The Commonwealth v Caton was an important American legal case. John Caton and others, having been convicted of treason by the general court of Virginia and sentenced to death, were pardoned in 1782 by the House of Delegates of the State, the Senate not concurring. The pardon was not executed, and the attorney-general denying its validity, the case was brought before the Court of Appeals of Virginia in 1782. There it was decided that this court had jurisdiction in such matters, but it was declared that the pardon was not valid without the concurrence of the Senate, and that this act of the Legislature was unconstitutional. This was the second instance in which a court assumed authority to pronounce upon the constitutionality of an act of the Legislature. Research Commonwealth v Caton
In law, habeas corpus is a writ ordering a person to be brought before a court or judge. The term is particularly applied to a writ so issued so that the court may ascertain whether the person's detention is lawful. From the time of the Magna Charta imprisonment at the discretion of any person has been unlawful in England, but for long the royal prerogative was so indefinite and the power of the crown so great that persons were frequently detained in custody at the discretion of the crown. It was not until the 17th century that the Habeas Corpus Act, passed in 1679 provided the great remedy for the violation of personal liberty by the writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum (that you have the body to answer).
The provisions of the act may be stated generally thus : 1. That on complaint or request in writing, by, or on behalf of, any person committed and charged with any crime (unless treason, felony, etc, expressed in the warrant), the lord-chancellor, or any of the judges shall award a habeas corpus for such prisoner, and shall discharge the party, if bailable, upon security being given to appear and answer to the accusation. 2. The writ shall be returned, and the prisoner brought up within a limited time, not exceeding twenty days. 3. No person once delivered by habeas corpus shall be recommitted for the same offence. 4. Every person committed for treason or felony may insist on being tried at the next assizes, or admitted to bail, and if not tried at the second assizes or sessions, he shall be discharged from the imprisonment. The writ may be applied for by persons confined in any part of England, or Jersey and Guernsey. As the writ originally had to do solely with crimes, the statute 56 George III. cap. c. was passed, which extended the writ to other than criminal cases.
The result was that no person could be illegally confined in England for any length of time, since some friend could always apply for a habeas corpus, which, on a good prima facie case, would be issued. If the party was confined under recognized authority, as a child by a parent, this fact had to be stated.
In times of great political excitement, and suspected treasonable conspiracies, the operation of the Habeas Corpus Act has been occasionally suspended, and during the early 21st century under the pretext of 'combatting terrorism' exceptions made to it. But such suspension does not enable any one to imprison without cause or valid pretext for so doing. It only prevents persons who are committed from being bailed, tried, or discharged during the suspension, leaving to the committing magistrate all the responsibility attending on illegal imprisonment.
In Scotland similar protection of the liberty of the subject was secured by the Wrongous Imprisonment Act of 1701. The English statute was copied in the United States without essential change.
In the United States habeas corpus was suspended on July the 5th, 1861. Attorney-GeneralBates gave an opinion in favour of the President's power to declare martial law and suspend the writ of habeas corpus. A special session of Congress approved this opinion. Thereafter many arbitrary arrests were made, arousing much indignation. On September the 24th, 1862, the suspension was made general by the President so far as it might affect persons arrested by military authority for disloyal practices. An act of Congress, on March the 3rd, 1863, again authorized the suspension of the writ by the President in cases of prisoners of war, deserters, those resisting drafts and offenders against the military or naval service. The arrest of Vallandigham, in Ohio, and of Milligan, in Indiana, caused great excitement. The case of the latter being brought before the Supreme Court of the Union, that body decided that Congress could not give to military commissions the power of trial and conviction, and that the suspension of the privilege of habeas corpus did not suspend the writ itself. In the case of the Ku-Klux rebellions there was a brief suspension of habeas corpus in 1871. Research Habeas Corpus
The Marmion Case was an American legal case involving slaves. Under an act of the South Carolina Legislature passed in 1822, any free negroes entering the ports of the State on ships could be imprisoned until the ship departed. This was done in the case of the Marmion. In 1824 the Attorney-General and in 1823 the District Court of the United States rendered opinions that this law was incompatible with the Constitution and the international obligations of the United States. Research Marmion Case
Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the USA. He was born in 1809 at Hardin County, Kentucky and died in 1865 when he was assassinated at a theatre by John Wilkes Booth. Both in Kentucky and in Indiana, to which in 1816 the family removed, as well as in Illinois, whither they went in 1830, Abraham Lincoln had the privations and also the training of a backwoodsman's life.
In his youth he earned money to educate himself by splitting rails for a neighbour, and so earned the nickname 'rail-splitter'. About this time he also made a flat-boat voyage to New Orleans.
In the Black Hawk War of 1832 he served as captain and private. He tried keeping store and failed, studied law, was postmaster of New Salem in Illinois, and deputy surveyor of the county. As a politician he had better success, and after one defeat served in the Legislature from 1834 to 1842. Meanwhile he removed to Springfield and built up a law practice. From 1847 to 1849 he was a Whig Congressman, but was not notably prominent.
His importance dates from the Kansas-Nebraska controversy. In its progress he became the Republican State leader, and in 1858 he took part with Stephen A Douglas in a series of joint debates in canvassing for the US Senatorship. Abraham Lincoln was defeated, but the discussion had aroused great interest, and his utterances, e.g.: 'a house divided against itself cannot stand', brought him into national prominence. In February, 1860, he delivered a remarkable political speech at the Cooper Institute, New York.
