to the fact, that the
practical issue has been made, by which the validity of the laws in
regard to colored seamen arriving in our port is to be submitted to the
judicial tribunals of the country. For ourselves we have no fears for
the credit of the State in such a controversy. The right of the State
to control, by her own legislation, the whole subject-matter, can, as we
think, by a full discussion, be established upon a basis which, in the
South at least, will never hereafter be questioned. If there be defects
in the details of the regulations enacted, the consideration of them is
now precluded, when the issue presented is the right of the State to act
at all times in the premises.

"The writ of habeas corpus was applied for before Judge Withers, during
the term of the court which has just closed, by the British consul,
through his counsel, Mr. Petigru, in behalf of one Manuel Pereira,
a colored sailor, who claims to be a Portuguese subject, articled to
service on board an English brig driven into this port by stress of
weather; the said Manuel Pereira being then in jail under the provisions
of the act of the legislature of this State, passed in 1835, emendatory
of the previous acts on the subject. Judge Withers, in compliance with
the requirements of the act of 1844, refused the writ of habeas corpus,
and notice of appeal has been given. Thus is the issue upon us.

"We have but one regret in the matter, and that is that the case made is
one where the party asking his liberty has been driven into our harbor
involuntarily. Great Britain, it is true, is the last power which
should complain on this account, with her own example in the case of the
Enterprise before her eyes; but we do not, we confess, like this feature
of the law. We have no doubt, however, that this fact being brought to
the notice of the executive, he will interfere promptly to release the
individual in the present case, provided the party petitions for the
purpose, and engages at once to leave the State. But we shall see
nothing of this. Mr. Manuel Pereira, like another John Wilkes, is to
have settled in his person great questions of constitutional liberty.
The posterity which in after times shall read of his voluntary martyrdom
and heroic self-sacrifice in the cause of suffering humanity, must be
somewhat better informed than Mr. Pereira himself; for we observe that
his clerkly skill did not reach the point of enabling him to subscribe
his name to t