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SPEECH. 
 
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 . BARNARD, OF NEW' YORK, 
 
 w 
 
 TPIE HOUSE OT REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATED, 
 
 December 29, 3 843, and Janii,aJjr 2, J 644. 
 
 C.?J 
 
 V 
 
 THE ElllLlL TOK EFUND THE P B N E 
 
 ^MPoexD trrcH 
 
 GENERAL JACKSON. 
 
 WASHINGTON.- 
 
 pej:tted by GALXS AKD 6KA'3©jH. 
 
 1844. 
 

1 ^T^ ST EEC 
 
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 [The following speech on the bill to remit to General Jackson the amount of the fine imposed 
 on him at New Orleans for contempt of court, was commenced in the House of Ecprcsentativcs, in 
 Committee of the Whole, on Friday, the 29th of December, then interrupted by the adjournment 
 of the House, amd continued on Tuesday, the 2d of January, and again interrupted by the opera- 
 tion of the one-hour rule. No further opportiuiity having occurred for completing the \iew of the 
 subject intended to have been presented, this sketch is made to embrace some matter wljich was cut 
 off in the manner stated. ] 
 
 Mr. BARNARD spoke to the following effect : 
 
 Mr. Chairman : Of course, I understand that (his bill is to pass this 
 House, and I am not at all surprised at the impatient zeal which we have 
 seen manifested in its behalf. Of course, 1 understand also that the Eighth of 
 January is at hand, which "the party" have already determined to signal- 
 ize here at the capital by public demonstrations, and that it is deemed import- 
 ant this bill should be forced through, preparatory to the patriotic perform- 
 ances of that day. I shall not stand long in the way, but I cannot consent 
 to let this bill go to the vote without stating to the House my views of the 
 nature and effect of the measure here proposed. There are doubtless those 
 in this House who are not familiar with the facts in relation to the fine im- 
 posed on General Jackson, who will yet, as *' true men," be expected to 
 vote for this bill. It will do them no harm to know something of these 
 facts before they vote. Besides, gentlemen had better moderate the violence 
 of their sudden zeal for what they call an act of justice to General Jackson. 
 It will look better. They have been rather long and late in making the 
 discovery that the remission of this fine is an act of justice due from the 
 country. It is twenty-nine years since the battle of New Orleans was 
 fought, and for twenty-six years, or thereabouts, this remission was never 
 once proposed ; and that is rather a long period for men's sense of injustice 
 to sleep, especially towards a successful military chieftain, and one who 
 has all the while filled a large space in the popular regard. And these 
 Halls have not always been filled with the enemies or opponents of General 
 Jackson, Why was not this act of justice thought of before the close of 
 Mr. Madison's Administration, after the war ?* or in the Administration of 
 Mr. Monroe ? Especially we may ask why it was neglected during the twelve 
 years when General Jackson himself and his nominee held the reins of 
 government? If motives of delicacy restrained his friends in the period of his 
 own Administration — think of his friends being restrained by motives of 
 delicacy ! — 'What restrained them in the period of Van Buren's Adminis- 
 tration ? No, no ; gentlemen must not expect the country to give them 
 much credit for the clamors in which they now indulge for justice to Gen- 
 eral Jackson. They must not be surprised if they find themselves violent- 
 ly suspected of a desire and design to produce a certain political effect by 
 
 * It is believed, if the coiTespondence between the Secretary of War and General Jackson at the 
 period could be found, it would show that his conduct was condemned by the Government in no 
 measured terms. tSuch a correspondence did take place, it is believed ; and it is not found in the 
 War Department. What has become of it ' 
 
this measure — to awaken anew the popular admiration for the heroic deeds 
 of the favorite old chief, in the hope of turning it to some good account in 
 this particular juncture of their atiairs. 
 
 But let this pass. " The party" is welcome to all they can make out of it for 
 the approaching Presidential election. What concerns me much more nearly, 
 as it should concern all who love their country, is to take care, as far as may 
 be, that the Constitution shall be defended against every species of violent 
 assault to which it may be subjected in this House. In my judgment, this 
 bill, considering the ground on which it is made to stand by those who pre- 
 sent and advocate it, if permitted to pass without some declaratory amend- 
 ment or saving clause, must be regarded as aiming a deadly blow at the 
 vital principle of this Government, and of all constitutional systems and all 
 regulated liberty. 
 
 The bill, to which it is evident enough no amendment whatever is to be 
 allowed, provides that the sum of one thousand dollars, with the interest 
 from the day when the fine was imposed and paid, shall be — not remitted, that 
 is not the word, lor that would imply a pardon, which I might be ready 
 enough to grant, but — shall be refunded or paid back to General Jackson. 
 The amount of the fine is to be refunded, loith interest. This is precisely 
 what was done in the case of Matthew Lyon, on whom a fine had been 
 imposed under what is called the sedition law. It was ordered to be re- 
 funded, with interest — a course which implied that, in the opinion of Con- 
 gress, the fine had been wrongfully imposed, and the money wrongfully 
 received and retained. The same thing is implied in the present bill. Nor 
 is this point left to implication. 
 
 The refunding of the fine imposed on the General is demanded mainly 
 oil two grounds, the substance and true effect of which I will state as I un- 
 derstand them. 
 
 The first is, that though it should be admitted that the civil power right- 
 fully reigned at New Orleans, and not the military, yet the fine was illegal- 
 ly imposed, the Judge having acted altogether without authority. To this 
 it is added, that the Judge, having acted in his own cause, acted vindict- 
 ively and oppressively. 
 
 The other ground taken in the case is this : that General Jackson had 
 committed no offence against the Constitution and laws of the country or 
 the public authorities, since he had himself suspended all civil authority and 
 government in New Orleans by setting up the military power, under the 
 name of martial law, as supreme and exclusive, which he had regarded as 
 required by the necessity of the case ; of which necessity he was the sole 
 judge, responsible of course only to the popular sentiment of the country. 
 Mr. Chairman, I am sorry that it should have been deemed necessary by 
 the friends of this bill to make an assault either on the character of Judge 
 Hall or on the well-settled law of contempts. No sacrifice seems to be too 
 great or too costly for them to offer before the shrine of their idolatry. The 
 able and learned gentleman from Pennsylvania, who introduced this bill, 
 (Mr. C. J. Ingersoll,) has written a book to prove, amongst other things,^ 
 that courts of justice in general, and Judge Hall in particular, had no right 
 to punish lor contempts. And he objects especially to this power in the 
 courts of the United States, because, as he maintains, they have no common 
 law jurisdiction. Now, sir, my answer to this is, that the right to punish 
 for contempts is not so much a common law right as it is a power inherent 
 in the constitution of every court, just as the same power is inherent in the 
 
5 
 
 constitution of this and of every parliamentary body. That is the well- 
 considered and weli-estabUshed doctrine of the Supreme Court of the Unit- 
 ed States, as any gentleman may see by tnrning to tiie case of Anderson, 
 and Dunn, which originated in this House. It is a power incident to the 
 authority granted to or possessed by every court. It is a principle of com- 
 mon sense, as well as of universal law, that when any power or authority 
 is granted, whatever incidental powers are necessary and proper for carry- 
 ing the granted power into eftect go along with it. Thus every court must 
 necessarily have the power to protect itself against violent interruptions or 
 disturbance, and to enforce obedience to its lawful commands. Instances 
 of abuse of the law of contempts have no doubt existed ; but that is a poor 
 -argument to offer against the existence of the law ; and a judge is no more 
 justified in assuming a jurisdiction not belonging to him under color of this 
 power, than he is in assuming any other jurisdiction not within his compe- 
 tency. 
 
