e--and this has been done by the power which this court
has long been so zealous to support--the Slave Power of America.

[Footnote 51: See 2 St. Tr. 774, note.]

[Footnote 52: 1 Jardine, Crim. Tr. 16.]

[Footnote 53: 2 St. Tr. 871.]

[Footnote 54: 1 Jardine, 19.]

[Footnote 55: Ibid.]

[Footnote 56: 3 St. Tr. 371. See 30 St. Tr. 892.]

[Footnote 57: 1 Jardine, 20. See Emlyn, Preface to St. Tr. in 1
Hargrave, p. iii.]

[Footnote 58: 30 St. Tr. 225.]

[Footnote 59: See case of Huggins in 17 St. Tr. 297, 309.]

It has been well said:--

"It must be owned that the Guards and Fences of the law have
not always proved an effectual security for the subject. The
Reader will ... find many Instances wherein they who hold
the sword of Justice did not employ it as they ought to in
punishment of Evil-Doers, but to the Oppression and
Destruction of Men more righteous than themselves. Indeed it
is scarce possible to frame a Body of Laws which a
tyrannical Prince, influenced by wicked Counsellors and
corrupt Judges, may not be able to break through.... The Law
itself is a dead letter. Judges are the interpreters of it,
and if they prove men of no Conscience nor Integrity, they
will give what sense they will to it, however different from
the true one; and when they are supported by superior
authority, will for a while prevail, till by repeated
iniquities they grow intolerable and throw the State into
convulsions which may at last end in their own ruin. This
shows how valuable a Blessing is an upright and learned
Judge, and of what great concern it is to the public that
none be preferred to that office but such whose Ability and
Integrity may be safely depended on."[60]

[Footnote 60: 1 Hargrave's St. Tr. 6.]

Thus, Gentlemen of the Jury, is it that judges who know no law but the
will of "the hand that feeds them," appointed for services rendered to
the enemies of mankind and looking for yet higher rewards, have sought
to establish the despotism of their masters on the ruin of the People.
But the destruction of obnoxious individuals is not the whole of their
enormity; so I come to the next part of the subject.

(III.) The next step is for such judges to interpret, wrest, and
pervert the laws so as to prepare for prospective Acts of Tyranny.

Here, Gentlemen of the Jury, I shall have only too many examples to
warn you w