| Show UNITED SJ STATE i SUPREME 1 COURT 4 it tak VV W t I 1 if wa ans any minister or any king in war I 1 or ird iri peace had dared to punish a freeman man by a tribunal of his own appointment hernould hen he would have roused the wrath of the whole population all orders of society would squid have resisted it I 1 lord ord and vassal knight and squire friesl esLand and penitent booman boeman and oci ilan iian master and thrall copyholder and villain risen in onet one mass and burned burped the mender offender to death in lils his castle or fol foi followed loWid him in his flight and torn him to atoms it was again trampled down by the norman conquerors but the evil resulted from the want of it united all nil lii ril classes clas elas in the ellort which compelled king ohn to restore it by the great charter everybody Is familiar with the struggles which the english people during many generations generation s made for their r rights bights with the Plantage nets the Tudors did rid the stuarts and which ended finall finally jr inthe in the revolution of 1688 when the liberties of england were placed impregnable basis by py the bill of rights eights many nany many times the tife attempt was wag ninde made to stretch the roy royal al hu authority thorit far enough hal haj to justify military trials abut but it never had more than temporary success five hundred a years bears ago edward IT ir closed up agreatt ie rebellion bellion by taking the life of lisl I eader leader jhb earl earr of Lan lau lancaster casteri after trying him before a military court eight years later that same king together with his lils lords and commons in parliament assembled acknowledged with shame shamo and sorrow that the ex execution e of lancaster was a mere murder because the courts were and ho he might have had a legal trial queen for sundry reasons affecting the safety of the state ordered that certain offenders not nod of her army should be tried according to the law martial but she the heard the storm of popular vengeance rising and aud haughty imperious m pe perlous rious lir tir self seif willed aa as she was she yielded the point for she knew that upon that thab subject the english people would never consent tobe to be trifled with stratford as lord lieutenant of bf ireland tried the viscount stormont before a military commission andrut and cut cui off his head heady when impeached for it I 1 he pleaded in vain that ireland was in a state of insurrection n 1 that stormont was a traitor and t the h e army would be undone if it could not defend itself without appealing to the civil courts the parliament was deaf the king himself could not save him he was condemned to summer suffer de death athis as a traitor and a murderer charlei Charle 1 issued commissions comm M ions lons td divers officers for the trial of his enemies according to the course of military law if rebellion ever was an excuse for such sueh an act he could surely have pleaded edit it for there was scarcely arcely Fe a spot in his kingdom from sea to sea where the authority was not disputed by somebody yet the parliament demanded in their petition of right and the king was obliged to co concede that all his commissions were illegal james II 11 claimed the rig right to suspend nd the operation of the penal laws a powen power which the courts denied aenied bul but the experience of his hij predecessors taught him that he could not hotsu suspend spend any marus mans right to a trial he could easily have convicted the seyen seven bishops of any offense he saw aw s it fit f to charge them with if he could their judges from among the mercenary creatures to whom he had given commands in his army but this he dared not do he was obliged to send the bishops to a jury and endure the mortification of seeing them acquitted he too might have had rebellion for an excuse if rebell rebeil rebellion Jon be an ef excuse cuso the conspiracy was already ripe which a few months afterwards made him an exile and an outcast he had reason to believe that the prince of orange wass waff making his preparations pa rations on the other side aide of the channel to invade the kingdom where thousands burned to join him nay he pronounced the bishops guilty guilt of rebellion bythe bytho by the very act for which he arrested them he ile had raised an army to meet the rebellion and he was on hounslow Houn siow slow ileath heath reviewing the troops organized for that purpose when he heard beard the great shout of joy that went up from westminster mail hall was echoed back from temple bar bair spread down the city and over the thames and rose from every vessel on the river the simultaneous shouts of two hundred thousand meu men for the triumph of justice and law if it were worth the time I 1 might nir lit detain you by showing how this s subject ab was treated by the french court coert of cassation in jeoffries Geoff ries hies case under the constitution of 1830 when a military was unhesitatingly pronounced tobe to b vold void though C ordered ordera by the R king I 1 after a proe proc proclamation a i atlon declai declaring 1 paris in a state of pas est ab hoste doceti we may lawfully learn something C from our enemies at all events we should blush at the thought of not being equal