High treason

“ Some of our official dignitaries are giving us law lectures on the subject of high treason against the government. I hope they will not object, if we reciprocate the favor, by giving them a lecture on the higher treason against God and humanity, of which they are guilty. ”

“ There are no set forms of high treason in history; whoever provokes one power in the state to conflict with another is certainly a revolutionist, but he may be at the same time a discerning and praiseworthy statesman. ”

“ Take, then, the distinction of treason by levying war, as laid down by the attorney of the district, and it is a constructive or interpretive weapon which is calculated to annul all distinctions heretofore wisely established in the grades and punishments of crimes, and by whose magic power a mob may be easily converted into a conspiracy, and a riot aggravated into high treason. ”

“ High treason is defined by the Code as "an unspeakable outrage and attempt to violate the divine order of things on earth." It is committed by any attempt to subvert the established government; to destroy or injure the person of the sovereign, the palace in which he resides, the temple in which his family is worshipped, or the tombs in which the remains of his ancestors are deposited. ”

“ Any attempt to dissolve it is a crime of high treason: whoever shall be guilty of such an attempt will be a traitor to his country, and immediately condemned as one.
"The army of the line and national guard, who have fought, and still fight, in defence of the liberty, the independence, and the territory of France, have deserved well of their country. ”

“ A compassing or conspiracy to levy war is no treason, for there must be a levying of war in facto. But if many conspire to levy war, and some of them do levy the same according to the conspiracy, this is high treason in all, for in treason all are principals, and war is levied, 3 inst. ”

“ Treating, in the field, the rebellious enemy according to the law and usages of war, has never prevented the legitimate Government from trying the leaders of the rebellion, or chief rebels for high treason, and from treating them accordingly, unless they are included in a general amnesty. ”

“ And when she saw the king standing upon the step in the entrance, and the princes, and the companies about him, and all the people of the land rejoicing, and sounding with trumpets, and playing on instruments of divers kinds, and the voice of those that praised, she rent her garments, and said: Treason, treason.
23:14. And Joiada the high priest going out to the captains, and the chiefs of the army, said to them: Take her forth without the precinct of the temple, and when she is without let her be killed with the sword. ”

“ I shall ever celebrate the providence and wisdom of your noble ancestors, who have put the keys of life and death, so far as concerns you and your posterity, into your own hands. None but your own selves, my Lords, know the rate of your noble blood: none but yourselves must hold the balance in disputing of the same. [1]
I shall now proceed in repeating my defenses as they are reducible to the two main points of treason. And,
I. For treason against the statute, which is the only treason in effect, there is nothing alleged for that but the fifteenth, twenty-second, and twenty-seventh articles. ”

“ I do not believe in killing kings, or any other men; but I do say, in a time when the nation was not in danger, that no British king, for two hundred years past, would have dared call it treason to discuss the war—its cause, its progress, or its termination! ”

“ You must declare you, whether you determine To act a treason 'gainst your lord and sovereign, Or whether you will serve him faithfully. ISOLANI. Treason! My God! But who talks then of treason? OCTAVIO. That is the case. The prince-duke is a traitor— Means to lead over to the enemy The emperor's army. Now, count! brief and full— Say, will you break your oath to the emperor? Sell yourself to the enemy? ”

“ Croo.Sir Iohn Old-castle Lord Cobham, in the Kings maiesties name, I arrest ye of high treason.
Oldca.Treason M.Croomes?
Harp.Treason M.Shrieue, sbloud what treason?
Oldca.Harpoole I charge thee stirre not, but be quiet still,
Do ye arrest me M.Shrieue for treason?
Bish.Yea of high treason, traitor, heretike.
Oldca.Defiance in his face that calls me so,
I am as true a loyall gentleman
Vnto his highnesse, as my prowdest enemie,
The King shall witnesse my late faithfull seruice,
For safety of his sacred maiestie. ”

