This is the true path to peace. Let us tread it with confidence in the assured result.
To the Senate and House of Representatives.
I herewith transmit for your consideration a communication from the Secretary of War, showing that a dangerous conspiracy exists in some of the counties of southwestern Virginia and in the neighboring portions of North Carolina and Tennessee, which it is found impracticable to suppress by the ordinary course of law. The facts are so fully exhibited by the report and accompanying papers, herewith submitted, that I consider it unnecessary to repeat them or to do more than invite your early attention to disclosures upon which I deem it my duty to recommend the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in order that full efficacy may be given to the military power for the repression of the evil.
It may be proper here to add that after the expiration of the term for which the writ was suspended serious embarrassment was encountered, particularly at Mobile, Wilmington, and Richmond, on account of the inability of the military authorities to arrest and hold suspected persons against whom the testimony was sufficient to give full assurance that they were spies or holding treasonable communication with the enemy, though legal proof could not be adduced to secure their commitment and conviction by the courts, either because of the character of the evidence or of the necessity for concealing the sources of information, which were not infrequently within the enemy's lines.
To the Senate and House of Representatives.
I herewith transmit a communication from the Secretary of War, covering copies of several reports of military operations during the present year, and renew my suggestion that all such papers are submitted for the information of Congress, and that it is not considered advisable to publish them at this time.
