d have saved us from the weakness of acting with seeming vigor
on one day, only to retreat from our position the next.

In Vallandigham's case the common argument was used by his friends
that he was not exceeding a lawful liberty of speech in political
opposition to the administration. When, however, a civil war is in
progress, it is simply a question of fact whether words used are
intended to give aid and comfort to the enemy and are evidence of
conspiracy with the public enemy. If so, it is too clear for
argument that the overt acts of the enemy are brought home to all
who combine and confederate with them, and all are involved in the
same responsibility. This question of fact and intent was officially
settled by the findings of the military court. But there was another
connection of the speech with overt acts, which the public mind took
firm hold of. Among the most incendiary of Vallandigham's appeals
had been those which urged the people to resist the provost-marshals
in the several districts. It is nonsense to say that resisting the
draft or the arrest of deserters only meant voting for an opposition
party at the elections. There had been armed and organized
resistance to arrest of deserters in Noble County just before his
speech, and soon after it there was a still more formidable armed
organization with warlike action against the enrolling officers in
Holmes County, in the same region in which the speech was made. This
last took the form of an armed camp, and the insurgents did not
disperse till a military force was sent against them and attacked
them in fortified lines, where they used both cannon and musketry.
It did not seem plausible to the common sense of the people that we
could properly charge with volleying musketry upon the barricades of
the less intelligent dupes, whilst the leader who had incited and
counselled the resistance was to be held to be acting within the
limits of proper liberty of speech. Law and common sense are
entirely in harmony in regarding the conspiracy as a unit, the
speech at Mount Vernon and the armed collision on the Holmes County
hill being parts of one series of acts in which the instigator was
responsible for the natural consequences of the forces he set in
motion.

To complete the judicial history of the Vallandigham case, it may be
said that he applied to the Supreme Court of the United States a few
months afterward for a writ to revise and examine the proceedings of
the m