Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1879-05-03

eral com maBdIng-
That was General Mcclellan
directs that you send attachments of suf-
fcient number of men to the different points
in your vicinity where the elections are to
be held to protect the Union voters, and to
see that no disunionists are allowed to in>
timidate them, Or in any way to interfere
with their rights.
He also desires you to arrest and hold in
confinement till after the election all dis
unionists who are known to have returned
from Virginia recently, and who show them
selves at the polls, and to guard effectualy
against any invasion of the peace and order
of the election.
For the purpo-e of carrying out these in
structions you are authorized TO suspend
the HabeaS corpus. General Stone has re-
ceived similar instructions to these. You
will please confer with him as to the partic-
ular points that each shall take the con-
troll Of.
am, sir very respectfully, your obedi-
cnt servant.
R B. MARCY, Chief of Staff.
Major General n. 2. banks Commanding
Division, Muddy Branch, Mary land
The Democratic party did not learn for
some time afterward now monstrous it was
TO confront rufians with armed force. In
deed the tender constitutional susceptible
tiles of that great organization were not
then keen'y alive to the wrong of tramp
ling under foot that great prerogative writ
and boast of Anglo-Saxon freedom and jul
risprudence, the babeaS corpus.
Three years later the Democrats met in
National Convention. The Convention re-
solved that the war for the Union was a
failure just at the time when it was about
to triumph utterly, as it would have done
! long before but for Indictment and encour-
agement given by Northern Democrats to
the rebellion. Having recorded this sage,
! off 4 CT of 10 nd
convention proceeded to nominate for Pres
| ident of the United States and Command
erin chief of the Army and Navy, the very
man who had sent soldiers to act as over
| seers of elections, who had trampled down
! by military force the privilege of the hG-
| 6eas corpus, and this, do not forget, IN Mary
| land-Mary land, a State in the Union, not
even a seeded State. Delaware, too, was
! protected at her elections by military au-
thority, under military orders, and the Gov
| ernor OF that State thanked the National
authorities for that protection, approved it
| and aided it.
| But these orders welt very far. They
! prescribed with military rigor the qualifca-
| tiOn Of voters, and rough proceedings no
doubt ensued. The sword is not a mathe-
| NAUTICAL instrument: 1t Is not as exact as the
! gulllotne, not as exact as the headsman' S
axe nor even as the dagger, the bullet or
the halter of the assassin.
These orders prompted the act of 1865
not to confer power, | can not repeat too
often, but to restrain and curtail it. The
bill was introduced by Mr.. Powell, of Ken
lucky, that Senator who when the enroll
neDt act came from the House, is said to
have remarked, Go On with your draft
feel no interest in it kentucky's quota is
full on both sides" The bill was referred
to the Military Committee of the Senate.
On the 18th of February, 1854 the Military
Committee reported against it, and for the
time being that was the end of it.
a year later, having mean time been
taken up and amended, amended as 1t now
stands, it was passed. Every Democratic
now. Every Democrat in the House who
voted, voted for the act as it stands now.
| More; after it had been amended as it now
| is, after the words Except when necessary
to keep the peace at the polls" had been
established in it, Mr.. Powell, a Democrat
| from Kentucky, and other Democratic
members OF the Senate, again and again,
as the Senator from Iowa knows, for he has
just traversed the debate, urged the Senate,
! Importuned the Senate to take up this now
| obnoxious act, amended is it now stands,
and put it on its passage. Was it not so?
! MIR. AlllSOn-G es, sir.
| Mr.. Conkling-Mr. President, the act of
! 1865 was not, as the honorable Senator
| from Illinois stated a war measure, to
! operate only in time of war. No, sir; it
was passed in 1865. passed when Grant
was Tightening the coils around Richmond,
passed when Sherman, everywhere yicto-
rious in the South, had swept with his con-
| quering legions from the mountains to the
sea. 1t was passed when the rebellion was
in the very article of death. In less than
! sixty days the Confederacy as a military
fact had become a vanished dream. No,
| sir; it was passed at the end of d great war
and passed to put u Bride on permission
! O nd WIFI hoH
three-quarters OF a century during which
statesmen had lived, for there were brave
men before AgamemnoD. 1t was meant to
be, it was said to be, and it is a mere
check. 1t Furnishes ordering troops to APP
proach the polls, except that when the
order is for lawful purpose it is not in
Guided
Does that, ask the honorable Senator
from Illinois, confer authority upon any
bOdy2 Take an analogous case. Here is
a statute-the books of both hemispheres
| bristle with m-dehOuncing homicide.
What do they declare? The killing of a
/ human,belng with prcpenSe aforethOught
| shall be murder; but they except, or the
court interpolates into as an exception, the
/ act of a sheriff in executing a criminal.
That act shall not be punished. Did any
lawyer ever hear that under statute Of
| that sort a sheriff might proceed to hang a
man? Did any body ever hear that if
!
it be lawfully done" that statute furnished
the authority fer doing it, or had any pos
sible effect only to say that, when lawfully
done, when authority otherwise existed to
do it, it should not be held punishable? a
sheriff must have deathwsrrant OF
competent tribunal and an express enabl-
ing statute when he proceeds TO deprive
human being of life without that he
would be murderer just as much under
statute excepting lawful executions from
punishment as hOmicides as without such
statute. So when q statute declares that
troops shall be punished if they act except
in a given condition of things, they must
still Be authorized, they must have author
ity on which to act as much as the sheriff
must have authority on which to execute.
Again, this act forbids civil officers to
have soldiers or armed me en- not soldiers at
the polls, except it be necessary to quell
violence. The amendment proposes to pun
ish civil officers for trying to subdue rioters
or mobs by soldiers, or by calling upon men
not soldiers, if they are armed in any way:
and this, we arc told, is to subordinate the
military to the civil authority
Again, the act as it stands forbids, except
in the case for which there may be author
ity, the presence of troops at the place
at which al election is to be held. What
does ''place" mean? I ask emphatically
what does 'place' mean? The honorable
Senator from Delaware cited the other day
at great length an instance in which troops
had been present in the city of New York
IL. -