ommon decencies of judicial process.

[Footnote 178: History, 55, 57; Report, 19; 2 Wallace.]

This question amongst others was put to each juror:--

"Have you formed an opinion that the law of the United
States, known as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, is
unconstitutional, so that you cannot for that reason convict
a person indicted for a forcible resistance thereto, if the
facts alleged in the indictment are proved and the court
hold the statute to be constitutional?"

Thus all persons were excluded from the jury who believed this wicked
bill a violation of the constitution; and one most important means of
the prisoner's legitimate defence was purposely swept away by the
court.

Now look at the law as laid down by the government.

Mr. Ashmead, the government's Attorney, said when the Constitution was
adopted "Men had not then become wiser than the laws [the laws of
England and colonial laws which they were born under and broke away
from]; nor had they learned to measure the plain and unambiguous
letter of the Constitution by an artificial standard of their own
creation [that is the Self-evident Truth that all men have a natural
and unalienable Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
Happiness]; to obey or disregard it according as it came up to or fell
beneath it [as the law was just or unjust]."

"_You will receive the law from the court._" "You _are bound by the
instructions which the court may give_ in respect to it;" "_it is in
no sense true that you are judges of the law_." "_You must take the
interpretation which the court puts upon it._ You have a right to
apply the law to the facts, but you have no right to go further."

"The crime charged against this defendant is ... that of _levying war
against the United States_. The phrase _levying war_ was long before
the adoption of the Constitution, a phrase ... _embracing such a
forcible resistance to the laws as that charged against this
defendant_ [that is, speaking against the fugitive slave bill and
refusing to kidnap a man is 'levying war against the United States']!"

It is treason "if the intention is by force to prevent the execution
of _any one ... of the general laws of the United States_, or _to
resist_ the exercise of _any legitimate authority of the government_."

"Levying war embraces ... any combination forcibly to prevent or
oppose the execution ... of a public statute, if accompanied or
followed by an act o