Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 7.
Frank Moore, Ed.

3. “No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger.”

4. “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law.”

And we furthermore denounce said arrest, trial, and banishment, as a direct insult offered to the sovereignty of the people of Ohio, by whose organic law it is declared that no person shall be transported out of the State for any offence committed within the same.

16. That Clement L. Vallandigham was, at the time of his arrest, a prominent candidate for nomination by the Democratic party of Ohio, for the office of Governor of the State; that the Democratic party was fully competent to decide whether he is a fit man for that nomination, and that the attempt to deprive them of that right, by his arrest and banishment, was an unmerited imputation upon their intelligence and loyalty, as well as a violation of the Constitution.

17. That we respectfully, but most earnestly, call upon the President of the United States to restore Clement L. Vallandigham to his home in Ohio, and that a committee of one from each Congressional district of the State, to be selected by the presiding officer of this Convention, is hereby appointed to present this application to the President.

The undersigned, in the discharge of the duty assigned them, do not think it necessary to reiterate the facts connected with the arrest, trial, and banishment of Mr. Vallandigham--they are well known to the President, and are of public history-nor to enlarge upon the positions taken by the Convention, nor to recapitulate the constitutional provisions which it is believed have been contravened; they have been stated at length, and with clearness in the resolutions which have been recited. The undersigned content themselves with brief reference to other suggestions pertinent to the subject.

They do not call upon your Excellency as suppliants, praying the revocation of the order banishing Mr. Vallandigham, as a favor; but, by the authority of a convention representing a majority of the citizens of the State of Ohio, they respectfully ask it as a right due to an American citizen, in whose personal injury the sovereignty and dignity of the people of Ohio, as a free State, have been offended. And this duty they perform the more cordially from the consideration that, at a time of great national emergency, pregnant with danger to our Federal Union, it is all-important that the true friends of the Constitution and the Union, however they may differ as to the mode of administering the Government, and the measures most likely to be successful in the maintenance of the Constitution and the restoration of the Union, should not be thrown into hostile conflict with each other.

The arrest, unusual trial and banishment of Mr. Vallandigham have created widespread and alarming disaffection among the people of the State, not only endangering the harmony of the friends of the Constitution and the Union, and tending to disturb the peace and tranquillity of the State, but also impairing that confidence in the fidelity of your administration to the great landmarks of free government, essential to a peaceful and successful enforcement of the laws in Ohio.

You are reported to have used, in a public communication on this subject, the following language:

It gave me pain when I learned that Mr. Vallandigham had been arrested — that is, I was pained that there should have seemed to be a necessity for arresting him; and that it will afford me great pleasure to discharge him, so soon as I can by any means believe the public safety will not suffer by it.

The undersigned assure your Excellency, from our personal knowledge of the feelings of the people of Ohio, that the public safety will be far more endangered by continuing Mr. Vallandigham in exile than by releasing him. It may be true, that persons differing from him in political views may be found in Ohio and elsewhere, who will express a different opinion. But they are certainly mistaken.

Mr. Vallandigham may differ with the President, and even with some of his own political party, as to the true and most effectual means of maintaining the Constitution and restoring the Union; but this difference of opinion does not prove him to be unfaithful to his duties as an American citizen. If a man devotedly attached to the Constitution and the Union conscientiously believes that from the inherent nature of the Federal compact the war, in the present condition of things in this country, cannot be used as a means of restoring the Union; or that a war to subjugate a part of the States, or a war to revolutionize the social system in a part of the States, could not restore, but would inevitably result in the final destruction of both the Constitution and the Union, is he not to be allowed the right of an American citizen to appeal to the judgment of the people for a change of policy by the constitutional remedy of the ballot-box?

During the war with Mexico many of the political opponents of the administration then in power thought it their duty to oppose and denounce the war, and to urge before the people of the country that it was unjust, and prosecuted for unholy purposes. With equal reason it might have been said of them that their discussions before the people were calculated to discourage enlistments, “to prevent the raising of troops,” and to induce desertions from the army and leave the Government without an adequate military force to carry on the war. If the freedom of speech and of the