ses of rebellion or invasion, involving
the public safety, from what it is in times of profound peace and
public security; and this opinion I adhere to, simply because, by the
Constitution itself, things may be done in the one case which may not be
done in the other.

I dislike to waste a word on a merely personal point, but I must
respectfully assure you that you will find yourselves at fault should
you ever seek for evidence to prove your assumption that I "opposed in
discussions before the people the policy of the Mexican war."

You say: "Expunge from the Constitution this limitation upon the power
of Congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, and yet the other
guarantees of personal liberty would remain unchanged." Doubtless, if this
clause of the Constitution, improperly called, as I think, a limitation
upon the power of Congress, were expunged, the other guarantees would
remain the same; but the question is not how those guarantees would stand
with that clause out of the Constitution, but how they stand with that
clause remaining in it, in case of rebellion or invasion involving the
public safety. If the liberty could be indulged of expunging that clause,
letter and spirit, I really think the constitutional argument would be
with you.

My general view on this question was stated in the Albany response, and
hence I do not state it now. I only add that, as seems to me, the
benefit of the writ of habeas corpus is the great means through which the
guarantees of personal liberty are conserved and made available in
the last resort; and corroborative of this view is the fact that Mr.
Vallandigham, in the very case in question, under the advice of able
lawyers, saw not where else to go but to the habeas corpus. But by the
Constitution the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus itself may be
suspended when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may
require it.

You ask, in substance, whether I really claim that I may override all the
guaranteed rights of individuals, on the plea of conserving the public
safety when I may choose to say the public safety requires it. This
question, divested of the phraseology calculated to represent me as
struggling for an arbitrary personal prerogative, is either simply a
question who shall decide, or an affirmation that nobody shall decide,
what the public safety does require in cases of rebellion or invasion.

The Constitution contemplates the question as likely to