The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. | Page 5

that safely tread it! Blessed shall that man be who
succeeds in crossing. The nations shall rise up and call him blessed, and
succeeding generations shall praise him.
We come then to the relations of the press and the Executive. We have
seen that all liberty is relative, and not _absolute_; that the people, the
sovereigns in this country, have prescribed certain methods for securing,
in ordinary periods, those blessings which it is their desire to enjoy;
that when, under special contingencies, these methods become
insufficient for this purpose, the people may, in virtue of their
sovereignty, suspend them and adopt others adequate to the occasion;
that these may not, indeed, from their very nature, cannot be of a fixed
and circumscribed kind, but must give large discretionary power into
the hands of the Executive, to be used by him in a summary manner as
contingencies may indicate; that this abrogation or suspension, for the
time, of so much of the ordinary civil law, in favor of the contingent
law, is not an abandonment of free government for arbitary or despotic
government, because it is still in accordance with the will of the people,
and hence is merely the substitution of a new form of law, which, being
required for occasions when instant action is demanded, is necessarily
summary in its character; that the extent to which this law is to be
substituted for the ordinary one is to be discovered by the Executive
from the general sense of the nation, when it cannot be made known
through the common method of the ballot box and the legislature; that
in the people resides the power ultimately to determine whether their

wishes have been correctly interpreted or not; and, finally, that the
Executive is equally responsible for coming short of the behests of the
nation in the use of the contingent law or for transgressing the
boundaries within which they desire him to constrain his actions.
The press of the United States has always been free to the extent that it
might publish whatsoever it listed, within certain limits prescribed by
the law. The press may still do this. But the nature of the law which
prescribes the limits has changed with the times. The constituted
authorities of the people of the United States are obliged now, in the
people's interest, to employ the processes of summary rather than those
of routine law. Hence when the press infringes too violently the
boundaries indicated, and persists in so doing, the sterner penalty
demanded by the dangers of the hour is enforced by the sterner method
likewise rendered necessary. So long as Executive action concerning
the press shall be in accordance with the general sentiment of the
people, it will be within the strict scope of the highest law of the land.
Should the Executive persistently exercise this summary law in a
manner not countenanced by the nation, he is amenable to it under the
strict letter of the Constitution for high crimes or misdemeanors, not the
least of which would be the usurpation of powers not delegated to him
by the people.
The Executive of the United States occupies at this time an exceedingly
trying and dangerous position, which demands for him the cordial,
patient, and delicate consideration of the American nation. He is placed
in a situation where the very existence of the republic requires that he
use powers not technically delegated to him, and in which the people
expect, yea, demand him, to adopt methods transcending the strict letter
of statute law, the use of which powers and the adoption of which
methods would be denounced as the worst of crimes, even made the
basis of an impeachment, should the mass of the populace be
dissatisfied with his proceedings. It is easy to find fault, easy in
positions devoid of public responsibility to think we see how errors
might have been avoided, how powers might have been more
successfully employed and greater results achieved. But the American
Executive is surrounded with difficulties too little appreciated by the

public, while an almost merciless criticism, emanating both from
injudicious friends and vigilant foes, follows his every action. Criticism
should not be relaxed; but it should be exercised by those only who are
competent to undertake its office. The perusal of the morning paper
does not ordinarily put us in possession of sufficient information to
enable us to understand, in all their bearings, the measures of the
Government. Something more is required than a reading of the
accounts of battles furnished by the correspondents of the press to
entitle one to express an opinion on military movements. It should not
be forgotten that the officers engaged in the army of the United States
are better judges of military affairs than civilians at home; that the