The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1859-04-08
WISCONSIN MULTIPLICATION AND LEGISLATIVE
FAISEHOODS

large portion of her late legislature bribed with
million of dollars in rail road stock to further the
interests of plundering corporation. Her present
legislature have failed to meet public expectation in
ferreting out the wckedness Of the past and guard
ing the future for fear of bringing total ruin upon
the republican party and its leaders. Hence the eff
fort to divert public attention from full scrutiny of
the acts of its partsans. To this motive must be
attributed the assault by the present legislature
upon the Supreme Court of the United States for
wishing and reversing the Illegal and high-handed acts
of the supreme court of the State in deciding the
Booths cases. contrary to all law to aid in keeping
up political excitement and to promote the interests
ofrepubcanism. This assault is based upon de-
ceptve statements and falsehoods. 1t is not our
purpose to defend the United States Supreme Court
Their unanimous decision needs no defence When the
reported case reach the hands of the legal profes
sion, the decision will vindicate itself and silence
every attempt to find fault. Unless the American
people approve and sustain the principles clearly
and forciby announced in the decision, the friends
of our glorious Union will have reason to despair,
for it will to end, giving place to wild
anarchy and civil war, with the different fragments
of our shattered republic fighting for the ascendency.
Our business is with the Wisconsin Legislature,
which, in preamble and resolves, have knowingly
misrepresented the history of the Booth cases, to
furnish occasion for assault upon the Supreme Court
The Legislature conceal the fact that there two
Booth cases before the supreme court, here, heard
and decided together and then say that said court
has, without process any of the forms recog
Missed by law, assumed power to render judgment in
volving the personal liberty of the citizen, asserted
by and adjudged to him in the regular course of
Judicial proceedings upon the great writ of liberty
secured to the people of each State by the constitu
ton of the United States" More glazing and pre-
medtated untruths never found in the same
number of words The supreme court did not
sumo jurisdiction without process It followed old
and wellrecognised forms The judgments which
reversed were not adjudged by the court below
in the ordinary course of judicial proceedings The
proceedings in that court not under the consti
tuition of the United States, but in violation of the
spirit of its provisions. The court below assumed
to act under the constitution, and laws of Wiscon-
sim under which the judges held their commissions.
There other untruths nsinuated, if not directly
stated, by the Legislature The following statement
is fully sustained by the records on file in the
office of the clerk of the Supreme Court of the Uni
ted States.
Case No. one. In May, 1854, complaint under
oath, was made before Winfield Smith, a United
States commissioner against Booth for offence
under the fugtve-slave law of 1850, and, exami-
nation, the commissioner adjudged that he appeared
to have been guilty of the offence charged. After
giving bail and being surrendered, Booth being de-
sirous Of increasing agitation refused to give bail
for his appearance and thereupon the commissioner
issued a warrant in legal form for his commitment.
Booth thereupon applied to A. d. Smith, judge, OF
the Wisconsin supreme court, for q habeas corpus,
upon which he was taken before the judge, and dis
charged from the custody of Ableman, the United
States marshal. Ableman, by advice, removed the
proceedings by ctiorar to the supreme court of the
State where the decision below was affirmed, both
the Judge and the court assuming, among other
things, that the fugitive-save act of 1850 was I'M
constitutional and void as their opinions will fully
show. writ of error to the Supreme Court OF
the United States was allowed, and citation to-
Booth signed by Edward V. Wilton, chief justice
of the supreme court of Wisconsin, and the return
to the writ of error was made by Lafayette Kellogg,
clerk of that court and at the end of the record there
is this entry
Having been cited to appear before the Supreme
Court of the United States to show why the udg
ment of the supreme court of the State of Wisconsin
should not be reversed l hereby submit the above
titled case the Judgment of the Supreme Court of the
United States on the reasoning in the argument and
opinions of the printed pamphlets herewith sent
as M BOOTH. q
The opinion of the Wisconsin court is in the
printed record This is one of the judgments now
reversed. These facts show. that the was
brought up by process awarded by one of the
Judges of the court below and the jurisdiction ex
pressly submitted to by Booth under a stipula-
ton signed by him. These facts fully disprove
every material statement made by the legislature.
They show that the case sent up to the Supreme
Court by the act of the chief justice of the State
court, and that Booth himself submitted it to the
United States Supreme Court upon the arguments
used by the court below.
Case No. tao. In January, 1855 Booth was in
dcted in the United States district court for Wis
consin for the same violation of the fugitve-slave
law for which he was arrested the previous year
He was tried found guilty by sworn jury, and SEN
fenced, to be imprisoned, month in the Jail Of
Milwaukee county, in such other prisons or places
as the court or Judge thereof may from time to time
direct, and that he pay fine of one thousand dol