enactments minutely define the nature of an infringement of their
provisions, and point out the various methods of procedure in order to
redress private grievance or to punish public wrong, in such instances.
These statutes emanate from the people, are the expression of their
will, and in consonance with them the action of the executive
authorities must proceed, whenever the civil law is sufficient for the
execution of legal measures.

But there comes a time, in the course of a nation's existence, when the
usual and regular methods of its life are interrupted; when peaceful
systems and civilized adaptations are forced to give place to the ruder
and more peremptory modes of procedure which belong to seasons of
hostile strife. The slow, methodical, oftentimes tedious contrivances of
ordinary law, admirably adapted for periods of national quietude, are
utterly inadequate to the stern and unforeseen contingencies of civil
war. Laws which are commonly sufficient to secure justice and afford
protection, are then comparatively powerless for such ends. The large
measure of liberty of speech and of the press safely accorded when there
is ample time to correct false doctrines and to redress grievances
through common methods, is incompatible with the rigorous promptitude,
energy, celerity, and unity of action necessary to the preservation of
national existence in times of rebellion. If an individual be suspected
of conspiring against his country, at such a time, to leave him at
liberty while the usual processes of law were being undertaken, would
perhaps give him opportunity for consummating his designs and delivering
the republic into the hands of its enemies. If a portion of the press
circulate information calculated to aid the foe in the defeat of the
national armies, to endeavor to prevent this evil by the slow routine of
civil law, might result in the destruction of the state. The fact that
we raise armies to secure obedience commonly enforced by the ordinary