For these regulations, emanating from a mere military authority, are purely civil; but of such a kind, that no power on earth could confer a right to establish them.

And this trampling upon the most sacred rights--this sacrifice of the consciousness of a self-preserving principle, without which neither societies nor governments can exist, is not made by our generals in relation to subjects of their own sovereign, but to an independent nation, our ally, into whose territories we could not have entered but from its confidence in our friendship and good faith.

Surely the persons, who (under the countenance of too high authority) have talked so loudly of prejudging this question, entirely overlooked or utterly forgot this part of it.

What have these monstrous provisions to do with the relative strength of the two armies, or with any point admitting a doubt?
What need here of a Court of Judicature to settle who were the persons (their names are subscribed by their own hands), and to determine the quality of the thing?
Actions and agents like these, exhibited in this connection with each other, must of necessity be condemned the moment they are known: and to assert the contrary, is to maintain that man is a being without understanding, and that morality is an empty dream.

And, if this condemnation must after this manner follow, to utter it is less a duty than a further inevitable consequence from the constitution of human nature.