The Law of Treason.
Credit...The New York Times Archives
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April 21, 1861.
The law of treason is very important to the American people. Gardner's Institutes, a law work published by VOORHLIS in January, 1860 pp 2, 3, 33 to 35, 323, 382, 669, 695, 382, 383, furnishes the law on this subject. On these pages the following principles and the authorities supporting them are found:
1. That the President and Congress have the whole of the political, national and inter-state power of the Union, a perpetual Government making the people of the United States one nation, with the States municipal bodies with mere local sovereignty, and having no power to make compacts or agreements ot any kind without the consent of Congress.
2. That the States have no power to form a Confederacy within the Union composed of any of its States.
3. That no State or Confederacy has a right to organize an army or navy, or to make war, or to invade any other State by military power, or to seek to divice and disrupt the Union of our thirty-four States, or to change our Government, except by an amendment of the National Constitution in the mode pointed out by it. Any such act is rebellion -- it is treason.
4. That all attempts to defeat, by force or menace, the execution of any act of Congress in any of our thirty-four States, or to seize, for the use of any State, or the Southern Confederacy, any fort, Custom house, mint, or vessel of the Union, or to collect duties, except for the national treasury, and in pursuance of any act of Congress, and all efforts to break up the Union by menace or force, all those acts are, by our law, treason, whether done by private persons, or armed men, or officers of a Southern Confederacy, State Legislatures or State Conventions.
5. That all the above unlawful acts are not only illegal and subject the wrong-doers to the penalties of treason, but all persons who aid the existing Southern conspiracy in the disruption of our Union, by making, selling, or transporting arms, munitions of war, clothing or supplies of men, money, or anything for the rebel armies, are traitors, if done with knowledge.
6. That any persons who, by newspaper articles, or Governors' or Mayors' proclamations or messages, or by recommending the doing of any acts of treason, shall advise a rebellion, or any act of treason which shall be carried out by levying war upon the Union, is a traitor, as any aid given, or participation by parties remote from the place of the armed meeting, makes the same treasonable, if in the smallest degree it aids and encourages the treason by levying war at a remote point.
7. That the selling of vessels, or furnishing supplies, or acting as an agent to buy them, or to borrow money for the Southern Confederacy, is an act of treason in every person knowing the object.
8. That the President is authorized to call out the whole Militia, Military and Naval power of the United States, to put down insurrection and rebellion in any State and Territory of the Union.
9. That, as Supreme Executive, he has the power, and it is his duty to put down rebellion and preserve, in full force the national Constitution and the Union.
10. That secession is treason, and that all who uphold it by menace or force, or by giving aid in any degree, or in any manner, are traitors, and legally subject to capital punishment.
11. That in a representative Republic like ours no right of revolution exists, as the essence of republicanism is that the constitutional majority of votes shall rule, and not force. That in monarchies the right of rebellion in extreme cases may exist, but not in republics, where the ballot-box effects all changes the majority desire peaceably. Abandoning this doctrine, despotism or anarchy must prevail.
12. The loaning of money to the Southern Confederacy is an act of treason.
The above abstract of the principles of our law, and their application to existing facts, are furnished to guard men against treason, and capital punishment, its legal penalty. There are men in our midst who have already incurred the penalties of treason, and arc now enjoying a temporary immunity by the forbearance of the Government.
