another part of the same force, the latter army could not, after this enactment, be one of the "other forces" than the regular army, under article 77. There are several reasons why this argument fails to convince. In the first place, there is no repeal, modification, or reference to the provisions of article 77 in this act or in the act of 1899. There is nothing in either of them to indicate that in considering or enacting this legislation congress intended to modify the terms or the effect of that article, and, as no such intention appears in the legislation, the conclusive presumption is that no such intention existed. Moreover, the care and emphasis with which the difference between the regular army and the volunteer army is maintained throughout the act of 1898 demonstrate the fact that it was the positive intention of congress to maintain the distinction between the two forces. Starting with the declaration that the active land forces shall consist of the army and the militia, that the regular army is the permanent military establishment and the volunteer army is the temporary force in which enlistments shall be for a term of two years, unless sooner terminated, it contains these significant provisions:

"Sec. 5. That when it becomes necessary to raise a volunteer army the president shall issue his proclamation stating the number of men desired. "Sec. 6. That the volunteer army and the militia of the states when called into the service of the United States shall be organized under, and shall be subject to, the laws, orders and regulations governing the regular army.

"Sec. 7. That all organizations of the volunteer army shall be so recruited from time to time as to maintain them as near to their maximum strength as the president may deem necessary."

Sec. 8. That all returns and muster rolls of the volunteer army "shall be rendered to the adjutant general of the army and filed in the record and pension office of the war department."

"Sec. 9. That in time of war, or when war is imminent, the troops in the service of the United States, whether belonging to the regular or volunteer army or to the militia, shall be organized" into divisions of three brigades. Section 10 relates to the staff officers.

Sec. 11. That the president is hereby authorized to appoint in the volunteer army "one major general for each army corps or division and one brigadier general for each brigade,” and any officer so selected and appointed from the regular army shall be entitled to retain his rank therein.

"Sec. 12. That all officers and enlisted men of the volunteer army and of the militia of the states when in the service of the United States, shall be in all respects on the same footing as to pay, allowances, and pensions as that of officers and enlisted men of corresponding grades in the regular

army.

"Sec. 13. That the governor of any state or territory may, with the consent of the president, appoint officers of the regular army in the grades of field officers in organizations of the volunteer army, and officers thus appointed shall be entitled to retain their rank in the regular army.

"Sec. 14. That the general commanding a separate department or a detached army is authorized to appoint from time to time military boards of not less than three nor more than five volunteer officers of the volunteer army to examine into the capacity, qualifications, conduct and efficiency of any commissioned officer of said army within his command.”

These various sections are utterly inconsistent with the view that the volunteer army was made the same force as the regular army, and that all distinctions in the treatment and trial of the members of the two forces were stricken down by the casual enumeration of the active land forces of the nation in the first section of the act. If the volunteer army was the regular army, why the declaration in section 6 that

the volunteer army should be subject to the laws, orders, and regulations governing the regular army; in section 12, that the officers and enlisted men of the volunteer army should be on the same footing as men of corresponding grades of the regular army; and in section 13, that officers of the regular army commissioned as officers in the volunteer army should retain their rank in the former? These provisions are pregnant with significance. But section 14 places the purpose and intention of the lawmakers to maintain the established rule that the volunteer army was one of the "other forces" than the regular army within the meaning of article 77 and the law and the policy that their officers and soldiers should not be tried by the officers of the regular army beyond doubt or cavil. It provides for military boards to examine into the capacity, qualifications, conduct, and efficiency of officers of the volunteer army. But, in accordance with the then existing law and policy of the nation, it excludes from these boards all officers of the regular army, and directs that they shall be composed entirely of officers of the volunteer force. When the entire act of 1898 is carefully read and considered, it is found to contain no indication of any intention on the part of congress to modify the terms or the settled construction of article 77. On the other hand, it evidences a plain purpose to maintain the rule and policy which classified the volunteer army among the "other forces" than the regular army, and prohibited the officers of the latter from sitting on courts-martial to try the officers and soldiers of the former.

Another reason why the argument based upon the classification in the first section of this act is not persuasive is that it is fallacious. Stated in syllogistic form, it is: The land forces are composed of the army and the militia. The army is composed of the regular army and the volunteer army. Therefore the volunteer force is the regular force. When thus stated, the fallacy is apparent. The contention is based on the false assumption that every part of a military force is the same part as every other part; that every species of a genus is the same as every other species of that genus; that every class properly described by a generic term is the same class as every other class covered by that term. Illustrations make the fallacy plain. Oranges and apples are fruit, yet oranges are other fruit than apples. The Russians and Americans are people, and yet the white Americans are other people than the black Americans. The cavalry, infantry, and artillery of the regular army is a military force, and yet the cavalry and infantry are other forces than the artillery. So the regular army and the volunteer army, under the classification of 1898, constitute a force, and yet the volunteer army, both in fact and within the meaning of article 77, is another force than the regular army.

