[53] See also Annals of Congress, ut supra, II. 1578, 1586, March 2, 1820.

[54] Niles's Weekly Register, March 11, 1820.

[55] Wheaton's Life of Pinkney, p. 167.

[56] Congressional Globe, 30th Cong. 1st Sess., Vol. XIX., Appendix, p. 887.

[57] Plutarch, Themistocles.

[58] Annals of Congress, 1st Cong. 2d Sess., II. 1472-74, March 23, 1790.

[59] United States v. Ames, 1 Woodbury & Minot, 80.

[60] First Draught of the Declaration of Independence: Jefferson's Writings, Vol. I. p. 23.

[61] "O LibertÉ, que de crimes on commet en ton nom!"—Mme. Roland.

[62] Bodinus, de Republica, Lib. I. cap. 8, p. 90.

[63] A specimen is an address by Rev. Thomas Allen, Minister of Pittsfield, Mass., entitled "Instruction and Counsel of a Country Clergyman, given to his People, Lord's Day, June 20, 1779, immediately after reading [to them] the Address of the Honorable Congress to the Inhabitants of these United States." See Boston Independent Chronicle, July 15, 1779.

[64] See Madison's Debates, August 28, 1787.

[65] Rights of the British Colonies (Boston, 1764), p. 10.

[66] Letter to Edmund Dana, March 19, 1766: Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, 2d ed., p. 51.

[67] Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law: Works, Vol. III. p. 463.

[68] Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts, Vol. III. p. 119.

[69] Journal of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts Bay, October 24, 1765, p. 135. Hutchinson, Vol. III., Appendix, p. 474.

[70] Bancroft, History of the United States, Vol. V. p. 272.

[71] Ibid.

[72] Journal of the House of Representatives, September 25, 1765, p. 119. Hutchinson, Vol. III. p. 467.

[73] Bancroft, History of the United States, Vol. V. p. 349.

[74] Boston Gazette, September 23, 1765.

[75] Boston Gazette, March 31, 1766.

[76] Hansard, Parliamentary History, XVI. 140.

[77] Hansard, Parliamentary History, XVI. 103-108. Bancroft, History of the United States, V. 391-395.

[78] Notes on Virginia, Query XVIII.

[79] New York Daily Times, June 27, 1854.

[80] Senate Journal, 22d Cong. 1st Sess., pp. 438, 439.

[81] Letter to Judge Roane, Sept. 6, 1819: Writings, Vol. VII. p. 135. See also, p. 178, Letter to Mr. Jarvis, Sept. 28, 1820; and, Vol. VI. pp. 461, 462, Letter to W.H. Torrance, June 11, 1815.

[82] Annals of Congress, 16th Cong. 1st Sess., I. 967, Jan. 27, 1820.

[83] Congressional Globe, July 6, 1841, Appendix, pp. 162, 163.

[84] Sismondi, Histoire de France, Tom. XIX. p. 177, note.

[85] Letter of Postmaster-General to Postmaster at Charleston, S.C., August 4, 1835: Niles's Weekly Register, 4th Ser. Vol. XII. p. 448.

[86] Letter to John Quincy Adams, July 3, 1824; Opinion in Ex parte Henry Elkison, August 7, 1823: Report No. 80, Com. H. of R., 27th Cong. 1st Sess., Jan. 20, 1843, Appendix, pp. 14, 29.

[87] Littleton v. Tuttle, 4 Mass., 128, note; Lanesborough v. Westfield, 16 Mass., 75; Edgartown v. Tisbury, 10 Cush., 410; Jackson v. Phillips et als., 14 Allen, 562.

[88] Mass. Records, Oct. 14, 1645, Vol. III. p. 49. Winthrop, History of New England, Vol. II. p. 244.

[89] Mass. Records, Nov. 4, 1646, Vol. III. p. 84.

[90] Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 2d Ser. Vol. VIII. p. 184. Drake's History and Antiquities of Boston, p. 525.

[91] Acts and Laws of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, 1705, Ch. VI. § 6.

[92] Ibid., 1711-12, Ch. V.

