New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1856-01-10
THE CAT AND THE MONKEY.


10 attempted of our form of government, is not the
work of Mr.. Pierce, but of Caleb Gushing, who
ia laboring TO succeed Judge fancy rs the Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court.
This probable paternity of that part OF the Mes
sage both warrants and demands more particular
examination of it than as the offspring of the
Presidents own legal and historical studies could
have been reasonably bestowed upon it. Whatever
might have been the Accomplishments which in
dueed the Baltimore Convention to confer the
Presidency upon Mr.. Pierce, il certainly wasnOt
any special proficiency a constitutional lawyer.
His county court practice had led him but seldom
in that direction, and his being at one and the same
time almost equally an admrer aud humble scholar
of Calho1o and Webster, for both of whom as ex-
Founders of the Constitution, he expressed the
deepest reverence, is proof enough what tumble
his ideas on that subject must have been.
A constitutional and historical essay, the bona
fde production of Franklin Pierce, would be en-
titled to pretty much the same indugent cOn5ld-
GRAFTON as boys college theme on that subject;
and the msstatcments and false quotations by
which its reasoning might be yitiated might fairly
claim the indulgei o. of being set down rather to
ignorant haste and want of familiarity with the
subject than from any disposition wlllully to mis-
represent But since we are to regard the historical
and legal dissertation appended to the Message,
not az the production Of the President, but as
having been put into his mouth by Mr.. Gushing,
its Interpretations and misrepresentation may justly
be looked at with very different eyes, and in spirit
of criticism much more severe. Mr.. Gushing is
well read in history and learned in the law. Mr.
Gushing is Attorney General Of the United States
in which capacity he has favored the public with a
great many ex-cathedra legal opinions, beside those
set out in Mr.. Pierce's Message. Having been
Judge of the Supreme Court Of Massachusetts,,
through the favor of the Free-Son party of that
State, with whom he intrigued desperately to get
that place, deceiving some of the very elect, he
is now intriguing no less desperately with the
shareholders to get from them the position e1-
pected soon to be vacant, of ChiefJustice OF the
United States. To be able on occasion to mis-
quote the Constitution and the statutes may posi-
bly, be a recommendation in the slaveholders' eyes,
though if they are wise men they ought to recol-
lect that be who can and will misquOte for them,
can also, occasion serving, misquote against them.
But however ii may be with the shareholders, the
people at large win certainly be of opinion that
such habit Of miscitatOn is, rather disqualified
ton for high judicial Office than otherwise.
The lecture which President Pierce, acting as
Mr.. Cusbing's mouth piece, undertakes to read to
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, on the sub
Jet of her Person Liberty Law iSwbOlly founded
upon the following thesis:
Each State expressly stipulated, as well for
itself as for each and all of IFS citizens, and every
citizen of each State became soemnly bound by his
allegiance to the Constitution, that any person held to
service labor in State escaping into another,
should not, in consequence of any law or regulation
thereof be discharged from such service labor but
should be delivered up clam of the party to whom
such service labor might be due by the laws OF his
State"
But in thus undertaking TO state the cOnstitu-
tutonal provision, instead of quoting the section
as should have been done, the Message omits the
most essential clause, in which is involved one
great question in dispute as to the cOnstituOnaty
of the Fugitive Slave acts, and the obligation of
Massachusetts and other States to submit to, and
TO aid in their enforcement. The first objection
to those acts is, that Congress has no power to
legislate on the subject at all-the surrender of
fugitiyes being an obligation imposed by the Con-
stitution not on Congress or the Federal Govern
ment, but in terms on the States, and therefore
resting wholly with them for its execution. This
is point to which the Message has made no allu-
siOn-a very discreet omission, truly, since ii is i'm
possible to reconcile any such assumption of power
by the General Government with that strict linn
tatiOn Of its authority upon which the Message
strenuously insists.
The other objection to the Fugitive act of 1850
is this: that even admitting the power of Congress
TO legisate for the return of fugitives the act in
question goes far beyond anything which the Con-
stitution contemplated The Constitution provides
only for the return of persons held to service or
labor in one State, ErdeT the ls,os hsreof escaping
into another; and it is therefore an essential pre-
minary to the SURRENDERED any body that it should
first be proved, not only that he was held to labor
In State and escaped into another, but also that
he was held TO labor under me lars of the State
whence he escaped; in other words no. merely
that somebody iu that State claimed him Snd held
him, but that somebody had II legal right 10 hold
him. Now the Fugitive act Of 1850 provides for
the surrender Of fugityes from labor, upon the
bare prOOf-snd ex-parte proof at thst-of 1igbt,
and of the fact of having been held to labor.
Ii provides no means whatever for adjudi-
eating the other al-importsnt and essential
fact that the person so held and so flying
did actual, cue labor The Act Of 1850, by the
confession Of all Its uridica spologistS prescribt7
noproeess OF adjudication. but only process of ex
tradition The United States under that act lays