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the two peoples naturally suggests itself. The Confederate Congress refused a number of times to make their Treasury notes a legal tender, construing the clause of the Constitution (alike in the Confederate and Federal) which related to the subject, more strictly than did the United States Congress: in the thorough discussions that took place, it was mainly the constitutional arguments which prevented such legislation, although this was advocated by many men of influence, among them General Lee. 32 In the practical application of the clause of the Constitution, “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it,” the Confederate government exhibited the greater regard for the liberty of the individual, and the Southern citizen the greater jealousy of the use of arbitrary power. Lincoln from the first assumed the right to suspend the writ by Executive decree, a right never claimed by Davis. It was generally conceded at the South that Congress alone possessed this power and the privilege was available to the citizens of the Confederacy except when curtailed by express statute. And the Confederate Congress asserted its rights boldly enough, declaring in the Act of February 15, 1864, that “the power of suspending the privilege of said writ … is vested solely in the Congress which is the exclusive judge of the necessity of such suspension.” The war may be said to have lasted four years: the periods of suspension of the writ in the Confederacy amounted in the aggregate to one year, five months and two days, less than one-half of the war’s duration. In the Union the writ was suspended or disregarded at any time and in any place where the Executive, or those to whom he delegated this power, deemed such action necessary. For anyone who in any manner or degree took

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