* * * "and that it is altogether immaterial whether the force used is sufficient to effectuate the object; any force connected with the intention will constitute the crime of levying war."

In the case of the United States vs. AARON BURR, Chief-Justice MARSHALL said:

"There is no difficulty in affirming that there must be a war, or the crime of levying it cannot exist; but there would often be considerable difficulty in affirming that a particular act did or did not involve the person committing it in the guilt and in the fact of levying war. If, for example, an army should be actually raised for the avowed purpose of carrying on open war against the United States and subverting their Government, the point must be weighed very deliberately before a Judge would venture to decide that an overt act of levying war had not been committed by a Commissary of purchases who never saw the army, but who, knowing its object, and leaguing himself with the rebels supplied that army with provisions; or by a Recruiting-officer, holding a commission in the rebel service, who, though never in camp, executed the particular duty assigned to him."

This able jurist, in the same case, states that the term "levying war," as used in the Constitution of the United States, was unquestionably employed in the same sense in which it was understood in England and in this country, to have been used in the Statute of EDWARD III., from which it was borrowed, and refers to principles laid down by COKE, HALE, FOSTER, BLACKSTONE and HAWKINS.

FOSTER says:

"Attacking the King's forces, in opposition to his authority, upon a march or in quarters, is levying war."

And also that

"Holding a castle or fort against the King or his forces, if actual force be used in order to keep possession, is levying war." -- Sec. 4 Cranch Reps. 75, 137, Appendix 470-507.

FOSTER further states, in his valuable Treatise on Treason, that all insurrection, to effect certain innovations of a public and general concern, by an armed force, to be, in construction of law, high treason within the clause of levying war. He farther says:

"An assembly armed and arrayed in a warlike manner for a treasonable purpose is bellum, levatum, though not bellum percussum; listing and marching are sufficient overt acts, without coming to a battle or action. So cruising on the King's subjects, under a French Commission, France being then at war with us, was held to be adhering to the King's enemies, though no other act of hostility be proved." -- See 4 Cranch, pp. 478,479:

Lord COKE says: "If many conspire to levy war, and some of them do levy the same, according to the conspiracy this is high treason in all." "Why? Because all were legally present when the war was levied? No. "For in treason," continues Lord COKE, "all be principals and war is levied." This doctrine of Lord COKE has been adopted by all subsequent writers; and it is generally laid down in the English books that whatever will make a man an accessory in felony will make him a principal in treason:

"It is well known," says FOSTER, " that in the language of the law there are no accessories in high treason -- all are principals. Every instance of incitement, aid, or protection, which in case of felony will render a man an accessory before or after the fact, in the case of high treason, whether it be treason at common law or by statute, will make him a principal in treason."

"The propriety of investing the National Government." says Mr. Justice STORY, in his Commentaries on the Constitution, "with authority to punish the crime of treason against the United States, could never become a question with any persons who deem ed the National Government worthy of creation or preservation. If the power had not been expressly granted, it must have been implied, unless all the powers of the National Government might be put at defiance and prostrated with impunity. Two motives probably concurred in introducing it as an express power. One was, not to leave it open to implication whether it was to be exclusively punished with death, according to the known rule of the common law, and with the barbarous accompaniments pointed out by it -- but to confide the punishment to the discretion of Congress. The other was, to impose some limitation upon the nature and extent of the punishment, so that it should not work corruption of blood or forfeiture beyond the life of the offender."

Treason has ever been deemed the highest crime which can be committed in civil society; since its aim is an overthrow of the Government and a public resistance by force of its just powers, its tendency is to create universal danger and alarm, and on this account it has often been visited with the deepest public resentment. Hence, by the common law, the the punishment of high treason was accompanied by all the refinements in cruelty which were oftentimes literally and studiously executed. But under the Constitution of the United States the power of punishing the crime of treason against the United States is exclusive in Congress; and the trial of the offence belongs exclusively to the Federal tribunals. A State cannot take cognizance or punish the offence, whatever it may do in relation to the offence of treason committed exclusively against itself.