come when he was to demonstrate his abilities and he recognized the opportunity and grasped it. His whole soul was in the cause; he entered the combat as did the knights of old who fought for the holy sepulchre. It was to him the cause of God as well as the cause of freedom. Upon the day following the commitment of Booth to the custody of the marshal, application was made to Judge Smith at chambers for a writ of habeas corpus directed to the marshal. The writ was allowed, the marshal claimed justification under his warrant, but after argument by Mr. Paine and Mr. J. R. Sharpstein on the other side, Mr. Justice Smith in a long and able opinion discharged the prisoner on the ground that Congress was given no power by the United States Constitution to legislate on the subject, but that the clause in the Constitution providing that fugitive slaves should be given up to the owner was simply a command to the State and to be enforced by the states alone.[1]
This decision was received by the partisans of Booth in all parts of the State with great enthusiasm. The court house meeting was immediately reconvened at Racine, and again passed resolutions. It will be interesting to note their tone—they are as follows:
"Resolved, That we hail with unmingled satisfaction the decision of Judge Smith by which the constitution is vindicated and restored to its original purity;
"Resolved, That Judge Smith's construction is the true and undoubted meaning of the Constitution as left by the hands of the fathers who framed it, that the reasoning by which he arrived at that conclusion is unanswerable and places the Judge in the front rank of constitutional jurists;
"Resolved, That it is 'holy light' when compared with the muddy and discrepant opinions of the United States Court in the famous Prigg case, reported in 16th Peters;
- ↑ 3 Wis. Rep. *1.
