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"Liberty," as a cloak for slavery and oppres- | published for the information and guidance of all officers of this Bureau: sion.

This chapter has been extended much beyond our original design, but the principles involved are of such vast importance, that we feel justified in going beyond that design, though the largest 12 mo. volume would not contain the half we had selected under this head.

CHAPTER XXXI.

“Arrest of Deserters-Habeas Corpus.-Opin

ion.

"It is enacted in the 7th section of the act

approved March 3, 1863, entitled "An act for enrolling and calling out the national forces, and for other purposes," that it shall be the duty of the Provost Marshals appointed under this act, 'tò arrest all deserters, whether regulars, volunteers, militia men, or persons called into the service under this or any other act of Congress, wherever they may be found, and to send them to the nearest military commander, or military post.'

"If a writ of habeas corpus shall be issued

DESPOTISM, USURPATIONS, INALIENABLE RIGHTS by a State court, and served upon the Provost TRAMPLED UPON, Etc.

Despotism Seeks the Semblance of Loyalty...Solicitor Whiting perverts Judge Taney's Decision... Provost Marshal Fry Acts Thereon...Star Chamber...Laws by Proclamation in England...Kidnapping in New York... Gov. Hunt on Arbitrary Arrests...The Case of Gen. Stone ...Beecher on Arbitrary Arrests... A Nice Point to Silence a Press...Geo. W. Jones vs. W. H. Seward...Judge Clerke's Decision...A Young Lady Fined $15 for Playing the "Bonnie Blue Flag"...Burnside Favors the Arrest ...Burnside Favors the Arrest of Males and Females that wear Butternut Badges... Opening the Prison Doors... Case of Gov. Tod and Others ...Opinion of Judge Van Trump..." New York Journal of Commerce" on the Powers of the Provost Marshal... Case of Judge Constable... Liberated from the Bastile... Atrocious Sentiments by Senator Wilson...Cincinnati Prison Full...Other Acts of Despotism...General Conclusions... Vallandigham's Acts compared with Leading Republicans...Loyalty of Democrats... Disloyalty of Republicaus...$500 Reward for a Disloyal Democrat Not Taken...The Writ of Ilabeas Corpus the Palladium of Our Liberties... Extracts of the Magna Charta-Wrung from King John... Lord Campbell's Boast... English Bill of Rights..." Body of Liberties" Brought by the Mayflower...The Bill in the Declaration... Virginia Bill of Rights...Massachusetts' "Declaration of Rights" in 1780...From Bill of Rights in Our Constitution...General Remarks on Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus... Law of Suspected Persons...A Leaf from French History, by Allison...Our Parallels...Thiers on French Confisca

tion...Danton's Prediction...General Remarks...Black

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Marshal while he holds under arrest a deserter, before he has had opportunity to send him to the nearest military commander, or military post,' the Provost Marshal is not at liberty to disregard that process. 'It is the duty of the Marshal, or other person having custody of the prisoner, to make known to the Judge, or Court, by a proper return, the authority by which he holds him in custody. But after this return is made, and the State Judge or Court judicially apprised that the party is in custody under the authority of the United States, they can proceed no farther.'

"They then know that the prisoner is within the dominion and jurisdiction of another government, and that neither the writ of habeas corpus, nor any other process issued under state authority, can pass over the line of division between the two sovereignties. He is then within the dominion and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States. If he has committed an offence against their laws, their tribunals alone can punish him. If he is wrongfully imprisoned, their judicial tribunals can release him and afford him redress. And, alstone on the English Habeas Corpus...Our Constitution though as we have said, it is the duty of the Applied.. ... The Ordinance of 1787 Applicable...What Othough Fathers Thought of it... Pinckney, Rutledge, Morris and marshal, or other person holding him, to make Millson on the Habeas Corpus...Judge Curtis on "Loy-known, by a proper return, the authority under alty and Habeas Corpus...A Scathing Speech... Mr. which he retains him, it is, at the same time, Chase's Opinion of Loyalty... The Roman Law and Per- imperatively his duty to obey the process of the Judge Festus and King Agrippa Respected the Roman United States, to hold the prisoner in custody Law..." New York Independent" on Arbitrary Arrests under it, and to refuse obedience to the man...What a Conservative Republican Thinks of it... Presidate or process of any other government. And dent's Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus: His Proclamation...Congress on Arbitrary Arrests... Official consequently, it is his duty not to take the Vote... Supreme Court of Wisconsin on Suspending the prisoner, nor suffer him to be taken before a Writ. state judge or court upon a habeas corpus issued under state authority. No state judge or court, after they are judicially informed that the party is imprisoned under the authority of the United States, has any right to interfere with him or require him to be brought before them. And if the authority of a state, in the form of judicial process or otherwise, should attempt to control the marshal, or other authorized officer or agent of the United States, in any respect, in the custody of his prisoner, it would be his duty to resist it, and to call to his aid any force that might be necessary to maintain the authority of law against illegal interference. No judicial process, whatever form it may assume, can have any lawful au

DESPOTISM SEEKS THE SEMBLANCE OF LE-
GALITY.

