George Clarke Sellery

“ Must they be allowed to finally fail of execution, even had it been perfectly clear that by the use of the means necessary to their execution some single law, made in such extreme tenderness of the citizen's liberty, that practically it relieves more of the guilty than of the innocent, should to a very limited extent be violated? To state the question more directly: are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the Government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated? ”

“ If Congress acquiesced in Presidential suspension, if, as this essay attempts to demonstrate, it conceded the President's right under the given circumstances to suspend, the historical precedent thus established must be given great weight. It is true that the conditions of the time were abnormal, and true that "acts committed in time of war, under the pressure of necessity and self-preservation, are not likely to ripen into precedents for times of peace." ”

“ I therefore conclude that it is only left to the commanding general to watch and await their action, which, if it shall be to arm their people against the United States, he is to adopt the most prompt and efficient means to counteract, even if necessary to the bombardment of their cities, and, in the extremest necessity, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. ”