be from Russia or
from South Carolina. Will the honorable Senator tell me it is our duty
to stay here, within fifteen miles of the enemy seeking to advance
upon us every hour, and talk about nice questions of constitutional
construction as to whether it is war or merely insurrection? No, sir. It
is our duty to advance, if we can; to suppress insurrection; to put down
rebellion; to dissipate the rising; to scatter the enemy; and when we
have done so, to preserve, in the terms of the bill, the liberty, lives,
and property of the people of the country, by just and fair police
regulations. I ask the Senator from Indiana, (Mr. Lane,) when we took
Monterey, did we not do it there?

When we took Mexico, did we not do it there? Is it not a part, a
necessary, an indispensable part of war itself, that there shall be
military regulations over the country conquered and held? Is that
unconstitutional?

I think it was a mere play of words that the Senator indulged in when he
attempted to answer the Senator from New York. I did not understand the
Senator from New York to mean anything else substantially but this, that
the Constitution deals generally with a state of peace, and that
when war is declared it leaves the condition of public affairs to be
determined by the law of war, in the country where the war exists. It is
true that the Constitution of the United States does adopt the laws of
war as a part of the instrument itself, during the continuance of
war. The Constitution does not provide that spies shall be hung. Is it
unconstitutional to hang a spy? There is no provision for it in terms in
the Constitution; but nobody denies the right, the power, the justice.
Why? Because it is part of the law of war. The Constitution does not
provide for the exchange of prisoners; yet it may be done under the law
of war. Indeed the Constitution does not provide that a prisoner may be
taken at all; yet his captivity is perfectly just and constitutional.
It seems to me that the Senator does not, will not take that view of the
subject.

Again, sir, when a military commander advances, as I trust, if there are
no more unexpected great reverses, he will advance, through Virginia
and occupies the country, there, perhaps, as here, the civil law may
be silent; there perhaps the civil officers may flee as ours have been
compelled to flee. What then? If the civil law is silent, who shall
control and regulate the conquered district, who but the milita