246 



CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



times, without any regard to the convenience 

 of suitors or witnesses, in places remote from 

 their homes and from the locality where the 

 offence was alleged to have been committed. 

 This is a great hardship, especially to the poor, 

 who cannot afford to pay for the travel and 

 wages of witnesses, who come from great dis- 

 tances, nor can the witnesses themselves afford 

 to attend at their own expense, with but a 

 doubtful chance that the bills of costs in the 

 end will be paid. Those familiar with the prac- 

 tice in criminal courts will be able at once to 

 feel the importance of this defect. 



" On the trial, too, it is well known that most 

 of the questions requiring the peculiar learning 

 of the lawyer are those of evidence, such as the 

 relevancy of the testimony. 



" But, perhaps, after all the greatest and most 

 serious objection to these courts lies in the fact 

 that they are engines of tyranny, useful only to 

 wreak out the vengeance of private malice or 

 partisan fury. They are in their nature espe- 

 cially adapted to these ends, and in all ages and 

 under all circumstances have been denounced 

 for the facilities they afforded in the execution 

 of such purposes. The slightest grounds are 

 sufficient to give them authority, and when 

 once in motion there is no force adequate to 

 restrain them, and they usually go on till they 

 are intolerable." 



Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, said : " It has been 

 argued against as if it were something very 

 different from what it is. The Senator from 

 Michigan says in his argument that this is a 

 proposition to let loose the criminals of the 

 country. He says that men who are undergo- 

 ing sentence will be discharged by it, and that 

 those held for trial will be discharged, and that 

 it is an assault upon the manner in which per- 

 sons charged with the administration of the 

 Government have discharged their duty. It is 

 no such thing, sir. The proposition is that 

 hereafter in the loyal States, where the courts 

 are open, no person not in some way connected 

 with the military service shall be tried by court- 

 martial or military commission. That is the 

 proposition. It does not propose to interfere 

 in the least with anybody who has been tried. 

 It is prospective in its operation. It does not 

 propose to discharge anybody. There is no 

 such word in it. Now, what becomes of all 

 that the Senator from Michigan said? Then 

 the Senator goes on to say that but for the ex- 

 ercise of this power to try persons by court- 

 martial and military commission, the city of 

 Chicago would have been burned, the dwelling 

 in which I live would have been burned. I do 

 not think any snch thing. I have no such 

 opinion. And the Senator from Nevada speaks 

 of the issue in the last election, and says that 

 what he had to meet upon the stump was a 

 complaint about arbitrary arrests. That is not 

 this question. This section does not say any 

 thing about arbitrary arrests ; this is a propo- 

 sition that persons shall not be tried in a par- 

 ticular way. It has nothing to do with arrest- 



ing them. It is not proposed to interfere wito 

 the power of arresting persons. That is given 

 by another act by which the habeas corpus is 

 suspended. This does not propose to repeal 

 that act. 



"But the Senator from Nevada says that 

 something akin to this was a question in the 

 last election. How came it to be a question ? 

 What was it that divided the North? There 

 was a time in the early stages of this war when 

 we were very much united in the North. Does 

 not the Senator from Nevada wish that to be 

 so again ? I know he does. He would have 

 every man in all these States united as one man 

 to crush this rebellion and crush it at once. I 

 think we should do nothing to divide the North 

 if we can help it. It is not politic to do it. It 

 is not wise to do it. What is it that has divid- 

 ed the North ? He says himself that the very 

 question he had to meet away out in Nevada 

 was the question about arrests, not the question 

 we are now considering, because this says 

 nothing about arrests, but somehow akin to it. 

 Does he not think it would have been better if 

 those who are charged with the administration 

 of the Government had so conducted them- 

 selves as, if possible, to have kept a united pub- 

 lic sentiment ? " 



The question recurring on the motion of Mr. 

 Lane, of Indiana, to strike out the section as 

 amended, resulted as follows : 



YEAS Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Chandler, Clark, 

 Conness, Farwell, Foster, Grimes, Harlan, Howard, 

 Howe, Lane of Indiana, Morgan, Merrill, Nye, Ram- 

 sey, Stewart, Sumner, Wilkinson, and Wilson 20. 



WATS Messrs. Buckalew, Cowan, Davis, Hale, 

 Hendricks, Johnson, McDougall, Nesmith, Powell, 

 Kiddle, Sprague, Trumbull, Van Winkle, and Wade 

 14. 



ABSENT Messrs. Carlile, Collamer, Dixon, Doolit- 

 tle, Foot, Harding, Harris, Henderson, Lane of 

 Kansas, Pomeroy, Richardson, Saulsbury, Sherman, 

 Ten Eyck, Willey, and Wright 16. 



So the motion to strike out prevailed, and 

 was approved by the House of Eepresentatives. 



In the House, on January 16th, a bill "to 

 guarantee to certain States whose governments 

 have been usurped or overthrown a republican 

 form of Government," was taken up for con- 

 sideration, when Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, offered 

 the following substitute, with instructions from 

 the Select Committee of the House on rebel- 

 lious States, to ask that it might be substituted 

 for the original bill. It was so ordered. 



That in the States declared in rebellion against the 

 United States, the President shall, by and with the 

 advice and consent of the Senate, appoint for each a 

 provisional governor, whose pay and emoluments 

 shall not exceed that of a brigadier-general of volun- 

 teers, who shall be charged with the civil administra- 

 tion of such State until a State government therein 

 shall be recognized as hereinafter provided. 



SEC. 2. And le it further enacted, That until the 

 United States shall have recognized a republican form 

 of State government, the provisional governor in 

 each of said States shall see that this act, and the 

 laws of the United States, and the laws of the State 

 in force when the State government was overthrown 

 by the rebellion, are faithfully executed within tho 



