NationStates Jolt Archive

and other anecdotes. Many times I have spoken with people and they believed, and I am not applying this to anyone else but them, that not being patriotic is a form of treason. I sense that nationalism has overcome them, what a pity. I am not proud to be an American, nor am I ashamed of it. I think it is possible to have respect for the people that worked hard to raise liberties than to collectivelty throw them into the achievements of a nation. I think it is better to honor people based on their merit and put country aside. I ask you, is this treason?

Treason is not in failing to blindly follow a leader in service to some misplaced sense of patriotism. Treason is in sneakily and surreptitiously attempting to remove him or her from power, or to strike some blow from within against the rightfully elected government in an attempt to wrest control/cause chaos.

Dissent and questioning, and trying to change the laws from within the framework of the laws is not treason. However, if people insist on calling it so, I must echo Patrick Henry's statement (while disagreeing with the original thrust of his speech)...

"If this be Treason, then make the most of it!"

Treason is not in failing to blindly follow a leader in service to some misplaced sense of patriotism. Treason is in sneakily and surreptitiously attempting to remove him or her from power, or to strike some blow from within against the rightfully elected government in an attempt to wrest control/cause chaos.

Dissent and questioning, and trying to change the laws from within the framework of the laws is not treason. However, if people insist on calling it so, I must echo Patrick Henry's statement (while disagreeing with the original thrust of his speech)...

"If this be Treason, then make the most of it!"

AMEN.

I had waffles for breakfast that were so good, it was treasonous.

I had waffles for breakfast that were so good, it was treasonous.

Belgian, no doubt! They have that effect...

Was that with a side of Treasonous Canadian Bacon? Or Treasonous French Toast? Possibly Treasonous German Potato Salad?


;)


Got to watch that Maple Syrup... you might THINK it's Canadian, but lots of times it comes from that HOTBED OF TREASON -- Vermont.

Got to watch that Maple Syrup... you might THINK it's Canadian, but lots of times it comes from that HOTBED OF TREASON -- Vermont.

Surely not "Civil Union" Vermont? *faints*

Was that with a side of Treasonous Canadian Bacon? Or Treasonous French Toast? Possibly Treasonous German Potato Salad?


;)


Got to watch that Maple Syrup... you might THINK it's Canadian, but lots of times it comes from that HOTBED OF TREASON -- Vermont.
Don't you mean 'Freedom Toast'?

Bah, that whole two seconds of idiocy doesn't involve REAL PATRIOTS. It was one overly mentally taxed fool in a government cafeteria, plus some other monkey-see, monkey-doers. ;) I assure you in the treasonous wilds of NYC, any shop owner changing the name of their product was laughed at.

Real patriots never stopped calling them French Fries even though it's a misnomer and they are Belgian.

I ask you, is this treason?

No.

trea·son Audio pronunciation of "Treason" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (trzn)
n.

1. Violation of allegiance toward one's country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one's country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies.
2. A betrayal of trust or confidence.


[Middle English, from Anglo-Norman treson, from Latin trditi, trditin-, a handing over. See tradition.]

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Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Main Entry: trea·son
Pronunciation: 'trEz-&noun
Function: noun
Etymology: Anglo-French treison crime of violence against a person to whom allegiance is owed, literally, betrayal, from Old French traïson, from traïr to betray, from Latin tradere to hand over, surrender
: the offense of attempting to overthrow the government of one's country or of assisting its enemies in war; specifically : the act of levying war against the United States or adhering to or giving aid and comfort to its enemies by one who owes it allegiance —trea·son·ous /-&s/ adjective

Source: Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, © 1996 Merriam-Webster, Inc.

Treason

n 1: a crime that undermines the offender's government [syn: high treason, lese majesty] 2: disloyalty by virtue of subversive behavior [syn: subversiveness, traitorousness] 3: an act of deliberate betrayal [syn: treachery, betrayal, perfidy]

Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University

Real patriots never stopped calling them French Fries even though it's a misnomer and they are Belgian.

Actually, everyone knows they're not French. They're called "French Fries" because of the way they're cut. They are "French cut fried potatos", shortened to "French Fries" in the early 1900s US lingo.

The more you know. *cue music*

"The means and defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyrany at home." - James Madison, opposing the use of standing armies.

"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." - Samuel Adams.

"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government." - Thomas Paine.

