Private property is held sacred in all good governments, and particularly in our own. Yet shall the fear of invading it prevent a general from marching his army over a cornfield or burning a house which protects the enemy? A thousand other instances might be cited to show that laws must sometimes be silent when necessity speaks.
ATTRIBUTION:
Andrew Jackson (1767–1845), U.S. president. Historical Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana, 1813-1815É, pp. cxvi-cxvii, Major Arsene Lacarriere Latour (1816).
Jackson’s address to the officers of the city battalion defending New Orleans against British invaders in 1815.
