PREFATORY. THE excuse for the republication of this pamphlet is to be found in the following request, signed by several eminent members of the Wisconsin bar: J. M. BUNDY, Esq.: MILWAUKEE, October 26, 1869. DEAR SIR-We understand that the very able argument published by you in pamphlet form, several years since, upon the general subject of the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States over State Courts, in matters involving rights claimed under the Constitution and laws of the United States, is out of print, and cannot be obtained. It formed part of an interesting discussion in our State, and its ability and research ought not to be lost; because, although the immediate occasion for its original publication has passed, yet the general question, in various phases, will continue for several years, under the recent legislation of Congress for the removal of certain cases from State to Federal Courts. We therefore suggest that you would render a great service to the profession and the public by republishing your argument, and thus affording the public an opportunity to obtain it. The pamphlet referred to was written in the winter of 1859 and in the early spring of 1860, while I was a young lawyer, without clients, in the small interior city of Beloit, in Wisconsin. It first appeared in the shape of a series of articles contributed from week to week to the Beloit Journal, which were intended to influence thoughtful Republicans to withhold their support from the Calhoun theories of government at that time popular in the State. Having at my disposal a very good collection of the authorities which develop the history of our Government, and having a strong tendency towards the investigation of such subjects, I lived at that time among my books, and from the great men who founded our Government was enabled to overlook the party exigencies of the time, and to examine the issues they brought with more calmness than a successful lawyer or politician could have commanded. The immediate issue which my argument was intended to meet was whether, in the choice of a Chief Justice, Wisconsin would virtually vote to nullify the Fugitive Slave Law, and to deny the sovereign power of the Union. Those who were not in the State at that time can form no conception of the strength of the popular sentiment which then ran in this direction. In 1857 this sentiment was so strong that Judge Howe, then confessedly the foremost Republican leader in the State, was defeated for the United States Senate, because he would not, by a non-committal letter, enable the Republican members of the Legislature to follow their own choice and at the same time to reconcile their constituents to their action. This happened, although Judge Howe was one of the earliest and most determined enemies of the Fugitive Slave Law. It was not until the ominous threatenings of another phase of "State Rights" agitation were heard from the South that this sacrifice of a fearless and honest statesman was atoned for by his almost unanimous election, in the winter of 1860-61, to the seat he has since held and honored. As Senator Howe was the foremost leader of those Wisconsin Republicans who sustained the national authority, even when that authority presented itself in its most odious character, I |