the House had made a report on
Lyon's case, stating that "the law was unconstitutional, null, and
void, passed under a mistaken exercise of undelegated power, and that
the mistake ought to be remedied by returning the fine so obtained,
with interest thereon."[162] Just now, Gentlemen, Judge Chase and the
principles of the Sedition Law appear to be in high favor with the
Federal Courts: but one day the fugitive slave bill will follow the
Alien and Sedition Bill, and Congress will refund all the money it has
wrenched unjustly from victims of the Court. There is a To-morrow
after to-day, and a Higher Law which crushes all fugitive slave bills
into their kindred dust.

[Footnote 162: 2 Sess. 26th, Cong. Doc. 86, Ho. Rep.; Wharton, 344,
679. See also Virginia Resolutions (1850), and the remarks in the
Debates. Then Virginia was faithful to State Rights, and did a service
to the cause of Liberty which no subsequent misconduct should make us
forget.]

* * * * *

Gentlemen, allow me to vary this narrative of British and American
despotism by an example from a different nation. I will refresh you
with a case more nearly resembling that before you; it is an instance
of German tyranny. In 1853, Dr. Gervinus, Professor of History in the
University of Heidelberg in Germany, published this little volume of
about 200 pages,[163] "An Introduction to the History of the 19th
Century." Mr. Gervinus is one of the most enlightened men in the
world, a man of great genius for the philosophical investigation of
human history, and enriched with such culture and learning as is not
common even in that home of learned men. His book, designed only for
scholars, and hardly intelligible to the majority of readers even in
America, sets forth this great fact,--The democratic tendency of
mankind shown in all history.

[Footnote 163: 2 Einleitung in die Geschichte des neunzehnten
Jahrhunderts; Leipzig, 1853. 8vo. pp. 181.]

Gervinus was seized and brought to trial on the 24th of February,
1853, at Mannheim, charged with publishing a work against
constitutional monarchy, intending thereby to depose the lawful head
of the State, the Grand Duke Charles Leopold, and with changing and
endangering the constitution, "disturbing the public tranquillity and
order, and incurring the guilt of High Treason." In short he was
charged with "obstructing an officer" and attempting to "dissolve the
Union," with "levying war." For his