Pros And Cons Of Treason Clause

1680 Words7 Pages

The Treason Clause is considered a forgotten constitutional law in the United States. The Treason Clause complicates both liberal and conservative positions. Firstly, the Treason Clause explicitly states that individuals are capable of engaging in warlike actions against it; secondly, the Treason Clause again states exactly the opposite persons who levy war against the United States are entitled to specific procedural protections (The Forgotten Constitutional Law of Treason, 2006). Whoever is subjected to treason prosecution under the constitutional law must be tried in an open civilian court and may not be detained by the military as an enemy. In the 21st century this rule of law may be forgotten, however, was familiar to the lawyer during …show more content…

While those who weren’t were treated as enemies of the state and were subjected to military authority. However, English and American drew a line when it came to a person allegiance. In the England law people who owed allegiance to the crown was subjected to trial for treason, while those who weren’t subjected to military authority. Under the American law allegiance is owed to anyone who is within the American borders, while those whom weren’t was accompanied by military forces. During World War II the heart of the Anglo-American treason laws between civil court and military authority, unfortunately, didn’t survive since the Ex parte Quirin trial of 1942. The Supreme Court approved the trial and execution by military authorities when a man claimed American citizenship, while he had aided Nazi Germany when he was captured in the United States. Professors who teach criminal law course focuses on basic crimes such as homicide, sometimes rape and burglary. However, not a lot of criminal law professors discuss treason in the United …show more content…

citizens convicted of treason in America were Philip Vigol and John Mitchell because they were part of the Whiskey Rebellion. The Whiskey Rebellion took place in western Pennsylvania. The rebellion was the largest organized resistance in American history against the federal authority. The rebellion began because the federal law called for an excise tax on goods and one of them was on whiskey. The reason Congress established the excise tax was in hopes of reducing the national debt which was $54 million. The locals used whiskey not only for drinking but also for cooking and medicine. To the people apart of the Whiskey Rebellion, whiskey during the eighteenth century was as valuable as gold. The uproar took a turn for the worse in 1791 on October when the rebellion disguised themselves as farmers snatched a federal tax collector from his bed, marched him five miles to a blacksmith shop where they stripped him of his clothes, and burned him with a poker (Frear, 1999). Over the next three years that followed the locals in the rebellion kidnaped dozens of tax collectors. The rebels beat, shot, tarred, feathered, and terrorized dozen federal tax collectors. By 1794 in western Pennsylvania the national debt was rising and the rebel forces swelled to 5,000. In October of 1794, President George Washington decided the best course of action was to dispatch 15,000 troops to eradicate the resistance. The people apart of the whiskey rebels were prosecuted for treason and