2-15-36 ARBITRARY ARRESTS IN INDIANA. EVIDENCE ACCOMPANYING THE REPORT OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE HOUSE OF Representatives, On motion of the Hon. Jason B. Brown, of Jackson county, the following resolutions were adopted: WHEREAS, The Constitution of the United States and of the State of Indiana solemnly guarantee to the people thereof freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the sacred right of the writ of habeas corpus, security from arrest without due process of law, and that in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, and have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses, counsel, &c.; and, WHEREAS, We have witnessed, within the past twenty months, the violation of all these provisions so indispensable to a free government and necessary for the enjoyment of public liberty, by means alike arbitrary, violent, insulting, and degrading to a degree unknown to any government on earth, except those avowedly and notoriously wicked, cruel, and despotic; and, WHEREAS, We, the Representatives of the people, now assembled in a legislative capacity, charged with the high duty of enacting laws for the protection of the people and the preservation of their rights, deem it our first duty to ascertain the facts connected with the criminal usurpations and wrongs which have been prac ticed by political arrests, and in order to give those who have unlawfully made them, or caused them to be made, the prominence to a position of lasting infamy their conduct merits, alike as punishment and as a warning to others hereafter, and to enable us to act intelligently and efficiently in providing such legislation as will. prevent their repetition, therefore, Resolved, That a committee of seven be appointed by this House, whose duty it shall be to report to this body the number of arrests for political causes made within the limits of the State, and all the facts connected with each, showing by whose order, procurement or influence, either immediate or remote, the arrests Banta were made, the place, time, and manner of the same, and by whom made; the charges (if any) made against them, and the probability of their truth or falsity; the place and duration of their imprisonment, and their treatment; the trial, or opportunity for trial, which they may have had, if any; the circumstances of their discharge, if discharged; the injury to their persons or families (if any) which have resulted from their unlawful detention, and the damages or pecuniary loss sustained by them in consequence of their imprisonment. Resolved, That said committee also inquire into and report if there have been obstructions to the free exercise of the liberty of speech or press, or any abridgement thereof within the past two years in this State, and, if so, report the facts connected therewith. Resolved, That said committee be authorized to report a bill that shall contain provisions adequate to protect the people from the arbitrary commission of unconstitutional acts, by such penalties and punishment upon those guilty of the same as may effectually prevent their repetition, and provide means for redress and restitution by damages or otherwise to requite their wrongs, while serving as an exemplary warning to other usurpers in all time to come. Resolved, That said committee be and are hereby authorized and empowered to send for persons and papers, or visit any locality within the State, that may be deemed necessary to the full and complete discharge of their duty. In pursuance of the above resolutions, the Speaker appointed the following committee: COMMITTEE ROOM, January 23, 1863. The Committee assembled at their room, and organized by appointing ETHELBERT C. HIBBEN, of Rush county, Secretary of said Committee. The Committee on Arbitrary Arrests, after hearing and examining the evidence submitted to them under the resolutions of the House, beg leave to submit the following report: REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE. Under the resolution of the House we have examined witnesses in forty-three cases of arrests made in our State, and accompanying this is the evidence laid before us in those cases. Several matters suggest themselves to our minds in connection with the facts thus developed-matters which, in the judgment of the Committee, deeply affect the liberty and vital welfare of the people of Indiana. Acts have been perpetrated, and omissions of duty suffered by high officers, which, if left unnoticed and unrebuked, would exhibit to the world a shameless want of fidelity on the part of the representatives of the people toward their constituents, and if such lack of fidelity should be sanctioned, it would go far toward establishing that which appears to be assumed as true, by those who have for two years controled affairs, namely, that the people have ceased to take an interest in the mode and manner in which the government ought to be administered. In short, that it is no longer a government of the people, through their agents, the chosen officers of the law-but a government in which the servant has become the master, and the superior the slave. The tendency of the legislation and acts of those placed in power by the people for the last two years, has