f legality. Hence his theory of the war power of the
Constitution, which may be construed to permit everything necessary to
carry on the war. Yet his dictatorship was different from Caesar's and
different from the absolute authority of Napoleon. He acted under the
restraints imposed by his own legal conscience and patriotic soul, whose
influence was revealed in his confidential letters and talks. We know
furthermore that he often took counsel of his Cabinet officers before
deciding matters of moment. Certain it is that in arbitrary arrests
Seward and Stanton were disposed to go further than Lincoln. The spirit
of arbitrary power was in the air, and unwise and unjust acts were done
by subordinates, which, although Lincoln would not have done them
himself, he deemed it better to ratify than to undo. This was notably
the case in the arrest of Vallandigham. Again, Congress did not always
do what Lincoln wished, and certain men of his own party in Congress
were strong enough to influence his actions in various ways. But, after
all, he was himself a strong man exercising comprehensive authority; and
it is an example of the flexibility of the Constitution that, while it
surely did not authorize certain of Lincoln's acts, it did not expressly
forbid them. It was, for example, an open question whether the
Constitution authorized Congress or the President to suspend the writ of
_habeas corpus_.

It seems to be pretty well settled by the common sense of mankind that
when a nation is fighting for its existence it cannot be fettered by all
the legal technicalities which obtain in the time of peace. Happy the
country whose dictatorship, if dictator there must be, falls into wise
and honest hands! The honesty, magnanimity, and wisdom of Lincoln guided
him aright, and no harm has come to the great principles of liberty from
the arbitrary acts which he did or suffered to be done. On the other
hand he has so impressed himself upon the Commonwealth that he has made
a precedent for future rulers in a time of national peril, and what he
excused and defended will be assumed as a matter of course because it
will be according to the Constitution as interpreted by Abraham Lincoln.
This the Supreme Court foresaw when it rendered its judgment in the
Milligan case, saying: "Wicked men ambitious of power, with hatred of
liberty and contempt of law, may fill the place once occupied by
Washington and Lincoln, and if this right is conceded [that of a