and Congress, and the latter upon all branches of the Government, as well as upon private individuals. Whatever may be said or done by any person, which can be tortured into any thing objectionable to the Republican standard of thought or action, is reported with amplifications, sufficient to authorize arrest, and perhaps imprisonment. These spies and agents are, confessedly, selected from the rogues and vicious classes of society, upon the principle of "setting a rogue to catch a rogue." Their fidelity depends upon the temptation offered to overcome it. They inform when most advantageous, and are silent when silence is most profitable. Being destitute of elevated character, they have nothing to lose, but every thing to gain, from turning their situation to account. As they promise much to secure employment, they must manifest zeal, and make a show of efficiency, it being immaterial with them whether their accusations are just or groundless. These spies and secret agents are unauthorized by law, and not required by honesty and sound policy. All men are authorized to talk and act when they violate no law; but these creatures are designed to prevent or punish it. They travel all enter all circles

over the country, at Government expense, and open to them, to learn the thoughts and wishes of public men in regard to their relations in public and private life. No place is so sacred as to be beyond their impertinence, and no character too elevated to prevent them from attempting its destruction. The inquisitorial espionage in other countries is authorized by their laws, but here it is in violation of law, and the rights and privileges of the people. Mr. Seward says secret agents are necessary in the formation of treaties; but he has paid out thousands of public money under that pretence, where nothing was accomplished. It is a convenient way of cancelling the claims of partisans without opening his own pocket. These spies and secret agents-they are the same thing-are convenient when blackmail is to be levied, or adversaries are sought to be punished. They supply from their own mint all the coinage which truth does not furnish. No people can be truly free where this pernicious system has a foothold. Men must think and talk in conformity with some unknown standard, or be subject to the tyranny of some

unknown power, which makes unpublished rules, and convicts and executes under them in secret. If, when no public law is violated, it is criminal to talk, it must be equally so to think without conforming to the unknown standard. Unpublished laws cannot be enforced, and a legislative body which should seek to establish the contrary rule could never be reëlected. Unknown and unpublished regulations of an executive department do not stand upon as reliable a ground, because no one is authorized to make them. No human logic can justify this spy-system, and no department will venture openly to ask for the means of perpetuating it. Such institutions are anti-Democratic, and are unknown, except under Republican rule. Instead of affording the people protection, they constitute a complete system of unmitigated tyranny. Tyrants alone appeal to necessity as a source of power, and to secrecy, to prevent the people from understanding its concealed workings.

Among these spies and secret agents, it is to be regretted that women have been employed, and many of them of the most abandoned character. Not unfrequently they have practically led men "into temptation" and caused the acts which were made the grounds of accusation. Some, whose characters were above suspicion, became active agents in drawing men on, if not to criminal acts, to indefensible conversation, which, being rendered in its worst sense, was seized upon to gratify feelings of hostility and revenge. Men of high and pure characters have been the subjects of female entanglements, with more or less success, according to the depth of the plot and the skill of the actors. When these false women once enter dominions where they do not belong, those rightfully there are never safe either from misrepresentation, persecution, or black-mail. No elevation or purity of character is any protection from such snares. Innocent acts are so arranged as to suggest criminality, and half-seen transactions are so contrived as to seem criminal. Even children, in their simple honesty, are made to see what, standing by itself, would be wrong, when, if they had been permitted to see the whole, would prove a meritorious matter. None but tyrants resort to such means of acquiring that information which their necessities require. These

things are not matters of police, because the institution and regulation of police are provided for by laws enacted by the representatives of the people. They are simply matters of unauthorized tyranny, which infringe upon the rights of the people and blacken the character of the Government. They were wholly unknown' here until the Republicans came into power.

107.-THE TRIAL OF CIVILIANS BY MILITARY COMMISSIONS.

