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[Middle English, from Anglo-Norman treson, from Latin trāditiō, trāditiōn-, a handing over. See tradition.]
noun
Definition: disloyalty
Antonyms: allegiance, devotion, faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty
—betraying the nation‐state that the American military was created to defend—is among the most odious of crimes. Yet American history suggests how fine the line can be between patriot and traitor.
The founding fathers had to become traitors to their king in order to create the United States. The Declaration of Independence articulated the conditions—tyranny—under which a people might legitimately renounce their allegiance to one sovereign authority and transfer it to another.
Efforts to punish disloyalty to the new nation predated its independence. On 24 June, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted a motion by its Committee on Spies recommending that individual colonies punish those “who shall levy war against any of the said colonies … or be adherent to the King of Great Britain….” Thus authorized, the revolutionary factions in the individual colonies punished as traitors avowed Tories, along with those who uttered favorable opinions about the king, had contact with the British, or entered British‐controlled territories. The emphasis was on protecting the new nation, not the rights or intent of the accused. Punishment most often involved confiscation of property and exile. The revolutionaries justified such severity by the presumption that, as the Virginia treason statute suggested, “all countries have a Right to the personal services” of their inhabitants.
Treason was given an enduring symbol in 1780 when Gen. Benedict Arnold, disillusioned with the revolutionary cause, unsuccessfully schemed to surrender the army garrison at West Point to the British, fleeing to the British after his plot was discovered. Arnold's name remains synonymous with betrayal in American history.
The excesses of the Revolution prompted the framers of the Constitution to restrict the definition of treason to “levying war against” the United States and providing “aid and comfort” to its enemies, and to require the testimony of two witnesses “to the same overt act” and the establishment of treasonous intent for conviction. They limited punishment to the person charged, and abjured the attainder of the traitor's relatives or heirs. Thus the framers hoped to balance the security of the state with the protection of private property and individual rights and to prevent the charge of treason from becoming an instrument of political repression.
The first application of the Constitution's treason provisions occurred in 1794 with the Whiskey Rebellion. Federal troops led by George Washington quashed this challenge to central authority, and a federal circuit court condemned to death two men—whom Washington later pardoned—for treason.
A major landmark in the evolution of treason law occurred in the 1807 trial of Aaron Burr, who stood accused of attempting to establish an independent trans‐Appalachian empire. Although circumstantial evidence pointed toward the defendant's guilt, the government's inability to prove that an overt act of treason had occurred resulted in Burr's acquittal. In a victory for a narrow interpretation of the law of treason, Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that “the difficulty of proving a fact will not justify conviction without proof.”
During the Mexican War (1846–48), religious allegiance took precedence over national loyalty for several hundred Irish immigrant U.S. troops who deserted to the Mexican Army when the Mexican government appealed to them to defend Catholicism and promised them land. The “San Patricio Brigade” put up fierce resistance against U.S. units at the Battle of Churubusco before surrendering to Gen. Winfield Scott, who executed fifty of them for treason.
In 1859, John Brown and his followers, in the name of God and slave liberation, seized the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, as part of a plan to establish a free guerrilla state. Although Brown had attacked U.S. property, Governor Henry Wise had the conspirators tried for treason against Virginia. This assertion of state jurisdiction reflected the assumptions that soon produced the secession of the Southern states in 1861, the most significant act of treason in American history. Suppression of the rebellion was based on the assumption that the Union was permanent and that secession from it could never be justified.
Although the Constitution defines treason strictly, Congress has expanded the definition of treasonous behavior by legislation such as the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and and the Espionage and Sedition Acts of World War I (1917; 1918), which punished political expression deemed hazardous to the state. Both sets of legislation proved controversial. The acts of 1798 provoked the violent opposition of the emerging Jeffersonian Republican Party and facilitated the election of Thomas Jefferson as president in 1801. The acts of 1917–18 legitimated a government crackdown on dissent of all kinds and foreshadowed the crisis atmosphere of the Red Scare of the 1920s.
