over both white and
colored persons.

It may be answered to this that the officers of the Army are too
magnanimous, just, and humane to oppress and trample upon a subjugated
people. I do not doubt that army officers are as well entitled to this
kind of confidence as any other class of men. But the history of the
world has been written in vain if it does not teach us that unrestrained
authority can never be safely trusted in human hands. It is almost sure
to be more or less abused under any circumstances, and it has always
resulted in gross tyranny where the rulers who exercise it are strangers
to their subjects and come among them as the representatives of a
distant power, and more especially when the power that sends them is
unfriendly. Governments closely resembling that here proposed have been
fairly tried in Hungary and Poland, and the suffering endured by those
people roused the sympathies of the entire world. It was tried in
Ireland, and, though tempered at first by principles of English law,
it gave birth to cruelties so atrocious that they are never recounted
without just indignation. The French Convention armed its deputies with
this power and sent them to the southern departments of the Republic.
The massacres, murders, and other atrocities which they committed show
what the passions of the ablest men in the most civilized society will
tempt them to do when wholly unrestrained by law.

The men of our race in every age have struggled to tie up the hands
of their governments and keep them within the law, because their own
experience of all mankind taught them that rulers could not be relied
on to concede those lights which they were not legally bound to respect.
The head of a great empire has sometimes governed it with a mild and
paternal sway, but the kindness of an irresponsible deputy never yields
what the law does not extort from him. Between such a master and the
people subjected to his domination there can be nothing but enmity; he
punishes them if they resist his authority, and if they submit to it
he hates them for their servility.

I come now to a question which is, if possible, still more important.
Have we the power to establish and carry into execution a measure like
this? I answer, Certainly not, if we derive our authority from the
Constitution and if we are bound by the limitations which it imposes.

This proposition is perfectly clear, that no branch of the Federal
Government--executive, legis