 But, sir, in the case of the courts of the United States, the power to pun- 
 ish for contempts has, as we all know, been confirmed by express statutes. 
 It is found in the judiciary act of 17S9, passed in the first year of the Gov- 
 ernment. And, at a later period, in 1S31, after an instance of abuse of 
 the power in the case of Judge Peck, and for which he was subjected to 
 impeachment and trial, a declaratory act was passed defining the authority 
 of courts to punish for contempts. The authority exercised by Judge Hall 
 in the case before us, though long before the act last refiu-red to, was strict- 
 ly within the definition and limitations of that act. 
 
 At the period when the offences of contempt, for which summary pun- 
 ishment was inflicted, were conmiitted by General Jackson, Judge Hall 
 was holding a regular term of the District Court of the United States for 
 the District of Louisiana. On the 4th of March, ISlo, which was Satur- 
 day, the Court was in session, and a cause on the calendar was regularly 
 heard. On the same day, two causes were specially assigned for trial — 
 one to be heard on the following Tuesday, and the other on Wednesday. 
 Before this time came, however, the course of justice was forcibly obstruct- 
 ed by General Jackson. 
 
 On the 5th of March, Mr. Louallier, a Senator in the State Legislature, 
 a citizen of Louisiana — not a soldier — was arrested by a military order of 
 General Jackson, placed in close confinement, and held to answer with his 
 life for having dared to send to a public newspaper in the city of New Or- 
 leans a communication complaining of an act of tyranny on the part of the 
 General towards certain French inhabitants of the city. Upon application, 
 which was immediately made to Judge Hall, at chambers, founded on the 
 proper petition and afladavit, a writ of habeas corpus— ih^i great writ of 
 English and American liberty without which no nation on earth ever hasbeen 
 or can be free— was ordered to issue, to be directed to General Jackson, 
 commanding him to produce Louallier before the Judge the next day, and 
 to show the cause of his arrest and detention. The order for this purpose 
 was made on the back of the petition and affidavit, which had been filed 
 in Court, and which had thus become a part of the records of that tribunal. 
 Of course it was the duty of the clerk to make out and issue the writ. As 
 an act of courtesy to General Jackson, and to give him an opportunity vol- 
 untarily to retrace the audacious step he had taken, the Judge directed that 
 notice should be immediately given him of the order he had made. This 
 act of courtesy was answered by a military order for the arrest of Judge 
 
Hall, which was promptly obeyed and executed by an armed force of sixty 
 men, commanded by a field officer. At the same time, which was on the 
 evening of the same 5th of March, General Jackson sent one of his military 
 aids to Mr. Claiborne, the clerk of the District Court, with a written com- 
 mand to deliver up to him the order which had been made by the Judge 
 for the issuing of the writ. Mr. Claiborne had the courage to refuse to ac- 
 quiesce in this high-handed interference, and chose rather to accompany 
 the officer, with the paper in his own pocket, into the dread presence of 
 the imperial commander. Unawed by the presence or the threats of the 
 General, he calmly told him that he should do his duty, and issue the writ. 
 General Jackson having then got the paper in his possession, by asking to 
 look at it, forcibly retained it against the remonstrances of the clerk, who 
 was dismissed without it. 
 
 The object of all this violent proceeding was, no doubt, to prevent the 
 issuing of the writ. With the Judge in close confinement, and the order 
 for the writ in his own possession, he flattered himself that the course of 
 justice was efl'ectually obstructed. He was mistaken. The writ was 
 issued and placed in the hands of the marshal on Monday morning, the 
 day on which it was returnable, who had the courage to serve it, although 
 he had been significantly told by the General, the evening previous, that 
 " he had shopped the Judge, and he would treat any person who might 
 improperly meddle with his camp in the same manner." On the service 
 of the writ, which happened to have been done at an hour later than that 
 named by the Judge for the hearing — a circumstance in no manner affect- 
 ing the validity of the process or the proceeding — General Jackson treated 
 it with contemptuous disobedience. Louallier was still kept in confinement, 
 and on the same day was ordered for trial before a military tribunal, appoint- 
 ed by the General. All this took place long after news of peace which, no 
 body doubted, had reached New Orleans. Judge Hall was kept in close cus- 
 tody for one week, when, imder another mihtary order of the commanding 
 general, he was taken from the guard-house by a file of dragoons, igno- 
 minously escorted through the city, and about four miles above it, and then 
 set at liberty, with a written order not to return to New Orleans until peace 
 should be officially proclaimed. 
 
 On the 2 2d of March, Judge Hall, having returned to the city, formally 
 opened his court, when an application was immediately presented, on 
 proper depositions, by the United States District Attorney, for a rule on 
 General Jackson to show cause why an attachment should not issue against 
 him for contempts. The rule was granted, and General Jackson appeared 
 in court to answer on the 27th. On this occasion it was that the General 
 offi3red in his defence the paper to which reference was made by the gen- 
 tleman from liOuisiana, (Mr. Slidell.) This paper was deemed objec- 
 tionable, and was not received. It was according to General Jackson's 
 summary mode of doing business, but was not according to the rules and 
 practice of that court. Full latitude of defence, however, appropriate un- 
 der a rule to show cause, was given, as the written rules laid down by the 
 Judge will show. I v/ill read them : 
 
 " 1st. If the party object to the jurisdiction, the court is ready to hear." 
 
 •" 2d. If the party's affidavit contain a denial of the facts sworn to, or if he wish to show that 
 
 the facts charged do not in law amount to a contempt, the court is ready to hear." 
 
 " 3d. If the answer contam any thing as an apology to the court, it is ready to hear." 
 
 " 4th. If the fiavty be desirous to show that, by the Constitution or laws of the United States, 
 
 or in virtue of his military commission, he had a right to act as charged in the affidavits, the court 
 
 is ready to hear." 
 
On the 29th of March, after argument and full deliberation, an attach- 
 ment was ordered to issue ; and on Friday, the 31st, General Jackson again 
 appeared in court. Interrogatories were now presented and filed, accord- 
 ing to the usual course of proceeding in such cases. They were addressed 
 to the party accused, and he was required to answer them. The rule laid 
 down by the Judge was this : " He may object to any of the interrogato- 
 ries as improper, or he may deny the facts charged, and purge himself of 
 the contempt on oath. His single testimony countervails that which 
 may have been adduced.'^ General Jackson contemptuously refused to 
 receive the interrogatories, or to make any answer to them. " Where- 
 upon," says the record, "the court proceeded to pronounce judgment; 
 which was, that Majqr General Andrew Jackson do pay a fine of one 
 thousand dollars to the United States." 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I shall not stop to reaffirm the power of the District Court 
 of Louisiana to punish for contempts, and I shall leave the plain narrative 
 of facts just given to speak for itself in regard to the contempts actually 
 committed, and the entire propriety, impartiality, deliberation, and dignity, 
 of the whole course of proceeding on the part of the Judge. The fine 
 imposed was one thousand dollars — a sum which has been complained of 
 as excessive and vindictive. Let the narrative of facts answer. It was 
 the penalty imposed not for disobedience only to the great and sacred writ 
 of habeas corpus, beginning with his outrageous conduct in regard to the 
 order for the issuing of the writ, but for a forcible obstruction, with mil- 
 itary array, of the whole course of justice in regard to that writ ; and the 
 sum is precisely that imposed by statute in several of the States of this 
 Union upon any Judge himself who shall refuse, on a proper application, 
 to grant this same writ of habeas corpus. 
 
