{"id":"01KG8AMJG7XEF6RNZ2CSME4Y4P","cid":"bafkreigpsqtonyhme76hlc3tqgk2ri46hmtw4fagb25c3crj4re4m3nsvi","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":11427,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.274Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":11360,"text":"CHAPTER LXXI.\r\nTHE GENEALOGY OF THE ARTICLES OF WAR.\r\n\r\n\r\nAs the Articles of War form the ark and constitution of the penal laws\r\nof the American Navy, in all sobriety and earnestness it may be well to\r\nglance at their origin. Whence came they? And how is it that one arm of\r\nthe national defences of a Republic comes to be ruled by a Turkish\r\ncode, whose every section almost, like each of the tubes of a revolving\r\npistol, fires nothing short of death into the heart of an offender? How\r\ncomes it that, by virtue of a law solemnly ratified by a Congress of\r\nfreemen, the representatives of freemen, thousands of Americans are\r\nsubjected to the most despotic usages, and, from the dockyards of a\r\nrepublic, absolute monarchies are launched, with the “glorious stars\r\nand stripes” for an ensign? By what unparalleled anomaly, by what\r\nmonstrous grafting of tyranny upon freedom did these Articles of War\r\never come to be so much as heard of in the American Navy?\r\n\r\nWhence came they? They cannot be the indigenous growth of those\r\npolitical institutions, which are based upon that arch-democrat Thomas\r\nJefferson’s Declaration of Independence? No; they are an importation\r\nfrom abroad, even from Britain, whose laws we Americans hurled off as\r\ntyrannical, and yet retained the most tyrannical of all.\r\n\r\nBut we stop not here; for these Articles of War had their congenial\r\norigin in a period of the history of Britain when the Puritan Republic\r\nhad yielded to a monarchy restored; when a hangman Judge Jeffreys\r\nsentenced a world’s champion like Algernon Sidney to the block; when\r\none of a race by some deemed accursed of God—even a Stuart, was on the\r\nthrone; and a Stuart, also, was at the head of the Navy, as Lord High\r\nAdmiral. One, the son of a King beheaded for encroachments upon the\r\nrights of his people, and the other, his own brother, afterward a king,\r\nJames II., who was hurled from the throne for his tyranny. This is the\r\norigin of the Articles of War; and it carries with it an unmistakable\r\nclew to their despotism.[4]\r\n\r\n [4] The first Naval Articles of War in the English language were\r\n passed in the thirteenth year of the reign of Charles the Second,\r\n under the title of “_An act for establishing Articles and Orders for\r\n the regulating and better Government of his Majesty’s Navies,\r\n Ships-of-War, and Forces by Sea_.” This act was repealed, and, so far\r\n as concerned the officers, a modification of it substituted, in the\r\n twenty-second year of the reign of George the Second, shortly after\r\n the Peace of Aix la Chapelle, just one century ago. This last act, it\r\n is believed, comprises, in substance, the Articles of War at this day\r\n in force in the British Navy. It is not a little curious, nor without\r\n meaning, that neither of these acts explicitly empowers an officer to\r\n inflict the lash. It would almost seem as if, in this case, the\r\n British lawgivers were willing to leave such a stigma out of an\r\n organic statute, and bestow the power of the lash in some less solemn,\r\n and perhaps less public manner. Indeed, the only broad enactments\r\n directly sanctioning naval scourging at sea are to be found in the\r\n United States Statute Book and in the “Sea Laws” of the absolute\r\n monarch, Louis le Grand, of France.[5]\r\n    Taking for their basis the above-mentioned British Naval Code, and\r\n    ingrafting upon it the positive scourging laws, which Britain was\r\n    loth to recognise as organic statutes, our American lawgivers, in\r\n    the year 1800, framed the Articles of War now governing the\r\n    American Navy. They may be found in the second volume of the\r\n    “United States Statutes at Large,” under chapter xxxiii.—“An act\r\n    for the _better_ government of the Navy of the United States.”\r\n\r\n\r\n [5] For reference to the latter (L’Ord. de la Marine), _vide_ Curtis’s\r\n _Treatise on the Rights and Duties of Merchant-Seamen, according to\r\n the General Maritime Law_, Part ii., c. i.\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJV9W49ESEAA6BQCXVJKH","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMJGM3VV4XY8QM3JGX40W","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:41.479Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.463Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}