CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



245 



port of what lie regards, and what I regard, to 

 be the best Government on earth, go down to 

 perdition rather than he would sanction that 

 which has been the law of the land well ex- 

 pressed for two years. The trouble is not in 

 the law. Senators, the law is plain. When you 

 said there should be no longer the writ of habeas 

 corpus in the United States, you said that in 

 its stead there should be this high and sure 

 remedy, that a man should only be held for a 

 time, but that when the court came round, if 

 the grand jury did not indict him he should be 

 discharged. You said it. The question is, Shall 

 it be the law, or shall there be above the Sen- 

 ate and above the House of Kepresentatives a 

 higher power in the country, a power to place 

 a man upon trial ? 



"My colleague says that some of our fellow- 

 citizens in Indiana have been put upon trial be- 

 fore courts-martial for civil offences. I know 

 what the offence charged was. It was a con- 

 spiracy to commit treason. That was the 

 charge. And where do you find the offence 

 described ? You find it defined in the act of 

 1862, well defined, and the penalty prescribed 

 not the penalty of going before a military court, 

 but the penalty is a trial before the United 

 States district court, a civil court, upon an in- 

 dictment, and the punishment is to follow the 

 judgment of that court. The law is, as we de- 

 clared it, that the President shall not try a man 

 who is not connected with the army or the navy 

 before. a military court, but that he shall simply 

 hold him in custody, and for that time the writ 

 of habeas corpus is suspended, and shall then 

 bring him before the court, and if he is not 

 found guilty by a grand jury he shall go acquit- 

 ted. We said that; but the military officers 

 say no, and, as my colleague says, in the very 

 eye of that law men have been sentenced to 

 death in Indiana. That is true, as I under- 

 stand. Men have been so sentenced to die, and 

 if they die in violation of law who is the mur- 

 derer ? No man's life can be taken except by 

 authority of law. If there is authority of law 

 for it my colleague may sustain the shedding 

 of the blood, he may say that the garments of 

 the officers are yet white after it is done ; but it 

 has been long decided by the tribunals of our- 

 race that if it is against law it is a murder. 

 That has been too long decided to be questioned 

 now." 



Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, said: "lam 

 willing to say that I have had great charity for 

 many people who at first supposed it was neces- 

 sary to resort to military tribunals to find a 

 remedy for disloyalty. The thought that the 

 Union would be destroyed and the nation divid- 

 ed was so shocking to the minds of loyal men 

 that they were not likely to stop at any means 

 to prevent a consummation so much dreaded ; 

 but after the experience we have had of the 

 mischievous working of unconstitutional meas- 

 ures, we ought not only to stop them for the 

 future, but we ought to congratulate ourselves 

 that the Constitution itself is again vindicated 



in the fact that it contains the true rules for our 

 guidance even in times of civil war. I hope, 

 too, that when it is again established as the su- 

 preme law of the Union, it will only have a 

 firmer hold on our affections, because its wis- 

 dom has been demonstrated by the consequences 

 of disregarding it. 



" Now, let us contrast the course of the law as 

 I have described it with the course adopted 

 since the commencement of the war, of subject- 

 ing citizens not in the land or naval forces to 

 trial by courts-martial, and we will soon see the 

 difference. In the one we will find the utmost 

 care and tenderness for the life, liberty, and 

 character of the citizen, while in the other there 

 is no security whatever for any of them. The 

 innocent are in quite as much danger as the 

 guilty, and not generally as well qualified to 

 make defence. 



" And first : the charges are half the time of 

 that vague, indefinite character, that it is not 

 possible to reduce them with any degree of cer- 

 tainty to a definition, especially as there is no 

 statute to furnish a guide. They are drawn up 

 without any technical skill, and the record left 

 of them would make but a sorry plea on a sub- 

 sequent trial for either a former acquittal or con- 

 viction. A man might be put in peril on ac- 

 count of the same offence as often as it pleased 

 his judges for aught they would serve him. 



" The court-martial itself is not free ; it is com- 

 posed of officers themselves constantly seeking 

 and constantly expecting promotion from their 

 superiors ; and they are of course not at liberty 

 to do any thing which might interfere with their 

 prospects in that respect. This is a prime mis- 

 chief, as they only sit under special commis- 

 sions, and for the trial of particular persons, 

 whom it is the desire of the superiors to con- 

 vict, or they would not have issued the com- 

 mission. It would be singular, therefore, if the 

 tribunal did not do the work it was set to do, 

 and that with hearty good will, while they can 

 have no sympathy with the accused, who be- 

 longs to a different class from themselves. 



" These officers are chosen, too, by those who 

 as a general rule are anxious to vindicate the 

 administration of their own department, and 

 divert the attention of the public from then* own 

 delinquencies, by exposing the spectacle of some 

 inferior victim, the judge advocate, who is in 

 reality a kind of anomalous cross between a 

 prosecutor and judge, having the disposition of 

 the one and the power of the other to bring 

 about a conviction. 



" The further mischief of these trials is that 

 being utterly repugnant to the genius of our 

 institutions and our laws, they command no 

 respect and satisfy no demand of justice. No- 

 body ever acquiesces in the propriety of .their 

 findings, even while admitting them to be sub- 

 stantially correct, because, having no confidence 

 in the machinery used, there is always a linger- 

 ing suspicion that unfairness has existed in tho 

 proceedings. 



" Again, these courts are directed to sit, often- 



