Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1861-06-06
[From the Baltimore SUM-
The Suspension of the Writ of JInbeas
Corpus.

me suspension the writ JtnOenS
Corpus.
The people of this city heard with emotion
some days since that Gen. Cadwaader had been
authorized by the President to suspend the writ
of habeas corpus in watever cases he deemed it
All knew that such power left the
liberty of the citizen at the mercy Of the mill
tary officer to whom it was confided. And
with this conviction in their hearts, men have
endeavored to discover whether it was possible
that our Constitution and laws were SO framed
as to leave any doubt as to the illegal character
of such power.
We are faithful servants Of the Constitution
and the laws of the United States, and our sense
Decentralization to their mandates leaves us at
liberty to question any authority which is not
derived from them. Therefore it is that we pro-
pose to consider the subject, exercising that "lib-
erty of unlicensed printing" for which John
Milton pleaded in days not unlike those upon
which we have fallen.
The Constitution of the United States (sec 9,
clause q provides that ''the privilege of the writ
of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless
when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the pub
lie safety may require it, The orders given
by the President rest upon the hypothesis that
he has the power to decide, in cases Of rebellion
and invasion, upon the exigencies of the public
safety, and to suspend this writ. 1t is our sim
pie duty to prove that there is no authority
whatever for such a position.
We owe the writ of habeas corpus to the COM
mon law of England. The great charter, sealed
by King John at Runnymede, on the 5th of
June, 1915, did but declare right which had
been long before possessed by Englishmen, when
it protected every individual in the nation in the
free enjoyment of his liberty, unless he was de-
prived of it by a jury Of his countrymen, or by
the law of the land And it was always, even
in the rudest days of early English society, in
the power of the subject to have the cause of
his Imprisonment, even if he were detained by
royal authority, investigated by the court of the
king. Although in rude times this common
law right was assailed, it was so seldom contro-
verted that Parliament did not deem it neces-
sary to enact law declaring the ancient right
of the subject until the arbitrary proceedings of
Lord Clarendon made it necessary. English
men then began the struggle for the legislative
recognition of this right. and for its regulation
by law, and this struggle terminated in COM
plete SUCCESS in the short session of the year
| 1879, for it was then that the "habeas corpus"
| act was passed.
| 1t is the law of the land in England We
pay a just tribute to the institutions of that
country when we say that since the year 1888
it has been respected alike by the executive and
judicial power of the realm. Neither king,
magistrate, or soldier can, in that land, suspend
the right which subject has, when imprisoned,
to the writ of "habeas corpus" When crisis
occurs of such danger to the State as to make it
expedient that the 'habeas corpus act" should
be suspended, the Parliament only, in the exer-
else of it's supreme legislative power and discre-
ton, can effect such result. The King is
powerless to deprive the meanest subject of the
right of this writ, until he receives by cypress
grant such authority from Parliament. William
| the Third, stranger to the nation, and with an
army at his command, did not venture upon
such step without the authority of Parliament,
although he was surrounded by enemies of his
faith and household, and by consprators who
daily Reats ID a g}gi his life Aape
when she desired that this writ should be sus.
pended George the First, in the sharp perils
of his reign, sought also the power that was
needed from Parliament, and George the Third
initiated his example. 1t is to these instances
of subordination of his sovereigns to the law of
the land that the English historian may point
with just pride. We, unhappily on the other
hand, are left to lament that the English histo-
ran alone can claim such glory for the laws of
his country.
Our fathers in 1887, having achieved their
freedom from rule which they deemed arbi-
trary, set themselves to consider the safeguards
necessary. to the citizen in the new government
which they were forming. We have the record
of their proceedings before u.s. and it is from
this that we shall seek to know whether they
left the people of this land in the enjoyment of
a lesser liberty than they possessed while they
were yet subjects of England.
No man can read the proceedings of the Con-
vention of 1877 without realizing that its mem
bers believed that they enjoyed under the con-
stltuton of their several States all those personal
rights and liberties which the common law of
England secured to the citizen. They were
seemingly incredulous that any necessity existed
for the reservation of those rights in the new
Union which they were forming. One member
only, Charles Pinckney, seemed to have felt
prophetic sense of the necessity of securing to
the citizen of the new government by express
declaration, that right to the writ of habeas cor
pus which all citizens enjoyed under the consti-
tuition of the several States And for this fore
sight let us revere his memory, even while we
record that we owe more of the form and sub
stance of the present Constitution of the United
States to the exact and practical mind of that
statesman than we do to the mind of any other
member of the Convention which formed it.
The Convention met on the 14th May, 1887.
The first allusion made to the subjectin the Con-
vention was on Tuesday, May Goth: Charles
Pinckney then laid before the body ga draft of
federal government to be agreed upon between
the free and Independent States of America"
In that draft occurs the following clause: s'The
Legislature of the United States shall pass
law upon the subject of religion nor touching
nor abridging the freedom of the press; nor shall
the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus ever
be suspended, except in cases of rebellion or in
vasion." There can be no doubt, surely, from
the construction of this sentence that it intended
to confde the sole power of suspending the ha-
beas corpus to the National Legislature.
In the debate of that body the particular pro-
position of Mr.. Pinckney on the subject of the
habeas corpus was not adverted to until the
9th of July, 1887, when the draft embodying
| it, with other resolutions already agreed upon.
kwere referred to COMMITTEE of detail" This
fcommittee reported on the 9th of August, 1887;
but their report omitted all mention of this par
ticular subject. On Monday, August 20tb