Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1871 — The Milligan Case. [ARTICLE]

The Milligan Case.

On the 5th of October, 1864, Lambdin P. Milligan, a citizen of Indiana, was arrested by order of General A. P. Hovey, commanding the District of Indiana. On the 21st of the same month he was tried before a military commission, upon charges of :1, conspiracy against the Government of the United States; 2, affording aid and comfort to rebels against the authority of the United States; 3. inciting insurrection; 4, disloyal practices, and 5, viola-ion of the laws of war. The substance of the charges was membership of the ortler of American Knights or Sons of Liberty. The charges were amplified in military style by numerous specifications. Upon these charges he was found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged; the sentence was approved by the President, and May 19,1865, was fixed as the day of execution. On January 2, 1805, following these proceedings of the military commission, there was a session of the Circuit Court of the United States held at Indianapolis, at which a grand jury was empaneled. This court adjourned January 27, having previously discharged the grand jury, which had found no bill against Milligan, On the 10th of May, 1865, Milligan filed a petition before the Circuit Court of Inniana, setting forth all the facts, and praying that, under the act of Congress of March 8,1868, he might be brought before the court, and either turned over to the proper civil tribunal to be proceeded with according to the law of the land, or discharged from custody. The Judges of the Circuit Court were divided in opinion, and the questions of difference were certified to the Supreme Court of the United States. The case was argued in the Supreme Court, and, at the opening oftlie court in December, 1866, Justice Davis delivered the judgment of the court, in which it was held: 1. That the Federal Court had jurisdiction of the case instituted by petition for the writ of habeas corpus. 2. That the military commission had no jurisdiction, and “no usages of war could sanction a military trial there for any offence whatever of a citizen in civil life, in nowise connected with the military service. Congress could grant no such power; and, to the honor of our National Legislature be it said, it has never been provoked by the state of the country even to attempt its exercise.” The act of 1863, authorizing the President to suspend the privilege of habeas corpus, requires that lists of all persons placed in arrest should be furnished to the next succeeding term of the Federal Court of the district, aud, in case the grand jury should fail to indict, then the persons so arrested should be discharged. His trial having been illegal, the court held that he was entitled to be discharged from custody under the terms of the act of 1863. In this judgment the court was unanimous, though four Judges dissented from several points of the opinion as delivered by Justice Davis. The finding of the military commission had never been approved by President Lincoln; it was still unacted on by him when he was killed, in April, 1865; but President Johnson approved it, and fixed the 16th of May for Milligan’s execution. In June, 1865, the sentence was commuted to imprisonment in the penitentiary, where he was confined until the 10th of April, 1866. For the imprisonment commencing October, 1864, and ending April 10, 1866, Milligan brought suit in an action of tresspass against General Hovey and the other members of the commission,and this latter case has just been concluded in the United States Circuit Court at Indianapolis. The facts were not disputed. The defense was that the arrest grew out of the plaintiff’s conduct charged against him before the military commission—that he was guilty of these charges; that the defendants were officers of the army, acting under orders without malice, and using only necessary force; that the suit having been brought March 13,1868, it is barred for all acts committed before March 13,1868, by the two years’ limitation of the act of 1863; that for the Imprisonment after that date the defendants are not guilty. Upon the trial Judge Drummond delivered the charge to the jury in which he examined these several points of the defense He held that, under the evidence offered by the defense to prove that there was a state of war in Indiana at the time, there was no proof that the civil courts were closed, or that their proceedings were interrupted or their judgments resisted or defeated. There was no such difficulty in administering criminal justice according to law as to change the circumstances upon which the Supreme Court had denied the legality of the trial by the military commission. All defense, therefore, as to the action of that commission, was overruled. The third defence was the statute of limitations of 1863. Judge Drummond, while holding that it was not within the power of Congress to grant absolute indemnity for wrongs and injuries committed without authority of law, considered that it was competent to declare that the remedies should be sought within a certain time, provided it were not so short as in effect to destroy the remedy itself. The term of two years was ample time for the enforcement of any rights protected by the constitution, and he held the limitation to be obligatory in this case. The plaintiff, though released April 10, 1866, had waited until the 13th of March, 1868, to institute his suit. The plaintiff, therefore, could recover only for the imprisonment from March 18 to April 10, 1866. The jury, upon this charge, awarded the plaintiff damages to the amount of $5. — Chicago Tribune.