Again, even if the contention of counsel for the government were conceded, it would but serve to strengthen the position that the petitioner, who was commissioned under the act of 1899, was a member of other forces than the regular army. The argument rests entirely on the declaration of the act of 1898 that the army of the United States is composed of the regular army and the volunteer army, and that the land forces consist of the army and the militia. The act of 1899 contains no such classification, but, on the other hand, expressly declares

that the "army of the United States shall consist" of the cavalry, infantry, and artillery of the regular army; that the regular army may be temporarily increased to 65,000 men, and that the president may "raise a force of not more than thirty-five thousand volunteers." 30 Stat. 977, 979, c. 352, §§ 1, 12. The petitioner is one of these volunteers, and, if the effect of the classification of 1898 had been all that counsel claims, yet by the literal terms of the act of 1899 Deming was a member of another force than the regular army, a member of the volunteer force.

Counsel for the government advance another argument in support of the contention that the volunteers, under the acts of 1898 and 1899, were not other forces than the regular army. It is that the law and the practice upon this subject during the war of the Rebellion were established to prevent state troops from being tried by the officers of the regular army; that the volunteers during that war were raised by the states, and officered by their governors; and that their regiments were designated by the names of the states from which they came, while the volunteers called under the acts of 1898 and 1899 were raised under a different system, were not so nearly assimilated to the militia, and that those received under the act of 1899 were not apportioned to or raised by the states, their regiments were not designated by the names of the states, but, like the regulars, they were enlisted from the country at large, their regiments took numbers supplemental to those of the regiments of the regular army, and their officers were appointed, not by the governors, but by the president. This contention, in our opinion, is based on a misconception of the real reason which inspired the legislation and the policy which for so many years has prohibited the trial of volunteers by regulars. That reason was, not that the volunteers were state troops and the regulars national troops, that the volunteers were raised by the states and their officers were appointed by the governors, while the regulars were raised by the nation and their officers were commissioned by the president. It was, as has been shown in an earlier part of this opinion, that the knowledge, training, habits, hopes, and ambitions of the officers of the regular army, who had devoted themselves for life to the discipline and efficiency of that force, necessarily conditioned their opinions of the heinousness of military offenses; and these opinions, this knowledge and training, these hopes and ambitions, differed so widely from those of the officers of the volunteer force, who came from civil life, for a limited time, ignorant of military law and of the customs and practices of a soldier's life, and anxious to speedily return to their civil occupations, that congress established the rule that the former should not be competent to sit on courts-martial for the trial of the latter. The reason of this rule applies to the volunteer force raised under the act of 1899 with as much force as to those raised during the war of the Rebellion.

Finally, it is contended that the provision of section 6 of the act of April 22, 1898, "that the volunteer army and the militia of the states when called into the service of the United States shall be organized under, and shall be subject to, the laws, orders and regulations governing the regular army," indicates that the volunteer army and the

militia are a part of the regular army, and hence the same force as that army, within the meaning of article 77- The enactment appears to us to demonstrate the contrary, and that because, if the volunteers and the militia were a part of the regular army, they were subject to the laws, orders, and regulations governing it, without a special declaration to that effect. A similar provision may be found in the act of July 22, 1861 (12 Stat. 269, c. 9, § 2), under which the volunteer forces for the war of the Rebellion were enlisted, and yet those volunteers were held to be other forces than the regular army. The result is that when the acts of 1898 and 1899 were passed there was an article of war in force enacted by congress which expressly prohibited the officers of the regular army from sitting on courtsmartial to try the officers or soldiers of other forces. Prior to the passage of these acts the volunteer force was in fact, and had been uniformly held to be, one of these other forces, so that in law and in practice this article of war forbade the officers of the regular army to try the officers or soldiers of the volunteers. There is no express repeal or modification of this inhibition in the acts of 1898 and 1899. There is nothing in these acts repugnant to or inconsistent with the prohibition, nothing to show that congress intended thereby to withdraw or to change it, but strong indications, in the marked distinction it studiously maintains between the regular army and the volunteer army, and in the fact that it provided for military boards composed entirely of officers of the volunteer army to examine into the efficiency and qualifications of the volunteer officers, that it intended. to preserve and to maintain the inhibition. The reason which inspired this legislation and the policy and practice it evidences apply with all their cogency and force to the officers and soldiers of the volunteer force raised under the act of 1899. These facts and the considerations to which we have adverted have irresistibly forced our minds to the conclusion that the volunteer force raised under the act of 1899 was not the same force as the regular army, but that it was one of the "other forces" specified in article 77, and that the officers of the regular army were forbidden by that article to sit on any court-martial to try the petitioner, who was an officer of the volunteer force raised under the act of 1899.