It is very natural, and has been, in all ages of the world, for Despots to claim they were acting under legal authority. The following "opinion" by Solicitor WHITING is quite in point:

"WAR DEPARTMENT,
"PROVOST MARSHAL GENERAL'S OFFICE,
"Washington, D. C., July 1, 1863.

"Circular, No. 36.

"The following opinion of Hon. William Whiting, Solicitor of the War Department, is

thority outside of the limits of the jurisdiction | This shows to what desperation the authorso f of the court or judge by whom it is issued, and despotic power are reduced.x an attempt to enforce it beyond these boundaries is nothing less than lawless violence.

"The language above cited is that of Chief Justice Taney in the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Ableman vs. Booth. (21 Howard's Reports.)

If a writ of habeas corpus shall have been sued out from a State Court, and served upon the Provost Marshal while he holds the desertthe Provost Marshal while he holds the deserter under arrest, and before he has had time or opportunity

“To send him to the nearest military commander, or mili

tary post,

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It is the duty of the Marshal to make to the Court a respectful statement, in writing, as a return upon the writ, setting forth,

"1st. That the respondent is Provost Marshal, duly appointed by the President of the United States, in accordance with the provisions of the act aforesaid.

"2d. That the person held was arrested by said Marshal as a deserter, in accordance with the provision of the 7th section of the act aforesaid. That it is the legal duty of

the respondent to deliver over said deserter "to the nearest military commander, or military post," and that the respondent intends to perform such duty as soon as possible.

3d. "That the production of said deserter in court would be inconsistent with, and in violation of the duty of the respondent as provost marshal, and that the said deserter is now held under authority of the United States. For these reasons, and without intending any disrespect to the honorable Judge who issued procoss, he declines to produce said deserter, or to subject him to the process of

the court."

"To the foregoing, all other material facts may be added.

Such return having been made, the juris

diction of the state court over that case ceases. If the state court shall proceed with the case and make any formal judgment in it, except that of dismissal, one of two courses may be taken. (1) The case may be carried up, by appeal or otherwise, to the highest court of the state, and removed therefrom by writ of error to the Supreme Court; or, (2) the judge may be personally dealt with in accordance with law, and with such instructions as may hereafter be issued in each case.

"JAMES B. FRY,

"Provost Marshal General."

Now, to claim that Chief Justice TANEY, in the Booth-Ableman case, endorsed the arbitrary power claimed in the foregoing is one of the most abomniable stretches of Judicial license we have met with. Judge TANEY simply says that when a state court is made acquinted with the fact that a man is "imprisoned" under a "process of the United States," such state court can proceed no further. This is good law, and no sound lawyer will dispute it, but when the pettifoggers of the Administration ask us to assume that a military order is a judicial "process," such as Chief Justice TANEY alluded to, it is asking more than can be granted

LAWS BY PROCLAMATION IN ENGLAND-our STAR CHAMBER.

Lord SOMERS, in denouncing the despotism of the STUARTS, said:

"We had a privy council in England, with great and mixed powers; we suffered under it long and much: All the rolls of Parliament are full of complaints and remedies; but none of them effectual till Charles the First's time. The Star Chamber was but a spawn of our council, and was called so only because it sat in the usual council chamber. It was set up as a formal court in the third year of Henry the Eighth, in very soft words,

"To punish great riots, to restrain offenders too big for ordinary justice.'

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* "But in a little time it made the nation tremble. The Privy Council came at last to make laws by proclamation, and the Star Chamber ruined those that would not obey."

