that marks a chapter. It brought to a head a cloud of floating
opposition and dearly defined an issue involving the central proposition
in Lincoln's theory of the government. The Constitution of the United
States, in its detailed provisions, is designed chiefly to meet the
exigencies of peace. With regard to the abnormal conditions of war,
it is relatively silent. Certain "war powers" are recognized but not
clearly defined; nor is it made perfectly plain what branch of the
government possesses them. The machinery for their execution is assumed
but not described--as when the Constitution provides that the privileges
of the writ of habeas corpus are to be suspended only in time of war,
but does not specify by whom, or in what way, the suspension is to be
effected. Are those undefined "war powers," which are the most sovereign
functions of our government, vested in Congress or in the President?
Lincoln, from the moment he defined his policy, held tenaciously to the
theory that all these extraordinary powers are vested in the President.
By implication, at least, this idea is in the first message. Throughout
the latter part of 1861, he put the theory into practice. Whatever
seemed to him necessary in a state of war, he did, even to the arresting
of suspected persons, refusing them the privilege-of the habeas corpus,
and retaining them in prison without trial. During 1861, he left the
exercise of this sovereign authority to the discretion of the two
Secretaries of War and of State.

Naturally, the Abolitionists, the Jacobins, the Democratic machine,
conscientious believers in the congressional theory of the government,
every one who for any reason, wanted to hit the Administration, united
in a chorus of wrath over arbitrary arrests. The greatest orator of
the time, Wendell Phillips, the final voice of Abolition, flayed the
government in public speeches for reducing America to an absolute
despotism. Trumbull introduced into the Senate a resolution calling upon
the President for a statement of the facts as to what he had actually
done.(1)

But the subject of arrests was but the prelude to the play. The real
issue was the theory of the government. Where in last analysis does the
Constitution place the ultimate powers of sovereignty, the war powers?
In Congress or in the President? Therefore, in concrete terms, is
Congress the President's master, or is it only one branch of the
government with a definite but united activity of