Mr. President, the honorable Senator says there is a state of war.  The Senator from Vermont agrees with him; or rather, he agrees with the Senator from Vermont in that.  What then?  There is a state of public war; none the less war because it is urged from the other side; not the less war because it is unjust; not the less war because it is a war of insurrection and rebellion.  It is still war; and I am willing to say it is public war,—­public as contra-distinguished from private war.  What then?  Shall we carry that war on?  Is it his duty as a Senator to carry it on?  If so, how?  By armies under command; by military organization and authority, advancing to suppress insurrection and rebellion.  Is that wrong?  Is that unconstitutional?  Are we not bound to do, with whomever levies war against us, as we would do if he were a foreigner?  There is no distinction as to the mode of carrying on war; we carry on war against an advancing army just the same, whether it 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.