Charge to the grand jury, at the July term of the Municipal Court, in Boston, 1854:

continuous and existing, will not alter the rule of law. And
if it shall be made to alppear to you that a miilitaryiv force has
been so employed within the County of Suffolk, and any man
has been assaulted or inijuired thereby, or forcibly prevented
from enjoying his ordinary rig'hts as a citizen, without other
justification under the law, every soldier who may have collmitted allny such act of violence, and every officer, military or
civil, who shall have ordered, requested, caused, or procured
it to be done, is, (subject only to the qualification which I
shall presently state,) to be held responsible therefor.
But it is asked whether, in a case where no man doubts
that a riot or unlawful assembly is impending, the civil aind
military commanders are oblig'ed to wait until irreparable
mischief is done, till a prisoner is rescued, a building
destroyed, or blood spilled, before they can fully interpose.
A su-ficient answver lay perhaps be found in the statement,
that they may- employ all tihe ordinary and peaceable means
of enforcilng the civil authority, and may have in readiness
for instant employment, ally amount of military force which
the exigency shall demand. Further than this the law does
not go, and the magistrate or officer cannot. It miay seem to
many worthy and prudent men that more power should be
granted; but it has not been thought necessary or expedient
by the firanmers of our Constitution and laws. The principle
of Amierican institutions is not restraint - nor intimidation
but responsibility for acts done. In relation to fieedom of
speech, for example, and of the press, we do not, as in some
countries it is done, establish a censorship, and determine
beforehand what shall be spoken or published, but we leave
men free to say or print what they please, and hold them
accountable for any abuse of the liberty.
In the next place, gentlenmen, the statute confers no discretionary power upon any military officer, under the commander-in-chief, nor can any be lawfully conferred upon him,
except as to the details of executing a specific service, upon
which he is lawfully ordered. And this is in strict conforlmity with the requirements of the Constitution, that " the
military power shall always be held in exact subordination
to the civil authority, and be governed by it." It is for the
civil magistrates only to determine whether an unlawful
assembly exists, and whether military power is needed to
suppress it. If any civil niagistrate should direct the commander of a military force, lawfully called out to aid in
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