Wilmington journal., 1876-07-07
f the Assembly or Senate of New

of the Assembly or Senate of New
York.
Tba animns of the transaction, as in
dicated by the correspondence between
Lieutenant tieneral Sheridan and the
Seer tary of War. il infinitely worse
than the transaction itself. On the day
after the event, Lieutenant General
Sheridan sent dispatch proposing
that class of cit'zens, indefinite iE
number and description, should be de-
clared, either by act of Congress or hy
proclamation of the President, to be
banditti; and then indicates his pur~
pose to try them and to execute them
by military commission. On the next
day General Beikuap. the Secretary of
War, telegraphed to General Sheridan
that "the President and all of us have
full confidence in, aud thoroughly ap.
prove your course.
The nature of the acts TINS proposed
by the officer second in command of
the army of the United States. and
thus adopted aud sanctioned by the
President and his constitutional ad
visers, is plainly declared by the COM
mon law.
In the recent case of the Queen vs.
Nelson and Brand. the present Lord
Chief Justice of Eng land. in delivering
the charge to the grand jury, declared
that ''supposing that there is no. juris
diction at all, that the whole proceed
ing is cOrdna non .jttdice. thatsthe judi
cial functions are exercised by persons
who have no judicial authority or pow
er, and if mans life is taken, that is
murder; for murder is. putting man
to death without a justification, or
without auy of those mitigating cir
cumstances which reduce the crime of
murder to one of a lower degree. Thus,
in the case put by Lord Coke of lieu
tenant having commission OF martial
law in times of peace, that, says Lord
Coke, is murder"
Such are the established doctrines
of the jurists and courts of this country
and of England. Such is the voice of
common law-glorious jurisprudence
of freedom! birthright Of every Amer
that such an execution of any human
being, as was proposed and sanctioned
in this correspondence, would be muir
der by our laws; and that every func-
tionary-c1vil or military-who should
instigate it, aid or abet it, or become
in any manner party to it before the
AdC1, WOuiu 10 eulioy 40 d ~ ACipat III
that crime.
The patriot statesmen who achieved
our national independence. and formed
our institutions of free government,
foreboded, if we should ever fall into
intestine strife. that the ideas it would
inspire in military minds-of insubor-
dination to the laws aud of uncivic
ambiton-and the habit it would
generate in the people, of acquiescence
in acts of unlawful military violence =
would imperil, if not destroy, civil
liberty. Events compelled us to
manly choice of confronting those
dangers in struggle to save our
country from dismemberment, and to
vindicate the just rights of the federal
Union. Hsving triumphed in that
struggle. now forever closed, we are
made sensible of the wise foresight of
the founders of our freedom in their
warning of the opposite dangers which
would attend our success. Those
dangers come to US IN acts of illegal
military violence, committed in times
of peace, in the usurpation by the
soldiery of a power to decide the
membership of our Legislative assem-
blies, whose right to judge exclusively
in such cases has ever been gu ,rded
with peculiar jealousy by our race -
in the proposal, made and accepted by
our highest civil and military func-
tions, to subject our citizens to trlbu-
nails in which military officer will
decide, without appeal, what persons,
happening to be found in that locality,
shall be sent to them for trial-will re-
view and confirm or change the iudg-
ment and sentence--and may order in
stant executions, aud i'll which the
accused Will be tried in secret. apd with
out counsel for his defense. This prop
osition is thus made, aud thus sane
toned, notwithstanding that, for SINH
lar acts, our English ancestors sent the
first Charles to the scaffold aud ex-
PEELED the second james from the
throne; and OR own fOrefathers-
exiled by kindred tyrannies and plant
ing freedom in the wilderness-were
careful to insert in our constitution
positive p ohlbitlons against the appli-
cation to any but military persons of
such tribunals
Unless suoh proposition, SO made,
and so sanctioned, shall be condemned
by public reprobation which shall
make 1t memorable as a warming to all
future officers of the State and the
army, the decay of the jealous spirit of
freedom, the loss OF our ancestral ira
ditions Of liberty, acquired through
ages of conflict and sacrifice, the edu-
cation Of tue present generation to ser
vile acquiesence in the maxims and
the practices of tyranny. will have
realized the fears of Washington aud
Jay and Clinton and their compatriots
New York. first of The common
wealths of the American Union in pop.
ulatiOn, in resources and in military
power, should declare her sentiments
on this occasion with a distinctness. a
dignity and a solemn emphasis which
will command the thoughtful attention
of Congress, of her sister States and
Of the people of our whole country.
With the same unanimity with which
she upheld the arms of the Union in
the past conflict, she should now ad-
dress herself to the great and most
sacred duty of re-establishing the civil
liberty and the personal rights of indi-
viduals. of restoring the ideas and
habits of freedom, and of re-asserting
the supremacy of the civil authority
over the military power throughout
the republic.
SAMUEL j. TILDEN.