[93] Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., Vol. IV. p. 198.

[94] Hewatt, History of South Carolina, Vol. II. p. 292; Drayton, View of South Carolina, p. 103; Mills, Statistics of South Carolina, p. 177. In harmony with these is the recent History of South Carolina, by William Gilmore Simms, (ed. 1860,) p. 199.

[95] Congressional Globe, 33d Cong. 1st Sess., June 26, 1854, Vol. XXVIII. p. 1516.

[96] The following, from the Congressional Globe (33d Cong. 1st Sess., Appendix, p. 234), will show the spirit of Mr. Butler's remarks, on the occasion referred to.

"Mr. Butler. ... I have said, that, before the adoption of the Missouri Compromise, even the Northern States were not so very kind and philanthropic towards this race, which is now under the peculiar care of the Senator from Massachusetts, as he would represent. I have before me a statute of that State, which I ask my friend from Alabama [Mr. C. C. Clay], who sits beside me, to read."

[Here Mr. Clay read from the Act in question (withholding the title, "An Act for suppressing and punishing of Rogues, Vagabonds, Common Beggars, and other Idle, Disorderly, and Lewd Persons") a section prohibiting the tarrying of vagrant negroes in the State longer than two months, on pain, in case of complaint, and continuance after due warning, of being "whipped not exceeding ten stripes, and ordered to depart out of the Commonwealth within ten days; and if he or she shall not so depart, the same process to be had and punishment inflicted, and so toties quoties."]

"Mr. Broadhead. What is the date of that statute?

"Mr. Butler. Seventeen hundred and eighty-eight; and it remained on the statute-book in full force until 1823, until after the adoption of the Missouri Compromise. I will call it the Toties Quoties Act. The negroes were to be whipped every time they happened to get to Boston, or any other place in Massachusetts. That is a specimen of statutory philanthropy at least."

To this Mr. Sumner replied at once:—

"The Senator from South Carolina is so jealous of the honor of his own State, that he will pardon me, if I interrupt him for one moment, merely to explain the offensive statute to which he has referred. I have nothing to say in vindication of it: I simply desire that it should be understood. This statute, which bears date 1788, anterior to the National Government, was applicable only to Africans or negroes not citizens of some one of the United States; and, according to contemporary evidence, it was intended to protect the Commonwealth against the vagabondage of fugitive slaves. But I do not vindicate the statute; I only explain it; and I add, that it has long since been banished from the statute-book."

There is a Report to the Massachusetts Legislature by Theodore Lyman, Jr., as Chairman of a Committee "to report a Bill concerning the Admission into this State of Free Negroes and Mulattoes," dated January 16, 1822, which confirms the position of Mr. Sumner. After a few preliminary remarks, it is said:—

"The Committee have already found in the statute-books of this Commonwealth a law, passed in 1788, regulating the residence in this State of certain persons of color. They believe that this law has never been enforced, and, ineffectual as it has proved, they would never have been the authors of placing among the statutes a law so arbitrary in its principle, and in its operation so little accordant with the institutions, feelings, and practices of the people of this Commonwealth."

The Report then goes into a history of the public acts and proceedings in relation to colored persons in Massachusetts, from the earliest colonial times down to the date of the enactment, in order to show the spirit of the people towards this class, and concludes with observations like the following:—

"The feelings of the people disclosed since the year 1760 in the votes of towns and in the verdicts of juries, ... the fact that there is no law at present in force which makes a distinction between white and black persons, ... the same law which allows justices to expel blacks from the State after a certain notice expressly recognizing the right of blacks to become citizens (a law, the constitutionality of which has been called in question, and which it is well known was passed on the same day as the Abolition Act of March, 1788, in order to prevent the State from being overrun with runaway slaves),—blacks having the same public provisions for education, and the same public support in case of sickness and poverty,—many blacks before and during the Revolution having obtained their freedom by a legal process, and, as the spirit of the Constitution of this State abrogates all exclusive laws, thereby becoming invested with all the rights of freemen, and with a capability of becoming freeholders, ... and, above all, the construction given to the first principle in the Declaration of Rights at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, both in the public mind and in the courts of law,—clearly manifest and demonstrate that the people of this Commonwealth have always believed negroes and mulattoes to possess the same right and capability to become citizens as white persons."

