There was hardly a line in the entire bill which would stand the test of the Constitution. In the first place, the Congress of the United States, or any other part of the Government of the United States, can establish martial law in any part of the territory of the United States only when and where there is armed resistance to the execution of the laws of the United States, or of some "State" or Territory whose jurisdiction is being defended by the Government of the United States. Such was not the condition anywhere in the South. The Executive had proclaimed that such resistance had ceased everywhere several months before; that he had appointed civil officers throughout the South for the execution of the laws of the United States, in many cases with the advice and consent of the Senate; that these laws were in operation everywhere; and that the United States courts were open everywhere and in the unhindered discharge of their functions and duties. It was not pretended, of course, that there was armed resistance to the execution of the laws of the reconstructed "States," and that the military of the United States was to act simply in support of "State" authority. There were here and there, it is true, some of the remains of the military authority of the United States, exercised during the period of the insurrection, but they were a very poor basis upon which to found a resumption of the reign of martial law throughout the length and breadth of the South. No sane and just mind can consider for a moment such a ground as sufficient in policy, morals or constitutional law. While the people of these districts {114} which had attempted to secede from the Union had forfeited their rights to the "State" form of local government, they still had, after they had ceased from armed resistance to the Government of the United States, the rights guaranteed to the criminal by the Constitution of the United States--the right to be presented by a grand jury and tried by a petit jury in the civil tribunals of the United States, under the ordinary forms and guarantees of the common law, even though the crime charged should be treason itself. [Sidenote: The bill in its attempt to rob the President of his office of Commander-in-chief.] In the second place, the bill undertook to rob the President of his constitutional prerogative of commandership-in-chief over the army, and vest the same in the General of the army. This was so evident that no one could fail to see that it was a bill directed as much against the powers of the President of the United States as against the late Confederates of the South.