Exoneration

“ In sentences of banishment the term of exile was never specified, but when the sentence had been pronounced in full assembly, and the offence was great, the culprit might live in exile for years. When the punishment consisted in the destruction of houses, plantations, and live stock, it was immediately inflicted by the whole force of the district, under the direction and superintendence of the leading men, who had taken part in the assembly and passed the sentence. ”

“ We shall argue, later, that the regular duration of exile for manslaughter was one year, and that this custom implies the influence of local control, on the part of judges or magistrates, directed against the right to refuse ‘appeasement’ on the part of a slain man’s relatives. Such a control would naturally have produced irritation and dissatisfaction which, again, might have been reflected in men’s conception of the Erinnyes. ”

“ Are you ready to accept these humiliating conditions, and to be branded as traitors and cowards?’
“‘Never,’ we answered; ‘never! Rather proscription, ruin and death.’
“‘My friends,’ he added, ‘exile is ruin; it is despair, it is desolation. Pause a while and reflect, before forming your resolve.’
“Not one of us flinched, and without hesitancy, we all cried out: ‘Rather than disown our mother country and become apostates, let exile, let ruin, let death, be our lot.’
“‘Your answer is noble and generous, my good friends, and your resolve is sublime,’ said he; ‘then let exile be our [Pg 57] lot. ”

“ Thus, for instance, release on parole [429] of prisoners of war creates an obligation on the part of the enemy not to re-admit the individuals concerned into the forces while the war lasts. And, to give another example, by article 4 of the Geneva Convention of 1906, and article 14 of the Hague Regulations—see also article 17 of Convention X. of the Second Peace Conference—it is the duty of either belligerent to return to the enemy, by his prisoner-of-war bureau, all objects of personal use, letters, jewellery, and the like found on the battlefield or left by those who died in hospital. ”

“ If, during his self-imposed exile, the relatives expressed their willingness to accept the indemnity, he was at liberty to return and resume his position in society.
In later times banishment is (1) a legal punishment for particular offences; (2) voluntary.
1. Banishment for life with confiscation of property was inflicted upon those who destroyed or uprooted the sacred olives at Athens; upon those who remained neutral during a sedition (by a law of Solon, which subsequently fell into abeyance) ; upon those who gave refuge to or received on board ship a man who had fled to avoid punishment ”

“ What wonder that men under all these discouraging circumstances soon fell to the level of brutes? And yet all were not so filthy; all did not lose their instincts of manhood, but through all these discouraging surroundings, observed, as well as possible under the circumstances, the laws of health. Were it not so this story would never have been written.
Second. He speaks of hearing some of the prisoners exonerate the Confederate Government, and lay all the blame of their continued imprisonment on the Federal Government. ”

“ If the laws of the Truce were broken, there were heavy penalties: thirty years' hard penance in exile for the contrite offender, and he must make reparation for all the evil he had committed, and repay his debt for all the spoil. If he died unrepentant, he was denied Christian burial and all the offices of the church, and his body was given to wild beasts and the fowls of the air. ”

“ The confiscation law of 1862, though construed to apply only to public enemies, is limited to such of them as were engaged in and gave aid and comfort to the rebellion. 12 Stat., sect. 7, p. 590. The pardon of that offence necessarily carried with it the release of the penalty attached to its commission, so far as such release was in the power of the government, unless specially restrained by exceptions embraced in the instrument itself. It is of the very essence of a pardon that it releases the offender from the consequences of his offence. ”

“ There was no weak delay in this progress, no requests for passage; the escort clove through the mass of the people, as a war galley dashes through the breakers of a turbulent sea. A spray of human beings that strove to escape but could not, boiled up about the prow; a wake of bodies, writhing or senseless, fell behind the stern, while, at either side, the stout javelins rose and fell like the strokes of oars, splashing up blood for foam.
The taunts and threats that had assailed the prisoner died away amid shrieks of terror or pain and the deep rumble of the mob. ”

