POLITICAL OFFENSES, crimes considered injurious to the safety of the state, or such crimes as involve a violation of the allegiance due by a subject to the supreme authority of the state.
By the Roman law, in the early times of the republic, every act injurious to the state was comprehended under the name perdualio, and visited with death. That term included conspiracy against the government, aiming at kingly power, aiding time enemies of Rome, and losing an army. The word perduellio afterward fell into gradual disuse, and the chief state offenses were known by the term majestas or erimen lane inajestati3, somewhat akin to the treason of modern times. In the republican period, the crimes to which the epithet lima majedas was most frequently applied, were the betrayal or sur render of an army to the enemy, the excitement of sedition, and such a course of admin istration as impaired the dignity of the state. In imperial times, acts and words disre spectful to the reigning emperor were included, and an indignity to his statue was vis ited neatly as severely as an offense against his person. .Lava majestas was generally punished with death, confiscation, and infamy. The criminal might even be tried after his death, to the effect of confiscating his property, and rendering his memory infamous a practice which has been resorted to both in France and S'colland as late as the begin ning of the 16th century.
In modern times, the acts brought under the category of political offenses have varied much at different periods and in different countries. They have in general been more leniently dealt with under constitutional than under despotic governments. It is, how• ever, a principle which has been generally recognized by the most constitutional of gov ernments, that when the legislature thinks itself endangered by a secret conspiracy against the state, or an understanding with the enemies of the country, it permits the executive, for a limited time, to arrest suspected citizens, without the formalities which are required in ordinary circumstances.
In England, a large number of the graver political crimes are included under the denomination of treason, and the treason law has sometimes been stretched so as to include offenses which, by a fair construction, could hardly come within it, such as the use of violence to reform religion or the laws, or to remove the councilors of the sovereign. Even riotous assemblies with the object of destroying all property of a particular class have been held treason. Political offenses also include a number of crimes against government falling short of treason, and passing under the name of sedition, which, though they have for their ultimate object the violation of the public peace, do not aim at direct and open violence against the laws or the sovereign, but rather the dissemination of a turbulent spirit tending to produce such violence. The British government does not permit the political offenders of other countries to be included in extraditional treaties; and in modern times, generally speaking, extradition does not apply to political offenders; contrary to the doctrine laid clown by Grotius. In some countries, conspiracy against the sovereign of any country in league with the state is a special offense; in Great Britain, however, this seems not to be the case. A bill intro duced in 1858 to make it felony to conspire to commit a murder without as well as within her majesty's dominions, was rejected by the house of commons on the second reading, from the idea that it was dictated by France.