and it was ruled
that the order of the commanding officer was no defence.

These principles, we should be reminded, are fundamental; in our own
country in time of peace, or even in time of war, except in hostile
territory, there is no such thing as martial law; and no such thing
as military law, except for the army itself, and then only by the
sufferance of a biennial vote, which vote also limits the duration
of existence of the regular army; besides which, all our State
constitutions and the Declaration of Independence have a general
provision against standing armies. The proclamations of military
officers, of mayors of cities, or even State governors, declaring
martial law, or suspending the writ of habeas corpus, are of no legal
validity; this is true of a similar proclamation by the President of
the United States, though it was frequently done by Abraham Lincoln.
The act of Mayor Ruef of San Francisco, even at the time of the
earthquake, declaring martial law, or giving troops or vigilance
committees summary powers of punishment, was a mere "bluff." Such an
order, though in practice obeyed by all good citizens, would in no
way protect those acting under it from prosecution in the criminal or
civil courts.

On the other hand, the right to bear arms is inherent under English
ideas, and this alone, with the corresponding right of political
assembly, has served largely to maintain English liberty; while the
absence of these two important rights has relieved countries like
Russia from all fear of revolution. One has only to read Mr. George
Trevelyan's vivid account of the difficulties of the Garibaldi
movement to free Italy in 1860, to realize the enormous difficulties
under which the great patriot labored from the absence of these
underlying principles. Indeed, but for the connivance of the
Piedmontese government in allowing somebody to sell a thousand
condemned rifles, it is probable that there would have been no
revolution in Sicily.

Now this Anglo-Saxon right to arms goes back to times before the very
dawn of the English Constitution, and the fyrd or local militia was
in Saxon times, as it was declared to be by our American State
constitutions of the eighteenth century, "the natural and only defence
of a free country." This principle was very soon re-established after
the Conquest. We find, as early as 1181, the Assize of Arms, which
revives the ancient fyrd or militia. Twenty-two years before scutage
had been