“ To restrain the king by force, to compel him to yield certain demands, to extort legislation by terror and a strong hand, in fact all movements tending to deprive him of his kingly government, whether of the nature of personal pressure or of riot and disturbance in the country, are acts of treason. To collect arms, to gather company, to write letters are evidence of the intention of the same.78 Treason by adherence to the king’s enemies was equally expansive. ”

“ I lay down this as a rule, which I appeal to the laws of reason to support, that all those people who, at a time of public danger, whether of treasonable invasion from abroad, or traitorous attempts to raise insurrections at home, shall willingly and wittingly abet, assist, or encourage the traitors invading or rebelling, are equally guilty of treason.
2. All those who shall endeavour to weaken, disappoint, and disable the government in their preparations, or discourage the people in their assisting the government to oppose the rebels or invaders, are guilty of treason. ”

“ Shall less than thirty runaways and deserters whom no one would allow to choose a tribune or centurion for themselves, assign the Empire at their pleasure? Do you tolerate the precedent? Do you by your inaction make the crime your own? This lawless spirit will pass into the provinces, and though we shall suffer from this treason, you will suffer from the wars that will follow. Again, no more is offered you for murdering your Prince, than you will have if you shun such guilt. ”

“ And the king's men pursue them fiercely, and hack and hew, and cleave, and brain them, and call the count a traitor. When he hears himself accused of treason, he flees for refuge towards his keep; and his men flee with him. And their enemies who fiercely rush after take them captive; they let not a single one escape of all those that they catch. They kill and slay so many that I do not think that more than seven reached a place of safety. When the traitors entered the keep, they are stayed at the entrance ”

“ The threats of an imperious band of traitors, operating upon the fears of a weak old man, who was already implicated in the treason, drove him to the verge of the abyss into which he was willing to plunge his country, but from which, at the last moment, he drew back, dismayed at the thought of sacrificing himself. ”

“ The stars that redeem the night from darkness, and the beams of red light that beautify the morning, have been united upon its folds. As long as the sun endures, or the stars, may it wave over a nation neither enslaved nor enslaving! Once, and but once, has treason dishonored it. In that insane hour when the guiltiest and bloodiest rebellion of all time hurled their fires upon this fort, you, sir [turning to General Anderson] , and a small, heroic band, stood within these now crumbled walls, and did gallant and just battle for the honor and defense of the nation's banner. ”

“ Chief Justice Holt, he said, described one specimen of treason: "If persons do assemble themselves and act with force in opposition to some law which they think inconvenient, and hope thereby to get it repealed, this is levying war and treason." ”

“ The breaking out of a formidable insurrection, based on a conflict of political ideas, being an event without precedent in the United States, was necessarily attended by a great confusion and perplexity of the public mind. Disloyalty, before unsuspected, suddenly became bold, and treason astonished the world by bringing at once in the field military forces superior in numbers to the standing army of the United States.
Every department of the government was paralyzed by treason. ”

“ We love the hearth, the quiet hills, the song,
The friendly gossip come from every land;
And very peace were now a nameless wrong,—
You thrust this bitter quarrel to our hand.
For this your pride the tragic armies go,
And the grim navies watch along the seas;
You trade in death, you mock at life, you throw
To God the tumult of your blasphemies.
You rob us of our love-right. It is said.
In treason to the world you are enthroned.
We rise, and, by the yet ungathered dead,
Not lightly shall the treason be atoned. ”

“ Let the people feel how priceless are their blessings under a benign government and a righteous administration of laws. Let them see, in the utter destitution and wretchedness to which they are reduced, who wantonly raise the murderous hand of treason against it―how sacred was that life, the life of the Nation, which they had imperiled―how worse than the midnight assassin and the highway robber is he, who commits treason against government and those laws which have been for him and for the millions of his fellow-men, the source of all their earthly enjoyments. ”