One of the charges against the King of Great Britain, contained in the Declaration of Independence was, that he had rendered the civil authorities subordinate to the military. Precisely the same thing was true in relation to Mr. Lincoln. The civil authorities were made by him entirely subordinate to the military. The law of the land was not the rule of action. It was found in the will of the military. Even the capital was subjected to a military governor, who made laws from day to day as he went along. Military tribunals were established in various places to try civilians not charged with offences against the military statutes. The Constitution confers authority upon Congress to provide for governing the Army. This extends only to those employed in the service, and to punishing spies who seek to destroy it. All others are protected by express provisions calculated to secure speedy and fair trials in the courts of law. It is expressly provided that "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury. . . nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. . . . In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State . . . and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, and be confronted with the witnesses against him."

These provisions were continually violated throughout the war by arresting and trying persons, not in the military service, before military commissions instituted and organized under executive authority alone. The case of Colonel North, Cohn, and Jones, was one of this class. They were employed in the New York State Agency at Washington to aid and protect the interests of those in the Army from that State, including voting and return

ing the soldiers' votes under a New York statute. They were Democrats. Jones had served as an officer in the Army until taken prisoner, when his health failed.

They were charged with forging and altering soldiers' votes, which was an offence under New York laws. They were arraigned before a military commission and put upon their trial; bail was refused. Their counsel raised the question of jurisdiction, cited the Constitution, and claimed that if an offence had been committed, it was one against New York laws, which Federal authority was incompetent to enforce. On the part of the Government it was contended that the offence was one that impaired the efficiency of the military service, because to cheat the soldier out of his vote by alteration or forgery would make him discontented and angry, and then he would not perform his duty faithfully when subject to such feelings. The commission held that they had jurisdiction and proceeded with the trial. It commenced. just before the election in 1864, and continued into January, 1865, when, there being no evidence whatever to sustain the charges, they were acquitted. Colonel North was discharged on the 26th of January, and told to leave. Cohn and Jones were detained until the 8th of February, when they were ordered to leave the Old Capitol Prison. Prior to their leaving, Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War, had repeatedly told members of Congress and others, that they were convicted and sentenced to State prison for life, while the record itself shows that all three were acquitted on the 4th of January, 1865. The proceedings were filed in the Judge-Advocate-General's office on the 24th of January, the day that Colonel North was discharged. There has never been any explanation in relation to keeping these men in prison so long after they were acquitted, or why Cohn and Jones were not set free when North was. But it is known that great efforts were made to induce Cohn's friends, who were rich, to pay large sums for his pardon and discharge, and one Republican did derive some advantage from them on one occasion. But better advice was followed afterward, and all offering services were bluffed off. The arrest of these three men was made to aid in Mr. Lincoln's reelection by creating the belief that the Democrats were engaged

in great frauds. The expectation was, that the trial could be had and the accused convicted before the election. It was claimed on the part of the Government that the trial could be finished in two days, and the application of their counsel, for subpoenas to bring witnesses from New York to prove their good character, was vehemently resisted, but when granted, so that the trial could not be completed until after the election, then the Judge Advocate ceased to press the trial and the case was postponed at his instance, several times, amounting, in all, to between thirty and forty days. He went to New York City, and had men brought there from various parts of the State, and some other places, who were secretly examined, to try and find out something to the disadvantage of the accused, but he failed. When Jones was first arrested, the Judge Advocate put on citizen's dress, took a stenographer with him, and called on him and pretended to believe Jones was innocent, and got him to talk over things which Jones had said were true, and he would swear to them. The Judge Advocate pretended to believe Jones had been badly treated, merely to draw him out. He and his stenographer departed. The latter drew out a statement, garbled and false, which the former published on the day the trial commenced as the sworn confession of Jones. It was so in form, although he had never seen, read, signed, or sworn to it. This false statement--for the stenographer was put under oath, produced his notes, and proved it to be so-went through the land as a startling confession of crime. This stenographer is said to be employed frequently in the State Department to take down conversations, and has figured as a witness on the President's impeachment, to prove what he said in public on certain occasions. This pretended confession was offered and received in evidence against all the accused, notwithstanding the proof by the party preparing it was clear and complete that it was in several respects untrue and deceptive. If a conviction had taken place before the election, there is 'good reason to believe that it was expected to lay the foundation for arresting Governor Seymour, who had appointed Colonel North as State Agent, and also sundry Democratic leaders, before the election, charging that they were implicated in the affair, and thereby produce a whirlwind of ex