It is plain that the authority here given to the military officer amounts to absolute despotism.  But to make it still more unendurable, the bill provides that it may be delegated to as many subordinates as he chooses to appoint, for it declares that he shall “punish or cause to be punished.”  Such a power has not been wielded by any monarch in England for more than five hundred years.  In all that time no people who speak the English language have borne such servitude.  It reduces the whole population of the ten States—­all persons, of every color, sex, and condition, and every stranger within their limits—­to the most abject and degrading slavery.  No master ever had a control so absolute over the slaves as this bill gives to the military officers over both white and colored persons.

It may be answered to this that the officers of the Army are too magnanimous, just, and humane to oppress and trample upon a subjugated people.  I do not doubt that army officers are as well entitled to this kind of confidence as any other class of men.  But the history of the world has been written in vain if it does not teach us that unrestrained authority can never be safely trusted in human hands.  It is almost sure to be more or less abused under any circumstances, and it has always resulted in gross tyranny where the rulers who exercise it are strangers to their subjects and come among them as the representatives of a distant power, and more especially when the power that sends them is unfriendly.  Governments closely resembling that here proposed have been fairly tried in Hungary and Poland, and the suffering endured by those people roused the sympathies of the entire world.  It was tried in Ireland, and, though tempered at first by principles of English law, it gave birth to cruelties so atrocious that they are never recounted without just indignation.  The French Convention armed its deputies with this power and sent them to the southern departments of the Republic.  The massacres, murders, and other atrocities which they committed show what the passions of the ablest men in the most civilized society will tempt them to do when wholly unrestrained by law.

The men of our race in every age have struggled to tie up the hands of their governments and keep them within the law, because their own experience of all mankind taught them that rulers could not be relied on to concede those lights which they were not legally bound to respect.  The head of a great empire has sometimes governed it with a mild and paternal sway, but the kindness of an irresponsible deputy never yields what the law does not extort from him.  Between such a master and the people subjected to his domination there can be nothing but enmity; he punishes them if they resist his authority, and if they submit to it he hates them for their servility.

I come now to a question which is, if possible, still more important.  Have we the power to establish and carry into execution a measure like this?  I answer, Certainly not, if we derive our authority from the Constitution and if we are bound by the limitations which it imposes.