of private feeling, but both Congress and the Legislature of this State have expressed, in the form of law, their opinion that such actions as this ought not to be brought. The Congress of the United States, as early as 1863, and in several statutes passed since, have declared the opinion that when an officer, during a war, acting in good faith under an order of the President, has made an arrest in the interest of public peace and for the national security, he ought not afterward to be dragged before a jury to be amerced in damages. The Legislature of this State, by a statute passed in the year 1867, have expressed a like opinion, and enacted that where such an action was brought, the damages should in no case exceed five dollars. I do not speak to you for the purpose of discussing questions of law; questions of law the court will determine. I speak of the simple fact that Congress and our Legislature have both spoken in harmony with that feeling which arises in every true man's heart when he hears of cases like the present one-the feeling that they ought not to be brought. If this plaintiff, by his own faultby having become a party to a treasonable and wicked conspiracy-drew upon himself this arrest, then he should be content that he has suffered but a part of the penalty of the great wrong that he contemplated.

There are persons walking to-day free and untrammeled through this whole land, who sought during the war, by secret conspiracy and overt violence, to destroy the Union-even since this trial began we have heard of the great leader of the Southern Confederacy publicly addressing his fellow-citizens of the South. He walks unrestrained, and is yet attempting as far as in him lies to rekindle the fires of revolution. How grand has been the magnanimity of our government! Look at human history from its beginning until now, and show me on its pages anything that can compare with the sublime. magnanimity of the American Government towards its domestic enemies. Among the crimes against mankind this rebellion stands supreme. In lands where oppression has crushed the people to the dust, revolution has often shown itself in the assertion of right principles of

Government, and in the struggle towards that which our fathers attained here in the American Republic. This we have seen. But it was reserved for traitors in America-for citizens debauched by long connection with the institution of slavery-to kindle a war against the Government whose hand had never been felt by them except as it conferred blessings upon them. After their great crime these men are free to-day. The nation has covered them with the mantle of forgetfulness and amnesty. And is it too much to ask that acts like those complained of in the present case, which are only the consequences the plaintiff brought upon himself by previous acts of treasonable conspiracy against the Government—that they shall be covered with the same mantle ?

If the men who sought with bloody hand and by treasonable conspiracy to destroy the nation shall go free, shall they who spent their blood to save it from destruction be arraigned before a jury of the country and amerced in damages for doing the acts which the defendants did?

The charges against the plaintiff, upon which he was put upon trial before the Military Commission, were of the gravest character. If he was guilty of them death. was the mildest punishment that should have been visited upon him. If he, a citizen of this State, dwelling here under the beneficent protection of our State gov ernment, remote from the institution of slavery, which was the spring of treason and the corner-stone of rebellion; if he, dwelling here, engaged with others in a direct conspiracy against the government, and lent his sympathies, not to the defenders of our bleeding country, but to rebels; if he did not only all this, but sought to turn loose the dogs of war within our peaceful States, corresponding secretly with the enemies of the country, and invited them to our soil instead of arraying himself against them; if he, conspiring against the peace of our State, stood upon our soil and sent out his voice to rebels across the river-if he did all this, then I say that death, ignominious death, was the least punishment which any true man would say ought to have been

visited upon him. Did the officers who arrested him, and the court that tried him, have reason to believe him guilty of these crimes?

These offenses grew out of, and were connected with, a secret order known at different times by different names, but having the same officers, the same membership, and the same design. What were the purposes of that secret order? Gentlemen, its history is a black page in the history of Indiana, and yet we are compelled to turn our minds to the consideration of it for a brief moment. Far rather would I call into review before you those pages of our Nation's history which have been made glorious by a record of the exploits of Indiana soldiers in the field; but for the present let us look, painful as is the duty, at this page made black with treason. What were the purposes of this secret order? We could not expect to find them plainly stated in its rituals or oaths. Such purposes always wear a cloak; yet we may hope to find in these rituals something which may furnish a clue. We may hope now and then to peep through the cloak in which treason wrapped itself, and see something of its hideous lineaments. We read in these rituals a good deal about education and literature, and we hear, at least in one of its councils, that the subject of establishing a great university in which the political lessons of the order were to be taught was gravely discussed. The distinguished Senator (Mr. Hendricks) has called attention to the testimony of some of the witnesses in regard to this matter, as if he would have you believe that it was really one of the purposes of the order. Will you believe, gentlemen, for one moment, that the establishment of newspapers, the cultivation of letters, or the founding of a university was ever in the serious contemplation of its members? That is too thin a disguise to hide the face of treason.

