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OF

FREEDOM AND BONDAGE

IN THE

UNITED STATES.

BY

JOHN CODMAN HURD,

COUNSELLOR AT LAW.

Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque.

ENNIUS, apud Cic. de Rep.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

BOSTON:

LITTLE, BROWN & COMPANY.

NEW YORK:

D. VAN NOSTRAND.

M.DCCC.LXII.

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In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern
District of New York.

BAKER & GODWIN, PRINTERS, Printing-House Square, opposite City Hall, NEW YORK.

PREFACE.

THE peaceful administration of private law by judicial tribunals involves the exercise of the supreme power of the state as much as does its assertion by the military force. The question-From whom does the law, upon which the relations of private persons depend, derive its authority?—is one which judicial tribunals are always answering, though the investiture of the supreme power is a fact which, in the nature of the case, cannot be determined by any exercise of the judicial function. A division of opinion upon this question can hardly be said to exist in any political community, unless it has been exhibited in a conflict of judicial decisions. If, in any community, opinions had been greatly divided on this question, an appeal to force could not have been distant. The presence of civil contest proves that in the United States a conflict of judicial opinion upon this question must have previously existed.

In the greater part of the cases cited in this volume it has been necessary for the judiciary to determine the operation of the first and second sections of the fourth Article of the Constitution of the United States. Under any view of the origin and operation of that Constitution, these provisions. are distinguishable as having some important bearing on that portion of the private law of the United States which, in its effect, most nearly resembles international law. It is evident

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