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The arrest of actual deserters is well enough, and all courts should and would remand them whenever it appeared that they were deserters. But the great benefit of the writ is to ascertain the fact whether the accused were in truth deserters, or, whether in fact innocent men had not been arrested through mistake, or through the avaricious desire to get the bounty. The writ is not to encourage guilt, but to protect innocence. The following will illustrate the

case in point:

[From the New York World, Nov. 3, 1863.] "KIDNAPPING IN NEW YORK. "An instance of the gross injustice which seems inseparable from the arbitrary military system inaugurated by Secretary Stanton has recently come to light. In October, 1861. sixty-two young men were induced to enlist in what they were told was 'Company L, Colonel Serrell's Regiment of Volunteer Engineers,' the pay being for privates seventeen dollars per month. The company, when organized, was, without authority of Governor Morgan, taken to Washington, where for several days neither the War Department nor the Generalin-Chief would recognize them. Subsequently, nated as Fourth New York Independent Batand without any new muster, they were desigtery. The men protested in writing, but in vain-the pay is thirteen dollars per month. They have been in eleven actions, and have through counsel to the adjutant-general to be distinguished themselves. They applied attached to Colonel Serrell's regiment, in pursuance of their enlistment, or to be discharged. This was refused; yet neither by statute nor army regulations have the government the power to transfer men from one arm of service to another in the volunteer service,

!

"Several of the men, feeling that they had been grossly wronged, after the battle of Gettysburg deserted and reached New York. A habeas corpus was taken out before Mr. Justice Clerke, they having been arrested as deserters by a sergeant of artillery. Justice Clerke discharged them from the Fourth Independent Battery, for the reason that they never enlisted therein, and also from the service of the United States, for the reason that they were enlisted under false pretenses. A copy of this order, certified and under seal, was given to the men. Last week a government detective arrested one of these men, read the order, and sent the man to Governor's Island, from whence, it is said,

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he has been sent South.

It is very clear that this is a flagrant instance of downright kidnapping, and that by no rule of equity can it be justified. It is monstrous that under our system of laws, in which there are so many provisions for guarding the rights of the citizen and insuring the faith of contracts, men can be compelled to do military service without the slightest regard to law, justice, or their personal rights. Congress ought to investigate this matter.

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WASHINGTON HUNT ON ARBITRARY ARRESTS.

The people of New York, without distinction of party, met in Union Square, New York, in May, 1863, twenty-five thousand strong, to take into consideration the subject of personal liberty. There was speaking at four stands.The following letter was read, from Washington Hunt, whom our opponents have so often supported for high offices in the Empire State: LOCKPORT, May 16, 1863. "GENTLEMEN:-I have received your letter inviting me to attend the proposed meeting at Union Square. It is out of my power to come, but I wish to avail myself of the occasion to declare my emphatic condemnation of the recent attempts to subject the people of the loyal states to an irresponsible and arbitrary system of military domination.

ed, let it be proclaimed from the house tops
that no man within her borders

"Shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law."
"With great regard, ycurs truly,

"WASHINGTON HUNT.
"Messrs. Gideon J. Tucker, John Hardy, A. Mathew-
son, and others."

THE CASE OF GEN. STONE.

Stone, of the great wrong and injustice liable "We have a case in point, in that of Gen. to be done by arbitrary proceedings against individuals. Gen. Stone it is remembered, mand, sent to one of the military prisons, dewas arrested while in the exercise of a comnied information as to the cause of his arrest, and refused any opportunity to explain any proceedings of his own which might have seemed unusual. After several months of confine

ment, he was released without trial, and it is in the Department of the Gulf, the President now announced that he was assigned to duty being satisfied, of course, that he was wrongcould this wrongful arrest and imprisonment fully arrested and imprisoned. How easily

have been avoided.”

BEECHER ON ARBITRARY ARRESTS.

Even the most radical of all radicals; HENRY WARD BEECHER, sees danger ahead, in the way of arbitrary arrests. In speaking of VALLANDIGHAM's case he said:

"It would be better for the country that ten thousand brave men were slain on the battle field, than that one should be deprived of even the least of his guarranteod rights at this time. The heart of the nation is in no mood to be thus despotically tampered with.”

GETTING DOWN TO A NICE POINT.

[From the New York World.] "We ask all candid liberty-loving American citizens of both parties if the followiug does not smack rather too much of Venice or Poland for this free country:

"HEADQUARTERS MILITARY GOVERNOR, "Alexandria, Va., Sept. 16, '63.

"While we are willing to submit to the greatest sacrifices, in a patriotic spirit, for the pres-"Proprietor Alexandria Gazette: ervation of the Union, it may as well be understood that we will not consent to be bereft of any of our constitutional rights. We have lost none of these rights in consequence of the southern rebellion.

