TREASON

From Agepedia

TREASON. TREASON, the crimen l&sm mqjestatis of the Roman law, is considered to be the greatest crime that can possibly be committed. All crimes are regarded by the law, and punished, as offences against the peace and dignity of the community; and that crime which attacks directly the supreme authority of the state, is the most aggravated and heinous. Such is TREASON, or high treason ; the minor species, or petty treason, being a treachery to some political or religious superior, who is not the chief of the state. There is no offence in the U. States that passes under the name of petty treason, nor does there seem to be any subject to which the appellation could be given, except an offence against a government of one of the states, to which it could not be properly applied, since these governments are, in some respects, supreme. Treason is, accordingly, differently defined, in reference to what is the supreme power of the state. In a monarchy, it is considered to be the betraying or the forfeiting of allegiance to the monarch; but in a community not governed by a supreme hereditary chief, it has reference to the government, or the whole body of the community. This crime can be committed only by a subject of the sovereign power, or a citizen of the state to which he owes allegiance, and only against such sovereign or state; and it consists essentially in renouncing his allegiance, and putting himself in the attitude of enmity or hostility. A traitor puts himself in the same relation to his own sovereign or state that a pirate holds to all states and governments. As all violations of the laws are acts of disrespect and disobedience to the authority by which these laws are enacted and administered, Socrates considered the act of escaping from prison, and so avoiding the punishment of death, which awaited him, as inconsistent with his allegiance to his state, and a sort of treason, and, for this reason, refused to make use of the means offered for his escape. But whatever opinion may be formed of the force and extent of the obligation of obedience to the laws in general, there is a characteristical distinction between other violations or evasions of the laws rmd treason, which crime consists in etraying, setting at defiance, or making war against, the supreme authority. Such is the distinguishing characteristic of treason, in the application of which to particular acts, there has been a great diversity. No one subject of legislation and juridical interpretation has been more fruitful of abuse, oppression and cruelty. The more arbitrary governments, whether popuur, aristocratical or monarchical (for all these species may be equally arbitrary), have construed the most indifferent and insignificant acts into treachery to the government, and a forfeiture of the sacred obligations of allegiance. In the reign of Edward IV, in England, a citizen of London said he would make his son heir of the crown, meaning the sign of the house in which he lived. For this pun, he suffered death, under a conviction for high treason. In the same reign, a gentleman, whose favorite buck had been killed by the king, in hunting, said, in his vexation, he wished its horns in the belly of the person who had counselled the king to kill it; and, as the king had killed it of his own accord, and was so his own counsellor, this expression was construed to be high treason, for which the party suffered death; though one of the justices of the court in which the judgment was given, justice Markham, chose rather to leave his place on the bench, than to assent to such a judgment. Those convictions were had under the species of treason, which consists in compassing or imagining the king's death. It was under the same description of this crime, and in pursuance of a still broader interpretation of it, that Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, ordered a man to be executed, for dreaming of the tyrant's death, on the pretence, that he would dream of only that which had occupied his waking thoughts. This was construing to be treason what was not even the act or thought of the party executed. But, when some act of the party accused has been considered requisite to constitute this crime, instances have occurred, of constructive treasons, which were little more than dreams. Algernon Sidney was condemned in the court of king's bench for treason, while the infamous Jeffreys was chief justice, and executed in pursuance of the sentence^ in the time of Charles II, on the proof of some abstract speculations on the subject of government, found in his handwriting, in his private cabinet, and not proved to have been shown to any other, person, or intended for publication. These were construed to be an act of treason, because scribere est agere (to write is to act); and, upon this construction, he was executed for what was little more, in a juridical view, than a waking dream reduced to writing. The legislation of parliament, during the reign of Henry VIII, seconded the capricious and arbitrary disposition of that monarch, by creating a multitude of descriptions of high treason, such as stealing cattle by Welshmen; counterfeiting foreign coin ; wilful poisoning; execrations against the king, and calling opprobrious names by public writing ; licentious solicitation of the queen or a princess ; a woman's becoming married to the king without first disclosing any deviations from chastity, which she might have committed ; judging or believing the king to have been lawfully married to Anne of Cleves ; derogating from the king's royal style or title ; assembling riotously, to the number of twelve, and not dispersing on proclamation. It would be tedious to enumerate all the acts, which, by legislative enactments or judicial construction, have been brought under the denomination of treason, and, on the imputation of which, men have been barbarously put to death. The present law of treason in England rests substantially upon the statute of the twentyfifth year of Edward III, which comprehends seven descriptions, viz. 1. compassing or imagining the king's death; 2. violation of the king's companion (meaning the queen), his eldest daughter, unmarried, or the wife of his eldest son and heir ; 3. levying war against the king, in his realm; 4. adhering to his enemies in his realm, and giving them aid and comfort in the realm or elsewhere ; 5. counterfeiting the great or privy