with the raising and supplying of armies to suppress the rebellion as where the rebellion may actually be; as well where they may restrain the enticing men out of the army as where they would prevent mutiny in the army; equally constitutional at all places where they will conduce to the public safety as against the dangers of rebellion or invasion.  Take the particular case mentioned by the meeting.  It is asserted in substance that Mr. Vallandigham was, by a military commander, seized and tried “for no other reason than words addressed to a public meeting in criticism of the course of the administration, and in condemnation of the military orders of the general.”  Now, if there be no mistake about this, if this assertion is the 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 soldier boy who deserts while I must 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.