country beyond our civil jurisdiction, and yet it may be questionable if
we should undertake to set up such governors in States which we all
claim to be within our civil jurisdiction. At all events, the two cases
are different, so that it is not easy to argue from one to the other.

In Jefferson's Inaugural Address, where he develops what he calls "the
essential principles of our government, and consequently those which
ought to shape its administration," he mentions "_the supremacy of the
civil over the military authority_" as one of these "essential
principles," and then says:--

"These should be the creed of our political faith,--the text of civil
instruction,--the touchstone by which to try the services of those we
trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or alarm, let
us hasten to retrace our steps, and to regain the road which alone leads
to peace, liberty, and safety."

In undertaking to create military governors of States, we reverse the
policy of the republic, as solemnly declared by Jefferson, and subject
the civil to the military authority. If this has been done, in patriotic
ardor, without due consideration, in a moment of error or alarm, it only
remains, that, according to Jefferson, we should "hasten to retrace our
steps, and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and
safety."

There is nothing new under the sun, and the military governors whom we
are beginning to appoint find a prototype in the Protectorate of Oliver
Cromwell. After the execution of the King and the establishment of the
Commonwealth, the Protector conceived the idea of parcelling the kingdom
into military districts, of which there were _eleven_,--being precisely
the number which it is now proposed, under the favor of success, to
establish among us. Of this system a great authority, Mr. Hallam, in his
"Constitutional History of England," speaks thus:--

"To govern according to law may sometimes be an usurper's wish, but can
seldom be in his power. The Protector abandoned all thought of it.
Dividing the kingdom into districts, he placed at the head of each a
major-general, as _a sort of military magistrate_, responsible for the
subjection of his prefecture. These were _eleven in number_, men
bitterly hostile to the Royalist party, and insolent towards all civil
authority."[8]

Carlyle, in his "Life of Cromwell," gives the following glimpse of this
military government:--

"The beginning of a univers