ntroduce
topics which give sprightliness, freshness, and something of an uncommon
public interest to proceedings in courts of law.

However difficult it may be, and I suppose it to be _wholly_ impossible,
that this court should take judicial cognizance of the questions which
the plaintiff has presented to the court below, yet I do not think it a
matter of regret that the cause has come hither. It is said, and truly
said, that the case involves the consideration and discussion of what
are the true principles of government in our American system of public
liberty. This is very right. The case does involve these questions, and
harm can never come from their discussion, especially when such
discussion is addressed to reason and not to passion; when it is had
before magistrates and lawyers, and not before excited masses out of
doors. I agree entirely that the case does raise considerations,
somewhat extensive, of the true character of our American system of
popular liberty; and although I am constrained to differ from the
learned counsel who opened the cause for the plaintiff in error, on the
principles and character of that American liberty, and upon the true
characteristics of that American system on which changes of the
government and constitution, if they become necessary, are to be made,
yet I agree with him that this case does present them for consideration.

Now, there are certain principles of public liberty, which, though they
do not exist in all forms of government, exist, nevertheless, to some
extent, in different forms of government. The protection of life and
property, the _habeas corpus_, trial by jury, the right of open trial,
these are principles of public liberty existing in their best form in
the republican institutions of this country, but, to the extent
mentioned, existing also in the constitution of England. Our American
liberty, allow me to say, therefore, has an ancestry, a pedigree, a
history. Our ancestors brought to this continent all that was valuable,
in their judgment, in the political institutions of England, and left
behind them all that was without value, or that was objectionable.
During the colonial period they were closely connected of course with
the colonial system; but they were Englishmen, as well as colonists, and
took an interest in whatever concerned the mother country, especially in
all great questions of public liberty in that country. They accordingly
took a deep concern in the R