It has been decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, in _Prigg_ v. _Pennsylvania_, (16 Peters, 539), that State officers are not obliged to enforce United States laws. The Nation must execute its laws by its own officers. Under the lead of this decision, the Legislature of Massachusetts passed a law making it penal for State officers to arrest or detain in public buildings any person for the reason that he is claimed as a fugitive slave (Act of 1843, Chap. 69), although the Act of Congress of 1793 contemplates the action of State officers. By this legislation Massachusetts has clearly shown her determination to take advantage of the principle in Prigg's case. The Governor and the Adjutant-General, not heeding the spirit of our Commonwealth, made themselves _recruiting officers_ of the United States, as much as if they had enlisted sailors for the ship-of-war Ohio, now lying in our harbor. How much soever this may be deplored, it forms no ground for any legal questioning of their acts. What they did, under the directions of an Act of Congress, as _agents_ of the United States, would be legal, provided it was not forbidden by the laws of the State. But although they might volunteer as _agents_ of the United States in raising troops for the Mexican War, acting under the law of Congress, _they cannot employ the State laws for this purpose_. They cannot be justified in _diverting_ the laws of the State to purposes not originally contemplated by these laws, and _inconsistent with their whole design and character_. Such was the employment of the militia laws of Massachusetts. These laws have been made by the Executive the instruments, the "decoy-ducks," to get together the Falstaff regiment whose existence is now drawn in question. The whole proceeding is a _fraud_ on those laws. It is the duty of this Court, as conservators of the laws of the Commonwealth, bound to see that they receive no detriment, to guard them from such a perversion from their true and original purpose. This can be done only by annulling the proceedings that have taken place under them. Such are the objections to the legal character of the Massachusetts Regiment. If either of these should prevail, then the whole regiment is virtually dissolved. It becomes a mere name. _Stat nominis umbra._ Or it is left a mere voluntary association, without that quickening principle which is necessary to a military organization under the Constitution and laws of the United States. It is like the monster Frankenstein, the creation of audacious human hands, endowed with a human form, but wanting a soul.