duals as he might deem dangerous
to the public safety. This authority has purposely been exercised but very
sparingly. Nevertheless, the legality and propriety of what has been done
under it are questioned, and the attention of the country has been called
to the proposition that one who has sworn to "take care that the laws
be faithfully executed" should not himself violate them. Of course some
consideration was given to the questions of power and propriety before
this matter was acted upon. The whole of the laws which were required to
be faithfully executed were being resisted and failing of execution in
nearly one third of the States. Must they be allowed to finally fail of
execution, even had it been perfectly clear that by the use of the
means necessary to their execution some single law, made in such extreme
tenderness of the citizen's liberty that, practically, it relieves more
of the guilty than of the innocent, should to a very limited extent be
violated? To state the question more directly, are all the laws but one
to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces lest that one be
violated? Even in such a case, would not the official oath be broken if
the government should be overthrown when it was believed that disregarding
the single law would tend to preserve it? But it was not believed
that this question was presented. It was not believed that any law was
violated. The provision of the Constitution that "the privilege of the
writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when, in cases of
rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it," is equivalent to
a provision--is a provision--that such privilege may be suspended when, in
case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety does require it. It was
decided that we have a case of rebellion, and that the public safety does
require the qualified suspension of the privilege of the writ which was
authorized to be made. Now it is insisted that Congress, and not the
executive, is vested with this power. But the Constitution itself is
silent as to which or who is to exercise the power; and as the provision
was plainly made for a dangerous emergency, it cannot be believed the
framers of the instrument intended that in every case the danger
should run its course until Congress could be called together, the very
assembling of which might be prevented, as was intended in this case, by
the rebellion.

No more extended argument is now offered, as an