 But the learned gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. C. J. Ingersoll,) in 
 his book on this subject, has argued against the power to punish for con- 
 tempts in the courts of this country, because the Constitution declares that 
 no person shall be held to answer for a crime except upon a presentment 
 or indictment of a grand jury. There must be trial by due process of law. 
 Sir, since the Revolution of 16SS in England, this is as much and as ex- 
 pressly the constitutional doctrine of that country as it is the constitutional 
 doctrine of this. We borrowed it from England. And yet this power to 
 punish for contempts in a summary v/ay has never, that 1 know of, been 
 doubted in England. And nothing, I think, short of essential and subli- 
 mated Democracy can lead any man to doubt it here. The truth is, that in 
 case of contempts there is properly no tibial — there can be none. The facts 
 are taken only on the confession of the party accused, or on his failure or 
 refusal to answer the matter alleged against him. Said Judge Hall, in this 
 very case, "he may deny the facts charged, and purge himself of the con- 
 tempt. His single testimony countervails that which may have been 
 adduced." The party is guilty or not, just on his own conduct or showing 
 in the presence of the court. General Jackson refused to receive or an- 
 swer the interrogatories presented to him, and the fine was imposed, of 
 course. 
 
 But, sir, gentlemen have not been content with impeaching the legal ac- 
 curacy of Judge Hall in this proceeding. An attack has been made on his 
 character as a man — an attack which I regret the more on account of the 
 source from which it has proceeded. It comes from a gentleman (Mr. 
 Slidell) ably representing on this floor the New Orleans district of the 
 
8 
 
 State of Louisiana, and the attack falls on tlie memory of a citizen of that 
 city and State, no longer living to defend himself, and who died leaving no 
 male relatives to step forth in vindication of his cliaracter and his fame. 
 He held high ofTice in that State, and I think I am warranted in saying that 
 he adorned his judicial station and honored the State of Louisiana, by iiis 
 great learning, his remarkable powers, his sound principles, and his un- 
 yielding integrity. I appeal to the testimony of those who knew Judge 
 Hall personally, and who are therefore better witnesses of what he was 
 than those who testify from rumors which prejudice and malice have in- 
 vented and put afloat. Mr. Brackenridge, of Pennsylvania, in a published 
 letter relating to the matter which we have now in hand, says of Judge 
 Hall : "I knew him well; he was a modest, single-hearted, retired stu- 
 dent, deeply learned, of unsuspected integrity, and as innocent as a child 
 of all party intrigue or faction. He thought only of the honest and faith- 
 ful discharge of his duty. He had been taken by Mr. Jefferson from the 
 bar of Charleston, and, excepting two maiden sisters whom he supported, 
 he had no family or connexion." An aged and venerable gentleman now 
 residing in this city was the fellow-student of Mr. Hall at college in Penn- 
 sylvania, where Hall's family then resided, and his acquaintance with him 
 was renewed at a iate period of his life. Mr. Hall was sixteen years of 
 age when he first knew him, and, from his uncommon powers and his at- 
 tainments, he was the foremost man in college : and his whole subsequent 
 career was answerable to this beginning. Though modest and retiring, he 
 was distinguished and honored throughout his life. Such I believe to have 
 been the simple truth in regard to Judge Hail.* 
 
 Yet the gentleman from Louisiana has deemed it necessary, in his zeal 
 to serve General Jackson, to heap obloquy on the character and memory of 
 this man. No doubt the gentleman believes the representations he has made 
 to this House : and I have as little doubt that his representations have done 
 the greatest injustice (o the o:iemory of a most wortljy, estimable, and hon- 
 orable man and magistrate. The gentleman has been pleased to stigma- 
 tize Judge Hall as a skulking coward, because, as he alleges, he did not 
 cast olf his robes of office and enter the ranks of the army, to fight witli 
 the youngest and the bravest there, as if there was no courage worth com- 
 mending (even if tlie gentleman were accurate in his facts) except that 
 which consists of a brute insensibility to danger and death. The gentle- 
 man charges also that Judge Hall indulged in intemperate habits. It may 
 be so — many a great and good man has fallen in this way. But Judge 
 Hall held his olilce I believe to his death, and no formal complaint of this 
 sort was ever preferred against him. And, finally, we are told that Judge 
 Hall was a foreigner: not an Irishman, or a Frenchman, or a Spaniard — 
 that could be endured : but he was an Englishman, and therefore he was 
 liable to a violent suspicion of disafiection. Sir, this is a mode of argii- 
 
 * It has been found, on an examination of the records of the Senate, that Mr. Hall was 
 appouited, on the nomination of Mr. Jefferson, in 1802, a Judge of the lifth Circuit Court of the 
 United States, which comprised the States of North and South Carolina and Georgia. This 
 was under the act of 1801, organizing anew the courts of the United States, and which was 
 shortly afterwards repealed. Upon the organization of a Territorial Government in the newly ac- 
 quired Territory of Louisiana, in 1804, Mr. Hall was immediately traiisferred to New Orleans, on 
 the nomination of Mr. Jeffer.son, as a Judge. And, finally, on the admission of Louisiana into 
 the Union, as a State, in 1812, he was appointed, on the nomination of Mr. Madison, to the judi- 
 cial office which he held when the outrageis referred to in the text were committed upon him. 
 
niei.t which suited the short methods commonly adopted by General Jack- 
 son with all who ever crossed his path or stood in his way ; but I must be 
 allowed to say that the gentleman from Louisiana is capable of better 
 modes of reasoning, and should not have adopted this. Sir, I have no 
 more doubt of the patriotism and love of country of Judge Hall than I 
 have of the patriotism of General Jackson, or of any friend of his, or of 
 any supporter of this bill. I know not, I care not, on which side of the 
 Atlantic he was born — he was an American citizen, and long had been 
 one, holding a high judicial office under the Government, enjoying the 
 confidence of Jefferson and Madison, and distrusted I believe by nobody. 
 And all this vituperation now cast on him, all this effort to blast his name 
 and memory, why has it been introduced into this debate ? If the gentle- 
 man from Louisiana was willing that this bill should stand on its own 
 merits, then this attempt to blacken the memory of Judge Hall was wholly 
 gratuitous. If every thing he has uttered on this topic — so grateful as it 
 evidently was to the genuine worshippers here of the iron-willed old man, 
 who, whatever may have been his services to the country, (and I think 
 them very great,) has done more in his lifetime, by his acts and his exam- 
 ple, to plant disease and lingering death in the vitals of the Republic than 
 all other living men — if all, I say, were historically true which the gentle- 
 man has so eagerly communicated in regard to Judge Hall, how, I ask, 
 does it help the argument m favor of this bill ? Let the gentleman put it 
 into a logical shape, and see how it would stand ? He would say : This 
 Judge inflicted a fine for contempt on General Jackson. This was legal 
 and just, or it was not. But the Judge was an exempt and a non-combatant 
 in the war ; he was also a generous liver, and is said now and then to have 
 indulged in a glass of wine too much ; and, worse than all, he is reputed 
 to have been born in England — therefore, the Judge had no right to inflict 
 a fine on General Jackson lor contempt. And it followa that General 
 Jackson had a right to trample on the writ issued by the Judge in behalf 
 of the liberty of an American citizen, and to make his violent obstruction 
 to the course of justice sure by the forcible arrest, imprisonment, and igno- 
 minious banishment of the Judge himself ! 
 
