shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts'--which clause
has been uniformly held by all the Federal as well as State Courts, to
apply to contracts of a State--and yet, in flagrant defiance of the
highest duties and the most sacred obligations, the Legislature passed
these resolutions, to nullify the anticipated decisions of the court. We
have seen, however, that this executive and legislative usurpation
was ineffectual. The court stood firm, not a single judge
wavered, and, by a unanimous decree, reversed the legislative and
executive repudiation--vindicated the majesty of the law and the
Constitution--upheld the sacred cause of truth and justice--resisted the
popular frenzy, and defied the unprincipled demagogues by whom the
people of the State had been deceived and deluded. It was a noble
spectacle, when those three upright and fearless Judges, Sharkey,
Turner, and Trotter, entered the temple of justice, and declared to the
people, by whose ballots they were chosen, that the State was bound to
pay these bonds, and decreed accordingly. The same sublime scene was
reenacted by a similar decree, in a suit against the State, on one of
these bonds, by the same court, in 1853, then composed of different
judges--Smith, Yerger, and Fisher. And not one judge or chancellor of
the State ever wavered. Amid all this heaven-daring iniquity, thank
God! the judicial ermine was unstained. Whilst constrained to denounce
the repudiating Legislature, Governor, and _Senator_ of Mississippi, let
me point to another green spot amid the moral waste and desolation of
that dreadful period.

With scarcely an exception, the _Bar of Mississippi_ was true to the
cause of honor, law, and justice. They knew the objections of McNutt and
Davis were wretched pretexts, and they vindicated the reputation of that
noble profession, which, in all ages, has been the champion of
constitutional liberty. They were men of the same stamp as their
illustrious English ancestry, Hampden, Sidney, and Russell, whose names
cover the map of my country, and whose deeds have exalted the character
of man; and although the blood of our anti-repudiating heroes did not
flow like that of the British martyrs, as a sacrificial offering on the
altar of freedom, they sacrificed ease, and affluence, and ambition, and
political preferment, and endured obloquy and reproach. I rejoice in the
recollection, that, during this contest they should have selected a
sentence fr