609. ATTAINDER, Bills of.—
The occasion
and proper office of a bill of attainder
is this: When a person charged with a
crime withdraws from justice, or resists it by
force, either in his own or a foreign country,
no other recourse of bringing him to trial or
punishment being practicable, a special act
is passed by the legislature adapted to the
particular case. This prescribes to him a
sufficient time to appear and submit to a
trial by his peers; declares that his refusal to
appear shall be taken as a confession of guilt,
as in the ordinary case of an offender at the
bar refusing to plead, and pronounces the
sentence which would have been rendered on
his confession or conviction in a court of
law. No doubt that these acts of attainder
have been abused in England as instruments
of vengeance by a successful over a defeated
party. But what institution is insusceptible
of abuse in wicked hands?—
To L. H. Girardin. Washington ed. vi, 440.
Ford ed., ii, 151.
(M.
1815)
