rights or immunities belonging to white persons" to imprisonment or
fine, or both, without, however, defining the "civil rights and
immunities" which are thus to be secured to the freedmen by military
law. This military jurisdiction also extends to all questions that may
arise respecting contracts. The agent who is thus to exercise the office
of a military judge may be a stranger, entirely ignorant of the laws of
the place, and exposed to the errors of judgment to which all men are
liable. The exercise of power over which there is no legal supervision
by so vast a number of 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