The very word “preliminary” suggests the inquiry, To what? _Preliminary_ is not an adjective that supports itself. It requires an adjunct, or an abutment on which to rest. It is the beginning or introduction to some further proceeding. It is something incomplete or unfinished. If it be judicial, it contemplates necessarily some further judicial proceeding. The judge who pronounces a preliminary judgment must necessarily have in mind the judgment to follow, and must recognize his relation to it. But if there is no judgment to follow, if there is no contemplation of any further judicial proceeding, if the actual proceeding is complete and finished, if it is not the beginning or introduction to any further proceeding, if there is nothing on which the adjective “preliminary” can rest, it is absurd to call the proceeding by this name. Such proceeding is essentially final, and this is the unquestionable character of that under the Fugitive Slave Act. To call it “preliminary,” and on this ground set up apology for denial of trial by jury, is only another illustration of devices employed by Slavery to baffle the demands of Freedom. But it is still said that there may be another trial in the State whither the slave is conveyed. On this assumption it has been well remarked, that, if, contrary to general principles of law attaching to the decision of a competent tribunal a conclusive force as to the same right between the same parties, there could be any trial in the Slave State, then it is _another trial_, and in no respect a continuation and completion of the proceedings before the commissioner. The only trial possible would be an original suit by the alleged slave against his _actual_ master, whosoever he might be; for the claimant may have already sold him to another. But there can be no legal connection between the two proceedings. Each is original, and must be decided on its own merits. In the one case, the _actual_ claimant, whosoever he may be, is plaintiff, and the slave is defendant; and in the other case the slave is plaintiff, and the _actual_ master, whosoever he may be, is defendant. And the first proceeding is preliminary to the other only as an illegal imprisonment is preliminary to a suit for damages. The whole pretension is lost in its absurdity. (2.) The second attempt at reply to the argument for trial by jury may be given in the words of the author of the Fugitive Slave Act himself. In the debate which occurred on its passage, Mr. Mason thus expressed himself:--