Trial of the Officers and Crew of the Privateer Savannah, on the Charge of Piracy, in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New YorkWarburton, A. F. (Adolphus Frederick)
History
Trial of the Officers and Crew of the Privateer Savannah, on the Charge of Piracy, in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York
Warburton, A. F. (Adolphus Frederick)
Piracy -- United States; Privateering -- United States; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
"Civil war may occur where a nation without an established
Government is divided into opposing hostile factions, each
contending for the acquisition of an exclusive administration of
her Government. If a simple case of this kind should occur at this
day, the Governments of the nations not parties to the contest
might regard it as peculiarly one of civil war. As between the
contending factions themselves, however, neither could easily
regard their hostile opponents in the contest otherwise than as
mere insurgents engaged in unorganized rebellion. Thus, in the
language of Sir M. Hale, every success of either party would
subject all hostile opponents of the conqueror to the penalties of
treason. A desire to prevent the frequency of such a result was the
origin of the rule of law, that allegiance is due to any peaceably
established Government, though it may have originated in
usurpation. The statute of 11 H. 7, c. 1 (A.D. 1494), excusing an
English subject who has yielded obedience, or who has even rendered
military service to a Ruler who was King in fact, though not in
law, was declaratory of a previous principle of judicial decision."
After referring to Bracton, Coke, Hawkins, and Foster, the learned
Judge proceeds:
"It has already been stated that a King in whose name justice was
administered in the Courts of law was usually regarded as in actual
possession of the Government.
"Civil war of another kind occurs where an organized hostile
faction is contending against an established Government, whose laws
are still administered in all parts of its territory except places
in the actual military or naval occupation of insurgents or their
adherents.
"In such a case the question has been, whether a place in the
actual military occupation of the revolutionary faction, or of its
adherents, may, under the law of war, be treated by that Government
as if the contest was a foreign war and the place occupied by
public enemies. In the case of a maritime blockade of such a place,
the affirmative of this question was decided in England, in the
year 1836. It had previously been so decided by the Supreme
Tribunal of Marine, at Lisbon (3 Scott, 201; 2 Bingh., N.C., 781)."
Judge Cadwalader then refers to Grotius (Proleg., sec. 23), citing with
approval the statement by Demosthenes of the rule of public law in the
case of the invasion by Deiopeithes, the Athenian commander in the
Chersonese, of the dominions of Philip of Macedon, who had sent a
military force to the relief of Cardia, when sought to be reduced to
submission by Deiopeithes--that wherever judicial remedies are not
enforceable by a Government against its opponents, the proper mode of
restoring its authority is war,--and continues:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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