ones. He could have little hope for reward in case of success--on failure, none. A characteristic incident is related of one of this class of cases. In a suit to recover freedom for a colored client, the evi dence necessary for success was a will, executed and probated (if at all) somewhere in Virginia. After repeated efforts he had failed to discover the desired document. Term after term of court he had managed to obtain the continuance of the case, but delay had proved of no avail. Meantime, his client had been hired out under order of court, and his wages held subject to the result of the suit, and a considerable fund thus accumulated. Finally, the claimant of the negro sent his attorney to Mr. Hardin to propose a settlement, by the terms of which the suit was to be discontinued, and Mr. Hardin to receive all the proceeds accumulated from the hiring. The case seemed hopeless, and the offer was tempting. Further contest promised no benefit to his client, and to be fruitless in a pecuniary view to himself. But dearer than all price was the sense of duty done. "Tell your

client," said Mr. Hardin, "that I will not accept his offer; that I would as soon think of selling my Saviour as abandoning that negro's case." Virtue, this time, proved its own reward. He obtained one more continuance, and by another term had procured the missing will, and won his client's freedom.

A luckless class in slavery days were the free negroes of Kentucky. They largely suffered the disadvantages of both freedom and slavery, with few of their compensations. They were socially ostracised by the white race. Their association with slaves was looked upon with distrust. So deplorable was their condition, that at an early period a colonization society was formed in Kentucky by charitable people to encourage their emigration to Africa. A more friendless, helpless class can hardly be imagined. Nothing better illustrates this than the fact that so powerful a leader as Charles A. Wickliffe should have introduced and advocated, in the constitutional convention of 1849, a proposition to empower the State Legislature to make laws punishing them, for other offenses than murder, by banishment from the State, or by selling them into bondage. Mr. Wickliffe said he thought such laws would have a tendency to rid the State of that undesirable class of people. He thought the State might somewhere procure territory for a penal colony. Africa was suggested. Mr. A. K. Marshall opposed the establishment of the penal colony in Africa, on the ground that it might interfere with the success of the colonization society in inducing voluntary emigration there. Mr.

Hardin was not only opposed to a penal colony, but also to banishment or selling into slavery as a punishment for crime. The following are the reasons by which he enforced his views, reasons which testify also to the clear head and sound heart of their author:

"I want to strike out those words because I do not think we have the

power to expel a free negro from this State. The free negro, sir, has a vested right to his freedom, and a vested right to his residence here. You may pass laws prohibiting a man from setting the slaves he may now own, or their increase, free; you may pass laws providing that if he does, they shall not remain in Kentucky; you may pass laws prohibiting free negroes, from other States, from coming here; but you can not pass a law, according to my understanding, to compel a free negro who is here to leave; and, to convict him for refusing to do that, is, in my opinion, to convict him for what is no offense. He has, it is true, no political rights in Kentucky, and we know that he is excluded by public sentiment from many social rights; but he owes us allegiance, and we owe him the corresponding right of protection. He is bound to obey our laws; he is bound to contribute toward the support of our government according to his property, and we owe him, in return, what is called local protection.

"Sir, the Spanish government once put in jail a man of the name of Richard Meade; they had no right to do this, because he had been a long time a resident of Spain, and Spain owed him protection. He had not become a subject of Spain, but she owed him local protection because he owed to that government, while there, local allegiance; and upon that state of case being represented to Spain they released him. If you look into the decisions of the Supreme Courts of the United States, and those of the admiralty of Great Britain, you will find that an American citizen, domiciled in Great Britain when war is declared, is entitled to protection, and their vessels, then in British ports, can not be captured, because Great Britain owed them local protection; and the same rule applies to British subjects and British vessels in this country under similar circumstances.

"Now we owe to the free negro local protection, and he owes us local allegiance. That allegiance is to submit to our laws, to obey our laws, and to pay taxes according to the property he may possess. I would submit to this honorable convention that these negroes are poor human beings, and, upon the score of humanity, I would ask, would you treat them thus ? Prevent, if you choose, the owner from setting his negro free, but every precept of humanity, every law of Christianity, forbids that we should treat them worse than we would treat dogs. They have a right to enjoy their freedom, when free, as we have to enjoy ours. They have no political rights, but they have every civil right that we have; and what is more, their skin will not be black when they go to heaven, and stand before the judgment seat of

Christ; there, sir, they will be robed as white as we are, and we are to answer for our treatment to them here. I hope my colleague will not press that amendment; it is at war with every feeling of my heart. They have the same inheritance in the blood of Christ that we have, and we are bound to treat them with humanity.

