Mr. Wirt would not, in commenting on the gentleman’s authorities, thank the gentleman with sarcastic politeness for introducing them, declare that they conclude directly against him, read just so much of the authority as serves the purpose of that declaration, omitting that which contained the true point of the case which was made against him. Nor, if forced by a direct call to read that part also, would he content himself with running over it as rapidly and inarticulately as he could, throw down the book with a theatrical air and exclaim “Just as I said,” when he knew it was just as he had not said. Having thus performed this little exercise in satire at Mr. Wickham’s expense, Mr. Wirt got down to the case in point. He noted that Mr. Wickham had read the Constitutional definition of treason and given the rule by which it was to be interpreted. After he had done that it would have been natural for him to proceed directly to apply that rule to the definition and give the result. But no. Even while they had their eyes on the gentleman he vanished like a spirit from American ground and was seen no more until he turned up in England, “resurging by a kind of intellectual magic in the middle of the 16th century, complaining most dolefully of my Lord Coke’s bowels.” “Before we follow him in this excursion,” proposed the speaker, “it may be well to inquire what it was that induced him to leave the regular track of his argument. I will tell you what it was. It was, Sir, the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Bollman and Swartwout.... Sir, if the gentleman had believed this decision to be favorable to him, we should have heard of it in the beginning of his argument.” And so the prosecution was back again, lunging at the chink in the defense’s armor which the Chief Justice, in one rare moment of careless workmanship, had left there. What said the Supreme Court? Mr. Wirt read the offending passage: “... if a body of men be assembled, for the purpose of affecting by force a treasonable purpose, all those who perform any part, however minute or _however remote from the scene of action_, and who are actually leaguered in the general conspiracy, are to be considered as traitors.” The constant reiteration of his error must have brought a blush to the tanned cheek of the Chief Justice. Or had constant repetition by now rendered him immune to embarrassment? Counsel for the defense, said Mr. Wirt, had taken the bold and difficult ground that the passage which he had read was extrajudicial, a mere _obiter dictum_. They were, he insisted, mistaken. It was a direct adjudication of a point immediately before the Court.