the State's
attorneys within the several counties "to use all lawful means to
protect, defend, and cause to be discharged" every person arrested or
claimed as a fugitive slave; (2.) The application of any State's
attorney in due form shall be sufficient authority for any one of the
Judges of the Supreme Court, or any Circuit Judge, to authorize the
issuing a writ of _habeas corpus_, which shall be made returnable to the
supreme or county court when in session, and in vacation before any of
the judges aforesaid; (3.) That it shall be the duty of all judicial and
executive officers in the State, whenever they shall have reason to
believe that any inhabitant of the State is about to be arrested as a
fugitive slave, to give notice thereof to the State's attorneys in their
respective counties; (4.) That whenever the writ of _habeas corpus_ is
granted in vacation, if upon the hearing of the same before any of the
judges, the person arrested and claimed as a fugitive slave shall not be
discharged, he shall be entitled to an appeal to the next stated term of
the county court, on furnishing such bail and within such time as the
judge granting the writ shall deem reasonable and proper; (5.) That the
court to which such appeal is taken, or any other court to which a writ
of _habeas corpus_ in behalf of any such alleged fugitive slave is made
returnable, shall, on application, allow and direct a trial by jury on
all questions of fact in issue between the parties, and the costs
thereof shall be chargeable to the State. The bill passed both branches
of the Legislature with very little discussion, and was approved by the
Governor, Nov. 13, 1850.

The VIRGINIA Legislature assembled on the 2d of December. The Message of
Governor FLOYD closes with some emphatic comments on the Compromise
measures of Congress. The action of the last session on the subject, the
Governor says, has placed the Union in the most momentous and difficult
crisis through which it has ever passed. Some of its enactments have
produced a feeling of deep and bitter dissatisfaction at the South;
while the law for the recovery of fugitive slaves has been met with a
reception at the North little, if at all, short of open rebellion and
utter defiance. This state of things, the Governor says, has grown out
of an "unwarrantable interference on the part of Congress with the
subject of slavery, and is another proof of the great danger which must
ever follow any attempt on th