"Sir, what does the amendment propose? That you have a right to send them into banishment, or involuntary servitude, for crime. Then, sir, if you carry that amendment, we have a right to define crime. Now, I deny the policy of that, and I deny the right of it. And you are to sell them out of the State, not as a punishment to keep them from crime hereafter, but you are to subject them to slavery upon what we, the whites, call crime. Sir, I object to this.

Can you send your State? Have you

"But it is said we may transport them. I deny it. officers with a human being beyond the limits of this jurisdiction to send a gang of negroes to any place in the United States? No, sir. But the gentleman says we may send them to some country which we may acquire. But we can not acquire any country. If we acquire any country from foreign nations, it is forbidden by the constitution of the United States, which provided that no State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation, grant letters of marque and reprisal, coin money, emit bills of credit, make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts, pass any bill of attainer, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.'

"Now, sir, no State can make any treaty with any foreign nation. There is no reservation of such a power. Can we make any negotiations with any lawful prince or king of Africa to which we may banish negroes and make it a kind of Botany Bay? No, sir, we can not do it at all. This is a matter which Congress itself can not do. Congress can not appropriate money for the purpose of colonizing negroes; it is not within the power of Congress to do it; and that is the reason why the federal government has never taken up the subject. It is provided in the federal Constitution that 'Congress shall have power to levy and collect taxes, duties, imports, and excises,' to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, but it has no power to appropriate money for the purposes of colonization at all; and that, sir, has been decided over and over again. She can pay debts and provide for the general welfare of the nation. By the 'general welfare of the nation,' is meant an implied power given to the general government for the purposes of carrying the expressed powers into effect. That is the whole of it; and, whenever you go beyond that, Congress is omnipotent as the British Parliament, consisting of kings, lords, and

commons.

"But, sir, Congress has no power to appropriate money to send negroes to Liberia.

I again repeat, I beg, I beseech, I conjure, my colleague not to

press this amendment.

He may have the power, and the House may agree with him, but I do think it would be a reproach to this convention in the eyes of posterity for hundreds of years to come. Suppose, sir, a negro gets drunk; you call it a crime, and sell him into servitude. Suppose he steals a chicken; you call it a crime, and sell him into servitude for life. Suppose he goes fishing on the Sabbath; you call it a crime, and sell him into servitude. Why, sir, you may make anything a crime if you please. Let the free negroes take the same laws that we have. If they commit murder, let them be hung; if they commit other crimes, let them go to jail or the penitentiary. Debar them of any political rights-I am against that; debar them of any social rights-I am against their intermixing with the white population at all. When you have done that, you have done all. They have no political rights or power; and when we have the power we are bound to protect them. In the language of Ulysses, when he bowed in his rags:

"A suppliant bends, Oh! pity human woe,
'Tis what the happy to the unhappy owe."

CHAPTER XXXIV.

MR. HARDIN'S OPINIONS ON SUNDRY SUBJECTS.

INGLE instances of the extent of vision demonstrate the power of sight. When Samson rent the lion's jaws his fame for strength did not need its subsequent illustrations for support. Similarly, a man of wit and sense may exhibit his powers in a sentence. A few opinions of Mr. Hardin have been gathered which are characteristic, and it is believed will enable the reader to better apprehend the man. They are submitted without any special order, their dissimilar and fragmentary character not allowing any logical arrangement.

Alluding to the legal aphorism, "That it is better that ninety and nine guilty men should escape rather than one innocent man be punished for crime," Mr. Hardin observed, "I never saw an innocent man convicted, while I have seen a thousand guilty men escape. I believe that ninety-nine guilty scoundrels escape for every one that is punished."

He expressed, half a century ago, a view of the form of the British government, novel then, but more familiar now: "There never was a nation in the world that, except in name and a great many forms, perhaps, was more republican than Great Britain. The crown does not interfere with the acts of parliament at all. It is not responsible for anything that is done-for the king, in the language of their government, can do no wrong. The reason is, that he does nothing. His ministers are responsible for all that is done wrong, and they get credit for all that is done right."

His distinction "In a monarchy,

He was always perspicuous in his definitions. between a monarchy and republic is elementary. the power is all in the king, and the people have none except what is ceded, and, hence, there are frequent controversies. The people claim power as it is conceded, which the king denies. The king claims his power as a prerogative, for he is the fountain of power, and the people have what he grants, and no more. In a republic, the fountain of all power is in the people, and the officers have as much power as the people grant, and no more. What would be a prerogative in the king, is power in the people.”