The Daily Dispatch: December 7, 1863., [Electronic resource]

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Marylanders and local defence.

--R. S. Finley, a Marylander, 36 years of age, who had gone to North Carolina to stay until "this cruel war is over," was ordered out recently to do service in the Home Guard at Asheville, N. C. He refused was arrested, sued out a writ of habeas corpus, and the following was the result:

‘ The Chief Justice decides that Finley is not simply a foreigner, who is resident here like an Englishman or Frenchman, but he is an " alien enemy," here by permission of our Government, and not liable to military service. According to his construction of the act establishing the Home Guard, he thinks that an Englishman or a Frenchman who had resided here for thirty days would be bound to serve; but citizens like Finley, who are alien enemies, "residing among us by permission of our Government, cannot by any but direct and unequivocal words, be forced into our armies to repel invasion; and it is to be presumed that whenever their presence is supposed to endanger the public safety, the permission to reside here will be withdrawn, and the Government will require them as alien enemies to depart."

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