"Guard against the postures of pretended patriotism." - George Washington

"The name of AMERICAN, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations." - George Washington

Funny how the Founders of this nation had a far different view of "Patriotism" than some of the people these days...

and other anecdotes. Many times I have spoken with people and they believed, and I am not applying this to anyone else but them, that not being patriotic is a form of treason. I sense that nationalism has overcome them, what a pity. I am not proud to be an American, nor am I ashamed of it. I think it is possible to have respect for the people that worked hard to raise liberties than to collectivelty throw them into the achievements of a nation. I think it is better to honor people based on their merit and put country aside. I ask you, is this treason?
No.

Many others have spoken far more eloquently on this subject than I ever could. I'll merely quote some of them:

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
--Theodore Roosevelt

Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let me label you as they may.
-- Mark Twain

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.
-- Edward R. Murrow

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands, which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
-- Samuel Adams (speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776)

Tarquin and Caesar had each his Brutus--Charles the First, his Cromwell--and George the Third--("Treason!" shouted the Speaker) may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.
-- Patrick Henry

Write on my gravestone: "Infidel, Traitor." --infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people.
-- Wendell Phillips

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
--Edward Abbey

There is something peculiarly sinister and insidious in even a charge of disloyalty. Such a charge all too frequently places a strain on the reputation of an individual which is indelible and lasting, regardless of the complete innocence later proved.
-- John Lord O'Brian

The peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: "Our country -- when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right."
--Carl Schurz

We are a rebellious nation. Our whole history is treason; our blood was attained before we were born; our creeds were infidelity to the mother church; our constitution treason to our fatherland.
-- Theodore Parker

"My country, right or wrong" is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying "My mother, drunk or sober."
-- G. K. Chesterton

Any appeasement of tyranny is treason to this republic and to the democratic ideal.
- William Allen White

All men should have a drop of TREASON in their veins, if nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy pears.
-- Rebecca West

"Bourgeois patriotism, as I view it, is only a very shabby, very narrow, very mercenary, and deeply antihuman passion, having for its object the preservation and maintenance of the power of the national state—that is, the mainstay of all the priveleges of the exploiters throughout the nation."
—Mikhail Bakunin, Letters to a Frenchman

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair
-- H.L. Mencken

"The man who can face vilification and disgrace, who can stand up against the popular current, even against his friends and his country when he know he is right, who can defy those in authority over him, who can take punishment and prison and remain steadfast—that is a man of courage. The fellow whom you taunt as a 'slacker' because he refuses to turn murderer—he needs courage. But do you need much courage just to obey orders, to do as you are told and to fall in line with thousands of others to the tune of general approval and the Star Spangled Banner?"
—Alexander Berkman

Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.
--Henry Steele Commanger

"These stupid peasants, who, throughout the world, hold potentates on their thrones, make statesmen illustrious, provide generals with lasting victories, all with ignorance, indifference, or half-witted hatred, moving the world with the strength of their arms, and getting their heads knocked together in the name of God, the king, or the stock exchange—immortal, dreaming, hopeless asses, who surrender their reason to the care of a shining puppet, and persuade some toy to carry their lives in his purse."
—Stephen Crane

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in a final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed—those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending its money alone—it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
—Dwight Eisenhower, Speech (1953)

"Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all others. The inhabitants of the other spots reason like manner, of course . . ."
—Emma Goldman

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarreled with him?"
—Blaise Pascal

"Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority."
—Arthur Schopenhauer

"Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most indubitable meaning is nothing but an instrument for the attainment of the government's ambitious and mercenary aims, and a renunciation of human dignity, common sense, and conscience by the governed, and a slavish submission to those who hold power. That is what is really preached wherever patriotism is championed. Patriotism is slavery."
—Leo Tolstoy

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.
-- William O. Douglas

"If this be Treason, then make the most of it!"
Patrick Henry never said that. In fact, in the speech that is attributed to, Henry affirmed his undying loyalty to the British King.

Patrick Henry never said that. In fact, in the speech that is attributed to, Henry affirmed his undying loyalty to the British King.

I'm sorry, you loose, no parting gift for you....

Patrick Henry actually said that, in opposition to the "Stamp Act" before Virginia's "House of Burgesses" (the legislative body that presided over the colony before the formation of the Virginia Constitution in 1776, and the creation of the State Senate and House of Delegates) in 1765... He reaffirmed his oath in that SAME Speech, shortly thereafter... But he said that in light that the King should take a lesson from that of the past... However, he indeed did say, in comparison, that if questioning the King is treason.... then we should make the most of it...

