Again:  the police commissioners of Baltimore were arrested by military authority without any charges whatever.  In vain they have asked for a specification.  In vain they have sent a respectful protest to the Congress of the United States.  In vain the House of Representatives, by resolution, requested the President to furnish the representatives of the people with the grounds of their arrest.  He answers the House of Representatives that, in his judgment, the public interest does not permit him to say why they were arrested, on what charges, or what he has done with them—­and you call this liberty and law and proceedings for the preservation of the Constitution!  They have been spirited off from one fortress to another, their locality unknown, and the President of the United States refuses, upon the application of the most numerous branch of the national Legislature, to furnish them with the grounds of their arrest, or to inform them what he has done with them.

Sir, it was said the other day by the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Browning) that I had assailed the conduct of the Executive with vehemence, if not with malignity.  I am not aware that I have done so.  I criticised, with the freedom that belongs to the representative of a sovereign State and the people, the conduct of the Executive.  I shall continue to do so as long as I hold a seat upon this floor, when, in my opinion, that conduct deserves criticism.  Sir, I need not say that, in the midst of such events as surround us, I could not cherish personal animosity towards any human being.  Towards that distinguished officer, I never did cherish it.  Upon the contrary, I think more highly of him, as a man and an officer, than I do of many who are around him and who, perhaps guide his counsels.  I deem him to be personally an honest man, and I believe that he is trampling upon the Constitution of his country every day, with probably good motives, under the counsels of those who influence him.  But, sir, I have nothing now to say about the President.  The proceedings of Congress have eclipsed the actions of the Executive; and if this bill shall become a law, the proceedings of the President will sink into absolute nothingness in the presence of the outrages upon personal and public liberty which have been perpetrated by the Congress of the United States.

* * * * *

Mr. President, gentlemen talk about the Union as if it was an end instead of a means.  They talk about it as if it was the Union of these States which alone had brought into life the principles of public and of personal liberty.  Sir, they existed before, and they may survive it.  Take care that in pursuing one idea you you do not destroy not only the Constitution of your country, but sever what remains of the Federal Union.  These eternal and sacred principles of public men and of personal liberty, which lived before the Union and will live forever and ever somewhere, must be respected; they cannot with impunity be overthrown; and if you force the people to the issue between any form of government and these priceless principles, that form of government will perish; they will tear it asunder as the irrepressible forces of nature rend whatever opposes them.