n case the Chief
Justice and three others dissented.

There can be little doubt that this proclamation caused something like
a panic in many minds, filled them with the dread of military despotism,
and contributed to the reaction against Lincoln in the autumn of 1862.
Under this proclamation many arrests were made and many victims were
sent to prison. So violent was the opposition that on March 3, 1863,
Congress passed an act which attempted to bring the military and civil
courts into cooperation, though it did not take away from the President
all the dictatorial power which he had assumed. The act seems; however,
to have had little general effect, and it was disregarded in the
most celebrated of the cases of military arrest, that of Clement L.
Vallandigham.

A representative from Ohio and one of the most vituperative anti-Lincoln
men in Congress, Vallandigham in a sensational speech applied to the
existing situation Chatham's words, "My lords, you cannot conquer
America." He professed to see before him in the future nothing "but
universal political and social revolution, anarchy, and bloodshed,
compared with which the Reign of Terror in France was a merciful
visitation." To escape such a future, he demanded an armistice, to be
followed by a friendly peace established through foreign mediation.

Returning to Ohio after the adjournment of Congress, Vallandigham spoke
to a mass-meeting in a way that was construed as rank treason by General
Burnside who was in command at Cincinnati. Vallandigham was arrested,
tried by court martial, and condemned to imprisonment. There was an
immediate hue and cry, in consequence of which Burnside, who reported
the affair, felt called upon also to offer to resign. Lincoln's reply
was characteristic: "When I shall wish to supersede you I shall let
you know. All the Cabinet regretted the necessity for arresting, for
instance, Vallandigham, some perhaps doubting there was a real necessity
for it; but being done, all were for seeing you through with it."
Lincoln, however, commuted the sentence to banishment and had
Vallandigham sent through the lines into the Confederacy.

It seems quite plain that the condemnation of Lincoln on this issue of
usurpation was not confined to the friends of the Confederacy, nor has
it been confined to his enemies in later days. One of Lincoln's
most ardent admirers, the historian Rhodes, condemns his course
unqualifiedly. "There can be no question," he w