[97] Bancroft, History of the United States, Vol. V. pp. 294, 425, 426.

[98] Military Affairs, Vol. I. pp. 14-19. Compare with Coll. New Hamp. Hist. Soc., Vol. I. p. 236.

[99] Works, Vol. III. p. 48; see also p. 87.

[100] Jackson's History of Newton, p. 517.

[101] Works, Vol. I. p. 207.

[102] Hansard, Parliamentary History, Vol. XVIII. col. 45.

[103] Vie Publique et PrivÉe de Louis XVI., p. 43. See also Memoir of the Right Honorable Hugh Elliot, by the Countess of Minto, published since this speech, where will be found (p. 48) a letter from a fine lady of Vienna, who, writing to Mr. Elliot in 1775, confesses that she has been "Bostonian at heart": J'etais Bostonienne de coeur.

[104] Moultrie, Memoirs, Vol. I. p. 432.

[105] Ibid., p. 433.

[106] History of the American Revolution, Vol. II. p. 118.

[107] Life of Washington, Vol. I. (2d edition) pp. 298, 299.

[108] Life of Benjamin Lincoln: Sparks's American Biography, 2d Ser. Vol. XIII. p. 285.

[109] Life of Benjamin Lincoln: Sparks's American Biography, 2d Ser. Vol. XIII. p. 286.

[110] History of the Navy of the United States (2d edition), Vol. I. p. 213.

[111] Life and Correspondence of Joseph Reed, Vol. II. p. 351. Johnson's Life and Correspondence of Nathaniel Greene, Vol. II. p. 87.

[112] Gordon, History of the Rise, etc., of the Independence of the United States, Vol. IV. p. 99.

[113] Johnson's Life and Correspondence of Greene, Vol. I. p. 340.

[114] Ibid., p. 397.

[115] History of the Revolution of South Carolina, Vol. II. p. 258.

[116] Johnson's Life and Correspondence of Greene, Vol. I. p. 393.

[117] Works of John Adams, Vol. II. p. 498. See also Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. IX. p. 52.

[118] Secret Journals, Vol. I. pp. 107, 108.

[119] Annals of Congress, 1st Cong. 2d Sess., II. 1484, March 30, 1790.

[120] Ibid., 1st Cong. 1st Sess., I. 340, May 13, 1789.

[121] History of South Carolina, Vol. I. pp. 312, 313.

[122] Ibid., p. 334.

[123] Life of Greene, Vol. II. Appendix, p. 472.

[124] Grahame, History of the United States, Vol. III. p. 161.

[125] Ibid., p. 215.

[126] Essays on Some of the Dangers to Christian Faith, pp. 214-216, note F, 2d edition. See also Bacon's Essays, with Annotations by Whately, pp. 127-130: Annotations to Essay XV.

[127] Exodus, x. 7.

[128] Numbers, xxxiii. 58.

[129] Address to the States, April 26, 1783: Journal of Congress, Vol. VIII. p. 201.

[130] Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 16 Peters, 616.

[131] Reports of the Committees of the Senate, 33d Cong. 1st Sess., No. 199.

[132] See ante, p. 80.

[133] Nothing is clearer, under the rules of the Senate, than that Mr. Sumner was in order, when, on introducing his bill, he proceeded to state the causes for doing it.

[134] The motion was clearly out of order: first, because in the Senate an appeal from the decision of the Chair on a question of order cannot be laid on the table; and, secondly, because Mr. Sumner was already on the floor, so that Mr. Benjamin could not make a motion.

[135] Two Letters to the Earl of Aberdeen, on the State Prosecutions of the Neapolitan Government, by the Right Hon. W.E. Gladstone, (London, 1851,) Letter II. p. 45.

[136] Cleveland. See Hudibras, ed. Grey, Part I. Canto 2, Note to v. 650.