I'm afraid your claim, however, that he did not say that, is wrong. He in fact did say that.... To which, that day, all resolutions abolishing the enforcement of the Stamp Acts, and other such acts in the Virginia Colony, were made persuant, by the House of Burgesses, would be enforced... And those persuant by Parliament and the King; whereby under the Royal Charter, as provided by King James I, would not be... Since subsequent acts violated those powers granted under Colonial Provision, were violated, English Common Law took precedent over rulings made by foreign officers.

If being "unpatriotic" was a treasonous act, I should've been summarily shot LONG ago.

Section 3. Treason

Clause 1. Definition and Limitations

Treason

The treason clause is a product of the awareness of the Framers of the ''numerous and dangerous excrescences'' which had disfigured the English law of treason and was therefore intended to put it beyond the power of Congress to ''extend the crime and punishment of treason.'' 1283 The debate in the Convention, remarks in the ratifying conventions, and contemporaneous public comment make clear that a restrictive concept of the crime was imposed and that ordinary partisan divisions within political society were not to be escalated by the stronger into capital charges of treason, as so often had happened in England. 1284

Thus, the Framers adopted two of the three formulations and the phraseology of the English Statute of Treason enacted in 1350, 1285 but they conspicuously omitted the phrase defining as treason the ''compass[ing] or imagin[ing] the death of our lord the King,'' 1286 under which most of the English law of ''constructive treason'' had been developed. 1287 Beyond limiting the power of Congress to define treason, 1288 the clause also prescribes limitations upon Congress' ability to make proof of the offense easy to establish 1289 and its ability to define punishment. 1290

Levying War

Early judicial interpretation of the meaning of treason in terms of levying war was conditioned by the partisan struggles of the early nineteenth century, in which were involved the treason trials of Aaron Burr and his associates. In Ex parte Bollman, 1291 which involved two of Burr's confederates, Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for himself and three other Justices, confined the meaning of levying war to the actual waging of war. ''However flagitious may be the crime of conspiring to subvert by force the government of our country, such conspiracy is not treason. To conspire to levy war, and actually to levy war, are distinct offences. The first must be brought into open action by the assemblage of men for a purpose treasonable in itself, or the fact of levying war cannot have been committed. So far has this principle been carried, that . . . it has been determined that the actual enlistment of men to serve against the government does not amount to levying of war.'' Chief Justice Marshall was careful, however, to state that the Court did not mean that no person could be guilty of this crime who had not appeared in arms against the country. ''On the contrary, if it be actually levied, that is, if a body of men be actually assembled for the purpose of effecting by force a treasonable purpose, all those who perform any part, however minute, or however remote from the scene of action, and who are actually leagued in the general conspiracy, are to be considered as traitors. But there must be an actual assembling of men, for the treasonable purpose, to constitute a levying of war.''

On the basis of these considerations and due to the fact that no part of the crime charged had been committed in the District of Columbia, the Court held that Bollman and Swartwout could not be tried in the District and ordered their discharge. He continued by saying that ''the crime of treason should not be extended by construction to doubtful cases'' and concluded that no conspiracy for overturning the Government and ''no enlisting of men to effect it, would be an actual levying of war.'' 1292

The Burr Trial .--Not long afterward, the Chief Justice went to Richmond to preside over the trial of Burr himself. His ruling 1293 denying a motion to introduce certain collateral evidence bearing on Burr's activities is significant both for rendering the latter's acquittal inevitable and for the qualifications and exceptions made to the Bollman decision. In brief, this ruling held that Burr, who had not been present at the assemblage on Blennerhassett's Island, could be convicted of advising or procuring a levying of war only upon the testimony of two witnesses to his having procured the assemblage. This operation having been covert, such testimony was naturally unobtainable. The net effect of Marshall's pronouncements was to make it extremely difficult to convict one of levying war against the United States short of the conduct of or personal participation in actual hostilities. 1294