He was pressed for the Presidency by many Western Republicans in the Chicago Convention in May, though Seward was in the lead at the outset. Amid great excitement Abraham Lincoln was nominated on the third ballot, and elected, by 180 electoral votes, over Douglas, Breckenridge and Bell. This first victory of the Republicans decided the Secessionists, and when the new President delivered his conciliatory inaugural address the country was drifting toward civil war.
In the Cabinet Seward had the Department of State, Chase the Treasury, Cameron, and soon afterward Stanton, War, Welles the Navy, Caleb B. Smith the Interior, Edward Bates was Attorney-General, and Montgomery Blair Postmaster-General. Immediately on the fall of Port Sumter the President, on April the 15th, 1861, called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the Rebellion. He soon issued a call for additional troops, instituted a blockade, and summoned Congress to meet in extra session on July the 4th.
As the 'War President' Abraham Lincoln is identified with a great part of the history of the struggle. Foreign complications, military and naval movements, domestic politics, as well as routine administrative duties, all claimed his attention; to the people and the armies he was endeared as 'Father Abraham' innumerable anecdotes are related bearing on his humour, strong common sense and sympathy.
On September the 22nd, 1862, profiting by the partial success of Antietam, he issued a preliminary proclamation fixing the coming January the 1st as the date for freeing slaves in insurgent States. The Emancipation Proclamation to that effect accordingly appeared at the opening of 1863. On the nineteenth of November 1863, he pronounced on the battlefield of Gettysburg his short but famous eulogy.
He was renominated by the Republicans on June the 8th, 1864, and elected over McClellan, receiving 212 electoral votes. 'Malice toward none, charity for all' was the burden of his second inaugural. He had visited Richmond after its fall, and was pondering the questions of reconstruction, when on the night of April the 14th he was shot in Ford's Theatre at the capital, and died the next morning. Research Abraham Lincoln
Alphonso Taft was an American politician. He was born in 1810 at Ohio and died in 1891. He was Secretary of War in Grant's Cabinet from March to May, 1876, when he was made Attorney-General and served until 1877. He was Minister to Austria from 1882 to 1884, and to Russia from 1884 to 1885. Research Alphonso Taft
Amos Ellmaker was an American politician. He was born in 1787 and died in 1851. He served in the Pennsylvania Legislature from 1812 to 1814, was State Attorney-General from 1816 to 1819 and in 1833 was the Anti-Masonic candidate for Vice-President of the United States. Research Amos Ellmaker
Andrew Hamilton was an American jurist. He was born in 1676 arScotland and died in 1741. He emigrated from Scotland to America in 1697, was Attorney-General of Pennsylvania from 1717 to 1724, an Assemblyman from 1729 to 1739, and in the 'Zenger' libel suit first advanced the doctrine that in such cases evidence of the truth of the libel might be presented in defence. Research Andrew Hamilton
In England and Ireland, the attorney-general is the first law-officer and legal adviser of the crown, acting on its behalf in its revenue and criminal proceedings, carrying on prosecutions in crimes that have a public character, guarding the interests of charitable endowments, and granting patents. He is ex officio the leader of the bar, and, as a member of Parliament, has charge of all government measures on legal questions. The solicitor-general holds a similar position, and may act in his place. There were also attorneys-general in the British colonies. In the United States the attorney-general is head of the department of justice. The individual states have also an attorney-general. Research Attorney-General
Benjamin Harrison was an American politician. He was born in 1740 at Virginia and died in 1791. He was a member of the House of Burgesses in 1764, a member of the Correspondence Committee in 1773, and a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1778. From 1778 to 1782 he was Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and ardently advocated united opposition to Great Britain. He was Governor of the State from 1782 to 1784, and when a delegate to the State Convention of 1788 opposed the ratification of the Constitution as being a national and not a Federal document.
Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd president of the USA from 1889 to 1893. He was born in 1833 at North Bend, Ohio and died in 1901. The grandson of President William Henry Harrison, he graduated at Miami University in 1852, and settled as a lawyer in Indianapolis. He was elected reporter of the Indiana Supreme Court in 1860, but his term was interrupted by the American Civil War.
He volunteered in 1863 and was colonel of an Indianaregiment in the battles of Resaca and Peach Tree Creek in 1864 he won distinction. Leaving the army with the brevet of brigadier-general, he resumed his position of Supreme Court reporter.
General Harrison was a successful lawyer and campaign orator, and in 1876 he received the Republican nomination for Governor, being defeated by a small majority. His name was presented to the Republican National Convention of 1880. Elected to the US Senate, he served from 1881 to 1887. At the National Convention of 1888 he was a leading candidate from the start, received the nomination, and was elected over President Cleveland in a campaign in which protection was the principal issue.
In his Cabinet, James Blaine in the State and Windom in the Treasury Department were national figures. Proctor, and later Elkins, was in the War Department, B F Tracy in the Navy, Noble in the Interior, Rusk Secretary of Agriculture, MillerAttorney-General, and Wanamaker Postmaster-General. The administration was marked politically by the McKinley Tariff Act in 1890, with the attendant feature of reciprocity; the foreign relations with Chili and Hawaii were matters of interest.
In 1892 the President was a candidate for renomination, and received the gift over his powerful rival, James Blaine, who resigned from the Cabinet during the contest. President Harrison was in the election again confronted with Cleveland. The Democratic reaction, very marked in 1890, proved to be still in force, and the President was defeated and retired from office in 1893. Research Benjamin Harrison
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Commonwealth v Caton