"The Administration ought to comprehend that it is amenable to public opinion, and that its conduct and policy are a legitimate subject of popular discussion and criticism. It is for the perpetuation of a free constitutional government, and for this only, that the country has been so willing to exhaust its best blood and place its vast resources at the disposal of the national authority. God forbid that the American people should allow the strength thus imparted to be turned against themselves, and a military despotism erected on the ruins of public liberty!" So far as New York is concern

"SIR:--Observing in your issue of this evening an article boldly headed 'Virginia Legislature,' which article contains the proceedings of the Confederate Legislature of Virginia, and hence, is a public recognition upon your part of a state government in Virginia opposed to the federal government, the general commanding directs me to inform you that the repetition of this act will be visited with a suspension of your paper.

"The existence of a paper in Alexandria known to be hostile to the government he represents, will be tolerated. so long only as there appears nothing in it offensive to loyal people. Respectfully,

"ROLLIN C. GALE, A. A. G.”

Have not things come to a pretty pass when an American newspaper published within a few miles of the capital of the country is threatened with suppression, because the heading to some of the news displeases an ignorant military officer? The phrase "Virginia Legislature" is literally correct, no matter what the

political crimes of that body may have been. A gun is a gun, whether in the hands of a federal or a confederate soldier, and an organized state legislature, in or out of the Union, is very properly distinguished by the name of the state it legislates for. The "general commanding" who inspired the above order may have a "bold" head of his own, but it certainly has very little brains or discretion inside of it.

GEO. W. JONES VS. WM. H. SEWARD.

Judge CLERKE, of the Superior Court of the city of New York, in which the case of GEORGE W. JONES vs. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, an action for alleged false imprisonment, is pending, has rendered an important decision. The question before the court arose upon a motion to remove the case from the state court to the United States Court for the northern district of New York.

Judge CLERKE, in giving the decision of the court, said:

"The defendant stated in his petition for this order that the action was brought for acts al

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leged to have been done by him as Secretary of State for the United States of America, under authority derived by him from the President of the United States, in causing the plaintiff to be arrested and imprisoned, or for some other wrong alleged to have been done to the plaintiff under such authority during the present rebellion, and that it therefore comes within the act of Congress of March 3d, 1863, relating to the writ of habeas corpus, by which a case may be removed to another court.

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After referring to the constitutional history of the United States and England, the learned judge remarks:

"Could it be supposed that the framers of the constitution intended any such power as that claimed in the present case, either express or implied? If they intended a dictatorship to exist under any emergency, they would not leave it to the chief-executive to assume it when he may in his discretion declare necessity required it, but would have provided that this necessity should be declared by congress, and that the legislature alone should select the person who should exercise it. That the President can assume such a power is an extravagant assumption which cannot be entertained by any court. No such inquiry can arise under the constitution of the United States. It does not reach the proportions or stature of a question.

:

"Mr. Lincoln as a military commander can possess no greater power than if he were not President. Suppose the constitution vested the commander-in-chief of the army and navy could this functionary subvert the constitution in some person other than the Presidentand laws under the plea of military necessity? Certainly not.”

The learned judge thus concludes:

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The question to be determined being or war, the determined being whether the President of the United States, during a rebellion, can arrest any person not subject to military law, without the process of some court, this was a question that would arise under the constitution of the United States. -X*

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"It cannot of course be pretended by the most ardent advocate of this high Presidential prerogative that the constitution confers it in set terms There is nothing in that instrument that can be tortured into the conferring of such power upon the President in his civil capacity, and this, it appears to me, plainly disposes of the question; for it would be asserting the greatest contradiction and strangest anomaly to say that absolute and unlimited power, equal to any exercised by Czar or Sultan, can be implied by a constitution which gives no power to any department that is not specially set forth, except simply the consequent right to employ all legal means necessary to the execution of the power.

"If there is anything beyond all controversy in the constitutional history of the nation it is that the purpose of the constitution and the provisions which it contains were for a considerable time before its adoption thoroughly discussed by their people and their delagates in convention, and any man professing to confer

"The power for which the defendant contends is plainly not necessary for the safety of the nation, and is not conferred by the Constitution. When that safety shall be endangered within the immediate theatre of insurrection or war, the commander-in-chief and his subordinates are judges of the occasion, but beyond that the ordinary course of proceedings in the courts of justice will be sufficient to punish any persons who furnish information, afford aid to an enemy or betray their country. In cases of emergency, caused by invasion or insurrection, the powers expressly given by the constitution, and the acts of Congress to repel the one and suppress the other are ample and effective.It requires no exercise of an extraordinary power over the sacred rights of personal liberty to accomplish all this. It is manifest that it is beyond all controversy, that those rights in war or in peace, during invasion or domestic violence, even during the hideous rebellion which now confronts us, exist in cases which I have stated and are inviolable.

