Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1864-11-03
SUBORNATION OF CRIME.

chants Of this city, before Military Commission
upon the charge of selling goods to blockade-run
, ners and contraband traders within the lines o.
] the enemy. 1t appeared from the testimony o.
the only witness produced on the part of the Gov
ernment in this case, that the said witness, with
his wife, was engaged about the lst of April last
and sent out by the Government as principal in
the illicit business to which the accused merchants
were charged with being accessories, from the fact
that they had sold to him the goods which he was
authorized by the Government to sell to guerrillas
within the enemy's lines This man Worsely, the
Governments witness, says:
"He sold goods to Mosby and his officers under the di-
rectiOn and pih the kno0dgs Of the Government, and he
a',oays informed the GOUernmen Of ,ohat he did, Wnesss
e also in the business and he compensated
by the Government. Witness had made money by selling
goods but had divided proceeds with the Government
Witness gaze bonds the Government and they took his
honor for the faithful performance efhis duties
In the case of Hamilton Easter & Co., mer-
chants of Baltimore, arraigned before the same
military commission on the same charge, and in
its sole source of evidence against the accused
this man swore in like manner as follows:
He running the goods to the South by the order
Of Gem Augxr; he had permits to buy and sell those
goods from Gen. Augur he did full knowledge Of and
by the authority Of the General Government he reported
every trip to Gen. Augur, with whom he left the letters
which he always brought from the South"
1t appears, therefore, that this man was con-
traband trader with the enemy, under the autho-
rity and by the direction of the Government, pur-
suing this business as profession in the paid
service Of the Government for the purpose of aot-
ing as spy upon the enemy and as decoy to in-
veigle merchants on our side of the line into the
commission of acts which might subject them to
the charge of selling goods to contraband traders.
We have nothing to say upon the immortality of
such transaction. 1t is SO shocking to the moral
sense of the community that any argument in the
case would be superfuou,. But we wish to call at
tention to the legal aspects of the question raised
by these prosecutions.
If the agent of the Government had permission
from the Government to trade with the enemy
we have to ask what crime was committed by the
men who sold the goods to q licensed trader If
it was lawful for Worsely to carry the goods to
knowledge, but, as he sWears, under the direction
of the Government, it was certainly no crime to
furnish to this agent of the Government the stock
on which he traded in its service.
But it may be said that the Government per-
mitted this to engage in illicit trade with the
enemy in order more perfectly to keep up the char
acter he was Stimulating. Such defence proceeds
on the assumption that the Government may violate
the law, without guilt, in the effort to entrap pri-
vate citizens into the violation of the law IL the
Government may in this way suborn men to the
commission of crime there is an end of all moral
what is right and wrong Morality and virtue are
transformed by such theory into mere matters of
convention, which Government is permitted to
disregard with impunity 1t would be an insult
to common sense, to common morality, and to COM
mon decency to suppose that any court Of law would
give its sanction to doctrine SO abhorren this.
In the defence made by the Hon. Mr.. Riddle in
the case Of johnson & Sutton, before the Military
Commission, he referred in detail to the case of
Marshal McPhail, of Baltimore, in June last, in
which it appeared that certain persons were seduced
into the commission of disloyal deeds" by the
MarshaPs detectives, and were finally caught with
their contrabaud goods off North Point, while on
the way to Virginia, as they supposed. Chief
Justice Taney, when the case was brought before
him in the U. S. Circuit Court appeal from the u
s District Court, commented severely on the enor-
nifty of the offence of seducing and betraying men
into the commission Of crime and refused to condemn
the property under such circumstances. The Chief
Justice accordingly gave his decision, reversing the
decision of the District Court ordered the goods to
be restored, and said: "Marshsl McPhail had rem
dered himself amenable to action at law"
We give IN abstract Of this decision, so directly
applicable to the pending before the Mill
tary Commission in this city, as we find it in the
Baltimore Sun Of June 4th, 1868:
"The Chief Justice reversed the decision Of the District
Court condemniDg the goods, and decided the points
favor of the claimants In pronoupcpg his decision
stated the TO be without parallel in the urspru-
dence of this country of England. He reviewed and
analysed the evidence at length charscerng the con-
forgery and fraud and stated that of Justice
could condemn goods seized under the Of
this case That to do would be to make themselves
party to the fraud that it would establish precedent
seductive Of the fidelity Of the citizen and demoralizug
the officers of the Government The decree ordered the
property or its appraised value paid INTO court The
Chief Justice further decided that there not probable