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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



and how will you get convictions? I believe 

 that this bill had far better fail than to incor- 

 porate any such provision upon it. It is but a 

 reCcho of the old cry against arbitrary arrests 

 that I first heard in this chamber from the 

 mouth of John C. Breckinridge, now a rebel in 

 arms against the Government. All that has 

 been said against arbitrary arrests I heard more 

 eloquently and more ably said by him than I 

 have heard by any once since ; and yet this is 

 introduced here as a rebuke to the Administra- 

 tion, as a rebuke to all these military courts ! 

 Let me tell the Senate that when you put in 

 operation all the machinery of criminal courts 

 and all the machinery of civil courts, you will 

 not punish the one-hundredth part of the 

 rebels, North or South, who deserve to die a 

 felon's death." 



Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, said: "I never 

 heard a different construction given to the Ar- 

 ticles of War adopted by Congress in 1806, and 

 certainly never heard it intimated that it was 

 possible, by any interpretation of the fifth con- 

 stitutional amendment, to authorize a man to 

 be tried for a capital or other infamous offence 

 except on an indictment and presentment, un- 

 less he was in the military or naval service of 

 the United States or in the militia. But the 

 practical construction that these military men 

 have put upon that clause is that they have the 

 power to try everybody who is charged with 

 any offence that in their opinion remotely affects 

 the military service, or remotely no matter 

 how remotely has a tendency to aid the re- 

 bellion. I know the military prisons in Balti- 

 more have been filled with citizens who have 

 been charged with no offence that, except by a 

 military sense, could be construed in any way as 

 assisting the rebellion ; and that is the case all 

 over the country ; and it is attended with enor- 

 mous expense. There have been at times from 

 one to two hundred men in Baltimore, citizens 

 of Maryland or citizens who happened to be 

 found there, imprisoned ; not notified of what 

 the offence for which they were imprisoned 

 was until they were brought out before a mili- 

 tary commission or military court-martial to be 

 tried ; and that was not done until they had 

 been in prison for months and months. And 

 when they are brought out, how are they tried ? 

 They are tried by a violation of the most ordi- 

 nary and best-established rules of evidence. 

 All the safeguards and rules of evidence, adopt- 

 ed after the experience of centuries and thrown 

 around the citizen who is charged with an of- 

 fence, have been disregarded. What is the 

 operation upon the Government in a financial 

 point of view? The honorable member from 

 Ohio showed me a letter the other day stating 

 that there was a trial going on in Cincinnati at 

 that time that had cost or would cost the Gov- 

 ernment from one to two hundred thousand 

 dollars. A trial down in Boston, the trial to 

 which I believe the honorable member from New 

 Hampshire (Mr. Hale) referred the other day, cost 

 the Government I do not know how much more. 



" But not only have these military gentlemen 

 violated, and, I think, as I speak it with all 

 proper respect for the opinion of my friend 

 from Indiana, their duty in the particulars to 

 which I have adverted, but the provisions of 

 your own legislation on the subject have been 

 disregarded by the Executive. Congress was 

 aware the wailings from every State brought 

 the fact to your knowledge that these out- 

 rages upon the liberty of the citizen were being 

 perpetrated ; that men were kept in prison, not 

 for days, for weeks, or for months, but for 

 years, without being advised of what the charge 

 against them was, and you therefore, as far 

 back as the 3d of March, 1863, said: 



That the Secretary of State and the Secretary of 

 War be, and they are hereby, directed, as soon as 

 practicable, to furnish to the judges of the circuit 

 and district courts of the United States, and of the 

 District of Columbia, a list of the names of all per- 

 sons, citizens of States in which the administration 

 of the laws has continued unimpaired in the said 

 Federal courts, who are now, or may hereafter be, 

 held as prisoners of the United States, by order or 

 authority of the President of the United States, or 

 either of said Secretaries, in any fort, arsenal, or 

 other place, as State or political prisoners, or other- 

 wise than as prisoners of war. 



" The list is to be sent to the courts, and if 

 there was no presentment or indictment within 

 a limited time the parties are to be discharged. 

 That law has been utterly disregarded. An in- 

 vestigation made by a committee of the other 

 House some weeks ago exhibited a state of 

 things existing here, within the sound of our 

 voices, shocking to every sense of freedom 

 which ought to be entertained by the Ameri- 

 can citizen. More than a year ago the Presi- 

 dent of the United States constituted a com- 

 mission to visit these several places and 

 discharge persons against whom there was 

 no ground of arrest in their opinion, and they 

 found, as one of them told me, here in the Old 

 Capitol prison, right before us, a man who had 

 been there for five or six months ; and when the 

 person who had placed him there was called 

 before the commission to state upon what 

 grounds he was placed there, he said that he 

 had made a mistake ; he was not the man he 

 intended to arrest ; he was somebody else. 



" To say now that every citizen of the United 

 States is to be dragged before a military tribu- 

 nal is to say that our fathers fought during the 

 revolution in vain. We are now, as long as 

 this state of things lasts, in no better condition 

 than the subjects of the Turkish empire ; not in as 

 good a condition as the subjects of the Emperor 

 of France, if any one can, at the instance of any 

 detective of the Government, be cast into pris- 

 on, and whatever he may think proper, or the 

 military may think proper, brought out and 

 tried by a military commission who do not 

 know what the rules of evidence are, or who, 

 if they do know, in general utterly disregard 

 them. I have done, sir." 



Mr. Stewart, of Nevada, said: "Mr. Presi- 

 dent, but for the suspension of the writ of 

 liabeas corpus, but for the strong arm of the 



