The Supreme Court of the United States has reversed its first decision in the cases that have arisen under the confiscation acts of 1862, and in other cases the court has qualified its opinions from time to time. This authority is valuable as proving or as tending to prove, that inconsistencies in opinion may be consistent with integrity of purpose. An attempt to change the issue while the trial is going on is not infrequently the weak device of misguided advocates who happen to be charged with the care of weak cases. It is now twenty years of more since I appeared before Judge Endicott of your city in a cause between a trustee and the _cestui que_ trust. The counsel for the trustee in an argument of considerable length, proceeded to demonstrate the unwisdom, the incapacity, indeed, of my administration of the Treasury Department. I made no attempt to meet the new issue, and the Judge gave no opinion upon it. I made an effort to satisfy the Judge that the trustee was withholding money that belonged to my clients, and Judge Endicott so held. My opponent had an opportunity to argue an issue that was not before the court, and his client was doomed to lose his case. A cause is now pending before the American people. The issue is this: Is it wise and just for us, as a nation, to make war for the seizure and government of distant lands, occupied by millions of inhabitants, who are alien to us in every aspect of life, except that we are together members of the same human family? The seriousness of this issue cannot be magnified by the art and skill of writers and speakers, nor can it be dwarfed to the proportions of a personal controversy. Nor does it follow from any possible construction of the Constitution that it is wise and just for the American people to seize, through war, and to govern by force, the hostile tribes and peoples of the earth whether near to or remote. The advocates of weak causes have two methods of defence to which they most frequently resort: epithets and a change of issues.