“Art. 5. No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless upon a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia when in actual service, in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.
“Art. 6. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel in his defence.”
It is obvious that most of the privileges intended to be secured by these articles to our citizens have recently been denied to some of them, at the point of the bayonet, and under circumstances of peculiar violence. It may, indeed, be said that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus was not denied in the first instance; that it could not be said to be suspended until the injured persons were placed in a situation which entitled them to demand it from the judicial power of their country. It is true that, notwithstanding inter arma silent leges, although the laws were silent amid the thunder of arms, and although a thousand terrors hovered around those who dared to exercise their professional duties in support of the constitutional rights of the citizen, a writ of habeas corpus was claimed and obtained; and I had supposed that the very singular return which is said to have been made to the writ was placed on our official files. On searching them, however, I do not discover it; but it has been published in all the newspapers, and a copy of it is now before me, which I will read:
“The undersigned, commanding the Army of the United States, takes on himself all responsibility for the arrest of Dr. Erick Bollman, on a charge of misprision of treason against the United States, and has adopted measures for his safe delivery to the Executive of the United States. It was after several consultations with the Governor and two of the judges of this Territory that the undersigned has hazarded this step for the national safety, menaced to its base by a lawless band of traitors, associated under Aaron Burr, whose accomplices are extended from New York to this city. No man can hold in higher reverence the civil institutions of his country than the undersigned, and it is to maintain and perpetuate the holy attributes of the constitution against the uplifted hand of violence that he has interposed the force of arms in a moment of extreme peril, to seize upon Bollman, as he will upon all others, without regard to standing or station, against whom satisfactory proofs may arise of a participation in the lawless combination.
“JAMES WILKINSON.
“Headquarters Army of the U. S.,
“New Orleans.”
Here is a return, not of obedience to the laws, and high reverence for civil institutions, but of disobedience and defiance. The constitution is violated in order to preserve it inviolate! Prostrated in the dust by military power, for the purpose of maintaining and perpetuating its holy attributes. And what great national object was to be accomplished by such extraordinary measures? What necessity could exist of seizing one or two wandering conspirators, and transporting them fifteen hundred or two thousand miles from the constitutional scene of inquisition and trial, to place them particularly under the eye of the National Government, when, if the opinion of the officer himself was correct, it would immediately become the duty of that Government to suffer them to go at large? In regard to one of them, the General was uncertain whether he had committed a major or a minor crime; and the other he explicitly pronounces, as we learn from our official documents, guilty of misprision of treason, at all events a bailable offence. He says, “from the documents in my possession and the several communications, verbal as well as written, from the said Dr. Erick Bollman, on this subject, I feel no hesitation in declaring, under the solemn obligation of an oath, that he has committed misprision of treason against the United States.” Surely it is desirable to provide against the recurrence of scenes of this description. Or shall it be admitted that the whim, the caprice, the passion, or the ambition of a martial chief, may supersede at will the most important checks and safeguards of the constitution?
Mr. J. Randolph introduced his speech in favor of the resolution by observing, that he understood the question before the House to be, whether they would refer to a Committee of the Whole a motion proposing an inquiry whether further legal provision be not necessary to prevent violations of the writ of habeas corpus.
How long it had been the fashion to debate the merits of a subject on a simple motion to commit, it was not material to inquire. He believed it had commenced the present session.