"If the crime of high treason be indeterminate, this alone is sufficient to make the Government degenerate into arbitrary power."--_Montesquieu, Spirit, Book_ 12, _c._ 7. Now, may it please the Court, it is through statutes in which crimes are ill-defined--are not clearly and distinctly designated--that tyrants in every age have been able to crush their victims. Hence, in the noble system of laws that it is your honors' privilege to dispense, safeguards have been put in the strongest degree, and bulwarks have been erected around the life, the liberties, and the rights of the citizen. Now, what is an "act of hostility"? Suppose these men had gone out with a commission instructing them to go on the seas, to board vessels, and to beat the captains of vessels, and to do no more--to abandon them then, and take to their own ships--would that be an act of piracy? Is it not plain that the law meant piracy or robbery, or any "act of hostility" _ejusdem generis_, that is, _animo furandi_? To show that this construction is not forced, your honors will find in the Act of March 3d, 1825 (Dunlop's Laws, p. 723, sect. 6), that a special law was passed for the very purpose of punishing _acts of hostility_ against the United States and its citizens by _forcibly attacking_ and _setting upon vessels_ owned in part or wholly by either of them, _with intent to plunder and despoil the owners of moneys, goods_, &c., &c. If, therefore, this construction of these words, which I respectfully submit to the Court, has any weight in it, they amount to no more than what has been already decided in Clintock's case--the clear and well-settled principle of law that the commission shall not form a pretext for robbery. But, may it please the Court, as to the ninth section of the Act, it never was contemplated as applying to organized States. It was an Act which was intended to apply to individuals alone. States are not the subjects of criminal law, nor can you legislate against them; and this has been distinctly decided. If the Confederate States have been guilty of a gross breach of faith in the attempt to withdraw from the Confederation, they may be coerced; but the citizen himself must go unpunished. They are States--recognized by yourselves as States. They are not a collection of piratical hordes; and under such circumstances the law will not apply to the citizen of any of these States who acts fairly and honestly under his commission.