rginia being also present. After this interview the President wrote an
order in about these words, which I quote from memory: "General Weitzel
is authorized to permit the body calling itself the Legislature of
Virginia to meet for the purpose of recalling the Virginia troops from
the Confederate armies."

Immediately some of the gentlemen composing that body wrote out a call
for a meeting and had it published in their papers. This call, however,
went very much further than Mr. Lincoln had contemplated, as he did not
say the "Legislature of Virginia" but "the body which called itself the
Legislature of Virginia." Mr. Stanton saw the call as published in the
Northern papers the very next issue and took the liberty of
countermanding the order authorizing any meeting of the Legislature, or
any other body, and this notwithstanding the fact that the President was
nearer the spot than he was.

This was characteristic of Mr. Stanton. He was a man who never
questioned his own authority, and who always did in war time what he
wanted to do. He was an able constitutional lawyer and jurist; but the
Constitution was not an impediment to him while the war lasted. In this
latter particular I entirely agree with the view he evidently held. The
Constitution was not framed with a view to any such rebellion as that of
1861-5. While it did not authorize rebellion it made no provision
against it. Yet the right to resist or suppress rebellion is as
inherent as the right of self-defence, and as natural as the right of an
individual to preserve his life when in jeopardy. The Constitution was
therefore in abeyance for the time being, so far as it in any way
affected the progress and termination of the war.

Those in rebellion against the government of the United States were not
restricted by constitutional provisions, or any other, except the acts
of their Congress, which was loyal and devoted to the cause for which
the South was then fighting. It would be a hard case when one-third of
a nation, united in rebellion against the national authority, is
entirely untrammeled, that the other two-thirds, in their efforts to
maintain the Union intact, should be restrained by a Constitution
prepared by our ancestors for the express purpose of insuring the
permanency of the confederation of the States.

After I left General Lee at Appomattox Station, I went with my staff and
a few others directly to Burkesville Station on my way to Washington