{"id":"01KG8AMJBEEP802BTDN14T2H6G","cid":"bafkreidw4czkzjez3bztzto6un4uxvflrsqgarb7tt3ixci7l6yuorbeca","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5575,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.270Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":5502,"text":"CHAPTER XXXV.\r\nFLOGGING NOT LAWFUL.\r\n\r\n\r\nIt is next to idle, at the present day, merely to denounce an iniquity.\r\nBe ours, then, a different task.\r\n\r\nIf there are any three things opposed to the genius of the American\r\nConstitution, they are these: irresponsibility in a judge, unlimited\r\ndiscretionary authority in an executive, and the union of an\r\nirresponsible judge and an unlimited executive in one person.\r\n\r\nYet by virtue of an enactment of Congress, all the Commodores in the\r\nAmerican navy are obnoxious to these three charges, so far as concerns\r\nthe punishment of the sailor for alleged misdemeanors not particularly\r\nset forth in the Articles of War.\r\n\r\nHere is the enactment in question.\r\n\r\nXXXII. _Of the Articles of War_.—“All crimes committed by persons\r\nbelonging to the Navy, which are not specified in the foregoing\r\narticles, shall be punished according to the laws and customs in such\r\ncases at sea.”\r\n\r\nThis is the article that, above all others, puts the scourge into the\r\nhands of the Captain, calls him to no account for its exercise, and\r\nfurnishes him with an ample warrant for inflictions of cruelty upon the\r\ncommon sailor, hardly credible to landsmen.\r\n\r\nBy this article the Captain is made a legislator, as well as a judge\r\nand an executive. So far as it goes, it absolutely leaves to his\r\ndiscretion to decide what things shall be considered crimes, and what\r\nshall be the penalty; whether an accused person has been guilty of\r\nactions by him declared to be crimes; and how, when, and where the\r\npenalty shall be inflicted.\r\n\r\nIn the American Navy there is an everlasting suspension of the Habeas\r\nCorpus. Upon the bare allegation of misconduct there is no law to\r\nrestrain the Captain from imprisoning a seaman, and keeping him\r\nconfined at his pleasure. While I was in the Neversink, the Captain of\r\nan American sloop of war, from undoubted motives of personal pique,\r\nkept a seaman confined in the brig for upward of a month.\r\n\r\nCertainly the necessities of navies warrant a code for their government\r\nmore stringent than the law that governs the land; but that code should\r\nconform to the spirit of the political institutions of the country that\r\nordains it. It should not convert into slaves some of the citizens of a\r\nnation of free-men. Such objections cannot be urged against the laws of\r\nthe Russian navy (not essentially different from our own), because the\r\nlaws of that navy, creating the absolute one-man power in the Captain,\r\nand vesting in him the authority to scourge, conform in spirit to the\r\nterritorial laws of Russia, which is ruled by an autocrat, and whose\r\ncourts inflict the _knout_ upon the subjects of the land. But with us\r\nit is different. Our institutions claim to be based upon broad\r\nprinciples of political liberty and equality. Whereas, it would hardly\r\naffect one iota the condition on shipboard of an American\r\nman-of-war’s-man, were he transferred to the Russian navy and made a\r\nsubject of the Czar.\r\n\r\nAs a sailor, he shares none of our civil immunities; the law of our\r\nsoil in no respect accompanies the national floating timbers grown\r\nthereon, and to which he clings as his home. For him our Revolution was\r\nin vain; to him our Declaration of Independence is a lie.\r\n\r\nIt is not sufficiently borne in mind, perhaps, that though the naval\r\ncode comes under the head of the martial law, yet, in time of peace,\r\nand in the thousand questions arising between man and man on board\r\nship, this code, to a certain extent, may not improperly be deemed\r\nmunicipal. With its crew of 800 or 1,000 men, a three-decker is a city\r\non the sea. But in most of these matters between man and man, the\r\nCaptain instead of being a magistrate, dispensing what the law\r\npromulgates, is an absolute ruler, making and unmaking law as he\r\npleases.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJRBSMWSS3C32ME91PJZ7","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMJBERP9VCPEJT6VWAJHB","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:41.326Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:47.076Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}