Throughout the whole trial, the Commission took the law from the Judge-Advocates with the unquestioning docility usually manifested by a jury on such matters in civil courts. In truth, the main function of a Judge-Advocate appears to be to furnish law to the Court, as in civil courts the main function of the Judge is to furnish law to the jury. Consequently, his exposition of the law on any disputed point--whether relative to modes of procedure, or to the competency of testimony, or even to questions of jurisdiction--instead of standing on the same level with the antagonistic exposition of counsel for the accused as an argument to be weighed by the Court against its opposite in the equal scales of decision, was at all times authoritative, like the opinion of a judge overruling the contention of a lawyer. This, surely, was bad enough for a defendant; but, what was still more fatal to his chances of fair dealing, this habit of domination, acquiesced in by the Court on questions of law, had the effect (as is also seen in civil courts) of giving the same superior force to the expositions of questions of fact by the Judge-Advocate. And as this office combined the functions of a prosecuting officer with the functions of a judge, there could be no restraints of law, custom or personal delicacy, against the enforcement, with all the powers of reasoning and appeal at command, the conclusion of the Judge-Advocate upon the matters of fact. In a word, the judgment of the prosecuting officer--the retained counsel for the Government, the plaintiff in the action--ruled with absolute sway, both on the law and on the facts, the judgment of the Commission; the members of which, for that matter, were also in the pay of the Government. It may, therefore, be readily anticipated with how little impartiality the trial was conducted.