withdraw or hide itself from the
control of the National Government. The ordinances of secession passed
by the rebel States did not, therefore, affect the Federal authority.
The broad and just ground taken by President Lincoln in his Inaugural
Address was, that the rebel States were still _in_ the Union; and it is,
we apprehend, the only tenable ground of right upon which we can carry
on the war in which we are now engaged. The Constitution of the United
States requires (art. ii. sec. 3) that the President shall 'take care
that the laws be faithfully executed.' When the present head of the
executive came into office, in March, 1861, he found several of the
States, having already seceded on paper, seeking to perfect their
treason by 'the armed hand.' Lighthouses had been destroyed, or their
beacon fires--the sentinels of the sea--shrouded in darkness, custom
houses were given into rebel hands, the revenue cutters were
surrendered, and deed followed deed in this dark drama of treason, until
it was consummated by firing upon the unarmed Star of the West, while
she was performing her errand of mercy, to relieve the hunger and
reenforce the exhausted strength of the heroic little garrison of Fort
Sumter. The plain and immediate duty of the President was, therefore, to
call out the strength of the nation to assist him in 'taking care that
the laws be faithfully executed.' And this brings us to the proposition
that _the Government is not engaged in a war of conquest with another
nation, but in enforcing the laws in what is already a part of the
Union_.

The Constitution (art. ii. sec. 2) makes the President the
'commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of
the militia of the several States when called into the actual service of
the United States.' In the President, and in him alone, supremely, is
vested the authority which is to conduct the course of war. Congress has
the war-making power, but war once brought into being (if we may be
allowed the expression), the manner in which it shall be conducted rests
with the executive. It is, of course, to be conducted in accordance with
the laws of nations and of civilized warfare. The first step necessary
to enable the President to enforce the laws in the seceded States is to
put down the military power by which their execution is resisted. That
is now being done. By the 'necessity of war,' then, the executive is
authorized to take such measures as may be neces