agents as is contemplated by the bill must, by
the very nature of man, be attended by acts of caprice, injustice, and
passion.

The trials having their origin under this bill are to take place without
the intervention of a jury and without any fixed rules of law or
evidence. The rules on which offenses are to be "heard and determined"
by the numerous agents are such rules and regulations as the President,
through the War Department, shall prescribe. No previous presentment is
required nor any indictment charging the commission of a crime against
the laws; but the trial must proceed on charges and specifications. The
punishment will be, not what the law declares, but such as a
court-martial may think proper; and from these arbitrary tribunals there
lies no appeal, no writ of error to any of the courts in which the
Constitution of the United States vests exclusively the judicial power
of the country.

While the territory and the classes of actions and offenses that are
made subject to this measure are so extensive, the bill itself, should
it become a law, will have no limitation in point of time, but will form
a part of the permanent legislation of the country. I can not reconcile
a system of military jurisdiction of this kind with the words of the
Constitution which declare 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, 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," and that "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." The
safeguards which the experience and wisdom of ages taught our fathers
to establish as securities for the protection of the innocent, the
punishment of the guilty, and the equal administration of justice are
to be set aside, and for the sake of a more vigorous interposition in
behalf of justice we are to take the risks of the many acts of injustice
that would necessarily follow from an almost countless number of agents
established in every parish or county in nearly a third of the States of
the Union, over whose decisions there is to be no supervision or control
by the Federal courts. The power that would be thus placed in the hands
of the President is such as in time of peace certainly ought nev