SPEECH OF HON. GARRETT DAVIS, OF KENTUCK

Excerpt from Speech of Hon. Garrett Davis, of Kentucky, in Committee of the Whole, in Which He Gives a Sketch of the Political History of Massachusetts: Delivered in the Senate of the United States, February 16 and 17, 1864 There is no citizen of the United States, even in the loyal States, but what is subject, at all times, to be arrested at any hour of the day or the night, without any process issued out according to the requisitions of the Constitution, without any charge of offense or crime, without its being communicated to him what is the cause of his arrest; and he is subject to be dragged from his home to distant prisons, and there to be indefinitely confined in a dungeon without any protection or redress. Sir, under our form of constitutional government, and of its limited and restricted jurisdiction, in addition to the abuses which I have enumerated, all the State laws of every State, loyal as well as disloyal, are subject to be superseded by the arbi trary will of the President and his military subordinates; courts are deposed; judges are driven from their halls; ministerial officers with process in their hands are interdicted from making execution of them; and armed men invade the courts for the purpose of suppressing the due execution of law and defeating the proteo tion which should be vouchsafed to every citizen. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.