Aid and Comfort to the Enemy

The Cramer Case .--Since the Bollman case, the few treason cases which have reached the Supreme Court were outgrowths of World War II and have charged adherence to enemies of the United States and the giving of aid and comfort. In the first of these, Cramer v. United States, 1295 the issue was whether the ''overt act'' had to be ''openly manifest treason'' or if it was enough if, when supported by the proper evidence, it showed the required treasonable intention. 1296 The Court in a five- to-four opinion by Justice Jackson in effect took the former view holding that ''the two-witness principle'' interdicted ''imputation of incriminating acts to the accused by circumstantial evidence or by the testimony of a single witness,'' 1297 even though the single witness in question was the accused himself. ''Every act, movement, deed, and word of the defendant charged to constitute treason must be supported by the testimony of two witnesses,'' 1298 Justice Jackson asserted. Justice Douglas in a dissent, in which Chief Justice Stone and Justices Black and Reed concurred, contended that Cramer's treasonable intention was sufficiently shown by overt acts as attested to by two witnesses each, plus statements made by Cramer on the witness stand.

The Haupt Case .--The Supreme Court sustained a conviction of treason, for the first time in its history, in 1947 in Haupt v. United States. 1299 Here it was held that although the overt acts relied upon to support the charge of treason--defendant's harboring and sheltering in his home his son who was an enemy spy and saboteur, assisting him in purchasing an automobile, and in obtaining employment in a defense plant--were all acts which a father would naturally perform for a son, this fact did not necessarily relieve them of the treasonable purpose of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Speaking for the Court, Justice Jackson said: ''No matter whether young Haupt's mission was benign or traitorous, known or unknown to the defendant, these acts were aid and comfort to him. In the light of this mission and his instructions, they were more than casually useful; they were aids in steps essential to his design for treason. If proof be added that the defendant knew of his son's instruction, preparation and plans, the purpose to aid and comfort the enemy becomes clear.'' 1300

The Court held that conversation and occurrences long prior to the indictment were admissible evidence on the question of defendant's intent. And more important, it held that the constitutional requirement of two witnesses to the same overt act or confession in open court does not operate to exclude confessions or admissions made out of court, where a legal basis for the conviction has been laid by the testimony of two witnesses of which such confessions or admissions are merely corroborative. This relaxation of restrictions surrounding the definition of treason evoked obvious satisfaction from Justice Douglas who saw in the Haupt decision a vindication of his position in the Cramer case. His concurring opinion contains what may be called a restatement of the law of treason and merits quotation at length:

''As the Cramer case makes plain, the overt act and the intent with which it is done are separate and distinct elements of the crime. Intent need not be proved by two witnesses but may be inferred from all the circumstances surrounding the overt act. But if two witnesses are not required to prove treasonable intent, two witnesses need not be required to show the treasonable character of the overt act. For proof of treasonable intent in the doing of the overt act necessarily involves proof that the accused committed the overt act with the knowledge or understanding of its treasonable character.

''The requirement of an overt act is to make certain a treasonable project has moved from the realm of thought into the realm of action. That requirement is undeniably met in the present case, as it was in the case of Cramer.

''The Cramer case departed from those rules when it held that 'The two-witness principle is to interdict imputation of incriminat ing acts to the accused by circumstantial evidence or by the testimony of a single witness.' 325 U.S. p. 35. The present decision is truer to the constitutional definition of treason when it forsakes that test and holds that an act, quite innocent on its face, does not need two witnesses to be transfomred into a incriminating one.'' 1301

The Kawakita Case .--Kawakita v. United States 1302 was decided on June 2, 1952. The facts are sufficiently stated in the following headnote: ''At petitioner's trial for treason, it appeared that originally he was a native-born citizen of the United States and also a national of Japan by reason of Japanese parentage and law. While a minor, he took the oath of allegiance to the United States; went to Japan for a visit on an American passport; and was prevented by the outbreak of war from returning to this country. During the war, he reached his majority in Japan; changed his registration from American to Japanese, showed sympathy with Japan and hostility to the United States; served as a civilian employee of a private corporation producing war materials for Japan; and brutally abused American prisoners of war who were forced to work there. After Japan's surrender, he registered as an American citizen; swore that he was an American citizen and had not done various acts amounting to expatriation; and returned to this country on an American passport.'' The question whether, on this record Kawakita had intended to renounce American citizenship, said the Court, in sustaining conviction, was peculiarly one for the jury and their verdict that he had not so intended was based on sufficient evidence. An American citizen, it continued, owes allegiance to the United States wherever he may reside, and dual nationality does not alter the situation. 1303