been to curtail the liberties and to crush the spirit of independence of those who have placed them in position. The many acts of arbitrary power shown by this evidence, taken in connection with the attempt by the Congress and President of the United States, to shield from all responsibility, those who in the very wantonness of power have been guilty of such unwarranted acts, make a dark chapter in the mournful history which is to be written of the demoralization of the public men, and the downward tendency of the public morals of the times. It must be a truth that if our sires refused to submit to the wanton acts of the minions of a king, who was the descendant of a long line of rulers, whom they and their ancestors had been educated to respect, obey, and reverence, that public virtue must have greatly declined, yea, that it is almost extinct, if we, their sons, will quietly crouch down to receive the lash, and hold out our hands for the fetters with which the lowest subordinates of a public servant would degrade us—for the President of the United States, by its Constitution, is but the servant of the sovereign people. Has it indeed come to this, that we must speak of our public servants with bated breath, and that we must approach with unsandled feet when we would come into their presence to seek a redress of wrongs? Are the laws of nature to be reversed, and has the mere creature become greater than the creator? Can we no longer set forth our grievances, either real or fancied, as our fathers did, in the immortal declaration of their independence? The arrests that have been investigated by the Committee may be resolved into four classes: First. For obstructing the draft. In point of fact, it will be seen by every intelligent, candid person, who may take the pains to read this evidence, and who will read it with a desire to arrive at the truth, that nine out of every ten of those who were arrested fell under the head of the fourth class, and the remainder were taken into custody upon frivolous pretexts that could have been dissipated in a very short explanation before any intelligent, unprejudiced tribunal, if permission had been granted to that end. Indeed, it is scarcely necessary to offer arguments to show this fact, since those in power have conceded the whole question, by discharging nearly all the parties arrested, without even the semblance of a hearing or trial. In but few instances were such discharges made, until the victims of misapplied power had suffered great inconvenience, expense, and in many cases loss of health. The utter falsity of the pretended reasons for arrests were thus admitted, and the innocence of the sufferers reluctantly declared by their persecutors. The great and controling motive of those. who have resorted to such an arbitrary course toward the people, appears to have been a desire to prevent investigation into their acts, in the first instance; so that if the people would patiently endure it, they might go on gradually encroaching upon their simplicity in the exercise of unauthorized acts, until they should not be even shocked at the assumption of absolute and supreme power, if in the end it should be thought necessary by those in office for the attainment of their ultimate purposes. If this is not the correct reason for the acts complained of, we can see no cause for the arrests being confined to one political party alone. Many of these arrests, indeed nearly all of them, were made before the Administration had progressed to the length desired by the ultra Abolitionists; and because of the apparently conservative tendencies of Mr. Lincoln in the earlier periods of his term of office, he and his policy had been more bitterly opposed and denounced by members of the Abolition party, than by those Democrats who were arrested. No Abolitionist who thus indulged in denunciations of the policy of the conduct of the war was arrested, but the least offense in that respect by a Democrat was met by the stern hand of power. Why was this? Two reasons present themselves: First, without doubt it was the intention of Mr. Lincoln, from the beginning of the war, gradually but ultimately, to lead it on to the purposes of emancipation; and he would thus, at the proper time, fall into the arms of the Abolitionists-therefore, it would not do to offend and alienate them in advance. Secondly, the history of Democracy shows that they have always been in favor of the greatest freedom of opinion, and of granting the largest measures of personal liberty to the individual members of society. The course marked out would not admit of the expression, or even possession of this kind of liberty. It is, and always has been, in antagonism to arbitrary power. For hundreds of years, a war has been going on between this Democratic principle of individual liberty, and its opposite, the concentration of such liberty in the hands of a few only, at the expense of the many. To be free thus to seize the reins of power unlawfully, it became necessary to silence men who had been educated in this school of freedom and equality. Those who spoke boldly, as freemen ought to do, were seized, deprived of liberty, and refused a trial, under the pretext that they had been guilty of disloyal |