 But, Mr. Chairman, I pass on to other matter of more importance. The 
 main ground on which this bill is supported by its friends, and which has 
 been stated by me already, I must now take the liberty again distinctly to 
 repeat. It is this: that General Jackson committed no offence at New Orleans 
 against the Constitution and laws of ihe United States, or the public authori- 
 ties, because he had himself, by virtue of his military commission, suspend- 
 ed all civil authority and government in that city and neighboring country 
 (except such as he might see fit from time to time to tolerate) by setting 
 up the military power, under the name of martial law, as supreme and ex- 
 clusive — such suppression and subversion of the civil power having been 
 required, in his opinion, by the necessity of the case, of which necessity he 
 alone had a right to judge. For this judgment, and his conduct under it, 
 it must be added, he was responsible, not to the public authorities, for the 
 case was one over which the Government had no constitutional jurisdic- 
 tion, but to the popular sentiment of the country only. This I believe to 
 be a fair statement of the position taken by the friends of this bill ; and I 
 must say that, in my judgment, a doctrine more dangerous ahd fatal to all 
 regular Government, to all constitutional forms, to all legal authority, and 
 to every principle of civil liberty, has never been propounded in any coun- 
 
10 
 
 try. Once establish this doctrine, as is now sought to he done, by a sol- 
 encin formal legislative recognition, and constitution, laws, and liberty, ex- 
 ist thenceforward by the forbearance of any and 'every military chief who 
 may command an army in the field strong enough for the occasiot?, and 
 which he may have the address to Win to his ambitious and unhallowed 
 purposes. 
 
 The justification here offered in behalf of General Jackson is the same 
 in substance that he set up for himself at the time ; and by recurring to his 
 declarations at that period, we shall sea distinctly what kind of martial law 
 it was that was insisted on then, and is justified now. 
 
 In the paper which he offered in his defence before the Judge, General 
 Jackson said that " he intended to supersede such civil powers as in their 
 operation interfered with those he was obliged to exercise." He declared 
 to Mr. Claiborne, the clerk of the District Court, in the evening shortly after 
 the arrest of Judge Hall, " that his (the Judge's) conduct in the instance in 
 question had brought him under the cognizance of his (the General's) gen- 
 eral order [his order declaring martial law ;] that this was his (the Gener- 
 al's) camp, [his order for martial law embraced ' the city of Netv Orleans 
 and its environs,'] and that ' no person or power must or should be over 
 him in it: " And Mr. Duplessis, the United States marshal, informs us 
 that, on the same occasion, the General said to him " that he had shopped 
 the Judge — and he would treat any person who might improperly med- 
 dle with his camp in the same manner ; and that so long as martial law 
 continued he would acknowledge no other authority than that of the 
 military." 
 
 In all this there was no equivocation ; all was direct and open. Through- 
 out his military district, as far as his command extended, or in such part 
 of it as he saw fit, martial law, at his option and discretion, reigned su- 
 preme. He had published his orders laying " New Orleans and its envi- 
 rons" under martial law ; and we shall see him in one case stretching the 
 "environs" so as to make his martial law operate to the distance of a hun- 
 dred and twenty miles. All this was claimed to be " his camp," and in 
 " his camp" no person or power should be over him — he would acknow- 
 ledge no other authority than that of the military. If any civil powers in- 
 terfered with those he felt obliged to exercise, they were or would be su- 
 perseded. In short, the military power, which was nothing less than the 
 unquestioned and unquestionable law of his own will — a law above all 
 law — was the paramount, and, so far as he chose, the exclusive power. 
 
 And, to comprehend the full enormity of this sort of martial law, we must 
 not fail to distinguish between it and the military law of the country, as 
 recognised by the Constitution and established by statutes — that military 
 law, as distinguished from the civil power, prescribed expressly for the exi- 
 gencies of war as well as for times of peace, and which is the only law of 
 arms known to the Constitution. Congress is authorized by the Constitu- 
 tion " to make rules for the government of the land and naval forces ;" 
 and also to provide " for governing such part of the militia as may be em- 
 ployed in the service of the United States." Under that authority statutes 
 have been passed providing for these objects. That for the government of 
 the army prescribes a regular code, consisting of one hundred and one ar- 
 ticles. This code is very carefully limited in its application to officers and 
 soldiers of the regular army, and to the militia when in the service of the 
 United States, including persons necessarily attached to the army, or to the 
 
11 
 
 service in ihe artillery and corps of engineers, and receiving pay as sucli. 
 No citizen, not a soldier, or attached to the army, of course, is subject to 
 this code, or ever can be. It is forbidden by the Constitution. It is only by 
 an exception in the fifth article of amendments that otiences " in cases aris- 
 ing in the land or naval forces, or in the militia when in actual service," 
 can be tried by courts martial, or otherwise than by " presentment or in- 
 dictment of a grand jury." And hence it is, too, that no citizen, no person 
 owing allegiance to the United States, can be tried as a spy. And so the 
 military law prescribes. 
 
 Now, General Jackson's martial law was something very different from 
 all this. He ordered a citizen, as we shall see, to be tried by a military tri- 
 bunal as a spy. And when his innocent victim was likely to escape by an 
 acquittal, he published a general order in which he declared that " martial 
 law, being established, applies, as the Commanding General believes, to all 
 persons who remain within the sphere of its operations, and claims exclu- 
 sive jurisdiction of all oftences which aim at the disorganization and ruin 
 of the army over which it extends. To a certain extent, it is believed, it 
 makes every man a soldier, &c. Every man, therefore, within the limits 
 to which it extends, is subject to its influence." 
 
 Here, then, was a complete overleaping, by one bound, not of the milita- 
 ry code only, but of all regular government, of all constituted authority. 
 Powers were assumed and actually exercised which Congress and the Ex- 
 ecutive together could not have employed. Congress may suspend the habeas 
 corpus "when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may re- 
 quire it," but Congress cannot suspend the Constitution itself, and all reg- 
 ular government under it, by establishing that sort of martial law which 
 was attempted by General Jackson. A proclamation of such martial law 
 by Congress or the Executive would in itself be a dissolution of the Gov- 
 ernment. It would be a revolution. And yet, what Congress and the 
 Executive could not do, a General in the field may do ! Congress could 
 not compel or authorize any citizen, not a soldier or attached to the army, 
 to be tried by a court martial for any thing ; Congress could not subject an 
 American citizen, soldier or no soldier, to be tried as a spy ; yet all this 
 may be done by a Commanding General ! 
 