The Cold War saw the charge of treason used to build political careers and silence dissent. Congressman Richard M. Nixon first came to prominence in 1948 investigating a State Department employee, Alger Hiss, for his alleged activities as a Communist Party contact in the 1930s. In 1952, Senator Joseph McCarthy, alleging “twenty years of treason,” launched his campaign to eliminate alleged traitors in the federal government. McCarthyism made dissent tantamount to treason. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted and executed in 1953 for passing secrets to the Soviets, were condemned by many for being traitors.
Jonathan Pollard, a Defense Department analyst convicted in 1985 of passing vital secrets to Israel, remains incarcerated in spite of continued pressure from the Israeli government for his release. The quantity and importance of the information Pollard leaked constitutes one of the most significant security breaches in U.S. history.
In recent years, treason has tended to be committed for monetary gain rather than ideological commitment. Typical of this trend are Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials Aldrich Ames and Harold James Nicholson. Ames, before being discovered in 1994, passed extensive information on U.S. intelligence operatives abroad to Soviet and Russian agents. Nicholson, who confessed in March 1997 to passing secrets to the Russians, is the highest ranking CIA employee to be caught spying.
[See also Patriotism.]
Bibliography
n.violation of the allegiance owed to one's sovereign or state; the betrayal of one's country.
See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.
For more information on treason, visit Britannica.com.
For centuries the evolution of the law of treason was to extend the number of offences and the ferocity of the punishment. High treason was a crime against the state which meant, in practice, against the monarch. Alfred's law declared that a man's life and property were forfeit if he plotted against the king. Edward I set the precedent for hideous punishments when Dafydd ap Gruffydd at Shrewsbury in 1283 was drawn to the gallows on a sledge, hanged, cut down while alive, disembowelled, and his head and limbs exhibited in different towns. Edward III's statute of 1352, which became the basic definition, made it treason to encompass the death of the king, or to violate the queen, the king's eldest daughter (if unmarried), or the king'seldest son's wife. After the Peasants' Revolt in 1381 it was made treasonable to start a riot, Henry V made it treason to clip the coinage, and Henry VI to extort money by threatening to burn down a house. The scope of treason was widened still further by ‘constructive treason’, which allowed judges to ‘interpret’ the Act of 1352. The Tudors added more than 60 treason statutes. Henry VIII made it treason to deny his royal supremacy, or to refuse to admit it, and each of his marriages, separations, or divorces was buttressed by a fresh treason law. His daughter Elizabeth made it treason to declare her a heretic or usurper.
Mitigating legislation was slow in making its appearance. An Act of 1695 allowed the defendant counsel, a copy of the indictment five days before the trial, and declared that two direct witnesses were necessary. In 1814 Romilly succeeded in carrying an Act not to cut traitors down still alive and disembowel them, though the Lords insisted that they should still be quartered.
Traditionally, treason was betrayal of the state, which, in most countries meant the monarch. A person who commits treason is a traitor. However, the framers of the U.S. Constitution chose to adopt a restricted definition of treason, making it the only term defined in the body of the Constitution. James Wilson was the principal author of the provision:
Art. III Sec. 3: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two witnesses to the same overt Act, or on confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
Their reason for defining treason was the common English practice of charging political opponents with a capital offense, often on weak evidence, under the doctrine of "constructive treason." A classic case was the trial of Algernon Sidney, beheaded in 1683 for plotting against the king. The case against him was based largely on passages from his treatise, Discourses Concerning Government, which was not even published until after his death, in 1698. The term treason was familiar in the common law before it was used in the Statute of 25 Edward III (1350), from which the Constitution derives its language concerning the levying of war and adhering to enemies, giving them aid and comfort. However, the Constitution's treason clause contains no provision analogous to that by which the Statute of Edward III penalized the compassing (intending) of the king's death, since in a republic there is no monarch and the people are sovereign. Charges of treason for compassing the king's death had been the main instrument used in England for the most drastic, "lawful" suppression of political opposition or the expression of ideas or beliefs distasteful to those in power.
The Statute of 7 William III (1694) introduced the requirement of two witnesses to the same or different overt acts of the same treason or misprision (concealment) of treason, made several exceptions to what could be considered treason, and protected the right of the accused to have copies of the indictment and proceedings against him, to have counsel, and to compel witnesses—privileges not previously enjoyed by those accused of common law crimes. This statute served as a model for colonial treason statutes.
