Show the dispatch I 1 proceed now to refer to the notion action of general sheridan and here again I 1 am concerned to acain speak 0 of him as that action justifies within a day or two after his arrival at new orleans and assuming um ng command he issued orders just justifying f ying the interference of the sold soldiers i ers the jsu monday anday before he had met with no resistance no evidence was given of any purpose to resist him for in fact there was none on tuesday however tho tha ath of january he be sent bent to the secretary of war the well known banditt dispatch the receipt of that d dispatch 1 am g rived grieved to acknowledged k g d b by y 1 tha the he secretary of war on t the h n next e 6 day ay tile the ath in the following manner mannen WAR department washington jan 6 1875 general P H sheridan new orleans lithe the president and all ail allot of us have full confidence in and thoroughly in approve your course WILLIAM W BELIC benic BELKNAP NAp secretary of war since civilization favorably pro gressed grossed under the influence of our christian faith no words ever fell from tho the lips of any man civilian or soldier which more outrage every obligation of humanity or exhibit a more fiendish thirst for human blood not satisfied with denouncing noun cing tho the people of three states he suggests as you have seen that I 1 1 if 1 the president will issue a proclamation declaring the parties he refers to ban dittl no further action need be taken except that which would devolve upon him how he proposes to act we gather from his hia dispatch to arrest and try the ringleaders ring leaders of what he calls the armed white leagues to try them by a military commission commission execution then would instantly follow sentence and the cities and villages of three states would be the scenes of a carnage the horrors of which no imagination can adequately depict in this recommendation bation he totally disregards all tho the guarantees of personal liberty contained in the constitution those guarantees are to be found in the amendments which were coeval with the constitution itself and it is historically tain that without an assurance that they would be provided the constitution would not have been ratified among them not to mention them all are first the security of the people against seizure of their persons second that no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime on a or indictment of a grand jury except persons in in the military or naval service of the united states third that every party charged with a crime is secured a trial by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall bhail have been committed and this trial by jury was also provided by the original constitution it is 18 obvious that all these guarantees would be violated if Sheri dans suggestion was acted upon he al alone one could then authorize the arrest of a citizen have him tried by a military commission appointed by himself and if convicted punish him with death by his own orders that military commissions are wholly unconstitutional in time of peace was never doubted nor was waa it doubted that they are subversive of the guarantees guaranteed to which I 1 have referred durin during the late war however it was supposed by military chiefs and by the president that they could be legally used for the trial of a citizen residing in n a state which had never been in rebellion under this impression such a commission was organized by the general in command in indiana for the trial of one laman P milligan of that state udon upon charges exhibited by him that commission on the of october 1861 found him guilty and sentenced him to be hanged which sentence wal was wak approved by the president before however the sentence could be carried into effect an application for a habeas corpus was made to the united states circuit court for indiana and the judges biffi differing ering in opinion upon certain points of law certified the same ta 0 the supreme court of the U S one of the points was whether the military commission had jurisdiction the case was argued at the december term 1865 1863 and the decision of the court which may be found in ali all wallace was that the whole proceeding was wad illegal and milligan was discharged in the decision given by vir mr sir justice davis the principles of liberty are strongly stron and clearly elearly stated and vi vindicated d if these were niceties then the whole constitution is but a legal nicety which the president and his military and naval officers may be said to be ignorant of I 1 with the people of the united states such a degrading excuse will be of no avail but on the contrary they will hold the president and his general to a responsibility for trampling upon the very principles upon which our free institutions are founded if the suggestion of general Sheridan that the persons to whom he refers should be declared by a proclamation of the president should be adopted by bytho bythe the latter and its execution left to sheridan he would soon achi achl achieve eire ette for himself an immortality of infamy and be without a rival in the history of the world unless one is to be found in the thel career of the duke of alva iii his invasion of the netherlands where as historians tell us he executed more men in cold blood upon the scaffold t han than he killed in war and who at the termination of his hid campaign himself boasted that he had executed 18 3 log it is due however to a conviction which I 1 cannot help feeling to add that the president although lie he is made to approve of the suggestion ug by the Secretary Secre seere 18 dispatch of the ath of January will never be induced to carry it out and from my knowledge M of the characters of the secretaries of state stata and treasury I 1 am satisfied that they never gave it their sanction and indeed it is said they never saw it until it was published in in the papers of the day llon lion reverdy severely johnson at baltimore jan 15 |