The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1876-12-22
BLOOMSBURY, PA.
f T. iday, Dec. %. 1875.
GRANT GAUGED by MILITARY Law.

Our modern Cesar assumes more power
than was exercised by his prototype in the
Roman Empire. Cromwell assumed to cut
off the head of Charles LIST, and disperse Par
Lament under the sanction of law. The
French commune made rivuots of blood run
Liberty" But Grant does not pretend to
justify his conduct by constitutional or statute
law. His plea is military necessity, the
last resort of tyrants. Let him be judged by
his own tribunal.
As a West Pointer, he should have read
"Dehart's Military Law" a text book there,
and used by Courts Martial in the late war
We quote the following extract from speech
made by the senior editor of the COLUMBIAN
in the Legislature in 1872.
Now, Mr.. Chairman, l have here what is
recognized in the United States Army as au-
thority on military law.
l read from page II, Del1art's Military
Law: Martial law extends to all persons
military law to all military persons, but not to
those in civil capacity"
"How and where, under particular coniunc-
lures of the time, martial law may be declar-
cd, and by whom is not here considered but
the proclamation of such rule within the
limits of the United States, is a very question
able proceeding aad thought to be an 'cx-
crescence' not warranted or sanctioned by any
'distemper of the State The substitution
Of this power for the civil courts, subjects all
persons to the arbitrary will of an individual
and to imprisonment for an indefinite period
or trial by military body. or such high
importance to the public is the preservation
of personal liberty, that it has been thought
that unjust attacks even upon life or property
at the arbitrary will of the magistrate are less
dangerous to the Commonwealth than such as
are made upon the personal liberty of the
citizen"
On page fifteen the Sl,ne author says.
'Thc profession Of arms offering hut few op-
portunities for the acquisition of that species
OF knowledge (which, in u technical form, is
made most available in courts of law, aud the
youth and inexperienre Of great number of
its members being such as to unfit them for
the decisions of questions depending even up
on settled principles of Interpretation, when
called upon sudieny to act, much less those
which are in subtle arguments and intricate
circumstances, make it still more desirable
that the jurisdiction Of body, which from time
to time they are called upon to exercise, and
to whose authority they are at all times SUBJ
ject, should have IT'S limits defined as clearly
as possible, both for their guidance and their
safety.
Blackstone, whose Commentaries a:e the
first books placed in the hands of the student
at law, in speak king of this subject, says: ut
is to be looked upon only as temporary ex.
crescence bred out of the distemper Of the
State, and not as any part of the permanent
and perpetual laws Of the kingdom. For
martial law, which is built upon no settled
principles, but is entirely arbitrary in its de-
decisions, is, as Sir Matthew Hale observes.
in truth and reality no law, but something in,
dulgcd rather than allowed as law"
And the learned writer goes on to saw that
any person condemned by court-nartia to be
executed in times of peace under such circum
stances, that it is murder by the courts, and
that the men are all indictable. If there is
anything in the world that we should shun
above everything else, it is the existence of
martial law in time of peace; a body of men
compelled by their oaths not to divnlgc any-
thing that transpires, and their ballots to be
given in secret, commencing with the one
junior in rank, the judge advocate there all
the time, and such questions to be nut to the
witnesses as he deems propor-a form that
has existed from the time of King Edward
to the present.