The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1876-07-26

lOnnI Law. -.
from r. II. DAMS Address before The Yale Law
SchOoll -e ii
Some 1000 years before Christ We read
that certain King, one Of the Ripgs'of
those times-the head Of tribe or city
boosted, "Three.score and ten Kings,
having their thumbs and great toes cut
OF, gather their meat under my table"
When the men Of Judah made this royal
nutilator captive, according to the re.
ceiyed lex talionis Of the age, they cut of
his thumbs and great toes, cast him into
A dungeon at Jerusalem, and left him to
ale Of hunger. When NebuchadnezZar
took Jerusalem, he slew the sons Of
King Zedekiah before his face, carried
him 10 Babylon, put out both his eyes and
LEFT him to end Ills days in prison. At
the close Of the long Jugurthine war,
Marius brought Jugurtha to Rome, and,
in accordance with the established usage
Of the Roman triumph, chained to his
chariot wheels this deposed King, this
gallant soldier, dragged him in triumph
through the streets amid the insults oil
the populace, and, when he turned his cha
riotirom the forum to ascend the capitol,
| he unclaimed the royal prisoner from the
chariot-wheel, cast him nearly naked into
a dungeon, where he was not strangled
until he had commended six days against
famine. When Carthage was taken; 1t
was blotted from tho map of nations, its
port destroyed, its ships burned, and It's
inhabitants sold as slaves. The cam
paign against Corinth ended in the ex-
| tinction Of that luxurious, magnificent
city and the enslavement OF all OF It's in
habitants. The cursewhich Joshua pro-
nounced against the man who should pre-
sumo TO rebuild Jericho: Cursed be
tho man who shall rise up and re-
build this city Jericho! He shall lay the
foundation thereof in his frat born, and
in his youngest son he shall set up the
gates Of IT," was but the expression Of the
common septiment-the common law OF
ancient times; at the height Of Greek and
Roman civilization, after lost battle,
every man, woman and child-every hui
man being, not slain-became an exile or
u slave. A campaign usually ended in
the destruction Of city; war in an ex'
tinct nationality.
Let US now skip over 1000 years to
our present civilization. The nineteenth
century saw all Europe under arms, from
Siberia to Archangel, from the Atlantic
to the Vistula; ships battered one another
10 pieces in every sea. When these wars
closed, by treaty OF peace, some boun-
daries were altered, some dynasties were
changed, but It is not necessary to say
that all prisoners were released and nc
II property destroyed, for such is the settled
. law OF Christendom. And when the allies
took Paris by siege, each Cossack paid
. for cup OF coffee handed him by the
= French waiter, and the publicists and
i moralists Of Europe Spt angry in discuss
9 ing the refined question whether the alliet
d had n right, under the laws Of nations, tc
Q restore to the museums and galleries O.
Italy and Holland the pictures and stat
J. ues that Napoleon had taken from them
a as trophies Of war. When our late wal
: closed, we held ourselves responsible K
: the world, to history, that our only pris
oner, and he the instigator and head o.
4 the Rebellion, should be lodged and fed
! in accordance with the most refined rules
, Of modern hygiene. When at last pro
ceedings against him ceased, a Northern
4 Abolitionist became his bondsman, he
4 took a trip to Europe as an American
d citizen, protected by an American pass
mort,