Mr. LANE, of Indiana. Under the Articles of War courts martial are provided for. Spies are not specifically named at all in the Articles of War. They are guilty under the laws of nations. The laws of war as recognized by the laws of nations define the offense of being a spy, but I think it is not defined or anywhere specifically defined in the Rules and Articles of War, if I recollect them rightly. f this can be done; if a court can be' My colleague says that he indorses the action and finding of the commission in the case of the assassins of President Lincoln. I might have referred to another case while I was up, the case of Wirz. That, it seems to me, was a proper case for a military commission. There the sentence was death; there the sentence was executed; there the commission was constituted under the order of the present President; and there the sentence was approved and executed under his approbation. Wirz was neither in the military or naval service of the U.S., nor was he a spy, but he was tried by a military commission for a violation of the laws of war under the laws of nations. If this section should be restricted as my colleague proposes to amend it, there would be no possible jurisdiction in the case of Wirz, because he neither belonged to the military or naval service, and was not technically, or in any sense, a spy; and yet his case was properly cognizable before a military commission, be cause, as I conceive, he had violated the laws of nations regulating the laws of war and the treatment of prisoners. There is one case where, if the jurisdiction was restricted as my colleague desires, there could have been no possible trial and no possible punishment. But my colleague refersto a late decision of the Supreme Courtof the U.S., where certain men were tried by a military commission in my State, and I, at least, have no doubt of their guilt, the people, I think, have no doubt of their guilt, their monstrous guilt, and the Supreme Court released them without givingany decision. We do not know the rounds of that decision; we do not know whetger they placed it upon the irregularity of the proceedings or the want of jurisdiction, or the nature of the offense, or the extravagant character of it. We are left wholly in the dark; no decision has been pronounced; but if that Supreme Court undertake to deny in a time of war the jurisdiction of military commissions to try men who have assassinated your President, who have starved your prisoners, who have cons ired to overturn the Government, I trust in 0d they may never stain the judicial records of the country by writing any opinion upon the subject.