The "Rey Abduction" was rendered by the court committing the accused to a higher tribunal for trial; and this announcement was greeted with loud and prolonged cheers by the people both within and without the court-room. Don Carlos de España and his implication in the infamous plot became a byword in the mouths of all; while the prosecutors be came the legal idols of the people, being escorted to their homes by a procession of enthusiasts. With the decision of the court and the publication of the particulars of the trial, came a spontaneous demand from all sec tions of the country for national interference, the people being moved at the idea of the agent of a foreign government using his high office for a purpose so base. President Taylor headed the demands, and instructions were forwarded to General Campbell, the United States consul at Havana, ordering him to demand the instant release and res toration of Rey, and to further inform the. captain-general that in the event of a refusal force would be used. Spain was loath to yield to the demands; but when she awak ened to a proper appreciation of her position, Rey was released and returned to New Orleans, where his statements verified most remarkably the fidelity of the prosecution's searching analysis of the complications of the abduction, and the logical accuracy of the arguments. The experience and observations gained in this case induced an attempt at a great reformation in the system of criminal juris
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prudence; and in the Constitutional Conven tion of 1852 an attempt was made to have the grand-jury system abolished. The Spanish consul had sufficient influence in the Fed eral grand jury to prevent an indictment being found against him. Hereupon promi nent parties, conceiving the action of the grand inquest to have been to prevent the administration of justice, sought to eliminate it from the judicial system. The attempt failed, only tobe again agitated at this late date by the press of the country, and to be condemned as an institution contrary to the principles of American liberty and in con flict with free institutions. Just at this period, however, the Territory of Oregon had been admitted into full Statehood, and the framers of her Constitution, learning wisdom from the result of the Rey case, prohibited grand juries in that State by a section of the organic law which they framed. Singularly enough, too, the only charge under the laws existing at that time in Louisiana upon which the con sul and his instruments could be prosecuted, were assault and battery and false imprison ment, or aiding and abetting those offences, because neither the laws of the United States nor the laws of the State provided for the punishment of kidnapping. In the Legislature which met under the Constitu tion of 1852, a bill was introduced supplying the remarkable omission. The bill became a law, and is the statute under which the famous Digby case was prosecuted, and to this date remains in force upon the statutebooks.