Doubtful State of the Law of Treason Today

The vacillation of Chief Justice Marshall between the Bollman 1304 and Burr 1305 cases and the vacillation of the Court in the Cramer 1306 and Haupt 1307 cases leave the law of treason in a somewhat doubtful condition. The difficulties created by the Burr case have been obviated to a considerable extent through the punishment of acts ordinarily treasonable in nature under a different label, 1308 within a formula provided by Chief Justice Marshall himself in the Bollman case. The passage reads: ''Crimes so atrocious as those which have for their object the subversion by violence of those laws and those institutions which have been ordained in order to secure the peace and happiness of society, are not to escape punishment, because they have not ripened into treason. The wisdom of the legislature is competent to provide for the case; and the framers of our Constitution . . . must have conceived it more safe that punishment in such cases should be ordained by general laws, formed upon deliberation, under the influence of no resentments, and without knowing on whom they were to operate, than that it should be inflicted under the influence of those passions which the occasion seldom fails to excite, and which a flexible definition of the crime, or a construction which would render it flexible, might bring into operation.'' 1309

Footnotes

[Footnote 1283] 2 J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions on Adoption of the Constitution (Philadelphia: 1836), 469 (James Wilson). Wilson was apparently the author of the clause in the Committee of Detail and had some first hand knowledge of the abuse of treason charges. J. Hurst, The Law of Treason in the United States--Selected Essays (Westport, Conn.: 1971), 90-91, 129-136.

[Footnote 1284] 2 M. Farrand, op. cit., n.1, 345-350; 2 J. Elliot, op. cit., n. 1283, 469, 487 (James Wilson); 3 id., 102-103, 447, 451, 466; 4 id., 209, 219, 220; The Federalist No. 43 (J. Cooke ed. 1961), 290 (Madison); id., No. 84, 576-577 (Hamilton); The Works of James Wilson, R. McCloskey ed. (Cambridge: 1967 ed), 663-669. The matter is comprehensively studied in J. Hurst, op. cit., n. 1283, chs. 3, 4.

[Footnote 1285] 25 Edward III, Stat. 5, ch. 2, See J. Hurst, op. cit., n. 1283, ch 2.

[Footnote 1286] Id., 15, 31-37, 41-49, 51-55.

[Footnote 1287] Ibid. ''[T]he record does suggest that the clause was intended to guarantee nonviolent political processes against prosecution under any theory or charge, the burden of which was the allegedly seditious character of the conduct in question. The most obviously restrictive feature of the constitutional definition is its omission of any provision analogous to that branch of the Statute of Edward III which punished treason by compassing the death of the king. In a narrow sense, this provision perhaps had no proper analogue in a republic. However, to interpret the silence of the treason clause in this way alone does justice neither to the technical proficiency of the Philadelphia draftsmen nor to the practical statecraft and knowledge of English political history among the Framers and proponents of the Constitution. The charge of compassing the king's death had been the principal instrument by which 'treason' had been used to suppress a wide range of political opposition, from acts obviously dangerous to order and likely in fact to lead to the king's death to the mere speaking or writing of views restrictive of the royal authority.'' Id., 152-153.

[Footnote 1288] The clause does not, however, prevent Congress from specifying other crimes of a subversive nature and prescribing punishment, so long as Congress is not merely attempting to evade the restrictions of the treason clause. E.g., Ex parte Bollman, 8 U.S. (4 Cr.) 75, 126 (1807); Wimmer v. United States, 264 Fed. 11, 12-13 (6th Cir. 1920), cert den., 253 U.S. 494 (1920).

[Footnote 1289] By the requirement of two witnesses to the same overt act or a confession in open court.

[Footnote 1290] Cl. 2, infra, pp. 827-828.

[Footnote 1291] 8 U.S. (4 Cr.) 75 (1807).

[Footnote 1292] Id., 126-127.

[Footnote 1293] United States v. Burr, 4 Cr. ( 8 U.S.), 469, Appx. (1807).

