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truth, and the whole truth, if there were no other reason for the arrest,
then I concede that the arrest was wrong. But the arrest, as I understand,
was made for a very different reason. Mr. Vallandigham avows his hostility
to the war on the part of the Union; and his arrest was made because
he was laboring, with some effect, to prevent the raising of troops, to
encourage desertions from the army, and to leave the rebellion without an
adequate military force to suppress it. He was not arrested because he
was damaging the political prospects of the administration or the personal
interests of the commanding general, but because he was damaging the army,
upon the existence and vigor of which the life of the nation depends. He
was warring upon the military, and thus gave the military constitutional
jurisdiction to lay hands upon him. If Mr. Vallandigham was not damaging
the military power of the country, then his arrest was made on mistake
of fact, which I would be glad to correct on reasonably satisfactory
evidence.

I understand the meeting whose resolutions I am considering to be in favor
of suppressing the rebellion by military force--by armies. Long experience
has shown that armies cannot be maintained unless desertion shall be
punished by the severe penalty of death. The case requires, and the law
and the Constitution sanction, this punishment. Must I shoot a
simple-minded boy and not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induced him
to desert. This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a
father, or brother, or friend into a public meeting, and there working
upon his feelings till he is persuaded to write the soldier boy that he is
fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked administration of a contemptible
government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think
that, in such a case, to silence the agitator and save the boy is not only
constitutional, but withal a great mercy.

If I be wrong on this question of constitutional power, my error lies in
believing that certain proceedings are constitutional when, in cases of
rebellion or invasion, the public safety requires them, which would not
be constitutional when, in absence of rebellion or invasion, the public
safety does not require them: in other words, that the Constitution is
not in its application in all respects the same in cases of rebellion or
invasion involving the public safety as it is in times of profound peace
and public securi