The first major cases under the U.S. Constitution arose from an 1807 conspiracy led by Aaron Burr, who had served as vice president under Thomas Jefferson in 1801–1805. The conspirators planned to seize parts of Mexico or the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. Burr and two confederates, Bollman and Swartwout, were charged with treason.
Chief Justice John Marshall opened the door for making actions other than treason a crime in Ex Parte Bollman when he held that the clause does not 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. But he also stated, "However flagitious [villainous] 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." On the basis of these considerations and because 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. Marshall continued by saying, "the crime of treason should not be extended by construction to doubtful cases."
Burr was acquitted 1 September 1807, after an opinion rendered by Chief Justice Marshall in U.S. v. Burr that further defined the requirements for proving treason. The Court held that Burr, who had not been present at the assemblage of men on Blennerhassett 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, but the operation was covert and such testimony was unobtainable. Marshall's opinion made it extremely difficult to convict someone of levying war against the United States unless the person participated in actual hostilities.
The Burr and Bollman cases prompted the introduction in 1808 of a Senate bill to further define the crime of treason. The debate on that bill, which was rejected, provides insight into the original understanding of the treason clause: its purpose was to guarantee nonviolent political controversy against suppression under the charge of treason or any other criminal charge based on its supposed subversive character, and there was no constitutional authority to evade the restriction by creating new crimes under other names.
Before 1947, most cases that were successfully prosecuted were not federal trials but rather state trials for treason, notably the trials of Thomas Wilson Dorr (1844) and John Brown (1859) on charges of levying war against the states of Rhode Island and Virginia, respectively.
After the Civil War, some wanted to try Southern secessionists for treason, and former the Confederate president Jefferson Davis was charged with treason in U.S. v. Jefferson Davis. The constitutional requirement in Art. III Sec. 2 Cl. 3 that an offender be tried in the state and district where the offense was committed would have meant trying Davis in Virginia, where a conviction was unlikely, so the case was dismissed. Although the United States government regarded the activities of the Confederate States as a levying of war, the president's Amnesty Proclamation of 25 December 1868 pardoned all those who had participated on the Southern side.
Since the Bollman case, the few treason cases that have reached the Supreme Court have been outgrowths of World War II and charged adherence to enemies of the United States and the giving of aid and comfort. In the first of these, Cramer v. United States, the issue was whether the "overt act" had to be "openly manifest treason" or whether it was enough, when supported by the proper evidence, that it showed the required treasonable intention. The Court in a five to four opinion by Justice Jackson took the former view, holding that "the two witness principle" barred "imputation of incriminating acts to the accused by circumstantial evidence or by the testimony of a single witness," 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."
The Supreme Court first sustained a conviction of treason in 1947 in Haupt v. United States. 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 that 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.
In Kawakita v. United States, the petitioner 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 from returning to this country by the outbreak of war. During World War II 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 was peculiarly one for the jury, said the Court in sustaining conviction, and the jury's 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. This case is notable for extending U.S. criminal jurisdiction to the actions of U.S. civilian citizens abroad, which would have originally been considered unconstitutional.
World War II was followed by the Cold War, which resulted in political prosecutions of several persons for treason and other charges on dubious evidence. The trials of the Axis broadcasters—Douglas Chandler, Robert H. Best, Mildred Gellars as "Axis Sally," Iva Ikuko Toguri d'Aquino as "Tokyo Rose" (later pardoned by President Ford when it was revealed she had been a double agent for the allies)—and the indictment and mental commitment of Ezra Pound, muddied the jurisprudence of the treason clause. Their actions provided no significant aid or comfort to an enemy and were not committed within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. In United States v. Rosenberg, the Court held 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 was applicable. However, no constitutional authority for the Espionage Act itself was proven.
Bibliography
Chapin, Bradley. The American Law of Treason: Revolutionary and Early National Origins. Seattle: University of Washing ton Press, 1964.
Elliot, Jonathan. Debates in the Several State Conventions on Adoption of the Federal Constitution. Philadelphia, 1836, p. 469 (James Wilson).
Hurst, James Willard. The Law of Treason in the United States: Collected Essays. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing, 1971.
Kutler, Stanley I. The American Inquisition: Justice and Injustice in the Cold War. New York: Hill and Wang, 1982.