seal; 6. ©ounterfeiting the money of the realm, or bringing into the realm any counterfeit of the national coin ; and, 7. slaying the chancellor, treasurer, either of the justices of the court of king's bench or common pleas, or of the justices in eyre or of assize, when in the discharge of their judicial functions, in open court To the provisions of this statute others have been added, by other statutes, relating, 1. to Papists; 2. to falsifying the coin; 3. to the Protestant succession in the house of Hanover. Some of these laws have become obsolete by the extinction of the Pretender's branch of the reigning family, and the laws in relation to Popery have been materially modified and mitigated. It is evident, from the preceding enumeration of acts, now or heretofore considered in England as constituting treason, that this is a subject of legislation and juridical administration, in which the liberty of the subject or cit* View of the Constitution of the U. States, " of those who possess power, is to increase it. NHistory shows that to enlarge the description of treason has often been resorted to, as one of the means of increasing power." The governors, whether for life or fixed periods, or by hereditary right, or election, or merely the right of the strongest, in.estimating what acts of disrespect, indignity, or hostilities to themselves, or to the government of which they, for the time being, form a part, shall be considered as treachery to the state, and a dissolution of the ties of allegiance, are, very naturally, liable to err on the side of exaggerating the treasonable character and tendency of conduct. As far, therefore, as the influence of selfesteem, and a love of the exercise of power, are to be guarded against, it is important to limit the discretion of the governors, in putting a construction upon the conduct of the governed, in this respect. Accordingly, by the constitution of the U. States, treason is declared to consist in only two of the descriptions of acts already enumerated, viz. 1. levying war against the U. States, or, 2. adhering to their enemies. The framers of the constitution, not stopping at the limitation of the species, have also prescribed the kinds and degrees of proof requisite to conviction, by the provision, that no person shall be convicted of this crime, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. On the construction of this article, as to what shall be considered a levying of war, we refer to Dane's Abridgment, chapter 199, and so, also, as to the interpretation of what shall be considered as the giving aid and comfort to enemies. This crime may also be committed against any of the states, by the citizens owing allegiance to them, respectively. The punishment of treason is nothing less than death, and, by the laws of some states, a peculiarly cruel death ; as in the cases of Ravaillac and Damiens in France. The English law condemns the convict to be drawn to the place of execution, there hanged, and cut down alive, and embowelled, and his entrails burned while he is yet alive ; then he is to be beheaded and quartered. But the more barbarous and revolting parts of this punishment are usually remitted, the convict being drawn to the place of execution, it is true, but on a hurdle, and not on the ground, and, when he arrives there, is the English law, a conviction of treason works forfeiture of lands and goods to the crown, and attainder of blood ; so that no person can inherit an estate to which he must derive a title through the person convicted of this crime. This attainder may be reversed, that is, the punishment of the traitor's heirs for his offence may be remitted by act of parliament, as was done in respect to the heirs of Algernon Sidney. The constitution of the U. States also provides, upon this subject, that no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attainted. (See Blackstone's Commentaries, b. 4, c. 6; Dane's Abridgment, c. 199; Rawle's View of the Constitution of the United States ; Chitty's Criminal Law.) In the French code penal, the term high treason no longer occurs. Crimes against the peace and safety of France, and agains; the person of the king, or of the royal family, are punished with death and the confiscation of property (Code Penal, A. 75-102). The Prussian code defines high treason as that crime which has for its object a subversion, by violence, of the government of the state, or which is directed against the life or liberty of its sovereign, and is distinguished, both from the Landesvcrratherei, § 100 (by which the state is exposed to danger from foreign powers), and from crimes against the internal tranquillity and security of the state, and from the crimen 1<ES<R majestatis, or of personal injury to the dignity of the head of the state. The Austrian penal code of 1805 defines high treason to be, 1. the violation of the personal safety of the sovereign, and, 2. undertakings for effecting a violent revolution of the government, or for producing or increasing a danger to the state from abroad. The Bavarian code (1813, of Feuerbach) assumes a kind of treason, without giving a definition of it, of which the first degree is called high treason, and is committed by attacks on the person of the king, with the intention of killing him, taking him prisoner, or delivering him into the hands of the enemy, and by attacks on the independence and constitution of the state. Assisting the enemy is treason of the second degree: treachery to the state, by the delivery of papers, &c, belongs to the third class: in the fourth, very different acts are brought together, such as applying to a foreign power, on account of a legal claim against the state, injuring foreign sovereigns and ambassadors, inducing subjects to emigrate, and levying soldiers for foreign powers. In the new plan of 1822 (by Gonner), these ideas are somewhat differently arranged. The second class of treasons is united with high treison ; the idea of treason against the state is limited to the third class; and the fourth is brought under the title of actions dangerous to the security of the state. High treason is distinguished from other crimes, inasmuch as it is regarded as wholly perpetrated, i. e. is obnoxious to the full punishment of the law, so soon as the design is evinced by actions, and inasmuch as those are participators in it who are acquainted with treasonable projects, and do not reveal them.