“ They are deprived of their arms, and are compelled to pass the night at the guard-house, if they return beyond a certain hour, or if any mistake occur in the pass-word, which happens almost daily. Thus, on the summit of this frightful rock, we are equally exposed to the severity of man and the rigour of nature! And how easy would it have been to procure us a more suitable retreat and more courteous usage. Assuredly, if the Sovereigns of Europe decreed this exile, private enmity has directed its execution. ”

“ Those for whom you plead have killed many of the king's subjects, and deserve death.”
“But since they are willing to submit, general, I hope that consideration may be shown them,” said Oxburgh.
“Expect none from me, sir,” rejoined Wills, harshly. “Clemency is thrown away on rebels. Go back to those who sent you. Tell them, if they lay down their arms, and submit themselves prisoners at discretion, I will prevent my soldiers from cutting them to pieces, and spare their lives till his majesty's pleasure is known. ”

“ The summary infliction of corporal and capital punishment—the destruction of property—the severity attached to charges of sedition, when secret enmity and vile espionage would bring ruin on the unoffending, and suspicion was held synonymous with guilt,—all these severities, equally illegal and injudicious, kindled a ferocity of feeling between parties which milder measures might have allayed, accustomed men to acts of violence from which otherwise they would have revolted, and reconciled them to the terrible barbarities attendant upon civil war. ”

“ Desertion in the liberating army now became prevalent, and the government was obliged to issue a decree, stating that any person who should harbour or protect a deserter in his house, or on his property, should subject himself to a general confiscation for the first offence, and to perpetual exile for a repetition. ”

“ Those who would not obey the laws of one country must seek a home in another. Banishment seemed at once the mildest and the most reasonable punishment (if indeed it can be so called) ,—not transportation to some special spot, but simply exile from England and from all British dominions and colonies—the Great Federation being absolutely united in this important matter—under 24penalty of death if the banished returned. ”

“ Some, however, especially of the nobler classes, are kept confined, even for years, in expectation, for instance, of a sentence of capital punishment being carried out, or else in the hope that through influential friends they may obtain the royal pardon. As a rule, particularly with the better classes, exile is deemed a more impressive punishment than imprisonment, and when confiscation of land and property goes with this, the punishment is, of course, all the more severe. ”

“ Every year a convoy of some twenty thousand wretched prisoners is sent off to that dismal land, including the ignorant and the educated, the debased and the refined, men and women, young and old, the horror of exile being added to indescribably by this mingling of delicate and refined men and [Pg 320] women with the rudest and most brutal of the convict class, all under the charge of mounted Cossacks, well armed, and bearing long whips as their most effective arguments of control. ”

“ If any resistance was made, death was the certain penalty; and often death in such a form that a soldier’s fate would have been mercy. All, it is true, were not alike. In such an army there are always brave men, who, even in such an hour, would scorn to commit a dishonorable action, and these seconded the attempts of our officers to preserve at [190] least a semblance of order ”

“ If special conditions are not agreed upon in a capitulation, it is concluded under the obvious condition that the surrendering force become prisoners of war, and that all war material and other public property in their possession or within the surrendering place or ship are surrendered in the condition they were at the time when the signature was given to the capitulation. Nothing prevents a force fearing surrender from destroying their provisions, munitions, their arms and other instruments of war which, when falling into the hands of the enemy, would be useful to him. ”

“ On account of the fact that retorsion might be justified, the question is of importance what just causes of expulsion of aliens there are. As International Law gives no detailed rules regarding expulsion, everything is left to the discretion of the single States and depends upon the merits of the individual case. Theory and practice correctly make a distinction between expulsion in time of war and in time of peace. A belligerent may consider it convenient to expel all enemy subjects residing or temporarily staying within his territory. ”

“ They have the power of sentencing to fine, to imprisonment, to corporal punishment, and to exile, independently of the spiritual power they possess, and which they not rarely exercise, of excommunication. ”

