abolished by the laws of war, and not by municipal enactments; the
power was exercised by military commanders, under instructions, of
course, from their respective Governments. And here I recur again to
the example of Gen. Jackson. What are you now about in Congress? You
are about passing a grant to refund to Gen. Jackson the amount of a
certain fine imposed upon him by a Judge, under the laws of the State
of Louisiana. You are going to refund him the money, with interest;
and this you are going to do because the imposition of the fine was
unjust. And why was it unjust? Because Gen. Jackson was acting under
the laws of war, and because the moment you place a military commander
in a district which is the theatre of war, the laws of war apply to
that district.


I might furnish a thousand proofs to show that the pretensions of
gentlemen to the sanctity of their municipal institutions under a
state of actual invasion and of actual war, whether servile, civil
or foreign, is wholly unfounded, and that the laws of war do, in all
such cases, take the precedence. I lay this down as the law of
nations. I say that military authority takes, for the time, the
place of all municipal institutions, and slavery among the rest; and
that, under that state of things, so far from its being true that the
States where slavery exists have the exclusive management of the
subject, not only the President of the United States, but the
Commander of the Army, has power to order the universal emancipation
of the slaves. I have given here more in detail a principle which I
have asserted on this floor before now, and of which I have no more
doubt than that you, sir, occupy that chair. I give it in its
development, in order that any gentleman from any part of the Union
may, if he thinks proper, deny the truth of the position, and may