The Daily Gate City

A Conviction under the Treason Act.

On Wednesday last, in the Circuit Court of the United States, sitting at Louisville, Ky., Thomas C. Shacklett, indicted for treason against the United States, was found guilty, and sentenced by the Hon. Bland Ballard, presiding Judge, as follows:

"You were arrested at or near your home--not in arms--away from the lines of the enemy, and have been brought before the civil tribunals of your country to have your guilt or innocence adjudged. You have been found guilty, and the enormity of your offence would justify the infliction of the highest punishment known to the laws. In all other countries the laws, it is believed, require judgment of death to be pronounced against all who are found guilty of treason. But our good Government, in the exercise of that magnanimity which has always characterized it, and in view of the different degrees of guilt which the judgment of mankind does and will attach to those who incited and set on foot this war, and those who were their instruments, has vested in the courts a discretion, and authorized them to pronounce either judgment of death or imprisonment and fine. In the exercise of that discretion, and under a full sense of my responsibility to God and my country, I have concluded to spare your life, but the magnitude of your crime demands that your punishment be severe. The judgment which I approve, and which the court now makes, is, that you be imprisoned and confined in the jail of Jefferson county, in the State of Kentucky, for ten years from this day; that you make your fine to the United States by the payment to them of ten thousand dollars, and that your slaves be free."