Trial of the Officers and Crew of the Privateer Savannah, on the Charge of Piracy, in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New YorkWarburton, A. F. (Adolphus Frederick)
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Trial of the Officers and Crew of the Privateer Savannah, on the Charge of Piracy, in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York
Warburton, A. F. (Adolphus Frederick)
Piracy -- United States; Privateering -- United States; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
I will proceed very briefly, if your honors please, to close what I was
submitting to the Court upon the propositions which, as I maintain,
tend to show a colorable authority in the State government, in possible
cases that might arise, to authorize the issuing of letters of marque.
I will state them in their connection, in order that your honors may
see what they are. The first is the one I considered yesterday, viz.,
that the Federal Executive Government and the executive governments of
the States, under the Constitution of the United States, each possess
the jurisdiction to decide whether their respective acts are within or
exceed the limits of their respective constitutional powers in cases of
collision between them in their administrative acts operating upon the
public domain, or upon the State, or its citizens as a body politic.
I had concluded what I intended to submit upon that, and proceed to the
others, which are--
2. That in such cases, the Constitution having erected no common
arbiter between them, the right of forcible resistance to the exercise
of unlawful power, which, by the law of nature, resides in the people,
has been delegated by them, by the Federal and State Constitutions
respectively, to the Federal and State Governments respectively, and
each having the jurisdiction to judge whether its acts are within the
constitutional limit of its own powers, has also necessarily the right
to employ force in their assertion or defence, if needed.
3. That in such cases the citizen of a State which, in its political
capacity, has come into forcible collision with the Federal Government,
owing allegiance to both within the limits of their respective
constitutional powers, and each possessing the jurisdiction to
determine for him the compound question of law and fact, whether the
constitutional limit of those powers has been exceeded by itself or the
other in the particular case, is protected from all criminal liability
for any act done by him, in good faith, in adhering to and under the
authority of either Government.
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