Curse of Cannan - The New Ensign

taxation imposed by the authority of the federal troops. Of a total population of sixty million,
the ten Southern states had suffered five and one-half million casualties, roughly ten per cent;
one-fourth of the male population was dead or incapacitated by 1865. It would seem impossible
for even the people of Shem to go on after such losses, yet survive they did, even though the
cruel twelve years of the Reconstruction Period was designed to ensure that none of them would
survive.
It is a fact of law that legislation enacted during periods of martial law is valid only during the
period for which martial law is declared and sustained. Amazingly enough, the Thirteenth,
Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments have never been challenged on this basic premise of law.
The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, even though President Johnson informed Congress
that they had no power to interfere with slavery; the Fourteenth Amendment changed the
requirements for citizenship, even though Congress had no power to act on this question. Johnson
urged the Southern states to reject the Fourteenth Amendment; he vetoed the four Reconstruction
Acts, showing that the executive branch of the government was unalterably opposed to the
excesses of the Radical Republicans in Congress.
The Oxford Companion to Law states, "In the Middle Ages, martial law meant law administered
by the Court of the Constable and the Marshal-it now means law applicable by virtue of the
Royal Prerogative to foreign territory occupied for the time being by the armed forces of the
Crown."
Thus the federal troops who occupied the Southern states were exercising a Royal Prerogative,
which had nothing to do with the Constitution of the United States-hence President Johnson's
veto of the Reconstruction Acts. It was the exercise of absolute power over the population by a
military officer who was directly responsible to the President. No martial law has been imposed
in Great Britain since the seventeenth century. "Martial law may, exceptionally, be established
within the State itself, in substitution for the organized government and administration of justice,
when a state of war, or rebellion, an invasion, or other serious disturbance exists; in that event,
justice is administered by its martial and military law tribunals."
There cannot be two governments exercising the same authority in the same area; when the
military governments were established by the Reconstruction Acts in the ten Southern states
from 1865 to 1877, no other government had sovereignty in those states; thus no legislation
could be enacted except under the umbrella of martial law; therefore, when martial law ended,
all legislation enacted under martial law was void.
Black's Law Dictionary says of martial law, "military authority exercises control over civilians
or civil authority within domestic territory. Ochikubo v. Bonesteel, D.C.Cai. 60 F supp. 916,
928, 929, 930."
Webster's Dictionary says of martial law, "From Mars, Roman God of War. Law applied to all
persons and property in occupied territory by the military authorities." The Oxford English
Dictionary says of martial law, "1548 Hall Chron. HenIV 7b. He .... caused dyvers lustie men
to appele divers older men upon matters determinable as the common law of the court marcial."
OED further states of martial law, "That kind of military government of a country or district, in
which the civil law is suspended and the military authorities are empowered to arrest all suspect
persons at their discretion and to punish offenders without formal trial. 1537 Hen VIII. Let, Dk
Norfk St Papr ii 537 .... The cours of our lawes must give place to the ordinaunces and estates
marciall, our pleasure is that you shall cause such dredful executions to be done on a good nombre
of thinhabitantes o euery towne, village and hamlet that have offended in this rebellion and they
may be a ferefull spectacle to all other hereafter, that wold practise any like matter." The OED
quotes Wellington as saying in 1851, on military law in Hansard, "Martial law was neither more
nor less than the will of the general who commands the army. In fact, martial law meant no law
at all. "
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