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| Robert Wright (1752-1826) Senator, Governor, Congressman, Judge Artist: Wightman, J. Pinkney (1896) Maryland State Archives MSA #:MSA SC 1545-1007 Location : Legislative Services Building, Maryland |
The following remarks
on Wright's Resolution, in the House of Representatives of the U. S. to suspend the right of trial by jury, and to
substitute Martial Law in lieu thereof, are copied from the Ev. Post.[1]
Martial Law . — In a paroxism [sic] some
of rage and madness at the disappointment they have met, with in their attempts
to carry on a war against the opinions and feelings of the people in a great
and powerful section of the union, the administration have [sic] had the
desperate hardihood to propose, by one of their leading members in Congress, to
tear from the citizens of this country the right
to trial by Jury. This right, on which more perhaps than on any
other, depend the lasting existence of a free government; this right, sacredly
securing to the citizen in all criminal cases by the Constitution, has been
vitally attacked on the floor of Congress, and an attempt made to deprive the
accused of it under the awful charge of HIGH TREASON itself; a
charge the most heinous that can arise between the government and the citizens,
involving life, death and confiscation. Yes, fellow-citizens, governor Wright
of Maryland[2],
one of the leading members on the side of the administration, has brought
forward a formal resolution to extend the rules and articles of war two spies,
to all the Citizens of the United States.
This, if adopted, will expose every man residing near a camp, to the
bloody vengeance of any villian [sic] who may happen to be commander in chief. If
only to corrupt wretches can be found to charge the most respectable citizen
who may happen to visit a camp, or to live near it, with being a Spy, this
commander may seize him in an hour, try him by a hand of subservient officers
the next, and the third hang him on the first tree.[3]
[1] Northern
Whig; Date: 02-01-1814; Volume: VI; Issue: 5; Page: [2]; Location: Hudson, New
York
Transcribed by John peter Thompson, February 1st,
2014.
[2] Robert
Wright (1752-1826) MSA SC 3520-1425: Governor of Maryland, 1806-1809 (Democrat)
Archives of Maryland (Biographical Series) [http://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/001400/001425/html/1425bio.html]
Military service:
Private, Captain James Kent's
Militia Company, 1776
Captain, Col. William Richardson's
battalion of the Maryland Line, commissioned July 1777,
mustered out in October 17779
Positions held:
Admitted to the bar, 1773; lawyer
Maryland House of Representatives, 1777-1778;
1780, 1784; 1786-1787; 1791-1792
Maryland Senate, 1801
U.S. Senator, 1801-1806
Governor of Maryland, 1806-1809
Clerk, Queen Anne's County, 1810
Ø U.S. Representative, 1810-1817, 1821-1823
Associate Justice, Second District,
1823-1826
[3]
The Wright Resolution was referred to the House Committee of the Whole in January
1814 as an Order of the Day for the follwing Friday after the debate; it was
never called up and, therefore, never acted upon. Abridgment of the Debates of
Congress, from 1789 to 1856: May 24, 1813-March 3, 1817: 1813-1817
Volume 5
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