Disregard of the Army Regulations.
Time, which at last makes all things even, vindicated Fremont's leading measures in Missouri. His subsequent withdrawal from the field, in Virginia, was doubtless unwise. It was hard to be placed under a junior and hostile general; but private wrongs must wait in war, and resignation proves quite as inadequate a remedy for the grievances of an officer, as Secession for the fancied wrongs of the Slaveholders.
Brigadier-General Justus McKinstry, ex-Quartermaster of the Western Department, was arrested, and closely confined in the St. Louis arsenal for many months. His repeated demands for the charges and specifications against him were disregarded. He was at last court-martialed and dismissed the service, on the charge of malfeasance in office. Brigadier-General Charles P. Stone was for a long time kept under arrest in the same manner. These proceedings flagrantly violated both the Army Regulation, entitling officers to know the charges and witnesses against them, within ten days after arrest, and the spirit of the Constitution itself, which guarantees to every man a speedy public trial in the presence of his accusers.
Equally reprehensible was the arrest and long confinement of many civilians without formal charges or trial. States where actual war existed, and even the debatable ground which bordered them, might be proper fields for this exercise of the Military Power. But the friends of the Union, holding Congress, and nearly every State Legislature by overwhelming majorities, could make whatever laws they pleased; therefore, these measures were unnecessary and unjustifiable in the North, hundreds of miles from the seat of war. Utterly at variance with personal rights and republican institutions, they were alarming and dangerous precedents, which any unscrupulous future administration may plausibly cite in defense of the grossest outrages. President Lincoln was always very chary of this exercise of arbitrary power; but some of his constitutional advisers were constantly urging it. Secretary Stanton, in particular, advocated and committed acts of flagrant despotism. He was a good patent-office lawyer, but had not the faintest conception of those primary principles of Civil Liberty which underlie English and American institutions. Even the Magna Charta, in sonorous Latin, declared:
"No person shall be apprehended or imprisoned, except by the legal judgment of his peers, or the law of the land. To none will we sell, to none will we deny, to none will we delay right or justice."
Military Power and the Press.
Kindred questions arose touching the Military Power and the Liberty of the Press. Each northern city had its daily journal, which, under thin disguise of loyalty, labored zealously for the Rebels. Soldiers could not patiently read treasonable sheets. On several occasions military commanders suppressed them, but the President promptly removed the disability. The sober second thought of the people was, that if editors and publishers in the loyal North could not be convicted and punished in the civil courts, they should not be molested.
General Hunter, succeeding Fremont, evacuated southwestern Missouri. Before leaving Springfield, besieged with applications for runaway slaves, he issued orders to deliver them up; but soldiers and officers in his camps hid them so safely that they could not be found by their masters.
Rudeness of General Halleck.