“What is a _suit_? We understand it to be the prosecution, or pursuit, of some _claim_, demand, or request. In law language, it is the prosecution of some demand in a court of justice. ‘The remedy for every species of wrong is,’ says Judge Blackstone, ‘the being put in possession of that right whereof the party injured is deprived,’ The instruments whereby this remedy is obtained are a diversity of _suits_ and actions, which are defined by the Mirror to be ‘the lawful demand of one’s right;’ or, as Bracton and Fleta express it in the words of Justinian, ‘_jus prosequendi in judicio quod alicui debetur_,’--(the form of prosecuting in trial, or judgment, which is due to any one.) Blackstone then proceeds to describe every species of remedy by suit; and they are all cases where the party suing claims to obtain something to which he has a right. “To commence a suit is to demand something by the institution of process in a court of justice; and to prosecute the suit is, according to the common acceptation of language, to continue that demand.” According to the supreme court, then, a _suit_ is the prosecution of some _claim_, demand, or request. Now, the proceedings for a fugitive slave, according to the very letter of the constitution, are instituted to prosecute a _claim_. The person held to service or labor is to be delivered up, “on _claim_ of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” Still further, in a decision bearing directly on the right to a trial by jury, the supreme court have defined the term “common law” in special reference to its meaning in the amendment to the constitution, which secures this right “in suits at common law.” These are their words:--