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To: 4ConservativeJustices
Please note the principle discussed in Dow v Johnson in my #1365. Milligan pertained to a Union citizen in Union territory. The Court ruled that military tribunals and marshal law were not permissible outside of the theater of war. You quotation, therefore, is out of context. The later Dow case, should correct your misunderstanding. The southern insurrectionists had no claim to the constitutional rights they had previously renounced - so long as the war continued - and government by consent and constitutional principle had not yet been reestablished.

"Which part of this don't you understand?"

1,367 posted on 09/17/2004 10:01:51 PM PDT by capitan_refugio
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To: capitan_refugio
You quotation, therefore, is out of context.

ROTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What part of "The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war" is beyon your understanding?

The later Dow case, should correct your misunderstanding.

Ya think? ;o) In Dow, "said force had plundered the dwelling-house of the plantation and carried off a silver pitcher, half a dozen silver knives, and other table were, the private property of the plaintiff, the whole property taken amounting in value to $1,611.29; that these acts of Captain Snell and of the officers and soldiers under his command, which the petition characterized as 'illegal, wanton, oppressive, and unjustifiable,' were perpetrated under a verbal and secret order of Brigadier-General Neal Dow, then in the service of the United States."

"We fully agree with the presiding justice of the Circuit Court in the doctrine that the military should always be kept in subjection to the laws of the country to which it belongs, and that he is no friend to the Republic who advocates the contrary. The established principle of every free people is, that the law shall alone govern; and to it the military must always yield. We do not controvert the doctrine of Mitchell v. Harmony, reported in the 13th of Howard; on the contrary, we approve it."
Justice Field, Dow v. Johnson, 100 U.S. 158, 169, (1880*)

* The case was argued during the October term, the opinion was delivered 2 Feb 1880.

1,444 posted on 09/18/2004 12:15:07 PM PDT by 4CJ (Laissez les bon FReeps rouler)
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