§ 32. A prisoner of war is subject to no punishment for being a public enemy, nor is any revenge wreaked upon him by the intentional infliction of any suffering, or disgrace, by cruel imprisonment, want of food, by mutilation, death, or any other barbarity.
§ 33. At all periods of history, ancient or modern, governments have employed as soldiers people of different races or color. Every European nation, having an opportunity of enlisting men of different races, actually does so, without exception.
So soon as a man is armed by a sovereign government, and takes the soldier’s oath of fidelity, he is a belligerent; his killing, wounding, or other warlike acts, are no individual crimes or offences. Thus, in ancient times, the sacramentum, changed the homicide of an enemy, from murder to a lawful act.
The Law of Nations knows of no distinction of color, and if an enemy of the United States should enslave and sell any captured persons of their army, it would be a case for the severest retaliation, if not redressed upon complaint.
The United States cannot retaliate by enslavement; therefore death must be the retaliation for this crime against the Law of Nations.
§ 34. The prisoner of war remains answerable for the crimes committed against the captor’s army or people, committed before he was captured and for which he has not been punished by his own authorities. The prisoner of war remains liable to the infliction of retaliatory measures.
§ 35. No regiment or division of troops has the right to declare that for a single occasion it will not give, and therefore will not receive, quarter.
A commander is permitted to direct his troops to give no quarter, in great straits only, when his own salvation makes it impossible to cumber himself with prisoners.
[The chief commander may permit a regiment or division to declare, for the duration of the war, that it will not give, and therefore does not expect, quarter.]
Troops that give no quarter, have no right to kill enemies already disabled on the ground, or prisoners captured by other troops.