 The authority assumed by General Jackson at New Orleans was such 
 as not only no President of the United States but no monarch of England 
 could or would at this day dare assume. In England, under her Kings of 
 the Stuart line, this sort of martial law existed to a limited extent. The 
 King raised armies, and prescribed rules and regulations for their govern- 
 ment, by his own authority. He appointed or auihorized courts martial 
 for the trial of otiences in cases arising in the military forces. And he went 
 further, and for what were called military offences — in cases of insurrec- 
 tion or rebellion — he appointed military commissions or tribunals for their 
 trial, though those oftences were committed by persons in no way connect- 
 ed with the army. One of the last notable examples of the sort was in the 
 rebellion of the unhappy Duke of Monmouth, the son of Charles II and 
 Lucy Walters. The revolution of 1688 put an end to these abuses. The 
 Bill of Rights, subscribed by the hand of William III, made express provis- 
 ion against the raising of an army, or providing for its government, by the 
 King, without authority of Parliament, and against subjecting any sub- 
 ject not attached to the military forces to any kind of punishment by mar- 
 tial law. Neither the King nor Parliament itself, which is said to be om- 
 
12 
 
 nipoteiJt, can, under the ConstiliUion of that country, at this day do what 
 General Jackson did at New Orleans — abolish the civil power, and set up 
 the military authority and martial law in its place. And to this day, so justly- 
 jealous are the British people of the military power, that the army exists 
 in England only by the authority df an act of Parliament called the Mutiny 
 act, which is never passed for a longer period than one year; and the 
 military code for the government of the forces rests on the sanie tempo- 
 rary authority. 
 
 We have only to look into our American Constitutions to see that the 
 same true Anglo-Saxon jealousy of the military power characterized our 
 fathers. Almost without exception, wholly without exception, I believe, 
 among the Old Thirteen — our State Constitutions take care to provide that 
 the military shall be kept in subjection to the civil power ; and the sub- 
 stance of the English Bill of Rights is adopted in the Constitution of the 
 United States. 
 
 But what Congress and the President, Parliament and the King, could 
 not do, General Jackson has done. And there are those in an American 
 Congress, too many of them, wha can stand up lo justify the proceeding 
 in the face of the world. Charity obliges me to think that they are acting 
 in some degree under a misapprehension of the true facts of the case, and 
 certainly under a blind devotion to a man and a party. Surely they have 
 not fully considered what sort of martial law it was that was attempted to 
 be enforced, or the period of time and the circumstances when the attempt 
 was made. The original proclamation of martial law on the 15th of De- 
 cember, though without strict warrant of law, was nothing. As marking 
 the spirit and energy with which General Jackson entered on the defence 
 of New Orleans, it was such as every good citizen might have agreed to — ? 
 and it is said Judge Hall himself and many others did assent to it. It placed 
 New Orleans and its environs under a kmd of military inspection, to guard 
 against surprise, and against the ingress and egress of spies and emissaries 
 or agents acting in behalf of the enemy. Let gentlemen look at the order 
 for martial law, and the rules accompanying it, and they will see at once 
 that ihere was nothing in them to alarm the friends of law and order. Not 
 an authority was proposed to be exercised but such as was compatible 
 with the continued existence of the civil power, and such as might have 
 been used in aid of the civil power. Under that martial law, in point of 
 fact, the laws did reign. The Legislature of the State was in session, and 
 was not disturbed. The courts were not suppressed. The Legislature 
 had suspended civil proceedings in the courts for a limited time, but their 
 criminal jurisdiction remained. The habeas corpus was not suspended ; 
 nothing of the sort was attempted. Nor was this the martial law that was 
 complained of, and which led to the fine im.posed on General Jackson. It 
 was another martial law, set up at a dilferent time, when all excuse or apol- 
 ogy for its existence, even in the mildest form, had been taken away. It 
 was a martial law which distinctly proposed to abrogate, for the time, at 
 discretion, the whole body of Constitution and laws and every vestige of 
 civil authority, and substitute in their place the military power — the per- 
 sonal and irresponsible will of the conmiander of an army. It was a self- 
 created dictatorship that was proposed and attempted — an absolute, unmit- 
 igated, unregulated, unrestrained military despotism. This was what 
 General Jackson attempted, and this is what gentlemen on tiiis floor justify 
 and applaud. , 
 
13 
 
 But, Mr. Chairman, the plea of necessity is interposed — the ready plea 
 of all tyrants, and the most dangerous of all grounds on which to admit a 
 justification of tyranny. And I desire to be understood distinctly, in the 
 first place, as denying, in the broadest terms, that the crime of suppressing 
 the civil power and government of the country in any quarter, by military 
 authority, and the substitution of the military power, admits of justifica- 
 tion by any plea, or on any ground of necessity whatever. Remembering 
 always that this was precisely the kind and degree of martial law, so called, 
 which was attempted at New Orleans in February and March, 1815, I 
 deny that martial law of that sort admits of any justification. 'I'he very 
 plea of necessity admits, and, in my opinion, aggravates the crime. 
 
 By the Constitution, Congress is forbidden to suspend the habeas corpus, 
 unless in a given exigency. But if the habeas corpus were suspended, 
 this would not suspend the civil power; and Congress is not authorized, 
 in any exigency, to suspend the civil power, and set up the military author- 
 ity in its place.' No necessity could justify Congress in proclaiming this 
 kind of martial law. To do it would be to attempt a military revolution. 
 How, then, can a military commander justify the like attempt, on a plea 
 of necessity ? 
 
 I can imagine cases where in a limited district the authority of the Gov- 
 ernment should be already overturned by invasion or insurrection ; where 
 anarchy reigns, or where a foreign enemy or a domestic foe has already 
 set up a provisional or military power ; in which an American general 
 being there with his army for the purpose of reconquering that territory, 
 and bringing it back under the rightful authority of his country, might, in 
 the mean while, wherever he could maintain himself; and as far and as fast 
 as his reconquest proceeded, govern by the law of arms and the military 
 power, awaiting the return of security and tranquillity to surrender up his 
 conquest to the" Government to which it rightfully belonged. But that 
 would be a very different thing from a direct and arbitrary suppression of 
 the civil power where it actually exists, for the sake of setting up the mili- 
 tary power in its place. This admits of no justification, and no conceiva- 
 ble necessity ever can exist for it. No threat or prospect of invasion, how- 
 ever imminent — no suspicion of disaftection, however violent, can make 
 such a necessity. Surely it is quite soon enough for the Government to be 
 overturned hy the invasion or hy the rebellion. But for a military com- 
 mander, first to make a military conquest of his own country, Or any part 
 •of it, on pretence of a necessity, in order to defend it against another con- 
 quest from without or from within, is, in my judgment, equally bold and 
 
 unprincipled. • ■ . 
 
 An American commander must defend the American soil with the arms 
 and the means which the Constitution and laws put into his hands for that 
 purpose. His army must be composed of his regular troops, the militia, 
 and the volunteers. Exempts and non-combatan'ts by law cannot be forced 
 into the field. He has no authority, as General Jackson claimed, to make 
 nvery man a soldier. And if, with such forces as the Constitution and 
 laws afford him, he cannot make good his defence, the Constitution expects 
 him to yield. The Constitution contemplates the possibility that, in the 
 fortunes of war, American cities and American soil may be surrendered— 
 but it does not contemplate the possibility that itself can ever be surren- 
 
 dered ! 
 
