CHAPTER XI. MARTIAL LAW. HITHERTO, in describing and commenting upon the outrages committed upon the persons and property of the people of Rhode Island under the pretext of martial law, we have viewed them as acts of flagrant injustice, unnecessary, and before unknown in this country, without instituting any inquiry into the validity of the act under which they were committed. But the justification set up by the authors and perpetrators of those acts deserves a further and more definite consideration. Every wrong doer in that ruthless tragedy pleads martial law in full justification of all his acts. It is believed that, in this country, martial law is but vaguely understood by the great mass of the people. We have only learned, from history, that this terrible engine was sometimes put in operation in the earlier history of some of the European nations; that it was seldom or never resorted to except in actual warfare, and then proclaimed by a military chieftain. But it is well ascertained that no civil government in the known world, except Rhode Island, has attempted to establish it over a whole empire or single state for the last two hundred years. Its consequences were found to be so abhorrent to every sentiment of humanity, that the whole civilized world united to abolish it. Now, it is evident that the Rhode Island General Assembly neither in 1842 nor at any other time before or since possessed any legal or constitutional power to place the state under martial law. The act was not authorized by any precedent in this country or in any other recently. The charter, under which that body acted, gave them no such authority, but impliedly, at least, forbade it; and by the ratification of the constitution of the United States all such power had been delegated to the General Government. The state authorities might call upon the posse comitatus, or the military, if necessary, to enforce their own statute laws; but this was the extent of their power. They could never authorize any functionary, civil or military, to overstep the provisions of the constitution of the United States. In short, the state had no right whatever to make or exercise any but civil laws. It may be presumed that the legislature, which passed that act in Rhode Island, did not fully realize the dangerous step they were taking; but, relying upon their own omnipotence, they assumed the tremendous responsibility of surrendering the lives and interests of the whole people to the mercy of the bayonet. At the time martial law was declared in Rhode Island, the judicial tribunals of the state were open for the trial of all offences, and their proceedings in no way interfered with or molested. Under the double rule of both civil and martial law, the state presented the strange anomaly of two separate and distinct systems of government in full operation in the same state and over the same people at the same time. But, in operating these different political engines, the acts of each were not always kept distinct from the other, but men were arrested and imprisoned under martial law, and afterwards brought to trial before a civil tribunal. All such proceedings were evidently arbitrary and illegal; they tended to break up all the foundations of social order, overturn all civil and political institutions, restore the reign of force, and make might the test of right. Martial law has never been justified except from dire necessity; it is governed by no rules, and knows no limits; it overrides and suspends all other laws during its continuance. According to the principles held in countries where martial law has been resorted to, the right to employ it arises solely from imperious necessity, and ceases the instant the necessity that called it forth has passed by; and all acts committed under any such pretext, after that necessity has ceased, have ever been held criminal. Therefore, if, on the 24th of June, 1842, such necessity had existed, and the legislature of Rhode Island had possessed the constitutional power to set up martial law, in a momentary crisis, it is obvious that on the 28th of that month the cause had entirely ceased, as the government well knew; and therefore every act of violence committed after that time, under that pretext, was just as much a crime as if no such law had ever existed. It is apparent that no such necessity ever existed at any moment during the Rhode Island controversy. The government should first have resisted the supposed rebellion by its civil officers; and if they were found unable of themselves to enforce the laws and bring delinquents to justice, they should next have called on the civil posse ; and if, with that assistance, the government still found itself unable to compel obedience to its institutions, the whole military power of the state might have been called in aid of the government. But, without taking any of these steps, immediate resort was had to martial law, and all the men and munitions of war that the government could command at home or procure from abroad were forthwith turned out to prey upon all such as were supposed to entertain political principles adverse to the charter government. But even martial law, with all its summary claims, does not, as was supposed in Rhode Island, instantly convert the whole military into a band of lawless freebooters; but as soon as that law is suspended, every one who has overstepped its necessary limits is liable to be brought to trial before a civil tribunal; and, if the view which has been taken of the subject be correct, then all the acts of violence and villany committed in Rhode Island in 1842, under pretext of martial law, constitute a fearful catalogue of crimes, which never have been, and never can be, fully atoned for in this world. But we are asked, Why have not the perpetrators of these deeds been brought to trial before courts of justice? To this we answer, they could not be proceeded against out of the state for offences committed within its jurisdiction, and the highest tribunals within the state allow all such defendants to justify themselves by pleading martial law. When we consider that nearly all the most outrageous and wicked acts of violence were committed after all opposition had ceased, and that hundreds of men were taken by violent hands from their homes, their fields, or their workshops, surrounded with muskets and bayonets, bound with ropes, and, without any kind of precept, driven to prison amid the loud taunts and insults of savage men and heartless women, crowded like sheep into dark, narrow, and filthy cells, nearly suffocated for want of air, without water sufficient to quench their thirst, fed like pigs upon two wretched and scanty meals a day, denied all intercourse with their friends, and kept in this painful condition, in some instances, for several weeks, and when at last they were brought forth from their dungeons for examination, were told that nothing was found against them; when we recollect also that the victors and their victims were, in many instances, neighbors and acquaintances; when we see bands of armed men firing at random into a crowd of innocent spectators; when we behold a defenceless individual coolly shot down, whilst without the jurisdiction of the state, and the next day, when it is known that all opposition has ceased, we see the chief magistrate of the state, without any cause whatever, send an armed squadron to blow up a bridge in the very midst of a populous city, a portion of which was beyond his jurisdiction, when we reflect upon these and hundreds of other transactions of a like nature, we sicken at the thought of that deep depravity which breaks out in such a malicious persecution of men for opinion's sake, which has no parallel in modern times. |