s, men may be held in custody whom the courts, acting on ordinary
rules, would discharge. Habeas corpus does not discharge men who are
proved to be guilty of defined crime, and its suspension is allowed by the
Constitution on purpose that men may be arrested and held who can not
be proved to be guilty of defined crime, "when, in cases of rebellion or
invasion, the public safety may require it."

This is precisely our present case--a case of rebellion wherein the public
safety does require the suspension--Indeed, arrests by process of courts
and arrests in cases of rebellion do not proceed altogether upon the same
basis. The former is directed at the small percentage of ordinary and
continuous perpetration of crime, while the latter is directed at sudden
and extensive uprisings against the government, which, at most, will
succeed or fail in no great length of time. In the latter case arrests
are made not so much for what has been done as for what probably would be
done. The latter is more for the preventive and less for the vindictive
than the former. In such cases the purposes of men are much more easily
understood than in cases of ordinary crime. The man who stands by and
says nothing when the peril of his government is discussed, cannot be
misunderstood. If not hindered, he is sure to help the enemy; much more
if he talks ambiguously--talks for his country with "buts," and "ifs,"
and "ands." Of how little value the constitutional provision I have quoted
will be rendered if arrests shall never be made until defined crimes shall
have been committed, may be illustrated by a few notable examples: General
John C. Breckinridge, General Robert E. Lee, General Joseph E. Johnston,
General John B. Magruder, General William B. Preston, General Simon B.
Buckner, and Commodore Franklin Buchanan, now occupying the very highest
places in the rebel war service, were all within the power of the
government since the rebellion began, and were nearly as well known to
be traitors then as now. Unquestionably if we had seized and had them
the insurgent cause would be much weaker. But no one of them had then
committed any crime defined in the law. Every one of them, if arrested,
would have been discharged on habeas corpus were the writ allowed to
operate. In view of these and similar cases, I think the time not unlikely
to come when I shall be blamed for having made too few arrests rather than
too many.

By the third resolution the meeting i