Treason Trials
Ex parte Bollman, 4 Cr. (8 U.S.) 75 (1807).
United States v. Burr, 4 Cr. (8 U.S.) 469 (1807).
Annals of Congress, Tenth Congress, First Session, Senate, Debate on Treason and Other Crimes, 1808.
Wharton's State Trials of the United States (Philadelphia, 1849), and Lawson's American State Trials (17 volumes, St. Louis, 1914–1926), trials of Thomas Wilson Dorr (1844) and of John Brown (1859).
Cramer v. United States, 325 U.S. 1 (1945).
Haupt v. United States, 330 U.S. 631 (1947).
Kawakita v. United States, 343 U.S. 717 (1952).
United States v. Rosenberg, 195 F.2d 583 (2d. Cir.), cert den., 344 U.S. 889 (1952).
Bibliography
See M. Boveri, Treason in the Twentieth Century (tr. 1961); J. W. Hurst, The Law of Treason in the United States (1971); C. Pincher, Traitors (1987).
The betrayal of one's own coun- try by waging war against it or by consciously or purposely acting to aid its enemies.
Article III, Section 3, of the federal Constitution sets forth the definition of treason in the United States. Any person who levies war against the United States or adheres to its enemies by giving them aid and comfort has committed treason within the meaning of the Constitution. The term aid and comfort refers to any act that manifests a betrayal of allegiance to the United States, such as furnishing enemies with arms, troops, transportation, shelter, or classified information. If a subversive act has any tendency to weaken the power of the United States to attack or resist its enemies, aid and comfort has been given.
The Treason Clause applies only to disloyal acts committed during times of war. Acts of disloyalty during peacetime are not considered treasonous under the Constitution. Nor do acts of espionage committed on behalf of an ally constitute treason. For example, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of espionage in 1951 for helping the Soviet Union steal atomic secrets from the United States during World War II. The Rosenbergs were not tried for treason because the United States and the Soviet Union were allies during World War II.
Under Article III a person can levy war against the United States without the use of arms, weapons, or military equipment. Persons who play only a peripheral role in a conspiracy to levy war are still considered traitors under the Constitution if an armed rebellion against the United States results. After the Civil War, for example, all Confederate soldiers were vulnerable to charges of treason, regardless of their role in the secession or insurrection of the Southern states. No treason charges were filed against these soldiers, however, because President Andrew Johnson issued a universal amnesty.
The crime of treason requires a traitorous intent. If a person unwittingly or unintentionally gives aid and comfort to an enemy of the United States during wartime, treason has not occurred. Similarly, a person who pursues a course of action that is intended to benefit the United States but mistakenly helps an enemy is not guilty of treason. Inadvertent disloyalty is never punishable as treason, no matter how much damage the United States suffers.
As in any other criminal trial in the United States, a defendant charged with treason is presumed innocent until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Treason may be proved by a voluntary confession in open court or by evidence that the defendant committed an overt act of treason. Each overt act must be witnessed by at least two people, or a conviction for treason will not stand. By requiring this type of direct evidence, the Constitution minimizes the danger of convicting an innocent person and forestalls the possibility of partisan witch-hunts waged by a single adversary.
Unexpressed seditious thoughts do not constitute treason, even if those thoughts contemplate a bloody revolution or coup. Nor does the public expression of subversive opinions, including vehement criticism of the government and its policies, constitute treason. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right of all Americans to advocate the violent overthrow of their government unless such advocacy is directed toward inciting imminent lawless action and is likely to produce it (Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 89 S. Ct. 1827, 23 L. Ed. 2d 430 [1969]). On the other hand, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the distribution of leaflets protesting the draft during World War I was not constitutionally protected speech (Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 39 S. Ct. 247, 63 L. Ed. 470 [1919]).
Because treason involves the betrayal of allegiance to the United States, a person need not be a U.S. citizen to commit treason under the Constitution. Persons who owe temporary allegiance to the United States can commit treason. Aliens who are domiciliaries of the United States, for example, can commit traitorous acts during the period of their domicile. A subversive act does not need to occur on U.S. soil to be punishable as treason. For example, Mildred Gillars, a U.S. citizen who became known as Axis Sally, was convicted of treason for broadcasting demoralizing propaganda to Allied forces in Europe from a Nazi radio station in Germany during World War II.
