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the land; how all Christendom held its nose when they were mentioned, and how God was getting out of patience at the slow progress that was making in their extermination. Without doubt they felt a profound sense of the obligations they were under; not to human right or the principles of universal justice; not to the body corporate and politic known as the United States of America; not to the plaintiff in error or to those in like manner to be affected; not to themselves as individuals, whose names might be honored or disparaged in the future accordingly as their acts, tried by the talisman of time, should be judged wise or otherwise; but to popular sentiment. Congress had done its duty—placing the obnoxious under the ban of a common outlawry; the President had nobly responded to the enlightened spirit of the times—appointing judges warranted to be a terror to the evil-doers; the courts below had executed their mission with exemplary faithfulness—so ruling as to ensure conviction to the accused, and nothing remained but for the tribunal of last resort to manifest like allegiance to the laws of propriety; like respect for the amenities of civilization; like reverence for the Christian faith, and like adequacy to the situation, by crowning the work which the others had so felicitously begun. Did it prove recreant to the trust which had been reposed in its man-millinerism? Perish the unworthy suspicion: Salus populi est suprema lex. Are human rights or the principles of justice, or the maxims of jurisprudence, or the relations of society, or immemorial usages to be allowed to stand as impediments where a moral pestilence prevails, a plague-spot which threatens universal contamination is to be canterized, and a crying national sin eradicated? The court did not falter—it did not even hesitate. Like a headsman whose daily use is in capital operations, it applied the white-hot branding-iron with a coolness which, in contrast with the calidity of the implement, was truly admirable.
In the foregoing, it is alleged that the Act of Congress of 1862 carries falsehood upon its face. This needs an explanation, to which a few sentences will have to be devoted. Marriage is a domestic relation entered into by man and woman, by private contract, which, in Protestant countries, is called "civil," to distinguish it from the mode of its completion in Catholic countries, where it is regarded as a sacrament. The essence of the relation in its contract quality. Any two persons of different sexes, of suitable age and sound mind, may thus contract, and the agree-