 No doubt the violation of individual rights by military commanders— 
 
/ 
 
 14 
 
 lights of person and of property — often takes place in time of war, and 
 especially when hostile armies meet each other in the field — oftener, much 
 oftener, I have the highest military authority for believing, than is at all 
 iiecessary. But these are individual cases, and, whatever may be the ap- 
 parent or real necessity, they are all cases of trespass for which the law 
 holds the commanders personally responsible. The Government will re- 
 lieve them, as it has often done, if it believes them to have been actuated 
 hy an honest sense of duty and a spirit of just forbearance, while it will 
 leave them to suffer, as they ought, for all acts which have been marked by 
 a wanton disregard of the laws, or by vindictiveness and cruelty. But in 
 all this there is no analogy to the wholesale dealings of General Jackson 
 under his martial law, and the claim of right which he set up, and under 
 which he acted, and which he and his friends vindicate and justify — the 
 claim of right wholly to suppress and abrogate for the time the civil au- 
 thority and government of the country, and to make his will, backed by 
 his soldiery, the law of the time and the place. This, I say again, admits 
 of no justification. A necessity for such a proceeding is an impossibility — 
 at least in this country. 
 
 But, while I wholly deny that the crime of suppressing the Government 
 and laws, and the substitution of martial law, after the manner of General 
 Jackson, admits of justification on any plea of necessity whatever, I must 
 also go further in this case, and deny that any apparent necessity or any 
 probable cause existed to render that sort of martial law, at the period and 
 the only period when it was attempted to be enforced, either important or 
 m the least degree useful to the defence of the country. I mean to say 
 that the plea of necessity was a mere pretence, set up to cover and defend 
 acts in which an arbitrary and imperious disposition and will on the part of 
 the commander, and mere personal malice and vindictiveness, might have 
 been gratified, but which did not and could not tend in any way to ad- 
 vance the public service or the public interests. This is my conviction ; 
 and the course of the friends of General Jackson and of this bill has forced 
 me into this plain avowal, and compels me to the argument and the proof. 
 I do not shrink from the position and the task, though I should have been 
 better satisfied not to have been obliged ever to name General Jackson 
 again, except in connexion with those passages of his career which all 
 cigree have been both brilliant and valuable to the country. 
 
 In order to understand what it was that is complained of in the conduct 
 of General Jackson at New Orleans, and how little pretence of necessity, 
 there was to justify it, it is important that dates should be distinguished 
 "with critical accuracy. 
 
 General Jackson arrived at Nev^^ Orleans early in December. The great 
 battle was fought on the 8th of January, when the enemy met with a most 
 signal and complete discomfiture. From that moment the enemy thought 
 of nothing but escape. On the ISth of January, ten days after the battle, 
 his shattered forces were embarked and disappeared. On the 21st, three 
 days afterwards, the main army of the victorious General was withdrawn 
 from the lines below New Orleans, where the battle had been fought and 
 won. On the next day after the disappearance of the enemy, the 19th, 
 he wrote himself to the Secretary of War in these terms : 
 
 " There is, in my mind, very little doubt that his (the enemy's) last exertions have been made, 
 m this quarter, at any rate for tlie present season. * * * I believe you will not think me too 
 sangiiine in the belief that Louisiana is now clear of its enemy."' 
 
15 
 
 On the 27th of January he addressed a letter to the Mayor of New- 
 Orleans, in which he declared himself " deeply impressed, since his arrival^ 
 with \\\e unanhnity and patriotic zeal displayed by the citizens ;" and 
 speaks of "the exalted sense he enlertains of their patriotism, love of or- 
 der, and attachment to the principles of our excellent Constitution." And, 
 finally, upon his representation it Was, no doubt, that Congress, on the 22d 
 of February, passed resolutions expressive of their " high sense of the 
 patriotism, fidelity, zeal, and courage, with which the people of the State 
 of Louisiana promptly and iinaiiimously stepped forth, under circum- 
 stances of imminent danger from a powerful invading army, in the de- 
 fence of all the individual, social, and political rights held dear by man." 
 
 To all this it is important to add, that news of the treaty of peace con- 
 cluded at Ghent reached New Orleans on the I8th of February ; throwing 
 the whole city, as the same news did the country every where, into one 
 universal ecstacy of joy. This hews was brought from the British fleet, 
 then off Mobile, where it had .been obtained from a London newspaper 
 received by way of Jamaica. It was not doubted by any body. General 
 Jackson himself did not doubt that a treaty of peace had been concluded, 
 for he so declared in a letter addressed to the Louisiana Gazette on the 
 21st of February; though he suggested that peace must not be consid- 
 ered as established until the treaty was confirmed — a suggestion made no 
 doubt for the purpose of preserving, as far as possible, the order and disci- 
 pline of the troops under his command until it should be proper to dis- 
 band them. 
 
 Now, let it be observed that in all this period, from the entrance of 
 General Jackson into New Orleans, early in December, through all the 
 trying scenes of the invasion and the battle, and down to the last days of 
 February, no enforcement of martial law was attempted which has been 
 made the subject of comjolaint by any body. No such martial law in fact 
 existed as was afterwards attempted to be exercised. The Constitution 
 and laws reigned ; the public authorities were respected and obeyed. 
 The habeas corpus was not suspended. It was not till the 2Sth day of 
 February that the first act was committed in that series of outrages 
 which proceeded on the ground that the laws had ceased to reign, and 
 that the military power was supreme. And long before that day, as we 
 have seen — that is to say, fifty days before — the great battle had been 
 fought and won ; and, forty days before, the routed enemy had disap- 
 peared from that quarter, which he did not again approach within one 
 hundred and fifty miles ; and General Jackson had declared himself satis- 
 fied on two important points : first, that the enemy's last attempt had been 
 made in that quarter ; and, second, that there was not the slightest ground 
 to suspect the patriotism and fidelity of the people of New Orleans. Add 
 to this, that before that day, (the 28th of February) — ten days before — the 
 undoubted news of peace had arrived at New Orleans, and the citizens 
 were in the midst of rejoicings and festivities for that happy event. 
 
 The strange eventful drama, then, of martial law, opened with the first 
 act on the 2Sth of February. At the period of the invasion of Louisiana 
 near New Orleans, there were resident in that city certain French citizens 
 and subjects, enjoying certain personal and commercial privileges under 
 the treaty of cession. These French citizens, although owing no allegiance 
 to the United States, volimteered to serve in the ranks of the American 
 army, in defence of the city of their residence and affection ; and they 
 
behaved in that defence, as the General himself declared in public orders, 
 with distinguished bravery. They were, of course, in the lines below 
 New Orleans ; and when the regular and main army was withdrawn froni 
 these lines, and platjed in healthy and comfortable quarters in and above 
 the city, which was done a very few days after the battle,- (the 21st of Jan- 
 uary,) these French citizens — not soldiers by profession — were left in the 
 field, and in the performance of regular military and camp duty. Many of 
 them were left in exposed and unhealthy positions, and where great mor- 
 tality prevailed. The historian of the period informs us that five hun- 
 dred soldiers died at that time in the camps around New Orleans in a 
 single month. These Frenchmen had fought bravely, however, and they 
 were not now disposed to shrink from any proper or reasonable duty. They 
 submitted quietly until after the news of peace had been received, when 
 they began to think it was time they should be relieved. They applied, 
 therefore, to the consul of their country, resident at New Orleans, for cer- 
 tificates of French citizenship. Upon these they were of course exempt, 
 and could no longer be retained in the ranks of the army. Genera! 
 Jackson countersigned their certificates, and they were no longer under his 
 control or within his military jurisdiction. Bat though, by his own con- 
 fession, he had not the slightest authority over them by virtue of his com- 
 mission uu^er the laws of the United States, and discharged them accord- 
 ingly) yet he dared to issue a military order banishing all of them who 
 held these certificates, together with the consul who had granted them, to 
 a distance in the interior not short of Baton Rouge, which was one hun- 
 dred and twenty miles from their business and their liomes ! This order 
 was dated the 28th of February. 
 