Treason is punishable by death. If a death sentence is not imposed, defendants face a minimum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine (18 U.S.C.A. § 2381). A person who is convicted of treason may not hold federal office at any time thereafter.
The English common law required defendants to forfeit all of their property, real and personal, upon conviction for treason. In some cases, the British Crown confiscated the property of immediate family members as well. The common law also precluded convicted traitors from bequeathing their property through a will. Relatives were presumed to be tainted by the blood of the traitor and were not permitted to inherit from him. Article III of the U.S. Constitution outlaws such "corruption of the blood" and limits the penalty of forfeiture to "the life of the person attainted." Under this provision relatives cannot be made to forfeit their property or inheritance for crimes committed by traitorous family members.
The Treason Clause traces its roots back to an English statute enacted during the reign of Edward III (1327-1377). This statute prohibited levying war against the king, adhering to his enemies, or contemplating his death. Although this law defined treason to include disloyal and subversive thoughts, it effectively circumscribed the crime as it existed under the common law. During the thirteenth century, the crime of treason encompassed virtually every act contrary to the king's will and became a political tool of the Crown. Building on the tradition begun by Edward III, the Founding Fathers carefully delineated the crime of treason in Article III of the U.S. Constitution, narrowly defining its elements and setting forth stringent evidentiary requirements.
See: Schenck v. United States.
(DOD) Violation of the allegiance owed to one's sovereign or state; betrayal of one's country.
Quotes:
"Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country's ruin!"
- Joseph Addison
"Treason is like diamonds; there is nothing to be made by the small trader."
- Douglas William Jerrold
"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
"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
"Write on my gravestone: Infidel, Traitor.--infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people."
- Wendell Phillips
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In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more serious acts of disloyalty to one's sovereign or nation. A person who commits treason is known as a traitor.
Oran's Dictionary of the Law (1983) defines treason as: "...[a]...citizen's actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation]." In many nations, it is also often considered treason to attempt or conspire to overthrow the government, even if no foreign country is aided or involved by such an endeavour.
Outside legal spheres, the word "traitor" may also be used a person who betrays (or is accused of betraying) their own political party, nation, family, friends, ethnic group, religion, social class, or other group to which they may belong. Often, such accusations are controversial and disputed, as the person may not identify with the group of which they are a member, or may otherwise disagree with the group leaders making the charge. See, for example, race traitor.
At times, the term "traitor" has been levelled as a political epithet, regardless of any verifiable treasonable action. In a civil war or insurrection, the winners may deem the losers to be traitors. Likewise the term "traitor" is used in heated political discussion – typically as a slur against political dissidents, or against officials in power who are perceived as failing to act in the best interest of their constituents. In certain cases, as with the German Dolchstoßlegende, the accusation of treason towards a large group of people can be a unifying political message.
Murder is now generally considered the worst of crimes, but in the past, treason was thought of as worse. In English law high treason was punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered (men) or burnt at the stake (women), the only crime which attracted those penalties (until the Treason Act 1814). The penalty was used by later monarchs against people who could reasonably be called traitors, although most modern jurists would call it excessive. Many of them would now just be considered dissidents.
In
The Australian Criminal Code defines treason as follows:
A person is not guilty of treason under paragraphs (e), (f) or (h) if their assistance or intended assistance is purely humanitarian in nature.
The penalty for treason is life imprisonment.
Section 46 of the Canadian Criminal Code has two degrees of treason, called "high treason" and "treason." However both of these belong to the historical category of high treason, as opposed to petty treason which does not exist in Canadian law.
It is also illegal for a Canadian citizen to do any of the above outside Canada.
The penalty for high treason is life imprisonment. The penalty for treason is imprisonment up to a maximum of life, or up to 14 years for conduct under subsection (2)(b) or (e) in peacetime.
Article 39 of the Constitution of Ireland (adopted in 1937) states that "treason shall consist only in levying war against the State, or assisting any State or person or inciting or conspiring with any person to levy war against the State, or attempting by force of arms or other violent means to overthrow the organs of government established by the Constitution, or taking part or being concerned in or inciting or conspiring with any person to make or to take part or be concerned in any such attempt."