“ It was a time indeed for anxious thought on the part of all who had any stake out there, and Mrs Dare’s heart ached with fears for Con. If he were still alive he must be somewhere in the hands of these pitiless savages, and according to the papers they spared none. They even seemed to go out of their way and beyond human nature in the pursuit of that gospel of frightfulness which the Kaiser openly preached.
Her heart had been wrung over Belgium and Northern France. What chance had any man of coming alive out of such a welter of crashing deaths? ”

“ The punishment of expulsion, being in its own nature uncertain, may be too great or too little for the fault.
This must be the case of many punishments. Forfeiture of chattels is nothing to him that has no possessions. Exile itself may be accidentally a good; and, indeed, any punishment, less than death, is very different to different men. ”

“ Every citizen took a piece of a broken pot, or a shell, on which he wrote the name of the person he wanted to have banished, and carried it to a part of the market-place that was enclosed with wooden rails. The magistrates then counted the number of the shells; and if it amounted not to six thousand, the Ostracism stood for nothing: if it did, they sorted the shells, and the person whose name was found on the greatest number, was declared an exile for ten years, but with permission to enjoy his estate. ”

“ The very fact that an expulsion is a penalty, affecting the general relations of the punished party with the whole fraternity, proves that its exercise never could, with propriety, be intrusted to a body so circumscribed in its authority as a subordinate lodge. ”

“ If the escouade would not enter the fort they must expiate their military crime. If the company would not carry out my orders and fire on the mutineers, they must expiate their crime.
If I were to be shot, I should at least be saved the unpleasantness of reporting that my men had mutinied, and I should die in the knowledge that I had done my duty.
Yes—I would make it clear that disobedience to my orders would be death. Swift and sudden for some, lingering and horrible for many, sure and certain for all. ”

“ He chooses a penniless exile—he, a butler to the Queen, with three dove-cotes and the perquage—and a Huguenot withal. He is refused; then comes the absent lover oversea, to shipwreck; and our seigneur rescues him, ‘fends him; and when yon master exile is in peril, defies his Queen’s commands”—she tapped the papers lying beside her on the table—“then comes to England with the lady to plead the case before his outraged sovereign, with an outlawed buccaneer for comrade and lieutenant. There is the case, is’t not?” ”

“ If he hide him under the mane of the British lion, beneath the paw of the Russian bear or among the lilies of France, he must be found and plucked thence for punishment! If there be no extradition treaty, then the strong hands of our power must make one. ”

“ Articles 85 and 86 of the Manual of the Laws of War, adopted by the Institute of International Law, [479] propose the [Pg 309] following rules:— (1) Reprisals are to be prohibited in case reparation is given for the damage done by an illegal act; (2) in grave cases, in which reprisals are an imperative necessity, they must never exceed the degree of the violation committed by the enemy; (3) they may only be resorted to with the authorisation of the commander-in-chief; (4) they must in every case respect the laws of humanity and of morality. ”

“ And we decree that whosoever shall infringe these orders [shall incur the following penalties] , besides the punishments pronounced by law against those who carry arms and other prohibited things to any of the Saracens, which we wish them to incur by so doing; if they be single persons, they shall incur the sentence of excommunication; if a community or corporation of a city, castle, village, or place, that city, castle, village, or place shall be thereby subject to the interdict ”

“ I understand the meeting whose resolutions I am considering to be in favor of suppressing the rebellion by military force—by armies. Long experience has shown that armies cannot be maintained unless desertion shall be punished by the severe penalty of death. The case requires, and the law and the Constitution sanction, this punishment. Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert? ”

“ After three months of severe and close confinement, when we expected to learn something of our fate, we were at first greatly mortified to find ourselves turned over to the criminal judge, to be tried for having forced the guard of a fortress, and in that situation we are at present, daily expecting to undergo our examination, and however severe the punishment the law inflicts upon our crime, (if I may call it by such a name,) there are so many circumstances in our favor, that we have just grounds to expect a mild sentence. ”