It is insisted, however, that, if the members of this court-martial were disqualified to try the petitioner, that objection was waived, because not made at the trial, and the judgment was not void, but merely erroneous and voidable, so that it was impregnable to collateral attack by the writ of habeas corpus. A writ of habeas corpus cannot be made to perform the office of a writ of error, but it is the proper process to challenge a void judgment and to relieve the defendant from its baleful effect. It may not be invoked to review and avoid an erroneous judgment of which the court had jurisdiction, but it is always effective to relieve a prisoner from the restraint imposed by a judgment that is absolutely void. In re Reese, 47 C. C. A. 87, 107 Fed. 942, 948; Ex parte Buskirk, 72 Fed. 14, 21, 18 C. C. A. 410, 417, 25 U. S. App. 613, 615; Ex parte Ayers, 123 U. S. 443, 8 Sup. Ct. 164, 31 L. Ed. 216; Ex parte Fisk, 113 U. S. 713, 718, 5 Sup. Ct. 724, 28 L. Ed. 1117; Dynes v. Hoover, 20 How. 81, 83, 15 L.

Ed. 838; Ex parte Reed, 100 U. S. 13, 23, 25 L. Ed. 538; In re Coy, 127 U. S. 731, 8 Sup. Ct. 1263, 32 L. Ed. 274; Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651, 4 Sup. Ct. 152, 28 L. Ed. 274; U. S. v. Pridgeon, 153 U. S. 48, 59, 14 Sup. Ct. 746, 38 L. Ed. 631; Rose v. Roberts, 99 Fed. 948, 40 C. C. A. 199. A judgment or sentence of a court which had no jurisdiction of the subject-matter or of the person affected by its adjudication is absolutely void. But the judg ment or sentence of a court empowered to hear and determine the issues relative to the subject-matter and the person affected by its decision, although it may be wrong and irregular, is simply voidable, and cannot be successfully attacked collaterally. Foltz v. Railroad Co., 60 Fed. 316, 318, 8 C. C. A. 635, 637, 19 U. S. App. 576, 581. Hence the question here presented is, did this court-martial have jurisdiction to hear and try the petitioner for the offense for which he was charged? The legal presumption is that courts of general jurisdiction have the power and the authority to make the adjudications which they render, and that their judgments are valid. But no such presumption accompanies the sentences of courts of inferior or limited jurisdiction. It is indispensable to the maintenance of their judgments that their jurisdiction shall be clearly and unequivocally shown. A court-martial is a court of limited jurisdiction. It is a creature of the statute, a temporary judicial body authorized to exist by acts of congress under specified circumstances for a specific purpose. It has no power or jurisdiction which the statutes do not confer upon it. The articles of war specify the officers who are empowered to convene these courts (articles 72, 73, 74, 81, 82), the officers who may compose them (articles 75, 76, 77, 78, 80), and the persons and charges which they are empowered to try (articles 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83). It necessarily follows that the jurisdiction of every courtmartial, and hence the validity of each, of its judgments, is conditioned by these indispensable prerequisites: (1) That it was convened by an officer empowered by the statutes to call it; (2) that the officers whom he commanded to sit upon it were of those whom he was authorized by the articles of war to detail for that purpose; (3) that the court thus constituted was invested by the acts of congress with power to try the person and the offense charged; and (4) that its sentence was in accordance with the Revised Statutes. The absence of any of these indispensable conditions renders the judgment and sentence of a court-martial coram non judice, and absolutely void, because such a judgment and sentence is rendered without authority of law and without jurisdiction. Runkle v. U. S., 122 U. S. 543, 546, 7 Sup. Ct. 1141, 30 L. Ed. 1167; Mills v. Martin, 19 Johns. 7, 30; Wise v. Withers, 3 Cranch, 331, 2 L. Ed. 457; Ex parte Watkins, 3 Pet. 193, 207, 7 L. Ed. 650; Dynes v. Hoover, 20 How. 65, 80, 15 L. Ed. 838.

Let us now measure the contention that the judgment of this courtmartial, which condemned the petitioner to dismissal and imprisonment, was not void, but was merely irregular or erroneous, by these indisputable principles. The eighty-eighth article of war reads:

"Members of a court martial may be challenged by a prisoner, but only for cause stated to the court. The court shall determine the relevancy and