The Treason Act 1939 gave legislative effect to Article 39, and provided for the imposition of the death penalty on persons convicted of committing treason within the state and on citizens convicted of committing treason against Ireland outside of the state. The Act also created the ancillary offences of encouraging, harbouring and comforting persons guilty of treason, and the offence of misprision of treason. No person has been charged under this Act.
The Criminal Justice Act 1990 removed the death penalty for treason convictions, setting the punishment at life imprisonment, with parole in not less than forty years.
Section 1(1) of the Treasonable Offences Act 1925 (enacted under the 1922 Constitution) defined treason as:
(a) levying war against Saorstát Éireann, or (b) assisting any state or person engaged in levying war against Saorstát Éireann, or (c) conspiring with any person (other than his or her wife or husband) or inciting any person to levy war against Saorstát Éireann, or (d) attempting or taking part or being concerned in an attempt to overthrow by force of arms or other violent means the Government of Saorstát Éireann as established by or under the Constitution, or (e) conspiring with any person (other than his or her wife or husband) or inciting any person to make or to take part or be concerned in any such attempt.
The maximum punishment was death. The Act also defined the offences of misprision of treason and of encouraging, harbouring, or comforting any person engaged in levying Saorstát Éireann or engaged, taking part, or concerned in any attempt to overthrow by force of arms or other violent means the Government of Saorstát Éireann as established by or under the Constitution of 1922.
The Treasonable Offences Act 1925 was the first comprehensive and permanent measure designed to deal with offences against the state. Section 3 reenacted portions of the Treason Felony Act 1848, while sections 4 and 5 dealt, respectively, with the usurpation of executive authority and assemblies pretending to parliamentary functions. Section 6 prohibited the formation of pretended military or police forces and section 7 proscribed unauthorised drilling.
Although Gardaí prosecuted a number of persons under section 1.1(d) in 1925 and 1926, the Minister for Justice, Kevin O'Higgins, believed that such serious charges were not 'desirable in the present conditions'. Rather more bluntly, in March 1930 Eoin O'Duffy, the Garda Commissioner, wrote that the prospect of charging IRA members with 'levying war against the State' or with usurping executive authority would make a 'laughing stock' of the Gardaí.
Before Irish independence, treason was governed under the laws of the United Kingdom. Many historical Irish nationalist insurgents now considered heroes or freedom fighters in contemporary Ireland were executed for treason against the British or English Crown.
The penalty is life imprisonment, except that the maximum for conspiracy is 14 years. Treason was the last capital crime in New Zealand law, with the death penalty not being revoked until 1989, years after it was abolished for murder.
Very few people have been prosecuted for the act of treason in New Zealand and none have been prosecuted in recent years. [4]
The British law of treason is entirely statutory and has been so since the Treason Act 1351 (25 Edw. 3 St. 5 c. 2). The Act is written in Norman French, but is more commonly cited in its English translation.
The Treason Act 1351 has since been amended several times, and currently provides for four categories of treasonable offences, namely:
- "when a man doth compass or imagine the death of our lord the King, or of our lady his Queen or of their eldest son and heir";
- "if a man do violate the King’s companion, or the King’s eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the King’s eldest son and heir";[1]
- "if a man do levy war against our lord the King in his realm, or be adherent to the King’s enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm, or elsewhere, and thereof be probably attainted of open deed by the people of their condition"; and
- "if a man slea the chancellor, treasurer, or the King’s justices of the one bench or the other, justices in eyre, or justices of assise, and all other justices assigned to hear and determine, being in their places, doing their offices".
Another Act, the Treason Act 1702 (1 Anne stat. 2 c. 21), provides for a fifth category of treason, namely:
- "if any person or persons ... shall endeavour to deprive or hinder any person who shall be the next in succession to the crown ... from succeeding after the decease of her Majesty (whom God long preserve) to the imperial crown of this realm and the dominions and territories thereunto belonging".
By virtue of the Treason Act 1708, the law of treason in Scotland is the same as the law in England, save that in Scotland counterfeiting the Great Seal of Scotland and the slaying of the Lords of Session and Lords of Justiciary were adjudged treason until 1945. Treason is a reserved matter about which the Scottish Parliament is prohibited from legislating.
