Arkansas true Democrat., 1862-01-02

wonderful and will strike our legal readers with astonishment. Their wonderful decisions are given in remarkable language and backed by astonishing logic.
 As specimen brick we will take up the pro. clamation of Gen. Phelps, in command of the theives and marauders on Ship Island. He addresses the people of the lower Mississippi valley, commencing in this wise:
 HEADQUARTERS MrDpLEsrx BRIGADE,
 Ship Island, Miss, Dec IA, 6l.
 To the Loyal Citizens of the South,cest--
 Without any desire of my own, but contrary to my private inclination, again find myself among you as military officer of the government. 4 proper respect for my fellow cOunTymen renders it not out of place that should make known to you the motives and principles by which my comlnand will be governed We believe that every State that has been admitted as slave State into the Union, since the adoption of the constitution, has been so admitted in direct violation of that consti tuition. We believe that the slave States which existed such, at the adoption of constitution, are by becoming parties to that compact, under the highest obligations of honor and morality to abolish slavery.
 Phelps is Nermonter-a very green green mountaineer, and fances that the mantle of Daniel Webster has fallen. on his shoulders. The statesmen who admitted States since the adop- tion of the constitution were all wrong. Phelps says so, and of course, Phelps being Vernon ter and General, must know. It is true the constitution provides for return of fugitive slaves, escaping from one State into another, and had prospective action for all time and the very framers of the constitution proceeded to legislate for the continued existence of the institution, but Gen. Phelps tells us all this was wrong and proceeds to expound the constitution according to the latest Vermont manufactured lights.
 After this exposition, Phelps proceeds to chop logic with like boldness and perspica city. He says that black slave labor is a monopoly which excludes white slave labor from entering into competition with 1t. He then declares that the purpose for which the federal troops are sent to the South is to abolish black slavery and wipe it out of existence. Of course, these arguments are convincing and we only wonder that Lincoln sent an army with so profound a reasoner and such an able expounder of Constitutional law. What peryerse generation the people of the South must be when such wonderful arguments and legal lore have to be backed up with cannon and bayonet.
 But Captain Wilkes, the fellow who kidnap> ped Messrs. Mason and Slideli, beats them all when airing his knowledge on legal points. The captain was at Cienluegos, on the south side ot the isle of Cuba, when he heard of the arrival of the commissioners at Haynna and their de,/ termination to, depart on the English steaEer. In his official report he says he examined all the authorities on international law, to-wit: Kent, Wheaton, Yattei, besides various decisions of Sir William Scott and other judges. We are not certain that we understand the captains process of reasoning; indeed, we doubt if he un, derstood it himself: He says questions arose in his mind. the first being where these c0mms- sioners were liable to capture. He was satisfied that he had right 10 ca pture vessels with writ ten dispatches. Bat then he says, these gen. tlemen "were not dispatches. in ihn H. oral4 sense" hat they were commissioners he had no doubt and had been so termed in Havana, but then they had only been received as distin' gnished gentlemen and strangers. So then the captain was nonplussed again. Report gave them the character of ministers to England and France, bat as they had not been received by either of these powers they were not ministers. There it was again. But they were, he says, [" escaped conspirator5," rlotter8" and all that sort of thing.
 From all this we gather that this wonderful expounder of international law argued himself in and out and satisfied himself that they were and were not dispatches, embodiment of dis patches, minister's. commissioners, and divers other things. Finally, he settles down to the fact that they were conspirators, and of course, not liable to arrest.
 When this remarkable treatise on international law is published in England We expect nothing less than John Bull will agree to drop the whole matter if Lincoln will give him Wilkes to pre- side over the English courts of Admiralty. So admirable logician, clear a reasoner and pro found thinker has missed his vocation He should be made judge or attorney general at once. Perhaps, Seward will vacate his post and let Lincoln make him secretary of state at once. Such thick headed fellows as Russell and Palmerston, Thouvenel and Napoleon could not stand an hour before the ponderous logic and lucid arguments of a Wilkes. If this cannot be- at least the immortal Wilkes can write a work on international law to supersede those of Vattel, Wheaton and others, and be standard authority for the world in all ages to come on the disputed points of maritime authority.
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