Year: 1861

dience to resolution of the House of Representa-
tives, adopted on the 18th inst, requiring a copy
of the opinion of the Attorney General, mentioned
| in the Presidents Message, in reference to the
suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, Judge
Bates has transmitted to the House copy of his
letter to the President of July 5th. 1t makes a
pamphlet of twelve pages, and is able and elab-
crate argument. There were these questions
| FrSt-ln the present time of great and dan
gerOus insurrecton, has the President the discre-
tonary power to cause to be arrested and held in
custody persons known to have criminal intercourse
with the insurgents, persons against whom there
is probable cause of suspicion Of such criminal
completely


SecOnd-In such cases of arrest, is the President
justified in refusing to obey writ of habeas cor
pus issued by Court or Judge, requiring him or
his agent to produce the body of the prisoner and
show the cause of his capture and detention, to be
adjudged and disposed Of by such Court or Judge.
| To the first question, Judge Bates, after pre-
liminary argument upon the relative powers of the
several branches of the Government, says


Z" l am clearly of the opinion that, in time like
the present. when the very existence of the nation
is assailed by great and dangerous insurrection,
| the President has the lawful discretionary power


to arrest and hold in custody persons known to have
criminal intercourse with the insurgents, or per-
sons against whom there is probable cause for
| piciOn of such criminal completely


After proceeding to prove this position, as to
the second question he says:


Z" Having assumed, in answering the first ques-
| ton, that the President has legal discretionary
powers, ETC., it might seem unnecessary to 90 into
any prolonged argument to prove that in such
case the President is fully justified in refusing to
obey writ of habeas corpus, etc''


| He concludes ' Not doubling the power of the
President to capture and hold by force open insur
gents against the Government, and to arrest and
! imprsOn their suspected accomplices, | never
thought of suspending the writ of habeas corpus,
any more than thought of suspending the writ of
replevin, before seizing arms and munitions destin
ed for the enemy. The power to do these things
is in the hands of the President, placed there by
the Constitution, and the statute law as sacred
trust, to be used by him, in his best discretion,
in the performance of his great first duty, to pre-
serve protect and defend the Constitution. and for
any breach of that trust he is responsible before
the high Court of impeachment, and before other
human tribunal"


TORONTO, c. W. July 29th.-The Globe news
paper, which has heretofore strongly sympathized
with the North, in an article to-day on American
affairs says the sympathies of the British people,
which were at first Enthusiastically with the North,
are fast becoming alienated by the unealed for as
saults and misrepresentation of the Anne rican
press. The leading newspaper Government Organ)
favors the idea of the Government sending addition
al troops to Canada before winter.


The Memphis papers contain the announcement
of meeting to be held in that city to devise means
to get the cotton crop to foreign market The
Memphis Bulletin learns that house in that city
sold, on Saturday, one hundred hogsheads of to-
bacco to the agent of the French Government, the
same being paid for in gold. The price obtained
was six cents per pound, which netted a profit of
$50 on the hogshead.


How THE News OF THE BATTLE OF Bulls Run
WAS RECEIVED IN New YoRK.-The New York cor
respondent of the Sacramento Union writes:


1t fell upon us here with scarcely less fearful
weight than upon the defeated army of Mcdowell
itself Our pride, vanity, egotism, all failed US,
suecumbed utterly. We had had too much of them
were too confident. boasted ourselves as one who
Tutteth off his armor, and were not prepared for
such rude destruction of our FOOLS paradise.
The morning papers came out Yesterday all full of
the account of the superb fighting at Bulls Run.
and how splendidly our fellows had behaved; how
the Fire Zouaves, Sixty-ninth, Seventy-frst and
Seventy ninth aSswung into the battle like the
"Old Guard, and carried battery after battery
at the point of the bayonet how our flying arEl-
lery and field batteries had unmasked and silen IL
their masked batteries; and finally, how the VIII N
secession army, with Beauregard and Davis at n
head, was in full retreat for Manassas Junction.
with our gallant and victorious army laundering
in their rear All was sunshine, couleur de rose,
iOviality and pleasurable excitement. Every face
beamed, every voice was CHEEKY, and anybody was
ready to treat anybody else who had mind to
drink health to the noble fellows who had won
the battle OF Bulls Run. The weather even joined
in the general exhilaration. A cool west wind
made the morning more like Autumn than July,
and the sunshine fell goldenly over all. Towards
noon, however, the east wind came in from the
sea. The heavens became dull and lowering, and
the sunshine and azure were followed by leaden-
gray heaven and damp, clnging atmosphere. Al
most at the point and instant of this atmospheric
change the electric current changed Its merry tune
along the wires to something like wall OF mingled
rage and grief Men clustered around the tele-
graph Offices, bulletins and on street corners and
talked low and savagely. 1t was as If moral
eclipse had passed over the whole community, or
great pail been drawn the city by the hand OF
0mnipotence, hiding from all men heaven and
hope. The extent of the disaster, which to-day
we begin to appreciate more calmly, was magnifed
by fear and to a total loss of our army under
Mcdowell, and q vague nervous belief that even as
men talked together-at that very instant, perhaps
the victorious columns of Davis, BeauIegard and
Johnston were driving the defeated before them
over the intrenchments at Alexandra and Airing
ton, and entering them pel-mell with the demoral-
lied and fainting rout Long before sundown al
most every shop in the city was shut by che spon-
taneous action of public feeling. There was no
talk about doing it, but it was done and excited no
remark. Men were too busy with their thinkings,
and too anxiour TO with friends the causes
of the disaster to attend to business. Even the
stock exchange showed before half past two. p.
NJ not FIVE faces at its board, and the outside ope
raters who usually cluster in ffties and hundreds
about the corner of William street and Exchange
place had vanished and left the street silent as
Sunday. If the people at Washington could have
heard the echo from New York they would have
felt growing on them at the least vague uneasi-
ness and fear of that many headed monster thing
the people. Always rash, and in its first bursts
of fury and fiery impatienee of defeat, unjust and
ready to tear in pieces friend foe, to dash down
its own idols and court greater rather than re-
pair a lesser ruin-the monster growled only re-
venge from all its mouths both gentle and simple