A Treatise on the Military Law of the United States: Together With the Practice and Procedure of Courts-Martial and Other Military Tribunals (Classic Reprint) - Tapa blanda

Excerpt from A Treatise on the Military Law of the United States: Together With the Practice and Procedure of Courts-Martial and Other Military Tribunals

The Tudor period has generally been regarded by historians as in the nature Of a truce between the sovereign and Parliament. It was an era of religious rather than civil agitation; foreign wars, involving important military operations on land, were infrequent, and the policy of the Govern ment, especially during the long reign of Elizabeth, was one of internal and economic development, and of neutrality or non-interference in foreign affairs. The result was to defer the discussion of purely constitutional ques tions, and to delay the final distribution of sovereign powers between the legislative and executive departments of the government for more than a century.

During this epoch, however, Englishmen were not permitted to forget the existence of martial law; although the occasions for its exercise were less frequent than they had been during the disturbed reigns of the Houses of Lancaster and York, and were, perhaps, more nearly justified by the facts of existing emergencies than was the case during the first half of the period of Stuart rule.

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This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from A Treatise on the Military Law of the United States: Together With the Practice and Procedure of Courts-Martial and Other Military Tribunals

The history of the constitutional military establishment of England, the country from which oar own institutions are in great part derived, has hardly received the attention to which, by its interest and importance, it is fairly entitled. The gradual development of the common law and the study of that great body of maxims and fundamental principles which we call the English Constitution have been made the subject of minute and painstaking inquiry; the corresponding development of the military institutions of the kingdom, however, have been less carefully studied, and this notwithstanding the fact that the long controversy between the sovereign and Parliament, extending over more than three quarters of a century, which culminated in the Great Revolution of 1688, had to do not only with the discussion and settlement of disputed questions connected with the maintenance of the military establishment and the discipline of the military forces, but involved as well the relation of the military to the civil power, and the place of the former in the constitutional law of the kingdom.

It may be safely asserted that for the two centuries immediately succeeding the Norman Conquest the place assigned to military law was in no sense inferior to that occupied by the common law. Indeed it was not until the feudal system had begun to decline in England that the latter began to predominate, and gradually to absorb the civil jurisdiction formerly exercised by the courts of the constable and marshal; and this absorption of jurisdiction was due lees, perhaps, to the superior excellence of the common law than to the fact that the kingdom was at peace with the continental states, and that there were but few occasions for the employment of military forces on foreign service or in foreign wars.

The Hundred Years' War for dominion in France, in so far as it affected the interests of the English people, was a foreign war, carried on upon foreign territory, and as such gave rise to no conflict of jurisdiction between the civil and military tribunals, but rather afforded to each form of jurisprudence an opportunity for normal and appropriate development. This was especially true of military law.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.