CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



207 



personal affront, and would say with truth: 

 * We know that the law speaks to us to-day ; 

 we have obeyed it ; we propose to obey it ' ; 

 and I do not think it is the fair thing to put 

 such a command on the statute-book addressed 

 to the military arm of the Government. 



" I have another objection, and that is that 

 I feel it is an affront to that administration of 

 this Government which has for several years 

 been intrusted with the command of the army. 

 It carries upon its face an intimation that some- 

 thing has transpired in our history to justify, 

 to require the imposition of this new rule. 

 Many Senators on this floor may think such is 

 the case. The Senator from North Carolina 

 (Mr. Merrimon) I understood to say yesterday 

 that the army had been in multitudinous in- 

 stances employed in violation of law. I un- 

 derstood him to say that the army had been 

 employed to control elections, that the army 

 had been employed to seize State-houses. Mr. 

 President, where slept that supreme law to 

 which the Senator from Delaware has pointed 

 us when the army was so employed ? I think 

 the Senator from North Carolina has been mis- 

 informed. I venture to say to him, although 

 I have heard similar charges made repeatedly 

 elsewhere, that the army never has been em- 

 ployed to control elections, and never has seized 

 State-houses. If it has been done, it has been 

 done so covertly as not to have secured my 

 attention ; and I do not want this reproach to 

 be hurled at the army unless it be accompanied 

 by the instance ; and if the instance is shown, 

 I shall reprobate the act as promptly as the 

 Senator from North Carolina or any other Sen- 

 ator. I think the army has been employed 

 very industriously, very scrupulously, some- 

 times, I admit, very vigorously, but always to 

 uphold the law and every right, so far as it 

 could reach right, existing under law. That 

 is my understanding of the history of the Gov- 

 ernment for many yeavs past. 



"But I have another objection to this sec- 

 tion. It proposes new and I think extravagant 

 penalties for a violation of duty on the part of 

 the army. Suppose some soldier or some offi- 

 cer with his uniform and his epaulets on should 

 do what the law forbids, as the Senator from 

 Delaware has told you, as every Senator con- 

 cedes, I think he is amenable to all the laws 

 which hold you and. me responsible when we 

 do the same thing, and to this other penalty : 

 he exposes himself to military discipline and to 

 oeing dismissed from the army. If he wrongs 

 an individual in person or property, he must 

 respond to that individuil and make him good, 

 just as I must if I do the same thing. If he 

 commits a larceny, a burglary, a common as- 

 sault, a battery, he responds to the State, just 

 as I respond if I do the same thing; and, in 

 addition to these penalties, he is liable to be 

 proceeded against under military law and is 

 subjected to its animadversions ; and in addi- 

 tion to all this you now propose to say that he 

 may be subjected to an enormous fine and to a 



long term of imprisonment. I think this is 

 multiplying penalties needlessly. 



" For all these reasons I should be opposed 

 to this section if it were to be construed precise- 

 ly as the Senator from Delaware construes it. 

 But is that the true construction ? I will not 

 say that it is not ; I only say that Senators 

 differ as to what the construction is ; and it 

 seems to me hardly worth while to put a savage 

 provision into the statute, the limitations of 

 which are disputed about by even the warmest 

 friends of the provision." 



Mr. McMillan, of Minnesota, said : " Mr. 

 President, in addition to the defects in this 

 section already pointed out, it seems to me 

 there is still a further objection to it, and to 

 the principle involved in it of making any act 

 of this kind an indictable offense or a criminal 

 offense which must be prosecuted in the forms 

 of the common law. If these acts^are unlawful, 

 then there are punishments provided for them 

 which are sufficient. If an officer of the army 

 violates a law of the United States, he is sub- 

 ject to court-martial and can be punished in 

 that way. If the President of the United States 

 himself, as commander-in-chief of the army, 

 violates a law of the United States, he is sub- 

 ject to a penalty that is, impeachment. But 

 if this section, even as amended, does not create 

 new offenses, it does prescribe a new punish- 

 ment for offenses ; and it prescribes a mode of 

 punishment which must be according to the 

 common law. That would be by indictment. 

 If that be so, then in many cases it would be 

 used or abused to interfere with the proper 

 movements of the army and the enforcement 

 of law. Any citizen who might differ with an 

 officer of the army issuing a command to per- 

 form an act might, under this statute, proceed 

 to make information against the officer, an 

 officer in command of an actual expedition, 

 and could have him under personal arrest taken 

 from his command, imprisoned, and the whole 

 penalty here prescribed inflicted upon him. 

 There have been innumerable instances, and 

 there might be others, in which such a step 

 as that would result in great disaster." 



Mr. Teller, of Colorado, said : " If the Sena- 

 tor from Minnesota will allow me to interrupt 

 him, I would suggest to him that the com- 

 mander-in-chief of this officer, who he says 

 might be interrupted in his course, has ample 

 power, if there is any opposition of that char- 

 acter which he thinks improper, to interfere 

 and pardon him, even before there is any ac- 

 cusation made. Upon the bare charge the 

 President of the United States may pardon 

 a whole regiment or ten regiments, if he sees 

 fit." 



Mr. McMillan : " If this law will invoke such 

 an act as that on the part of the Executive, 

 then it is much worse than any imagined evil 

 that could exist against which the law would 

 be invoked. Certainly, if it could produce 

 such a state of affairs, that is a sufficient argu- 

 ment against the passage of such a law." 



