influence, but exercise it freely and voluntari-
ly, as Iris judgment dictates, and not as mili-
tary orders regulate, not as the influence of
his commanding or superior officer may re-
quire him to vote. He should vote freely
What would be the position of a Maryland sol-
dier in tire army of the United States in the
case of a presidential election. He is under'
martial law, and obliged to perform the du-
ties which his superior officer imposes upon
him; and if there is any truth in the reports
that we have heard from those elections which
have taken place in the army, under the laws
of other States allowing them to vote, it is the
merest farce in the world. The soldier mere-
ly expresses the opinion which his command-
ing officer may say that he shall express.
Mr. CUSHING (interposing.) Will the gen-
tleman please to state some of these reports ?
I have never heard of them.
Mr. MILLER. I have seen it published time
and again that the process of voting was
somewhat in this way. A company was
drawn up, and the commanding officer slating
that they were entitled to vote, the proposition
was placed before them, or threats were held
out to them that if they did not vote in a cer-
tain way they would be placed in the front
rank in the next battle.
Mr. CUSHING. Were those things stated in
loyal or disloyal papers?
Mr, MILLER. Whether in loyal or disloyal
papers I cannot say; but they have been re-
ported in the newspapers all over the country.
I say that is an objection prima acie to allow-
ing soldiers to vote under any circumstances,
that they are subjected to martial law,
That was the way in which the present Emperor
of France obtained his power. The
soldiers of the French army voting before the
people and citizens of France, voted unani-
mously in his favor; and the French people
knew that if they voted differently that army
would trample on their liberties and their
rights.
I protest agains! it in the name of the liber-
ty which we have enjoyed from the time of
our revolution down to the present day. I
put it on the broad high ground that the man
who votes should he a civilian, and not sub-
ject to martial law: that he may exercise the
right of voting freely, fairly, untrammelled by
these restraints which are thrown around him
by martial law. I cite the precedent of our
revolutionary fathers, even of that time. It
is a very serious question. I care not what
other States may have done. I know the re-
marks which I am malking now will have no
influence upon this convention. I know that
the thins; will be done. But if hereafter we
shall find that our liberties have been subver-
ted and that. an army is to rule in this coun-
try instead of civil law of the people, it shall
not be done by my vote.
I fear the result when looking to the past
history of the world; to the history of other |
nations. We must remember that ours is the
last great republic on earth. The poet of
another clime, in another age, sang in glow-
ing strains of the' great land of liberty which
to him reared its head, yet unconquered and
sublime, beyond the far Atlantic. Yet he
told them that tyranny of laic had cunning
grown, and in its own good time would
trample out the last sparks of the fire of liber-
ty that yet lingered and flickered in a few
favored apots of the old world. Those pre-
dictions have been verified. Hungary, Poland,
France, to-day attest the sad fulfilment
1 of this mournful prophesy. It is given to 113,
and to us alone to preserve republican institu-
tions and republican liberty; and if that hope
is crushed out here, it dies upon earth, into
our keeping is committed the priceless herit-
age of constitutional liberty. It becomes us
to guard it well, to preserve it as we have re-
ceived it, untarnished, and so transmit it to
those who come after us.
1 protest against this thing, not because 1
wish to deprive the citizen soldier when in
the service of his country of any right which
I think he ought to enjoy, or of any right
which if I should become such soldier I should
wish to enjoy; but I speak against it, and
protest against it. on the great principles of
constitutional liberty in this hand.
Mr, PUGH, The greatest objection I have
to the remarks of tire gentleman is the view
that he suggested at the commencement and
; again at the close of his remarks, that when
he becomes a soldier he wishes it lo he understood
that he lays aside certain civil rights ;
that whenever that time shall arrive, for 1
suppose there is no prospect of his becoming a
soldier now, when he sees fit to become a sol-
dier, he wishes by that very act to lay aside
all civil rights. I wish to enter my protest
against any such idea, in this country espe-
cially.
1 believe the American citizen, when he he-
comes a soldier, is only to all inlents and pur-
poses the American citizen more nobly devel-
oped. I believe that lie retains every right that
he had before he became a soldier, that he is to
all intents and purposes endowed with every
civil right he ever enjoyed. But in this re-
spect, that he sets himself out in the ranks as
a breastwork against the enemies of his country,
he is a more fully developed American
citizen; and that development is the most no-
ble one to which he can aspire.
This old European idea in this nation, for
it is scarcely worthy of the name of an idea,
that because a man becomes a soldier he is for
that reason a mere hireling butcher, will
never prevail in tin's country. There may
have been something of it in European na-
tions, when men were hired for the mere pur-
pose of butchery; but we know no such idea
in this country. Every citizen in America is
just as much a citizen after he becomes a sol-
dier as he was before. When he becomes a |
