The Plymouth weekly Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1860-1869, 1865-06-01
The Machinery Oh DE- 'p0tis N.
from the Malone IN. " Gazette,


of President Lincoln by board Of army
officers, instead Of by court and jury,
after presentment, furnishes sad but con.
elusive evidence Of the change which has
been ght in the syste II Of government
under which we live. Day after day. by
some new spring, crank or contrivance
arc we made aware that constitutional re-
ouirements and prohibitions exercise
not the slightest influence upon the gov
ernmental machinery now III operation in
our country. Even some of the leading
Republican journals are becoming alarmed
at his state of things; and the Tribune
earnestly calls the attention of the author
tiles to an old document, bearing the sig
nature of GEORGE WASHING TON, and
denominated the Constitution Of the Uni
ted States, in which it is written:
The trial of az crimes, except i'll cases Of
impeachment, SHALL be by .juIy; and
such trial shall be held in the States where
the said crimes shall have been commit
ted: but when not committed within any
State, the trial shall be at such place or
places as the Congress may by law have
directed, y Art. 3, sec. >.
"No person shall be held to answer for
canital or otherwise infamous crime un-
less on prcsentment or indictment OF a
grand jury. except ia cases arising in the
land or naval forces, or in the militia,
when in sctual service in time Of war or
public danger. II Art. 5.
''In al criminal prosecutions the ac-
cusel shall enjoy the right to speedy
and public trial BY an impartial jury of
the State and district wherein the crime
shall have been committed, which district
shall have been previously ascertained by
law. and to be informed of the nature and
cause of the accusation" &c Art. 8.
I'VE DO not know by what authority
tsays the Evening Post) military tribu-
nal is preferred to civil, but we are free
to say that whatever the authority, i.
would be more satisfactory to the public,
more u accordance with the spirit of our
institutions, to have these felons tried in
the regular way" But that they are not
thus tried-that instead, the machinery
peculiar to despotic governments is put in
operation, IN open and insolent defiance OF
the Constitution, shows where We are
drifting, if we have rot already arrived
there. The New York Times, too, which
is not wont to lean to the side Of justice
against the practices Of .he men welding
the power Of the government, Is moved TO
make the following comments, among 9th
ers equally pointed, upon this sne5nstitC-
tonal court martial trial:
1--WE think it would have been infinite
ly better to have postponed the trial till all
publicity could do no harm, even if that
period were likely u be six months distant,
than introduce into this country so move
spirit of our institutions, as that which Is
now sitting in Washington. 1t is one for
which no precedent is to be found in the
history of any free country, and one to
which the worst European dcspotisms
have rarely ventured, even III Poland or
| Hungary. to resort. Even the unhappy
victims Of the Irish rebellion were prepar
cd fer the gallows IN open court, and in
he light OF day
Those who fat:er themselves that pub
lie opinion, either at home or abroad, will
be much influenced by version which
has been edited and expurgatcd by the
Judge Advocate, must be very simple
people indeed. Nobody will permit him
self whatever his lcanings may be, to at
tach any value to revelations made under
conditions III which every rule Of evi-
dcnce is set at nanght, and even the ex-
pericncc Of every day life treated with
contempt. What makes the matter all the
worse is, that on the very day OH which this
tribunal began its proceedings, the state
of things which alone could justify it, if
anything could justify il, hid bcea formal
ly declared at an end 10y proclamation un-
der tie Presidents hand and sc |. For
eign overs were warned that the war was
over at the very moment that tribunal
was assembling, for whose constitution
and procedure nothing but overw hcimng
and imminent danger to the national ex-
istencc would be a sufficient warrant
On monday last, in charging the Grand
Jury at Albany, Judge Peckham, one o!
the abest lawyers in the State, took occa-
sion to say:
a great crime has Lately been commit
ted. that has shocked the civilized world
Every right minded man desires the pun
ishment of the criminals-but he desires
the punishment to be administered accor.
ding to law, and through the judicial tri-
bunals of the country No star chamber
court-no secret inquisition, in the Nine
teenth century, can ever be made accep
,ble to the American mind.
IF none but the guilty would be ac>
cuscd then no trial could be necessary
execution should follow accusation.
| 1T is almost as necessary that the pub
lie should have undoubted faith in the
purity Of criminal justice as it is that justice
should, in fact be administered with intcg
rity.
Grave doubts, to say the least, exist in
the minds of intelligent men as to the con
sttutioral right Of the recent military
commissions at Washington to sit in judg-
ment upon the persons now on trial for
their lives before that tribunal. Thought
full men feel aggrieved that such com
} mission should be established in this free
country when the war is over, and when
the common law courts are open and ac-
cessible to administer justice according to