 General Jackson next proceeded to silence the press. On the 3d of 
 March an article appeared in the Louisiana Courier, reflecting with some 
 severity on his conduct towards the French citizens. He sent for the ed- 
 itor, compelled him to give up the author, and dismissed him with an order 
 to publish no more such articles about him. 
 
 General Jackson next proceeded to visit the author of the article in the 
 Courier with his vengeance. Mr. Lonallier, who v/as the author, was ar- 
 rested and placed in military confinement on the 5th of March. This gen- 
 tleman was an American citizen, of French origin. He was a member of 
 the Senate of Louisiana, and chairman of the Committee of Ways and 
 Means. When Governor Claiborne, early in December, |iad recommend- 
 ed to the Legislature to suspend the habeas corpus, in order that Commo- 
 dore Patterson might be enabled to recruit seamen for the American flotilla 
 by impressment, Mr. Lonallier, to whose committee the message had gone, 
 reported against the measure, and in its stead recommended that a bounty 
 should be offered for seamen of twenty-four dollars a head, and that the 
 Legislature should appropriate six thousand dollars for this purpose, to be 
 placed at the disposal of the Commodore. This measure was carried, with 
 an embargo on the shipping in port for three days, and was completely 
 successful. The habeas corpus, however, was not suspended, and I be- 
 lieve General Jackson never forgave Mr. Lonallier for preventing it. 
 Other measures, originating with Mr. Lonallier in the Senate, prove him 
 to have been a discreet legislator and a patriotic citizen. He had carried 
 through an appropriation for supplies to destitute soldiers, and if is under- 
 stood that he had personally attended to the proper application of the 
 fund. But he had dared to question General Jackson's infallibility, and 
 he placed his life in jeopardy by that act. 
 
17 
 
 I have already stated the circumstances of the arrest of Judge Hall, 
 which took place on the same day — the 5th of March. His offence was 
 ihat of giving an order for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of LonalUer, 
 which he could not have refused without the grossest breach of duty, sub- 
 jecting him to impeachment. And here it was that the military power was 
 first brought into violent and open conflict with the civil authority. The 
 arrest of Judge Hall by an armed force of sixty men, with a major to 
 command them, under the orders of the commanding general, was an act 
 of war levied against the authority of the United States. Levying war 
 against the authorities of the United States is levying war against the 
 United States ; and if an act of a treasonable character, according to the 
 plain definition in the Constitution, was softened down to the oflcnce of a 
 contempt of court, and punished only by a fine of a thousand dollars, it 
 seems to me that General Jackson and his friends should be the last to 
 complain of the severity of the infliction. 
 
 Having placed Judge Hall in confinement, and made sure of his de- 
 tention by directing that no civil magistrate or officer should be allowed 
 10 visit him, General Jackson made the necessary arrangements for bring- 
 ing his victim, Louallier, to trial and execution. On the very next day, 
 (the 6th of March.) he ordered a military tribunal to be organized for the 
 trial of Louallier on charges involving his life. This tribunal was as ex- 
 traordinary as the service they were called on to perform. It was not a 
 court martial under any law or authority of the United States. If it had 
 been a court martial under the law of Congress, it would have had thirteen 
 members. This had only seven. A court martial under the law of Con- 
 gress could only try soldiers, or persons attached to the army. Mr. Loual- 
 lier was not a soldier, or in any way attached to the army. Even if a soldier 
 by construction, under General Jackson's martial law, he was not a sol- 
 dier of the regular army ; and a court marcial composed of oflnicers of that 
 army had no authority by law to try him. Every officer of this tribunal 
 ■was of the regular army. Finally, he was directed to be tried as a spy! 
 And no court martial under the law of Congress has authority to try a 
 citizen, though he be a soldier also — one owing allegiance to the United 
 States — as a spy. He was also directed to be tried for a libel on Gen- 
 eral Jackson ! Such was \he tribunal, and such were some of the charges. 
 There were seven charges in all preferred against Louallier. Mutiny was 
 one of them; Ireason was another, under the head of disobedience of or- 
 ders ! But the specifications under all the charges made the oflfence tO' 
 consist of one and the same act — the publication of the article of com- 
 plaint in the Louisiana Courier. 
 
 It is remarkable that this tribunal, which was refractory enough to- 
 ^-ards the General to dismiss all the charges except one refusing to try 
 Louallier upon them, should have selected the charge of treason as the 
 one which it was competent to that tribunal to entertain, and should ac- 
 tually have proceeded, as it did, to arraign and try a free citizen of this 
 free Republic upon that charge. It is true it had the grace and courage 
 10 acquit him of the absurd accusation, with the certainty of incurring, rs 
 It did, the fierce rebuke of the unappeased dictator ; but the independence 
 of its members would have been better shown by an instant and indig- 
 nant dismissal of every charge on Avhich Louallier was arraigned before 
 them. 
 
 And here I wish again to direct the attention of gentlemen particularly 
 
18 
 
 to two or three dates, and to the facts connected with them. It was on 
 the 6th of March that the order was issued for the trial of LoualUer. The 
 tribunal met on the same day, was organized, and then adjourned. The next 
 day (the 7th) exceptions were taken by LoualUer to the authority and ju- 
 risdiction of the court. On the 9th these exceptions were decided upon ; 
 and on the 10th of March, and not before, the tribunal (for I will persist 
 in not calling it a court) proceeded to arraign the prisoner and to try him 
 on the single charge which it had determined to entertain — he standing 
 mute, refusing to plead or to make any defence whatever. On the next 
 day, (the 11th,) the acquittal was made. Louallier, notwithstanding his 
 acquittal, was kept in confinement till the lith of March, and then dis- 
 missed under a general order, heaping slander and abuse on his devoted 
 head. It will' be remembered also that Hall, who was arrested on the 5th 
 of March, was kept in confinement till the \2th, and on that day escorted 
 by an armed band, with every mark of indignity, four miles beyond the 
 city, and there turned adrift. 
 
 And now, what I want should be observed is this, that hiformai ion con- 
 firming the previous news of peace was received by General Jackson on 
 the same Qth day of March when the order was made for the trial of Lou- 
 .alher; and that information, though not official, was complete and satis- 
 factory — even to General Jackson. The despatches which the express 
 should have brought to the General from the Secretary of War had been 
 left behind by mistake ; but he bore a communication from the Postmaster 
 General that he '• was charged with despatches relative to the state of peace 
 which had taken place between the United States and Great Britain." The 
 General immediately, on the same day, despatched a letter to General 
 Lambert, commanding the British forces off Mobile, notifying him of the 
 information of peace which he had received. And, on the Sth of March, 
 without waiting or caring to hear from General Lambert, he published an 
 order discharging the militia — the levy en masse — declaring that he had 
 received " persuasive evidence of peace." He received the official news 
 of peace on the 13th. 
 