[137] Speech in the Star-Chamber, June 20, 1616: Works of the Most High and Mighty Prince, James, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, &c., (London, 1616, folio,) p. 557. See also Finch's Law, p. 81.

[138] Projet de Loi sur les Émigrations, 28 FÉvrier, 1791: Œuvres, (Paris, 1834,) Tom. III. p. 85.

[139] Holmes, Annals, Vol. I. p. 440, note. In similar spirit, John Winthrop, the early Governor of Massachusetts, on his death-bed refused to sign an order to banish a heterodox person, saying, "I have done too much of that work already."—Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts, Vol. I. p. 142.

[140] Canterbury Tales, Prologue, 276-279.

[141] King's Life of Locke, Vol. I. p. 104.

[142] Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. Croker, (London, 1835,) Vol. II. p. 294, note, anno 1765.

[143] Boswell's Johnson, Vol. V. pp. 63, 64, Oct. 18, 1773.

[144] Memoirs, by Prince Hoare, (London, 1820,) p. 28.

[145] Memoirs, p. 29.

[146] Memoirs, pp. 32-35. Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, Vol. I. pp. 57-60.

[147] Memoirs, p. 38.

[148] Memoirs, p. 49.

[149] Ibid., p. 45.

[150] Ibid., p. 67.

[151] Memoirs, pp. 52-61.

[152] Memoirs, pp. 91, 92, note. The text of the first edition (1765), as quoted by Sharp's biographer, Hoare, was as follows: "And this spirit of liberty is so deeply implanted in our Constitution, and rooted even in our very soil, that a Slave, or a Negro, the moment he lands in England, falls under the protection of the laws, and, with regard to all national rights, becomes eo instanti a freeman." As altered, the latter part was found to read thus: "... a negro, the moment he lands in England, falls under the protection of the laws, and so far becomes a freeman; though the master's right to his service may possibly still continue." Hoare remarks, that he finds this reading in the fifth edition, 1773. It appears also in an edition printed at Philadelphia so early as 1771. And thus the text was finally left by the author, and so remains. In the third edition, printed at Oxford in 1768, for "possibly" in the last clause we have the word "probably." Of this prior reading Hoare makes no mention.

[153] Since this Address, private papers have seen the light, by which it appears, that the claimant was cashier and paymaster of customs in North America, and for some years previous to this important case resided in Boston, where Somerset was known. Through all the arguments he is spoken of as from Virginia, and reference is constantly made to the laws of Virginia; nor is this mistake astonishing, when it is understood that an orator in Parliament once spoke of the "Island of Virginia," and nobody corrected him.—Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings for 1863-64, p. 324: Villenage, by Emory Washburn.

[154] Memoirs, p. 57.

[155] The Fox, Act IV. sc. 2.

[156] A private letter from the claimant to James Murray, Esq., of Boston, dated London, June 15, 1772, carries us back to the times, and even to the court-room. "I am told," writes the claimant, "that some young counsel flourished away on the side of liberty, and acquired great honor. Dunning was dull and languid, and would have made a much better figure on that side also." Of course he would. After speaking of the "load of abuse thrown on L—d M——, for hesitating to pronounce judgment in favor of freedom," the claimant says, "Dunning has come in also for a pretty good share for taking the wrong side." (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings for 1863-64, pp. 323, 324.) Abolitionists had begun to be critical.

[157] Howell's State Trials, XX. 71-76.

[158] It is strange that there should be no single satisfactory report of this memorable judgment. That usually quoted from Howell's State Trials, Vol. XX. coll. 80-82, was copied from Lofft, a reporter generally avoided as authority. There is another report in Hoare's Memoirs of Sharp, pp. 89-91; also another in Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, Vol. II. p. 419; and still another, and in some respects the best, in the Appendix (No. 8) to a tract published by Sharp in 1776, entitled "The Just Limitation of Slavery in the Laws of God, compared with the Unbounded Claims of the African Traders and British American Slaveholders." It is considered and quoted in other contemporary tracts.