"The President, therefore, whether in his civil or military capacity as commander-in chief, has no such power as that claimed for him.

"The ground upon which the application is made has no foundation in right. It cannot be entertained as a question in any state, or in the United States court. The only question in this motion worthy of consideration, and which can be entertained, does not arise under the constitution of the United States, but is clearly within the jurisdiction of this court."

A YOUNG LADY FINED FIFTEEN DOLLARS FOR be before Democrats will be compelled to cut

PLAYING A SECESH TUNE ON THE PIANO.

No one act of NAPOLEON III has been more virtuously denounced than the suppression of the Marseilles Hymn, and the punishment of those who sang or played that air. As a part of the correlative history of the times, we give the following from the New Orleans police reports, as it appeared in the New Orleans Era of April 29th, 1863:

"Provost Court-Judge A. De B. Hughes, presiding.

"Miss Claiborne Massey, arrested for playing the air of the Bonnie Blue Flag at the residence of her parents, was before the Court. The Hon. Michael Hahn appeared to defend her, and remarked that he did not think the playing of the air without the words constituted much of an offense. He said that the watchman had heard the air played, but at the time did not think it necessary to make the arrest. He afterwards consulted the Sergeant, who also thought it was not necessary to make the arrest; but he afterwards went back and made the arrest. Judge Hughes said that in consideration of the high character of the able gentleman who defended the lady, he would be as lenient as the strict requirements of his duties would permit, and therefore fined her only $15.

In the local column we find this notice of the affair:

down and burn up any butternut shade trees they may have set out, on pain of being arrested and "made examples of?" It cannot be possible the American people sanction these things.

OPENING THE PRISON DOORS.

The Washington correspondent of the Chicago Times says:

"This morning it is announced that the prison doors are open, and that the victims of private malice and official spite are free to depart. Are we to bow down in the dust and thank the man whose name is signed to the order of release? Rather let him tremble; and not him alone. The administration cannot, by this tardy act, atone for the misery they have inflicted, nor can they bring back the happiness they have ruthlessly destroy ed. The punishment of tyrants is sure to come, and they cannot escape theirs.

"This act of releasing prisoners of state is a mere caprice. There is no more reason for doing it now than there was three or six months ago. There was no cause for the arrests at first, and there is no cause for the termination of the confinements now that did not

exist then."

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BELSHAZZAR never trembled till he saw the handwriting on the wall, and then he was "A young lady, named Miss Claiborne Mas- afraid. Wonder if the Administration did not sey, of the highest respectability, was arrested read on the walls of the old bastile, the dreadlast night and locked up for playing the Bon-ful words, "Mene tekel upharsin?” nie Blue Flag. She was released to appear before the Provost Court. This morning she was fined $15.??

THE CASE OF GOV. TOD AND OTHERS.

It will be remembered that Gov. ToD, of Ohio, was recently arrested upon a charge of kidnapping Doctor OLDS. In the Court of Common Pleas of Fairfield county, in that Brate, a motion was made by STOUGHTON

Is it in the power of the human imagination to conceive of any possible harm for a young lady, accomplished, and of the "highest espectability, playing any tune on a pian? Did Napoleon III. ever exceed this Police demonstration? Young ladies must be carefulss, one of the parties arrested in the same how they play "Dixie." The substitution of "John Brown's Soul is Marching On," will save their $15.

MORE DISLOYAL PRACTICES.

By the following telegram it appears that all who wear butternut emblems-male or female are to be arrested:

"Cincinnati, April 20, '63.—Gen. Burnside approves the order issued by Gen. Carrington for the arrest of members of the K. G. C., on the ground that they are enemies to the Government He also favors the arrest of persons, male or female, wearing butternut emblems. Arrests are now being made, and examples will be made.??

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e, for a transfer of the cause to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of Ohio. The motion was based upon the act of Congress of March 3d, 1863, which provided for such transfer, and also provided that the defendants in such cases, by proving that they were "acting under color of authority" from the President, or of officers deriving their authority from him, should be entitled to discharge. Judge VAN TRUMP, before whom the motion was ande, in a brief but singularly clear and logical review, showed the unconstitutionality of the law, and overruled the motion. We append an extract of one point made by him, which, to our mind, was alone ample

Madness rules the hour. How long will it justification for his decision:

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