The penalty for treason was changed from death to a maximum of imprisonment for life in 1998 under the Crime And Disorder Act. Before 1998, the death penalty was mandatory, subject to the royal prerogative of mercy. Since the abolition of the death penalty for murder in 1965 an execution for treason was unlikely to be carried out.
Treason laws were used against Irish insurgents before Irish independence. However, IRA and other republican guerrillas were not prosecuted or executed for treason for levying war against the British government during the Troubles. They, along with loyalist militants, were jailed for murder, violent crimes or terrorist offences.
William Joyce was the last person to be put to death for treason, in 1946. (On the following day Theodore Schurch was executed for treachery, a similar crime, and was the last man to be executed for a crime other than murder in the UK.)
As to who can commit treason, it depends on the ancient notion of allegiance. As such, all British nationals (but not other Commonwealth citizens) owe allegiance to the Queen in right of the United Kingdom wherever they may be, as do Commonwealth citizens and aliens present in the United Kingdom at the time of the treasonable act (except diplomats and foreign invading forces), those who hold a British passport however obtained, and aliens who - having lived in Britain and gone abroad again - have left behind family and belongings.
The Treason Act 1695 enacted, among other things, a rule that treason could be proved only in a trial by the evidence of two witnesses to the same overt act. Nearly one hundred years later this rule was incorporated into the U.S. Constitution. It also provided for a three year time limit on bringing prosecutions for treason (except for assassinating the king), another rule which has been imitated in some common law countries. The Treason Act 1661 made it treason to imprison, restrain or wound the king. Although this law was abolished in the United Kingdom in 1998, it still continues to apply in some Commonwealth countries.
To avoid the abuses of the English law (including executions by Henry VIII of those who criticized his repeated marriages), treason was specifically defined in the United States Constitution, the only crime so defined. Article III Section 3 delineates treason as follows:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no
Attainder of Treason shall workCorruption of Blood , or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
However, Congress has, at times, passed statutes creating related offenses which undermine the government or the national security, (such as sedition in the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts, or espionage and sabotage in the 1917 Espionage Act) which do not require the testimony of two witnesses and have a much broader definition than Article Three treason. For example, some well-known spies have been convicted of espionage rather than treason.
The Constitution does not itself create the offense; it only restricts the definition. The crime is prohibited by legislation passed by Congress. Therefore the United States Code at states "whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States." The requirement of testimony of two witnesses was inherited from the British Treason Act 1695.
In the history of the United States there have been fewer than 40 federal prosecutions for treason and even fewer convictions. Several men were convicted of treason in connection with the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion but were pardoned by President George Washington. The most famous treason trial, that of Aaron Burr in 1807 (See Burr conspiracy), resulted in acquittal. Politically motivated attempts to convict opponents of the Jeffersonian Embargo Acts and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 all failed. Most states have provisions in their constitutions or statutes similar to those in the U.S. Constitution. There have been only two successful prosecutions for treason on the state level, that of Thomas Dorr in Rhode Island and that of John Brown in Virginia.
After the American Civil War, no person involved with the Confederate States of America was tried for treason, though a number of leading Confederates (including Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee) were indicted. Those who had been indicted received a blanket amnesty issued by President Andrew Johnson as he left office in 1869.
Several people generally thought of as traitors in the United States, including Jonathan Pollard, the Walker Family, Robert Soblen, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were not prosecuted for treason, but rather for espionage. John Walker Lindh, an American citizen who fought with the Taliban against the U.S.-supported Northern Alliance, was convicted of conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals rather than treason.
The Cold War saw frequent associations between treason and support for (or insufficient
hostility toward)
On October 11, 2006, a federal grand jury issued the first indictment for treason against the United States since 1952, charging Adam Yahiye Gadahn for videos in which he spoke supportively of al-Qaeda.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Dansk (Danish)
n. - forræderi, loyalitetsbrud
Français (French)
n. - trahison
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - προδοσία
Português (Portuguese)
n. - deslealdade (f), traição (f)
Русский (Russian)
измена, государственная измена
Español (Spanish)
n. - traición
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - landsförräderi, högförräderi
中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
叛逆, 背信, 通敌
中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 叛逆, 背信, 通敵
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 反逆罪, 不信, 裏切り, 反逆
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) ألخيانه العظمى, خيانه
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