On Oct. 5, 1864,
Lambdin P. Milligan, while at home in
Indiana, was arrested, with others, for treasonable designs, by order of
Gen. Alvin P. Hovey, commanding the military district of
Indiana; on Oct. 21 brought before a military commission convened at
Indianapolis by
General Hovey, tried on certain charges and specifications, found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged, Friday, May 19, 1865.
The proceedings of the military commission closed in January, 1865.
When the circuit court of the
United States met at
Indianapolis in January, 1865, the grand jury did not indict
Milligan, who then petitioned the court to be brought before it and tried by jury or released.
With the petition was filed the order appointing the commission, the charges, finding of the commission, with the order from the War Department reciting that the sentence was approved by the
President, and directing that the sentence be carried out without delay.
The judges differed on three questions: (1) Whether on the facts submitted a writ of
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habeas corpus should be issued; (2) Whether
Milligan ought to be discharged; (3) Whether the military commission had acted within its jurisdiction; and these were submitted to the Supreme Court of the
United States.
The first two questions were answered in the affirmative, the third in the negative,
Justices Davis,
Grier,
Nelson,
Clifford, and
Fields holding that Congress had not the constitutional power to authorize such commission—that the
Constitution forbids it, and is the supreme law of the land, in war as in peace.
Chief-Justice Chase, supported by
Justices Wayne,
Swayne, and
Miller, held that Congress has the power to authorize military commissions in time of war; but all concurred in the answers given to the three questions submitted, and
Milligan was released.
“The decision of the court overthrew the whole doctrine of military arrest and trial of private citizens in peaceful States.” —Lalor's
Cyclopaedia of political Science, vol.
II., p. 433. See
Habeas corpus.
