of war or not.  The legal controversy ended in a manner hardly edifying to the layman; in the course of 1865 the Supreme Court solemnly tried out the question of the right of one Milligan to a writ of habeas corpus.  At that time the war, the only ground on which the right could have been refused him, had for some months been ended; and nobody in court knew or cared whether Milligan was then living to enjoy his right or had been shot long before.

Save in a few cases of special public interest, Lincoln took no personal part in the actual administration of these coercive measures.  So great a tax was put upon his time, and indeed his strength, by the personal consideration of cases of discipline in the army, that he could not possibly have undertaken a further labour of the sort.  Moreover, he thought it more necessary for the public good to give steady support to his ministers and generals than to check their action in detail.  He contended that no great injustice was likely to arise.  Very likely he was wrong; not only Democrats, but men like Senator John Sherman, a strong and sensible Republican, thought him wrong.  There are evil stories about the secret police under Stanton, and some records of the proceedings of the courts-martial, composed sometimes of the officers least useful at the front, are not creditable.  Very likely, as John Sherman thought, the ordinary law would have met the needs of the case in many districts.  The mere number of the political prisoners, who counted by thousands, proves nothing, for the least consideration of the circumstances will show that the active supporters of the Confederacy in the North must have been very numerous.  Nor does it matter much that, to the horror of some people, there were persons of station, culture, and respectability among the sufferers; persons of this kind were not likely to be exposed to charges of disloyal conduct if they were actively loyal.  Obscure and ignorant men are much more likely to have become the innocent victims of spiteful accusers or vile agents of police.  Doubtless this might happen; but that does not of itself condemn Lincoln for having maintained an extreme form of martial law.  The particular kind of oppression that is likely to have occurred is one against which the normal procedure of justice and police in America is said to-day to provide no sufficient safeguard.  It is almost certain that the regular course of law would have exposed the public weal to formidable dangers; but it by no means follows that it would have saved individuals from wrong.  The risk that many individuals would be grievously wronged was at least not very great.  The Government was not pursuing men for erroneous opinions, but for certain very definite kinds of action dangerous to the State.  These were indeed kinds of action with which Lincoln thought ordinary Courts of justice “utterly incompetent” to deal, and he avowed that he aimed rather at preventing intended actions than at punishing them when done.