release contrary to or in the absence of their regulations; but the contract of parole being recognized as one lawful between the captor and the prisoner by the law of war, the government of the prisoner is bound to respect a fair and reasonable contract under which the prisoner has been released.

In the Regulations of the Army of the United States, revised by General Scott in 1825, the following institutes on that subject will be found:

(Extract from General Regulations for the Army of the United States, revised by Major-General Scott, 1825. * * *)

Paragraph 715, page 141. The officers among the prisoners will not, in general, be confined with the other prisoners. The general-in-chief, or the commander of a department, may, according to instructions and the deportment of the officers, give them permission to repair, without escort, to such places and by such routes as may be designated, taking from each his parole in writing, binding him to act accordingly.

Paragraph 716 page 141. Every such officer who violates his parole, by departing from the route prescribed or the limits assigned him or who, being permitted to return to his own country, shall serve against the United States or their allies, before exchanged, or in violation of his parole given, every such officer being retaken shall, at least, be put and kept in irons, and maybe otherwise punished, according to the particular circumstances of the cases, the instructions of the Government, and the usages of war.

N. B. -General Scott in Mexico, especially at Pueblo, paroled large numbers of Mexican soldiers without cartel or concert with the enemy. * * *The fact is stated in the title of Military Order Numbers 100 that it was proposed by a German professor, an alien by nativity to the Constitution, laws, and institutions of the United States. The intrinsic evidence furnished by the order itself shows that it is the handicraft of one much more familiar with the decrees of the imperial despotism of the continent of Europe than with Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, the Bill of Right, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States.

The words war-traitor, war-rebel, are not words of an American vocabulary. Treason is defined in the Constitution of the United States; the evidence by which it is to be proved is described and the judicial tribunals for the arraignment and trial of the traitor are established and determined by that instrument in words so plain that he that runs may read. The Constitution of the Confederate States contains the same provisions. It is exceedingly clear that martial law and military commissions can have no jurisdiction over one from whom allegiance is claimed because he is a traitor to the obligations that relation imposes. Imperial or military despots on the continent of Europe have employed commissions composed of military subordinates to accomplish their State policy, or gratify their revenge, but the faithful historian has recorded there proving judgment of mankind upon the injustice of the procedure.

The Confederate States will perform another duty to the cause of American liberty by resisting to a bloody issue the employment of any such methods by our enemies in the course of this war in respect to any citizen of the Confederate States, either within or without the lines of the enemy, as a war rebel or war traitor, as defined by this order.

The most prominent of the matters treated of in Order Numbers 100 have been noticed. There are other articles that are objectionable, and that disclose the unrelenting and vindictive spirit with which our enemies prosecute the odious purpose which they have proposed to themselves to accomplish. The accomplishment of that purpose would be the