was granted, I shall merely observe that martial law confers power of arrest, of summary trial, and prompt execution; and that when it has been proclaimed, the land becomes a camp, and the law of the camp is the law of the land.  Mr. Justice Story defines martial law to be the law of war, a resort to military authority in cases where the civil law is not sufficient; and it confers summary power, not to be used arbitrarily or for the gratification of personal feelings of hatred or revenge, but for the preservation of order and of the public peace.  The officer clothed with it is to judge of the degree of force that the necessity of the case may demand; and there is no limit to this, except such as is to be found in the nature and character of the exigency.

I now take leave of this whole case.  That it is an interesting incident in the history of our institutions, I freely admit.  That it has come hither is a subject of no regret to me.  I might have said, that I see nothing to complain of in the proceedings of what is called the Charter government of Rhode Island, except that it might perhaps have discreetly taken measures at an earlier period for revising the constitution.  If in that delay it erred, it was the error into which prudent and cautious men would fall.  As to the enormity of freehold suffrage, how long is it since Virginia, the parent of States, gave up her freehold suffrage?  How long is it since nobody voted for governor in New York without a freehold qualification?  There are now States in which no man can vote for members of the upper branch of the legislature who does not own fifty acres of land.  Every State requires more or less of a property qualification in its officers and electors; and it is for discreet legislation, or constitutional provisions, to determine what its amount shall be.  Even the Dorr constitution had a property qualification.  According to its provisions, for officers of the State, to be sure, anybody could vote; but its authors remembered that taxation and representation go together, and therefore they declared that no man, in any town, should vote to lay a tax for town purposes who had not the means to pay his portion.  It said to him, You cannot vote in the town of Providence to levy a tax for repairing the streets of Providence; but you may vote for governor, and for thirteen representatives from the town of Providence, and send them to the legislature, and there they may tax the people of Rhode Island at their sovereign will and pleasure.

I believe that no harm can come of the Rhode Island agitation in 1841, but rather good.  It will purify the political atmosphere from some of its noxious mists, and I hope it will clear men’s minds from unfounded notions and dangerous delusions.  I hope it will bring them to look at the regularity, the order, with which we carry on what, if the word were not so much abused, I would call our glorious representative system of popular government.