OCR Text |
Show NOTES. It created, however, some sensation ;--discontents were again fomented, from the source that had first produced th•m. Aliens and strangers became the most violent advocates of constitutional rights, and native Americans were taught the value of their privileges, by those who formally disavowed any title to their enjoyment. The order was particularly opposed, in an anonymous publication. In this, the author deliberately and wickedly misrepresented the order, as subjecting to removal all Frenchmen whatever, even those who had gloriously fought in defence of the country; and, after many dangerous and unwarrantable declara~ tions, he closes, by calling upon all Frenchmen to flock to the standard of their consul-thus advising and producing an act of mutiny and insubordination, and publishing the evidence of our weakness and discord to the enemy, who were still in our vicinity, anxious, no doubt, before the cessation of hostilities, to wipe away the late stain upon their arms. To have silently looked on such an offence, without making any attempt to punish it, would have been a formal surrender of all discipline, all order tall personal dignity and public safety. This could not be done; and therespondent immediately ordered the arrest of the offender. A writ of habeas corpus was directed to issue fm· his enlargement. The very case which had been foreseen, the very contingency on which martial law was intended to operate, had now occurred. The civil magistrate seemed to think it his duty to enforce the enjoyment of civil rights, although the consequences which have been described, would probably have resulted. An unbending sense of what he seemed to think his station required, induced him to order the liberation of the prisoner. This, under the re~ spondent's sense of duty, produced a conflict which it was his wish to avoid. No other course remained, than to enforce the principles which he had laid down as his guide, and to suspend the exercise of this judicial power, wherever it iuterfered with the necessary means of defence. The only way effectually to do this, was to place the judge in a situation, in which his interference could not coun· teract the measures of defence, or give countenance to the muti~ nous disposition that had shown itself in so alarming a degree. ~ferely to have disregarded the writ, would but have increased the evil, and to have obeyed it, was wholly repugnant to the respondent's ideas of the public safety, and to his own sense of NOTES. 425 duty. The judge was therefore confined, and removed beyond the lines of defence. As to the paper mentioned in the rule, which the respondent is charged with taking and detaining, he answers, that when the writ was produced by tl>e clerk of this honourable court, the date of its issuance appeared to have been altered from the 5th to the · 6th. He was questioned respecting the apparent alteration, and acknowledged it had been done by judg~ Hall, and not in the presence of the party who made the affidavit. This material alteration, in a paper that concerned him, gave the respondent, as he thought, a right to detain it, for further investigation, which he accordingly did; but gave a certified copy, and an acknowledgment that the original was in his possession. The respondent avows, that he considered this alteration in the date of the affidavit, as it was then explained to him by the clerk, to be such evidence of a personal, not judicial, interffrence, and activity, in behalf .of a man chargetl with the most serious o~ence, as justified the idea then formed, that the judge approved h1s conduct, and sup)lorted his attempts to excite disaffection among the troops. > This was the conduct of the respondent, and these the motives which prompted it. They have been fairly and openly exposed to this tribunal, and to the worW, and would not have been ac~ companied by any exception or wave1• of jurisdiction, if it hatl been deemed expedient to give him that species of trial, to which he thinks himself entitled, by the constitution of his country. The powers which the exigency of the timE's forced him to assume, have been exercised exclusively for the public good; and, by the blessing of God, they have been attended with unparalleled suc.~ss. They have saved the country; and whatever may be the opmton of that country, or the decrees of its courts, in relation to the means he has 'used, he can never regret that he employed them. ANDREW JACKSON, JJfajor general commanding 7th military district. |