CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



203 



any of them believe that a sheriff has any 

 power to issue a command to any portion of 

 the army." 



Mr. Edmunds : " Nobody has said anything 

 of that kind." 



Mr. Hill: "What have you stated, then? 

 You are still insisting whether the sheriff has 

 not a right to command General Sherman and 

 his staff in Pennsylvania to obey his orders." 



Mr. Edmunds: "The Senator is entirely 

 mistaken." 



Mr. Hill: "The Senator will excuse me. lean 

 not give way any more for such interruptions." 



Mr. Edmunds : " Very well. When the Sen- 

 ator is stating what I believe, I merely ask his 

 permission to say that I have not said that I 

 believed anything of the kind." 



Mr. Hill: "I know the Senator has not said 

 it ; he dare not state it ; he would not state it ; 

 but that implication is in everything he said " 



Mr. Edmunds: "The Senator is mistaken 

 about that." 



Mr. Hill: " Because he makes an issue with 

 the Senator from Pennsylvania on the plain 

 question as to the power of the sheriff to give 

 an order to a portion of the army. I lay down 

 the broad proposition that the sheriff as such 

 has no power or authority to command the 

 army or any portion of it, or to issue a command 

 to the army or to any portion of it." 



Mr. Edmunds : " The Senator has just now 

 stated a perfectly sound proposition of law, and 

 I am very glad to give in my adhesion to it. I 

 wish to ask the Senator in that connection this 

 question : Suppose the sheriff did call upon the 

 officers and privates " 



Mr. Hill: "If the Senator will wait I will 

 answer that question, because it has been asked 

 a dozen times." 



Mr. Edmunds: "If the sheriff in the case 

 supposed did call upon the officers and privates 

 of a company of the army of the United States, 

 and they responded to that call and assisted him 

 in the execution of his process, would they be 

 doing a lawful act? " 



Mr. Hill : "I will answer that question as the 

 Senator knows it can only be answered, and 

 that is by saying that neither the officers nor 

 the soldiers of the army would have any right 

 or authority to answer the demand of the sher- 

 iff as an army or as soldiers." 



Mr. Edmunds: "The Senator has not an- 

 swered the question at all." 



Mr. Hill: "Because they are governed by 

 the rules and articles of war; they are not 

 governed by the sheriff. The Senator will par- 

 don me. This mode of debate must stop. We 

 understand this question perfectly. Of course 

 there are occasions in all countries where un- 

 der the laws it is the duty of every man to save 

 life, to save property, to suppress crime. I 

 care not whether he is a soldier or whether he 

 is a citizen, whether a man or a woman, I care 

 not what he is, there are times when, in order 

 to suppress violence, in order to suppress crimes, 

 it is the duty of every man equally to act and 



to obey anybody's orders, or to obey anybody's 

 information who gives notice of it. But that 

 is not the question involved here. The ques- 

 tion is not involved in this section whether sol- 

 diers would be guilty of crime when they would 

 suppress a crime as any other citizen would 

 suppress it. The point is in their character as 

 an army. What authority has the sheriff to 

 give an order to a military officer? Under what 

 obligation is a military officer to obey the order 

 of a sheriff, or a marshal, or any other civil 

 officer ? None on earth. He obeys the Presi- 

 dent's proclamation and the President's com- 

 mand, solely because the President is made by 

 the Constitution the commander of the army 

 and navy. 



" It is time this country should see the dis- 

 tinction between civil authority and military 

 authority, and keep the army distinct from a 

 posse comitatus. I affirm again that the army 

 is not a posse comitatus. No power that 

 commands a posse comitatus can command the 

 army as such. They are governed wholly by 

 a different code. I deeply regret that anybody, 

 under any pretext, should say that it is lawful 

 to use the army in this country as a posse 

 comitatus. Take the case supposed, that was 

 put to the Senator from North Carolina, of a 

 distiller : the marshal is resisted, and he calls 

 upon the bystanders to enforce the law, and 

 the bystanders refuse. Says the Senator from 

 Vermont, suppose all the bystanders refused 

 and suppose the whole community refused, and 

 suppose the grand jury refuse, and suppose the 

 country refuse ? Well, suppose everybody re- 

 fuses to do their duty ? " 



Mr. Edmunds: " I have not said that." 



Mr. Hill : " Then the Government is a failure, 

 that is all. You can suppose a great many 

 things. Suppose the moon were to turn to 

 blood and were to fall, what then? " 



Mr. Edmunds : " Then there would be no 

 bystanders." 



Mr. Hill : " You can suppose anything. You 

 can never make a sound argument by suppos- 

 ing extreme cases. What I say is, and I pre- 

 sume no Senator will deny it, that a posse comi- 

 tatus is governed by one law, it is under one 

 authority, it is under one command ; the army 

 is governed by another law, it is under another 

 authority, it is under another command, wholly 

 separate and distinct; it is a distinct govern- 

 ment. The army is governed by the rules and 

 articles of war. A posse comitatus is not gov- 

 erned by the rules and articles of war. The 

 sheriff and marshal have no authority under 

 the rules and articles of war." 



Mr. Edmunds : " May I call the Senator's 

 attention, if I may ask him a question, to the 

 phrase in this section other than the posse 

 comitatus phrase ? The inhibition is that they 

 shall not be employed * as a posse comitatus, 

 or otherwise.' Therefore we are perhaps wast- 

 ing a little time as to answering what the posse 

 comitatus may be composed of, because passing 

 that we come to the other point." 