There is in the obligations, at least in one of them, the vow not to reveal any of the contemplated designs of the order, and it proves that there was something contemplated not revealed in the books. Then we find, in the next place, another vow not to reveal secrets com

municated by a brother of the order, but rather than do so to suffer death. Now what were these secrets which, when communicated to a brother, he was to hold sacred under a penalty of death? We find also another obligation not to reveal any conjectured purpose. When these men, many of them deceived, were brought into the vestibule of the order, where only some general political lessons were shown, they took an oath not to reveal a conjectured purpose, and as they acquired the degrees, and the darkness of the designs of the order dawned upon them, that oath was there as a safeguard against disclosures and to constrain them to conceal purposes not exposed in the books. Now, gentlemen, what were those purposes? I insist that in the rituals of the order there is to be found a muster-in oath into the Southern army. I shall read you presently what, as you now look back and recall public events, can have no other meaning. And I charge it upon them to-day that, as one of the effects of the obligations assumed by them in their ritual, the members of the order of American Knights, or Sons of Liberty, were mustered in as soldiers of the Confederate army in the State of Indiana.

The following is a portion of the obligation taken by a "Neophyte," read from the ritual of the order:

"I do further promise that I will, at all times, if needs be, take up arms in the cause of the oppressed-in my country first of all—against any Monarch, Prince, Potentate, Power or Government usurped, which may be found in arms, and waging war against a people or peoples, who are endeavoring to establish, or have inaugurated, a Government for themselves of their own free choice, in accordance with, and founded upon, the eternal principles of Truth which I have sworn in the V, and now in this presence do swear, to maintain inviolate, and defend with my life. This I do promise, without reservation or evasion of mind; without regard to the name, station, condition or destination of the invading or coercing power, whether it shall arise within or come from without."

Who were the "oppressed" people in whose behalf

the Neophyte, coming in through the vestibule of the temple, upon bended knee, swore to take up arms? Who were the people oppressed by an usurper? Which the States against whom a usurper was waging war? Answer it upon your oaths, gentlemen. Do you doubt that the persons taking that oath on bended knee did not understand it as binding them to take up arms on behalf of the rebel Confederacy? It can mean nothing less. No man familiar with the history of the times can believe otherwise of it. The oath was a muster-in oath, and he who took it was as much a recruit of Jefferson Davis' army as if he had been actually in the army of the rebel States. If he regarded his obligations, if he meant to perform his vows, he was as much a servant of Jefferson Davis, and as much bound to obey his orders as if he had been mustered into the army of Lee then confronting Grant at Richmond.

Major Gordon showed you plainly that the political doctrines upon which the South took up arms against the government are as plainly stated and announced in these rituals as they ever were in any political convention. The supremacy of the general government is utterly denied in them. Supremacy-sovereignty-is declared to be in the States. Any attempt to resist or thwart the resolutions of any of the States is declared to be usurpation and a crime.

But further than this, as if it were not enough to swear to take up arms in behalf of the Confederacy, the ritual contains an oath binding upon every man who entered the order, not to serve in the armies of the United States. Let me read to you, for a moment, from the ritual: "That my sword shall ever be drawn in support of the right, and that I will never take up arms in any case as a mercenary." Now, in the light of the public proclamations, editorials and speeches issued by these men, who were the soldiers of the United States? They were "Lincoln hirelings"-they were "mercenaries." Tell me if those were not the familiar names by which the Federal troops were known and designated here in Indiana by the men who had no sympathy for the cause for which those troops were fighting.