to the security of life or property.  The excuse given for the bill in the preamble is admitted by the bill itself not to be real.  The military rule which it establishes is plainly to be used, not for any purpose of order or for the prevention of crime, but solely as a means of coercing the people into the adoption of principles and measures to which it is known that they are opposed, and upon which they have an undeniable right to exercise their own judgment.

I submit to Congress whether this measure is not in its whole character, scope, and object without precedent and without authority, in palpable conflict with the plainest provisions of the Constitution, and utterly destructive to those great principles of liberty and humanity for which our ancestors on both sides of the Atlantic have shed so much blood and expended so much treasure.

The ten States named in the bill are divided into five districts.  For each district an officer of the Army, not below the rank of a brigadier-general, is to be appointed to rule over the people; and he is to be supported with an efficient military force to enable him to perform his duties and enforce his authority.  Those duties and that authority, as defined by the third section of the bill, are “to protect all persons in their rights of person and property, to suppress insurrection, disorder, and violence, and to punish or cause to be punished all disturbers of the public peace or criminals.”  The power thus given to the commanding officer over all the people of each district is that of an absolute monarch.  His mere will is to take the place of all law.  The law of the States is now the only rule applicable to the subjects placed under his control, and that is completely displaced by the clause which declares all interference of State authority to be null and void.  He alone is permitted to determine what are rights of person or property, and he may protect them in such way as in his discretion may seem proper.  It places at his free disposal all the lands and goods in his district, and he may distribute them without let or hindrance to whom he pleases.  Being bound by no State law, and there being no other law to regulate the subject, he may make a criminal code of his own; and he can make it as bloody as any recorded in history, or he can reserve the privilege of acting upon the impulse of his private passions in each case that arises.  He is bound by no rules of evidence; there is, indeed, no provision by which he is authorized or required to take any evidence at all.  Everything is a crime which he chooses to call so, and all persons are condemned whom he pronounces to be guilty.  He is not bound to keep any record or make any report of his proceedings.  He may arrest his victims wherever he finds them, without warrant, accusation, or proof of probable cause.  If he gives them a trial before he inflicts the punishment, he gives it of his grace and mercy, not because he is commanded so to do.