pressure upon the freedom of your judgments in this matter, growing out of a certain formidable, and yet, as he thought, inevitable, result to follow from a decision of this question, adversely to the views he has had occasion to present. He has named to you as the parties to this controversy, the State of New York and the State of Virginia-one, first in population and in wealth, and greatest in the living energies of her people the other, richest in the memories of the past, and most powerful in the voices of her dead. I am not aware that the State of New York, in any public act or declaration, has failed, to any degree, of that respect for Virginia, which belongs to her as a sister State, or as a political community. Nor do I know or think that any citizens of this State fall at all behind the learned counsel in his affection and veneration for the great men in the history of Virginia, by whose careers of public service and of public honors, she has gained the proud title of the Mother of Presidents. Nor do I know that that portion of our people, its great majority, who, with their veneration for Washington, and Jefferson, and Madison, and Henry, and Wythe, and Mason, cherish and defend the opinions upon slavery which those statesmen held, honor them or Virginia less than those who raise statues of brass or of marble to their memory, and follow their principles with contumely and persecution. I do not know that an imputation can fairly be thrown upon any part of our community, of having less respect and affection for our common country and the Federal Government than is claimed here, by the learned counsel, on behalf of those who, with himself, espouse the views concerning the institution of slavery, which he has presented to the Court. Yet I understand him distinctly to insist here, that, unless this Court shall reverse this judgment, or unless a Court of paramount authority, that can control still further the question, shall reverse it, our Federal system of government is actually in danger—that indeed, it

cannot long exist, without both a judicial and popular recognition of the legal universality of slavery throughout our country.

If it please the Court, I am unable to discern in the subject itself, or in the aspect of the political affairs of the country, any grounds for these alarming suggestions, which should disturb, for a moment, your Honors' deliberations or determinations on the subject before you. I may be permitted to say, however, that if the safety and protection of this local, domestic institution of slavery, in the communities where it is cherished, must ingraft upon our Federal jurisprudence the doctrine that the Federal Constitution, by its own vigor, plants upon the virgin soil of our common territories the growth of chattel slavery-thus putting to an open shame the wisdom and the patriotism of its framersif they must coerce, by the despotism of violence and terror, into its support at home, their whole white population; if they must exact from the Free States a license and a tolerance for what reasons of conscience and of policy have purged from their own society, and subjugate to this oppression the moral freedom of their citizens; if the institution of slavery, for its local safety and protection, is to press this issue, step by step, to these results; if such folly and madness shall prevail, then, by possibility, a catastrophe may happen: this catastrophe will be, not the overthrow of the general and constituted liberties of this great nation, not the subversion of our common government, but the destruction of this institution, local and limited, which will have provoked a contest with the great forces of liberty and justice, which it cannot maintain, and must yield in a conflict which it will, then, be too late to repress.

II

ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN SUMMING UP FOR THE PROSECUTION IN THE CASE OF THE UNITED STATES AGAINST THE OFFICERS AND CREW OF THE SCHOONER SAVANNAH. (THE SAVANNAH PRIVATEERS)

NOTE

At the very beginning of the Civil War the government of the Confederate States issued letters of marque to privateers fitted out for the purpose of carrying on warfare against the commercial marine of the United States. The schooner "Savannah" of Charleston, mounting one pivot gun, was one of these privateers, and fortified with the authority of a letter of marque issued by the Confederate States, began its depredation upon the commerce of the United States.

On the 2nd of June, 1861, the "Savannah" sailed from the port of Charleston and on the following day, after having captured a brig, laden with a cargo of sugar, was herself taken as prize by the United States Brig of War Perry and delivered to the commander of the United States blockading squadron off Charleston. The officers and crew of the "Savannah" were taken in custody by the United States naval authorities and in the course of the month of June delivered to the United States marshal for the Southern District of New York. Upon the application of the District Attorney a warrant was issued under which the officers and crew of the "Savannah" were committed for trial.