[Footnote 1294] There have been a number of lower court cases in some of which convictions were obtained. As a result of the Whiskey Rebellion, convictions of treason were obtained on the basis of the ruling that forcible resistance to the enforcement of the revenue laws was a constructive levying of war. United States v. Vigol, 29 Fed. Cas. 376 (No. 16621) (C.C.D. Pa. 1795); United States v. Mitchell, 26 Fed. Cas. 1277 (No. 15788) (C.C.D. Pa. 1795). After conviction, the defendants were pardoned. See also for the same ruling in a different situation the Case of Fries, 9 Fed. Cas. 826, 924 (Nos. 5126, 5127) (C.C.D. Pa. 1799, 1800). The defendant was again pardoned after conviction. About a half century later participation in forcible resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law was held not to be a constructive levying of war. United States v. Hanway, 26 Fed. Cas. 105 (No. 15299) (C.C.E.D. Pa. 1851). Although the United States Government regarded the activities of the Confederate States as a levying of war, the President by Amnesty Proclamation of December 25, 1868, pardoned all those who had participated on the southern side in the Civil War. In applying the Captured and Abandoned Property Act of 1863 (12 Stat. 820) in a civil proceeding, the Court declared that the foundation of the Confederacy was treason against the United States. Sprott v. United States, 87 U.S. (20 Wall.) 459 (1875). See also Hanauer v. Doane, 79 U.S. (12 Wall.) 342 (1871); Thorington v. Smith, 75 U.S. (8 Wall.) 1 (1869); Young v. United States, 97 U.S. 39 (1878). These four cases bring in the concept of adhering to the enemy and giving him aid and comfort, but these are not criminal cases and deal with attempts to recover property under the Captured and Abandoned Property Act by persons who claimed that they had given no aid or comfort to the enemy. These cases are not, therefore, an interpretation of the Constitution.

[Footnote 1295] 325 U.S. 1 (1945).

[Footnote 1296] 89 Law. Ed. 1443-1444 (Argument of Counsel).

[Footnote 1297] Id., 325 U.S., 35.

[Footnote 1298] Id., 34-35. Earlier, Justice Jackson had declared that this phase of treason consists of two elements: ''adherence to the enemy; and rendering him aid and comfort.'' A citizen, it was said, may take actions ''which do aid and comfort the enemy . . . but if there is no adherence to the enemy in this, if there is no intent to betray, there is no treason.'' Id., 29, Justice Jackson states erroneously that the requirement of two witnesses to the same overt act was an original invention of the Convention of 1787. Actually it comes from the British Treason Trials Act of 1695. 7 Wm. III, c.3.

[Footnote 1299] 330 U.S. 631 (1947).

[Footnote 1300] Id., 635-636

[Footnote 1301] Id., 645-646, Justice Douglas cites no cases for these propositions. Justice Murphy in a solitary dissent stated: ''But the act of providing shelter was of the type that might naturally arise out of petitioner's relationship to his son, as the Court recognizes. By its very nature, therefore, it is a non-treasonous act. That is true even when the act is viewed in light of all the surrounding circumstances. All that can be said is that the problem of whether it was motivated by treasonous or non-treasonous factors is left in doubt. It is therefore not an overt act of treason, regardless of how unlawful it might otherwise be.'' Id., 649.

[Footnote 1302] 343 U.S. 717 (1952).

[Footnote 1303] Id., 732. For citations in the subject of dual nationality, see id., 723 n. 2. Three dissenters asserted that Kawakita's conduct in Japan clearly showed he was consistently demonstrating his allegiance to Japan. ''As a matter of law, he expatriated himself as well as that can be done.'' Id., 746.

[Footnote 1304] Ex parte Bollman, 8 U.S. (4 Cr.) 75 (1807).

[Footnote 1305] United States v. Burr, 8 U.S. (4 Cr.) 469 (1807).

[Footnote 1306] Cramer v. United States, 325 U.S. 1 (1945).

[Footnote 1307] Haupt v. United States, 330 U.S. 631 (1947).

[Footnote 1308] Cf. United States v. Rosenberg, 195 F.2d 583 (2d. Cir.), cert den., 344 U.S. 889 (1952), holding that in a prosecution under the Espionage Act for giving aid to a country, not an enemy, an offense distinct from treason, neither the two-witness rule nor the requirement as to the overt act is applicable.

[Footnote 1309] Ex parte Bollman, 8 U.S. (4 Cr.) 126, 127 (1807). Justice Frankfurter appended to his opinion in Cramer v. United States, 325 U.S. 1, 25 n. 38 (1945), a list taken from the Government's brief of all the cases prior to Cramer in which construction of the treason clause was involved. The same list, updated, appears in J. Hurst, op. cit., n. 1283, 260-267. Professor Hurst was responsible for the historical research underlaying the Government's brief in Cramer.