[159] A British writer, giving an account of the Somerset case, says of this maxim, that "it has found its way into use as a classical expression, and, as no one has been able to find it in any Latin author, it is supposed to have been of Lord Mansfield's own coining." (Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, July 31, 1852, N.S. Vol. XVIII. p. 71: Slaves in Britain.) This is a mistake. The precise phrase will be found in Ward's "Simple Cobler of Aggawamm in America," written in 1615, and first printed in 1647,—"It is lesse to say, Statuatur veritas, ruat Regnum, than Fiat justitia, ruat Coelum" (p. 14); but its origin, in substance, if not in form, is earlier. There is little doubt that it does not occur in any Latin author. Its Latinity is good, and might belong to the classical period. The latter clause, ruat coelum, has classical authority, as in the passage of Terence, showing that it was a common saying in his time, "Quid si redeo ad illos qui aiunt, Quid si nunc coelum ruat?" (Heauton., Act. IV. sc. 3.) The idea is also Roman. On the European continent, and especially in Germany, the maxim has another form, which is common,—Fiat justitia, pereat mundus. Binder, in his Novus Thesaurus Adagiorum Latinorum, (Stuttgart, 1861,) cites it in this form as Regula Juris, explained as "a designation for the maxims, taken from the Corpus Juris and the works of the different ancient civilians, which have become proverbial." In the same authority is the hexameter verse, Fiat justitia, pereat licet integer orbis, from Johannis Leibi Studentica (Coburg, 1627). In England the maxim was current in other forms. As early as February 26, 1624-5, in a letter to the English ambassador at Holland, alluding to "the business of Amboyne," we meet Fiat justitia et ruat mundus. (Birch's Court and Times of James I., Vol. II. p. 500.) In a speech in the House of Commons, December 22, 1640, against the judges who pronounced in favor of ship-money, an orator says: "If ever any nation might justifiably, we certainly may now, now most properly, most seasonably, cry out, and cry aloud, Vel sacra regnet justitia vel ruat coelum." And he concludes with a motion, "That a special committee may be appointed to examine the whole carriage of that extrajudicial judgment, ... and, upon report thereof, to draw up a charge against the guilty; and then Lex currat, fiat justitia. (Parl. Hist., 2d ed., London, 1763, Vol. IX. p. 192.) In the answer of the Duke of Richmond (January 31, 1641-2) to the charge of the Commons, it is said: "Magna est veritas et prevalebit. I wish it may do so in what concerns me. Regnet justitia et ruat coelum." (Parl. Hist., Vol. X. p. 254. Also, Howell's State Trials, Vol. IV. col. 116.) The first clause of the maxim is an old law phrase, found in Law Dictionaries, and often repeated. A letter, dated London, May 4, 1621, relating the fine and degradation of Lord Bacon, concludes, Fiat justitia. (Birch's James I., Vol. II. p. 252.) Charles I., in a letter to the Lords, dated May 11, 1641, interceding for Strafford, said: "But if no less than his life can satisfy my people, I must say, Fiat justitia." (Parl. Hist. Vol. IX. p. 316. Howell's State Trials, Vol. III. col. 1520.) If not classical in authority, the maxim is not without interest from association with great events of English history, while it is a perpetual injunction to justice. Shakespeare gives expression to similar truth, when he says, "Be just and fear not."

[160] Defence of Archibald Hamilton Rowan, January 29, 1794: Speeches, ed. Davis, (London, 1847,) p. 182.

It was this triumph which lifted Brougham, in our own day, to one of those vivid utterances by which truth is flashed upon unwilling souls.

[161] Speech on Negro Slavery, July 13, 1830: Works, Vol. X. p. 216.

[162] Memoirs, p. 169.

[163] A Declaration of the People's Natural Right to a Share in the Legislature (London, 1774). Memoirs, pp. 172, 173.

[164] Memoirs, pp. 78-80.

[165] The Law of Passive Obedience, p. 82, note.

[166] Letter to the Maryland Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, (Baltimore, 1793,) pp. 2, 3.

[167] Memoirs, p. 253.

[168] Euthyphron, § 12.

[169] Herbert, The Temple: Constancy.

[170] The Dawn, Daveis, 133.