on such a s subject to the courts of virginia georgia mississippi and texas whose becis decisions ions lons my jay colleague general garneld garfield Gar neld Held has read and commented on the truth is that no authority exists anywhere in the world for the doctrine of the attorney general no judge or jurist no statesman or parlia parila parliamentary meMary orator on this side or the other side of the water sustains him every elementary tar w writer i er from coke 0 t to 0 wharton barton is against him all military authors who profess to know the duties of their profession admit themselves to be under not nob above the laws no book cabbe can be found in any library to justify the assertion that military tribunals may try a citizen at a place where the courts are open when I 1 shy say no book I 1 mean of or course no bookoff book of acknowledged aged authority thoraf tho rity I 1 do not deny that hireling clergymen have often been found to dis rage race race the pulpit by trying improve to prove the avine ivine right of kings and other rulers to govern as I 1 they please lease it is tr true also that court sycophants and palte parie party ty hacks have llave many times written letsy and perhaps largo large volumes to show that those whom they serve should be allowed to work gut but their bloody will upon the people no abuse of power is too fi agrant flagrant to find its defenders among 1 suph such servile creatures Q those but butchers cher I 1 do dos dogs doa a that fe feed ed upon garbage and fatten upon the of of the shambles are always ready to bark at whatever interferes with the trade of their masters but this case da does 68 not depend upon lipon it i is s rather a ou estion of fact than of df law I 1 prove w my right toa ton to a trial by jury just as I 1 would prove my title to an estate if I 1 held in my hand a k solemn deed conveying it to me coupled with undeniable evidence of long and undisturbed possession under a and i according to the the deed there is the charter by which we claim to hold it it is called the constitution pathe af pf the tho united states it is ai signed g ed by the sacred name namo of george was washington and by thirty nine other names only less illustrious than his they re represented p resented every independent state th then en upon this continent P and and each eacil state afterward rati ratified nned fled their york work vork by a separate convention of its own people every state that subsequently came in acknowledged that this Ks th was the great standard by which chic h their rights were to be measured every man that has ever held in the counts country from that time to this has taken an n oath that he would support f and sustain it through good repart and through 11 evil th the at attorney torn ev general ene ral rai himself became a party sparty to the tile inspru instrument when he laid his hand upon the gospel of dod and solemnly swore that he would give to me and every other citizen the full benefit cfall of all ali it contains what does it eon contain tain this among other things the trial 0 of all crimes except in eases cases of impeachment shall be by jury again I 1 wo p person ers on shall be held to answer for a c capital api t a I 1 or otherwise in famous crime unless unie n le ss s on a presentment or indictment of a grand gravid jury except in cases arising in the landor land or naval for forces cesor or in the militia when in actual service in time of war or public danger nor shall any person be sumeet for the same samo offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb nor be compelled anany in any criminal case to be a witness against himself nor be deprived of life ilger liter liberty tyl or property without due process of law nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation this is not all nil another article declares that in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed which district shall have been previously ascertained by law and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation to be confronted with witnesses against him to have pro cess for the witnesses in his favor and to have thet assistance As istance of counsel for nor his bis defense Is there any ambiguity there if that does not signify that a jury trial shall be the exclusive and only means of ascertaining guilt in crim yual lual cases then I 1 demand to know what words oi or what collection of words in the english language would have that effect does this mean that a fair open speedy public trial by an impartial jury shall le be given only to those persons against whom no special grud grudge ie is felt by the attorney general ner al or t the t e judge advocate or the fie fic head ead of a department shall this inestimable privilege bo be extended only to men whom the not eare care to convict isit confined to vulgar ga r criminals who commit ardi ordinary na ry crimes against society a and n d shall it he be denied to men who are accused of such lenses offenses of as those for which sydney and russel were be headed and alice lisle was hung and elizabeth caunt graun t was burnt alive and john bunyan was imprisoned fourteen years and baxter was whipped at the cart carts 4 tail and had his ears cut om off no the words of the constitution