“ If there is to be found within the pages of history where the government of a great, powerful and prosperous nation suffered treason to spread over one-third of the entire country, coupled with the open and revolting acts of violence that have characterized this rebellion, without the first attempt to check its destructive progress, it is not within the range of my knowledge. ”

“ The material parts of it declare 'that whereas divers opinions have been before this time, in what case treason shall be said, and in what not ... when a man doth compass or imagine the death of our lord the king ... or if a man do levy war against our lord the king in his realm, or be adherent to the king's enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in [Pg 37] the realm, or elsewhere, and thereof be provable attainted of open deed by people of their condition,' it is treason. ”

“ Our sacrilegious sects their guides outgo,
And kings and kingly power would murder too.
What means their traitorous combination less,
Too plain to evade, too shameful to confess!
But treason is not own'd when 'tis descried;
Successful crimes alone are justified.
The men, who no conspiracy would find,
Who doubts, but had it taken, they had join'd, 210
Join'd in a mutual covenant of defence;
At first without, at last against their prince? ”

“ Treason is it! treason to discuss a war which the Government made, and which the people are made to pay for? If it be treason to speak against the war, what was it to make the war, to ask for 50,000 men and $74,000,000 for the war? Why, if the people cannot discuss the war they have got to fight and to pay for, who under heaven can? Whose business is it, if it is not yours and mine? If my country is in the wrong, and I know it, and hold my peace, then I am guilty of treason, moral treason. Why, a wrong—it is only the threshold of ruin. ”

“ Treason, my lords, treason! Look to the queen—secure the traitor! Thou, duke of Lennox, with thy followers, haste straight to the kirk of Field! Without, there—let my trumpets sound to horse! By Him that made me,” he continued, “the populace are rising!”—for the deep swell of voices, that rose without, announced the presence of a mighty multitude. ”

“ After the first explosion of its rage is over, the unhappy people will resume its old yoke with docility—because the time has not yet arrived for their liberation! But what does that matter! Such a revolt at this time, in the very heart of your kingdom, when your most implacable enemy threatens your frontiers, at an hour when treason surrounds you at every turn—such a revolt would to-day mean your utter annihilation—it would deliver you and your kingdoms to your ferocious enemy, Fredegonde's son! ”

“ Speech in the Senate, on his Bill for the Confiscation of Property and the Liberation of Slaves belonging to Rebels, May 19, 1862.
Wherefore he deserves to be punished, not only as an enemy, but also as a traitor, both to you and to us. And indeed treason is as much worse than war as it is harder to guard against what is secret than what is open,—and as much more hateful, as with enemies men make treaties again, and put faith in them, but with one who is discovered to be a traitor nobody ever enters into covenant, or trusts him for the future.—Xenophon, Hellenica, Book II. ch. ”

“ The acts must be in themselves acts of war; and if they be not so intrinsically, words or intentions cannot make them so. In England, when conspiring the death of the King was treason, the quo animo formed the essence of the offence; but, in America, the national convention has confined treason to the act. ”

“ Wherefore both divine and human laws cry out against those who by the basest machinations of treason and rebellion, strive to dissolve the bonds of allegiance to princes, and to drive them from their states. ”

“ A retreat before the enemy is a misfortune, but retreat before rebels is treason. Before I descend from this tribune I want to know whether the will of the majority of the French people is to be respected, or whether we are to bow before the authority of the Sections—we, the will of the nation. ”

“ It is not that enthusiastic and thoughtless confidence of tumultous or unprepared armies which goes up to the danger point and vanishes rapidly, giving way to a contrary sentiment, which sees treason everywhere. ”

“ Philips—I hope to make this so clear, as that the wit of man shall have no colour to answer it. The matter is treason in the highest degree, the end to deprive the king of his crown. The particular treasons are these: first, to raise up rebellion, and to effect that, to procure money; to raise up tumults in Scotland, by divulging a treasonable Book against the king's right to the crown; the purpose, to take away the life of his majesty and his issue. My lord Cobham confesseth sir Walter to be guilty of all these treasons. ”