Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

[177] bulwark of personal liberty, was really a matter of no great concern to the general public. An apologist for Mr. Lincoln wrote: “In such times the people generally are willing, and are often compelled, to give up for a season a portion of their freedom to preserve the rest; and fortunately, again, it is that portion of the people, for the most part, who like to live on the margin of disobedience to the laws, whose freedom is most in danger. The rest are rarely in want of a habeas corpus.”

This astounding and atrocious doctrine had already been put in violent practice in certain parts of the North. We have already referred to the military arrest of the municipal officers of Baltimore. It was but the beginning of a reign of terrour. There is place here for the following remarkable document, under the authority of which were arrested many leading members of the Legislature of Maryland:

But the policy of arrests did not end with this singular violation of the freedom of a legislative body. Other citizens were taken. Military arrests were made in the dead hour of night. The most honourable and virtuous citizens were dragged from their beds, and confined in forts. Searches and seizures, the most rigorous and unwarrantable, were made without pretext of justification. Hopeless imprisonment was inflicted without accusation, without inquiry or investigation, and without the prospect of a trial. When, in the House of Representatives, at Washington, Mr. Vallandigham of Ohio moved a series of resolutions condemning these acts of despotic authority and intolerable espionage, including the seizure