Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

To that the tribunal should answer that being ordered there by the President of the United States to do what they were doing, they were not at liberty to disobey the orders of the commander-in-chief.

That the next thing that would be set up would be the legal existence of the Confederate government, and the rights of the State to secede, and his acting in conformity with the directions of his own State after secession.

To that it should be answered:

All of us sitting here have fought four years to decide those questions in the negative, and therefore it would be useless to have them argued here.

In answer to the charges preferred against you, do you wish to deny the facts to be true as set out therein? If you do you are at liberty to call for proofs.

I assumed that he would not deny any of the facts. If he did they could be established in an hour's time.

Then he should be asked: “Have you any further facts to set up in justification of your action thus proved? If so, let your witnesses be called.” His witnesses having been heard, the commission would order him to proceed with his defence.

After the hearing the commission would order the prisoner to be remanded and would enter into consultation. I assumed that the result would be, that we should come to the conclusion to advise the President that he was guilty of the acts alleged against him, and that he would then be called before the commission and informed of the conclusions of the commission substantially in the following form: “After considering your case the commission will advise the President and Commander-in-Chief that you are guilty of the treasonable acts alleged against you in the manner and form in which they are set forth, and will advise that he should proceed with your execution by hanging on a day to be by him fixed. But the commission is not insensible that you have raised some very important questions of law, and we wish to do everything we can to give you the advantage of them by a decision of the highest tribunal. We therefore notify you that we shall advise the executive to give time in which all that has been done here can be brought before the Supreme Court of the United States in some proper manner, of which there are several, concerning which your ”