of destruction? Who, that knows anything
which a man of decent intelligence is bound to know, but knows that
'_the salvation of the republic is the supreme law_?' On this principle
the old Revolutionary Congress went, when, without a particle of
delegated warrant from the several States, it assumed to act for the
whole people as a nation, and, among other things, invested Washington
with nearly dictatorial powers to carry on the war--a principle that
Washington had already before acted on in more than one case of summary
dealing with the Tories of his day. The sovereign sense of the nation
sustained this assumption, and gave it the validity of supreme law. And
I believe the nation would now sustain the Government in the assumption
of any powers necessary to the putting down of the rebellion, even if
ample powers were not already granted in the Constitution.

History has no record of a conspiracy more treasonable, flagitious, and
infamous than that in which this rebellion originated; no record of a
rebellion more foul, more monstrous, more wicked. The great heart of the
nation is filled with just indignation and abhorrence. It understands
and feels that every consideration of national interest and welfare, of
national honor and dignity, of justice, and fidelity to the great trust
received from the fathers of the republic, alike forbid the nation to
consent to its own dismemberment, or to a compromise with rebels in
arms, and a surrender of the great principles involved in the
contest--principles which lie at the foundation not only of our national
Government