On the 16th of the following month the Federal Grand Jury, sitting in New York, brought in an indictment against them for robbery on the high seas-in short for piracy.

On October 23, 1861, the case came on for trial before Judges Nelson and Shipman. Mr. E. Delafield Smith was the United States District Attorney and he had as associate counsel, Mr. Evarts, Mr. Samuel Blatchford and Mr. Ethan Allen. The officers and crew of the "Savannah" were thirteen in number, one of whom, however, was used as a witness for the prosecution and against him a nolle prosequi was entered. The twelve remaining

prisoners were represented by Mr. Larocque, the elder, Mr. Daniel Lord, Mr. James T. Brady, Mr. Algernon S. Sullivan, Mr. Joseph S. Dukes, Mr. Isaac Davega and Mr. Maurice Mayer.

The trial continued for eight days, resulting in a disagreement of the jury. Its conduct on the part of the prosecution was wholly in the hands of the District Attorney and Mr. Evarts. All of the counsel for the prisoners participated actively in the trial either in arguing points of law or in opening and summing up to the jury. Mr. Larocque opened to the jury for the defense, and Messrs. Dukes, Sullivan, Davega and Brady all addressed the jury in summing up. On the close of Mr. Brady's argument— October 29-Mr. Evarts began the closing argument to the jury for the prosecution, completing it on the following day.

The attitude of the Government towards the "insurrection" in the southern slaveholding States, withholding as it did every recognition of the Confederate States as a separate political body, with national traits and functions entitled to cognizance, was calculated to bring into the case many questions which had formed the topics of political discussion for the previous decade. Thus in the defence of the prisoners to sustain the authority under which they had acted, their counsel, an array of great lawyers, introduced the question of the right of secession as it bore upon the title to recognition of the Confederate States. How vast a field of history and of political science and philosophy was thus explored and, with great skill and learning, spread before the jury, one may readily imagine.

In all this broad debate the duty devolved upon Mr. Evarts to sustain the Government, and a recent writer has said, "His argument in this memorable case is really a philosophical discussion of the bases of republican government."

Mr. Evarts, himself, in writing to an intimate friend at the time, speaks of his participation in the case, saying, "The trial was quite a laborious and responsible one for me, and I was retained for the Government only the day before the trial began. I had seven counsel with seven separate speeches against me, and had to reply (1) for the Prosecution, (2) for the Government, (3) for the Republican party, (4) for the free States, (5) for the Nation, (6) for the principles of Constitutional Government, (7) for the human race, and all this though I had a fee only for one of these interests."

ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE CASE OF THE SAVANNAH PRIVATEERS

May it please your Honors, and Gentlemen of the Jury:

A trial in a Court of Justice is a trial of many things besides the prisoners at the bar. It is a trial of the strength of the laws, of the power of the Government, of the duty of the citizen, of the fidelity to conscience and the intelligence of the Jury. It is a trial of those great principles of faith, of duty, of law, of civil society, that distinguish the condition of civilization from that of barbarism. I know no better instance of the distinction between a civilized, instructed, Christian people, and a rude and barbarous nation, than that which is shown in the assertions of right where might and violence and the rage of passion in physical contest determine everything, and this last sober, discreet, patient, intelligent, authorized, faithful, scrupulous, conscientious investigation, under the lights of all that intelligence with which God has favored any of us; under that instruction which belongs to the learned and accredited expounders of the law of an established free Government; under the aid of, and yet not misled by, the genius or eloquence of advocates on either side.

But, after all, the controlling dominion of duty to the men before you in the persons of the prisoners, to the whole community around you, and to the great nation for which you now discharge here a vital function for its permanence and its safety, your duty to the laws and the Government of your country (which, giving its protection, requires your allegiance, and finds its last and final resting-place, both here and in England, in the verdicts of Juries),-your duty to yourselves, requires you to recognize yourselves not only as members of civil society, but as children of the