administer, and execute the
laws which concern their domestic affairs. An existing _de
facto_ government, exercising such functions as these, is
itself the law of the State upon all matters within its
jurisdiction. To pronounce the supreme law-making power of
an established State illegal is to say that law itself is
unlawful. * * *

"The military rule which it establishes is plainly to be
used, not for any purpose of order or for the prevention of
crime, but solely as a means of coercing the people into the
adoption of principles and measures to which it is known
that they are opposed, and upon which they have an
undeniable right to exercise their own judgment.

"I submit to Congress whether this measure is not, in its
whole character, scope, and object, without precedent and
without authority, in palpable conflict with the plainest
provisions of the Constitution, and utterly destructive to
those great principles of liberty and humanity for which our
ancestors on both sides of the Atlantic have shed so much
blood and expended so much treasure.

* * * * *

"The power thus given to the commanding officer over all the
people of each district is that of an absolute monarch. His
mere will is to take the place of all law. The law of the
States is now the only rule applicable to the subjects
placed under his control, and that is completely displaced
by the clause which declares all interference of State
authority to be null and void. He alone is permitted to
determine what are rights of person or property, and he may
protect them in such way as in his discretion may seem
proper. It places at his free disposal all the lands and
goods in his district, and he may distribute them without
let or hinderance to whom he pleases. Being bound by no
State law, and there being no other law to regulate the
subject, he may make a criminal code of his own; and he can
make it as bloody as any recorded in history, or he can
reserve the privilege of acting upon the impulse of his
private passions in each case that arises. He is bound by no
rules of evidence; there is indeed no provision by which he
is authorized or required to take any evidence at all. Every
thing is a crime which he chooses to call so, and all