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in such a sum. We have not to complain that matters are so. Governments are a necessary evil, required for the lawless and disobedient, or, as a theologian would say, are the result of sin. The burden can only be relieved by self-government. The more of that the less of public business, offices, salaries, taxes, etc.

You see, my children, why we have parties, and will have them as long as there are offices. The rotation in office, promoted by frequent elections, checks the tendency to become hereditary, but increases party virulence. Factions, by trying to enforce their plans and platforms, implicitly admit that they are useless in the ordinary way of political business.

Martyrs for party purposes are a nuisance in the United States, because there is no hinderance to joining or forming parties on principles. If an inconsiderate speaker on party issues gets whipped, he is as guilty as the inconsiderate whipper. A factitious or rebellious speaker commits a glaring contempt of law much more dangerous to society than a mere contempt of a court. But why write to you, my children, and you, my daughters, especially, on such things? My reasons are, as you may suppose, not to entangle you in party affairs, very commonly but very wrongly called politics, but to show you exactly what they are, that you may be able, in exciting times which grow upon us, to converse understandingly on them and inform your children about them. Further, to explain to you what kind of men those are who make the regular managers of parties, often called politicians by trade, or demagogues; and to show what real difference there is between public and private life, and how speculations in offices may turn out to be visionary and often ruinous to families.

If I succeed in that, I shall feel myself well rewarded. The American women should be in public affairs what the senate is to the president, friendly counsels to their husbands and sons. Those may, in the end, if meritorious, as certainly be called to offices of trust as Benjamin Franklin, who never had anything to do with party on this account, and was almost constantly in the service of his country.

LETTER XXVIII.

Place of

National original Jurisdiction. -Appellate Jurisdiction. - Sovereign scruples. - Jurisdiction makes no Subjects. — Jury Trial of Crimes. Trial. Abolitionists. - Magna Charta.- Runneymede.

THE Constitution farther ordains :

"2. In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the supreme court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the supreme court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”

This clause places consuls and ambassadors justly on the same legal footing, and designates the supreme court as one of original jurisdiction, that is, of the first resort. Some say that this provision brings the states within the sovereignty of the Union, but this is not the fact, because lawsuits do not alter stations, they merely refer to doubtful obligations or the right or wrong of a case, and the bearing of the laws upon it. The dubious case alone goes to the decision of the supreme court and not the state or government. The word sovereignty, obsolete with us and not occurring in this constitution, irritates unnecessarily the feelings of zealous state-rights champions and partisans, who make political capital out of it. Jurisdiction makes no subjects, but means only the authority given to a court over certain civil and criminal cases in a certain district. There is no court for a man who shuns lawsuits and evil deeds.

"3. The trials of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury, and such trial shall be held in the state where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any state, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed."

This clause, together with two amendments, which you will find annexed to the constitution, but do not properly belong to it, ordains that in crimes committed against the laws of the United States, a trial by jury shall take place, just as in all other trials of crimes committed against state laws. This clause has been unThere justly misapplied by the abolitionists for party purposes.

is a clause in the constitution to which I shall devote a separate letter on account of its celebrity in the annals of our political parties, which ordains that fugitives from service shall be delivered up to him who justly claims them. The Congressional law based upon this clause, does not prescribe an indictment or trial by jury, usual in crimes, but a simple ministerial or clerical examination of the claim, to prove the identity of the claimed fugitive servant, whereupon the return of the same is ordered, or, in the reverse case, the fugitive is free. And this, the law commonly called the fugitive slave law, very properly ordains-because there is no crime at all in question, but a mere breach of an obligation which all over the world is treated as a mere police or civil case. Your servants do not commit a crime when taking French leave from your house. But the abolitionist party objects to this procedure, as depriving the fugitive from labor or service of the privilege of the trial by jury, or, in other words, they insist that such a fugitive ought to be indicted and tried like a criminal. Even you, my dear daughters, will discover that behind this partisan manœuvre is hidden the intention to abuse the trial by jury in favor of the guilty party, the fugitive from service, so that of this trial by jury I might repeat the same that I remarked on the habeas corpus privilege that it is apt to be used to relieve the guilty rather than protect the innocent according to law. People at Runneymede, when they had conquered the magna charta from their lordly prince, probably never thought that the privilege of jury trial would be, as our abolitionists do, insisted upon in such instances.

These letters open a deep insight into the administration of established justice, the bulwark of civil liberty. The federal constitution appreciates it well; her framers well knew that state institutions are useless burdens if they do not bring a prompt administration of justice according to law.

But it seems as if the present generation has lost much of the innate sense of justice. A restoration of it can do no harm.

LETTER XXIX.

Treason, no Attainder. - Forfeiture. - Kansas.

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- Utah. - Madness, its fair Rebellion. — Vigilance Committees. — Major André. — Washing

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ton and his Steward. - Justice.

You will learn now what the constitution says about treason.

SECTION III.

"1. Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. "2. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

"3. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attainted."

These provisoes are taken from an English statute, whose severe and barbarous features our constitution has obliterated. By the corruption of blood is meant the destruction of all inheritable qualities, so that no one can claim anything from a person attainted, that is, accused, or through him. The war must be actually levied to constitute treason. There never has been a person accused and convicted of treason since the establishment of the constitution, except lately in Kansas and Utah. As we are situated, enjoying as we do the largest amount of natural liberty man may claim, overwhelmed as we are with privileges and arrangements securing freedom, it is madness to resort to brute force in our Union in rơgard to private or public affairs or offices. But even madness, often the precursor of destruction, will have, now-a-days, fair play. It is party, the madness of the many for the benefit of the few, which only can be capable of treason.

Of course, treason aims a blow at the state institution or government. Rebellion goes not so far-but is an insurrection against lawful authority. Under this category comes the vigilance committee of San Francisco, however necessary its organization may be for the community. Revolution implies a radical change in the government, such one as has been successfully tried by the

North American English colonists. All these movements are symptoms of social diseases. Their main cause is-utter neglect

of justice.

Major André, of revolutionary memory, was found guilty of treason, and punished by death, according to law. When General Washington heard that his steward at Mount Vernon had given relief to English troops, he reprimanded him, although he saved, by his comforting the enemies of the country, the home of his noble master from devastation, because he had, in the eyes of Washington, acted rather treasonably. Justice, the first of all virtues, commands: give each his due and injure none. By supporting the English, the steward had injured his country. So thought Washington. His steward thought that he acted prudently and according to circumstances, and, besides, in accordance with the religious precept: "love your enemies." But Washington held that justice, according to law, is first and paramount. And this is perfectly true, also in regard to all moral and religious duties; because without justice there is no real morality, no real charity, no real religion. Without it the practice of religion is in constant peril from the side of ignorance, violence, organized superstition, priestcraft, fanaticism, etc., as the history of our religion sufficiently proves.

Society in the United States has done well enough although governed with a very little regard to established justice. But what would this country be, if our states never had been défaulters, if their governments had administered the affairs strictly according to the constitutions, and set an example of prompt justice, honesty, and fidelity to obligations at home and abroad, if all the courts were always the unflinching executors of the laws and the terror of the abettors of crimes? What startling immorality has been produced by the corruption prevalent in our legislatures! how many families have lost their all by crises, the effects of wanton legislation and mismanagement of our public institutions!

My children, never approve or join a party which has treasonable tendencies against our Union. This is the ardent wish of your affectionate father.

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