{"id":"01KG8AMJBERP9VCPEJT6VWAJHB","cid":"bafkreihceox6qznfw6rpx7hsbtik5mubmgzx27hdin3bwqlnuqurw7nawa","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5625,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.270Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":5568,"text":"and 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\nIt will be seen that the XXth of the Articles of War provides, that if\r\nany person in the Navy negligently perform the duties assigned him, he\r\nshall suffer such punishment as a court-martial shall adjudge; but if\r\nthe offender be a private (common sailor) he may, at the discretion of\r\nthe Captain, be put in irons or flogged. It is needless to say, that in\r\ncases where an officer commits a trivial violation of this law, a\r\ncourt-martial is seldom or never called to sit upon his trial; but in\r\nthe sailor’s case, he is at once condemned to the lash. Thus, one set\r\nof sea-citizens is exempted from a law that is hung in terror over\r\nothers. What would landsmen think, were the State of New York to pass a\r\nlaw against some offence, affixing a fine as a penalty, and then add to\r\nthat law a section restricting its penal operation to mechanics and day\r\nlaborers, exempting all gentlemen with an income of one thousand\r\ndollars? Yet thus, in the spirit of its practical operation, even thus,\r\nstands a good part of the naval laws wherein naval flogging is\r\ninvolved.\r\n\r\nBut a law should be “universal,” and include in its possible penal\r\noperations the very judge himself who gives decisions upon it; nay, the\r\nvery judge who expounds it. Had Sir William Blackstone violated the\r\nlaws of England, he would have been brought before the bar over which\r\nhe had presided, and would there have been tried, with the counsel for\r\nthe crown reading to him, perhaps, from a copy of his own\r\n_Commentaries_. And should he have been found guilty, he would have\r\nsuffered like the meanest subject, “according to law.”\r\n\r\nHow is it in an American frigate? Let one example suffice. By the\r\nArticles of War, and especially by Article I., an American Captain may,\r\nand frequently does, inflict a severe and degrading punishment upon a\r\nsailor, while he himself is for ever removed from the possibility of\r\nundergoing the like disgrace; and, in all probability, from undergoing\r\nany punishment whatever, even if guilty of the same thing—contention\r\nwith his equals, for instance—for which he punishes another. Yet both\r\nsailor and captain are American citizens.\r\n\r\nNow, in the language of Blackstone, again, there is a law, “coeval with\r\nmankind, dictated by God himself, superior in obligation to any other,\r\nand no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this.” That law is\r\nthe Law of Nature; among the three great principles of which Justinian\r\nincludes “that to every man should be rendered his due.” But we have\r\nseen that the laws involving flogging in the Navy do _not_ render to\r\nevery man his due, since in some cases they indirectly exclude the\r\nofficers from any punishment whatever, and in all cases protect them\r\nfrom the scourge, which is inflicted upon the sailor. Therefore,\r\naccording to Blackstone and Justinian, those laws have no binding\r\nforce; and every American man-of-war’s-man would be morally justified\r\nin resisting the scourge to the uttermost; and, in so resisting, would\r\nbe religiously justified in what would be judicially styled “the act of\r\nmutiny” itself.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJRBSMWSS3C32ME91PJZ7","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMJBEEP802BTDN14T2H6G","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AMJBEQ5SRYMB6VADSJ9VY","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:41.326Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:47.263Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}