 It was, then, it will be perceived, after he had received " persuasive evi- 
 dence of peace," and after he had discharged the militia on the strength of 
 that joyful intelligence — after every pretence of danger, whether from inva- 
 sion or from disaffection, was confessedly over, even if any had ever been 
 apprehended by any body from either source since the Sth of January, which 
 I do not beheve — 'it tvas after all this that General Jackson persisted in 
 keeping both Mr. Louallier and Judge Hall in strict confinement for inany 
 days; that he persisted in subjecting Mr. Louallier to trial by a military 
 tribunal for his life, on the most frivolous and absurd charges — releasing 
 him finally when he dared no longer to confine him — after the official news 
 of peace had been received — with opprobrium and abuse ; and that he of- 
 fered his last indignity to the judicial power in the person of Judge Hall, 
 by sending him forth, like a condemned criminal, under a guard of soldiers, 
 to the punishment of exile from his home, his office, and his friends. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, the conduct of General Jackson towards both the gentle- 
 men just named stands without the semblance of justification, excuse, or 
 apology. It was but the customary display of an imperious, overbearing, 
 imforgiving temper, which never could brook opposition or contradiction. 
 His implacable wrath, which at first burned only towards Louallier, was 
 turned next in a direction which, happily, it could not pursue without pro- 
 
19 
 
 yoking rebuke and punishment. That rebuke and punishment having been 
 administered, and the Constitution and laws vindicated, I should not have 
 been averse to reheving him, if he had asked relief, from the penalty which 
 his offences had provoked and merited. But he will not allow me, and he 
 will allow no man to do any such thing on any terms consistent with the 
 supremacy of the Constitution and laws. Setting up at the time a justifi- 
 cation which only enhanced and aggravated his otfences, and which made 
 them not merely reprehensible, but in the highest degree criminal and dan- 
 gerous, he brings forward that same justification here before the assembled 
 Representatives of the People, and insists that they shall adopt and sanc- 
 tion it. 
 
 The purport and design of the bill now before us — naked as it is, and to 
 which no amendment, no saving clause, will be admitted — and the object 
 of those who advocate it, are in no degree equivocal or doubtful. General 
 Jackson has himself declared, in a published letter, in substance — many 
 gentlemen here will recollect it — that he would take nothing from Congress 
 which was not offered in a way to exculpate and justify him fully in the 
 course which he pursued at New Orleans, and which led to the imposition 
 of the fine. No ; he would starve first. And what he has demanded his 
 friends have not been slow to accord to him. They mean that this bill 
 shall be taken and deemed throughout the country as a solemn, formal, le- 
 gislative sanction of his course, and, of consequence, a legislative condem- 
 nation of the course of the Judge in imposing the fine. The whole argu- 
 ment or appeal of the gentleman from Louisiana, (Mr. Slidell,) as well 
 as that ofiered to the public by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. C. 
 J. Ingersoll,) tends to this conclusion. It is insisted that the General had 
 full warrant for every act he performed, and that Judge Hall deserved 
 nothing but the contempt which he received at the General's hands. In 
 short. Congress is asked now to entertain the cause as it stood before Judge 
 Hall on the 31st March, 1815, and to review and reverse his decision. 
 
 We are asked not to acquit General Jackson as right in intention, though 
 possibly wrong in act, but we must go further, and pronounce in favor of 
 the claim of unlimited, unmitigated personal power, above all Constitution 
 and laws, which, in terms, he set up at New Orleans. We are called OB 
 to make a solemn recognition of the rightful supremacy of the military 
 over the civil authority, wherever and to whatever extent a general in the 
 field may see fit to proclaim and establish it ; to recognise the rightful au- 
 thority of a military commander to suppress, for the time being, by force 
 of arms, the exercise of all civil powers — legislative, judicial, and execu- 
 tive ; to abolish the whole body of civil government as far as the power 
 'of his arms can go, and set up in its place the law of arms, which is the 
 sovereign law of his personal, uncontrolled, and uncontrollable will. Talk 
 about it as we will, disguise it as we may, this is the point to which this 
 bill brings us. We are told that this fine must be refunded, because Gen- 
 eral Jackson was right — not merely that he thoitght he was right, but that 
 he wan right. And the refunding is insisted on — not as a pittance dropped 
 for charity at the feet of an infirm, and perhaps needy old warrior, just 
 sinking to his last rest; not by way of pardon for an acknowledged of- 
 fence, whether because that offence had been more an error than a crime, 
 or because enough had been already done to vindicate the lav/ ; but the fine 
 must be refunded because it had been wrongfully imposed in the first in- 
 stance ; because the General had been guilty of no offence whatever, and 
 
* 20 
 
 he ought, therefore, to be relieved from the imputation and stigma of art 
 unjust condemnation and ■ punishment. He was right, exactly right, in - 
 what he did — right in the a.ct, right in the -purpose, and right in the ground . 
 which he has constantly insisfed on for his justification. The sarnegroimd 
 of justification is insisted on here, and it is to establish that very ground of 
 justification (because, in truth, there is no other) t^af this bill is offered aiid 
 urged upon Congress ; and that ground of justification is just what I have 
 stated it to be, namely, the rightful supremacy of the military over the 
 civil authority, in tne unlimited-discretion of every military commander jn 
 the field in time of ^^ar. ^ On this ground expressly .the vote of members on 
 this floor is demanded. Nothing else and nothing short of this will do. It 
 :s not enough that, overlooking his high-handed offences, this man has been • 
 twice elected President of the United States by a grateful, forgiving, and- 
 too confidingpeople, but he ndw demands that ice shall formally adopt and 
 ratify his woi'st conduct and his mosb dangerous opinions ; that we shall 
 partake of his-guilt; thatnve shall become accessory .to hfs crimes com- .. 
 mitted against the very life of the Constifution and- Gpverum^rt of ihe 
 icoimtry."* For one, I shall not do it. And for the honor-of the country, ' 
 for the sake of human liberty, for the credit of that great conservativt^ ^ 
 party to which it is my pride and pleasure to belong, I could have hoped 
 that no man calling himself,a Whig would put h'is hand to such a measure 
 as this. No Whig, I know very well, will do so because he approves or 
 means to ratify the conduct and* opinions of General Jackson in the matter 
 " 10 which the bitt relates, or ado'pt or sanction the grounds on which his de- 
 fence and justification are made to rest. But so the bill is intended to ope- 
 rate, and so, if it passes, it will operate, in the vjev/ of the great body of 
 the American people. With a proper declaratory clayse, I -would ^myself 
 give back this money to General Jackson. Without that, I cannot do it. 
 This fine now stands as the. only just rebuke remaining of record of any 
 of the numerous acts of lawless disregard of Constitution and laws which 
 have so much distinguished and illustrated his whole career. It is the only 
 thing left to show that the people can rebuke the tyranny of a successful 
 soldier. I would say, let it stand, uul^S it o^ji be remitted with a saving 
 lo the Constitution and laws ; and, at any rate, so far as my vote or influ- 
 ence can go, it shall stand. 
 
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