Columbia democrat and star of the north. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1867, 1867-01-02
Military Tribunals.

The Supreme Court of the United States
have declared military tribunals unconstitu-
tional, in a decision recently made in case
tried before that body OF the unconstitu-
tionality of the courts-martial and military
commissions organized for the trial of civil
and so-called political offences, no jurist or
individual, of even mediocral calibre ever
doubted, and their existence under the ad-
ministration of Mr. Lincoln has done more
toward fastening upon the characters of the
chief officers of our government during his
administration the repulsive epithets of des-
pots and tyrants, than all their other official
acts combined. The ''little belp' of the
Secretary of State, by which he boasted he
would consign any citizen to bastile, was a
death-knell to personal liberty, and stigma
upon American government. But it was
upheld as military necessity by every
super loyal villain who supported the gov
erament' as means of help. Of the ille-
gality of military tribunals little evidence
was ever pretended by its advocates, who,
as general thing, pleaded their existence
merely as a military necessity. Now that
the war is over it is hopeful omen to see
the highest judicial tribunal of the land make
this great stride to the old constitutional po-
sition that the military is subservient to
the civil law for the assertion of which
our armies lost their ablest general, and law
abiding citizens were stigmatized as copper
heads by the malignant and cowardly pimps
of usurping military tyrant.
This decision of the Supreme Court is not
only most just and convincing vindication
of the position of the Democratic party dur
ing the war, but it is an equally damning
proof of the usurpation, tyranny and des-
potism of the imbecile and reckless admins
tration of Abraham Lincoln under the whip
of New England puritanical destructionists.
Forney's Press of the Goth inst, contains
a suggestive comment upon the decision of
the Supreme Court The language here
suggested as an argument against the deci-
sion, is most conclusive evidence that the
writer properly conceives the real charac-
ter of the man which that journal has so
elaborately applauded as a statesman, and
around whose memoryit it has attempted to
throw the halo of martyrdom. In speaking
of Justice Davis in connection with the de-
cision, the Press says:
''This distinguished jurist was the trusted
and bosom friend of Mr.. Lincoln and should
be among the most earnest guardians of his
fame. He is the executor eff his estate, and
received the high Office he holds from his
hands; and yet we now find him standing
over his grave, and declaring, in effect, not
only that this, his own faithful friend and
the nation martyr President, was a felon
and an outlaw in his usurpations, but that
even the officers of the Government who
aided in Furnishing his murderers are them
selves murderers for having done so. Such
would seem to be an inexorable sequence
from the decision as reported.
And so it IS the 'inexorable sequence, "
and it will be the inexorable decree of the
American people and historians after half of
the many acts of tyranny, murder and
crime of Lincoln's rule are buried in obliV-
ion.