counsel--consisting of Mr. Joseph E. McDonald, now U.S. Senator from
Indiana, Mr. James A. Garfield, a distinguished member of Congress,
Mr. Jeremiah S. Black, the eminent jurist of Pennsylvania, and Mr.
David Dudley Field, of New York, for the petitioner; and by Mr.
Henry Stanbery, the Attorney-General, and Gen. B.F. Butler, for the
government. Their arguments were remarkable for learning, research,
ability, and eloquence, and will repay the careful perusal not only of
the student of law, but of all lovers of constitutional liberty. Only
a brief synopsis of them is given in the report of the case in 4th
Wallace. The decision of the Court was in favor of the liberty of the
citizen. Its opinion was announced by Mr. Justice Davis, and it will
stand as a perpetual monument to his honor. It laid down in clear and
unmistakable terms the doctrine that military commissions organized
during the war, in a State not invaded nor engaged in rebellion, in
which the federal courts were open and in the undisturbed exercise of
their judicial functions, had no jurisdiction to try a citizen who was
not a resident of a State in rebellion, nor a prisoner of war, nor a
person in the military or naval service; and that Congress could not
invest them with any such power; and that in States where the
courts were thus open and undisturbed the guaranty of trial by jury
contained in the Constitution was intended for a state of war as well
as a state of peace, and is equally binding upon rulers and people at
all times and under all circumstances.

This decision was concurred in by Justices Nelson, Grier, Clifford,
and myself, then constituting, with Justice Davis, a majority of the
Court. At this day it seems strange that its soundness should have
been doubted by any one, yet it was received by a large class--perhaps
a majority of the Northern people--with disfavor, and was denounced
in unmeasured terms by many influential journals. It was cited as