are allem all em brac brae bracing ingo lugo oas PAs As broad and general as the casing air the trial of ALL crimes shall be by jury ALL persons accused shall benj enjoy oy that privilege and NO person shall shail jb e held to ansier answer in any other why way that would be without more but there is another consideration which gives it tenfold power itis it is a universal rule of construction that g general beneral words in any instrument though thes the may be weakened by enumeration me ration are always strengthened by exceptions here hero is no attempt to enumerate the particular cases ca ses in which men charged with criminal of lenses shall be entitled to j jury dry trial it is simply declared that thai all alt shall have it but that is coupled with a statement of two specific e elfie elnie exceptions cases of impeachment sie kie nt and cases aris arising ing in the land or naval far ces the thia exceptions strengthen the application of the general rule ruye to tili all other cabes where the lawgiver law giver himself has declared when and aud in what circumstances you may depart from the general rule yo you shall not presume to leave that onward path for other reasons and make exceptions TO exceptions the maxim ia always applicable that 0 unil unit imars t s exely sio sto est alte alfe fills rills but bat iveane we are answered that tuat the under consideration was pronounced in time of war and it ja i therefore at least ni morally orally excusable thelema there may mas or there may not be something in that I 1 admit that the merits or demerits of any particular act whether it ili lri involve volve a violation of the constitution or pr not depend upon the motives that prompted it the tinie time the occasion anh and ana all the attending circumstances when the people of this country come to decide upon the acts of their rulers they thea will take all these things into consideration but that presents presenta the political aspect of the case with which I 1 trust we have nothing to do here I 1 decline to discuss it I 1 would only say in order to prevent misapprehension that I 1 think it imprecise is precisely ly in a time of war and civil commotion that we should double the guards upon the constitution if the sanitary regulations which defend the health of a city are ever over to be relaxed it ought certainly not to be done when pestilence is abroad when the mississippi I 1 shrinks within its natural channel and creeps lazily along the bottom the inhabitants of the adjoining shore have davd no iio need of a dyke to save them from inundation but when wilen the booming flood comes down from above and swells into a volume which rises high above ohp the plain on either side then a crevasse in in the levee bec becomes omesa a most serious thing bo so in peaceable and quiet times our leg legal al ri rights abts are in little danger of being overborne borne but when the wave of arbitrary power lashes itself into violence and rage and goes surging up against the barriers which were made to confine it then we need the whole strength of an unbroken constitution to save us from destruction but this thia is a question which properly belongs to the jurisdiction of the stump and the newspaper there is another quasi political argument necessity if the law was violated because it could not be obeyed that might be an excuse but no absolute compulsion jis is pretended he here re these commissioners acted at the most under what they regarded as al a moral necessity rhe the choice was left them to obey the law or disobey it the tho disobedience bedi bedl ence enee was only necessary as means mcana to an end which they thought desirable and now they assert though these means are unlawful and wrong they are made right because without them them the object could not be accomplished hi inn other words the end justifies the means there you have a rule of conduct denounced ly by all law human and divine as being pernicious in policy and foise folse in morals morais see bee how it applies to this case here were three men whom it was desirable to remove out of this world but there was no proof on which any court eburt would stake their lives therefore it was necessary and being neco necessary it was right and hud proper to create an illegal tribunal which would put them to death without proof by the same mode of reasoning you can prove it equally right to poison them in their sleep nothing that the worst nien men ever pio plo pounded has produced so much oppression misgovernment and suffering as this prete pretense nse use of state necessity A great authority the tyrants adv dev devilish ilish plea and the common honesty beall mankind has branded it with everia everlasting tt infamy of course it is mere absurdity to say that these relators rela tors were necessarily aie fie priced dof dot of their right to a fair and andje andge legal gal gai trial for the record shows that a court fourt of competent jurisdiction was sitting at the same time and in the same town where justice justlee would have been donewirth or delay but concede for the arguments sake that a trial by jury was wholly impossible admit that a othere there was an absolute overwhelming imperious necessity ope operating operatic ratin so as literally to |
