"Unprepared, however, as all loyal hearts were for such an announcement, the American people would be even yet more astounded to have it declared by any court in this country that the commander-in-chief of the army and navy, the President of the United States, has not the power in time of war to institute a military commission for the purpose of trying a gang of spies and traitors who have found their way within the intrenched encampments of the nation's capital to take the life of the chief of the army and navy, to assassinate all the heads of the executive departments, in the interest of the pretended government with which the federal government was engaged in war. They who maintain such a doctrine profess to defend it upon the ground that no such power is delegated by the constitution, as _they_ did who could find no warrant there to coerce seceding States into submission to the federal authority; but the day has passed by when honest statesmen will longer, if they ever did, regard the sovereignty of the federal Union as possessing no powers save those expressly enumerated in the Constitution. "The government of the United States was doubtless created by the adoption of the Constitution. But when it had once been spoken into being it stood upon the same level with other nations, and was clothed with all the powers incident to an independent sovereignty under the laws of nature and of nations, and among these was the power, in time of war or great public emergency, to arrest and inflict upon spies and traitors the most summary punishment, whenever and wherever the strong hand of military justice can be laid upon them. It is a power incident to the right and duty of self preservation, and ought to be exercised, just as the individual owes it to himself to strike down the assassin who is feeling for his heartstrings, without waiting to lose his own life, in order that the courts of justice may, at their leisure, proceed to try the felon according to the formularies of the law and the Constitution. The right of self-defense needs not to be inscribed upon parchment, either for individuals or for sovereign states. The Almighty impressed this right and duty upon the hearts and minds of men long before he wrote the decalogue upon the tables of stone. To say that this government has not the power in time of war to exercise this great duty of self-preservation, for want of warrant in the Constitution, is to condemn the action of the government in acquiring from France and Spain and Mexico and Russia territory lying far beyond the limits of the original thirteen States, because such power of acquisition and growth is not provided for by the Constitution. Both these powers are but the incidents of sovereignty, requiring no warrant in written governmental charter; they are derived from the common law of nations, and are co-existent with sovereignty.