"This doctrine is applicable wherever and so long as the duty of allegiance to an existing Government remains unimpaired. When this fort was captured, the accused, in the language of the Supreme Court, owed allegiance to two Sovereigns, the United States and the State of Georgia (see 14 How. 20). The duty of allegiance to the United States was co-extensive with the constitutional jurisdiction of their Government, and was, to this extent, independent of, and paramount to, any duty of allegiance to the State (6 Wheaton, 381, and 21 Howard, 517). His duty of allegiance to the United States continued to be thus paramount so long at least as their Government was able to maintain its peace through its own Courts of Justice in Georgia, and thus extend there to the citizen that protection which affords him security in his allegiance, and is the foundation of his duty of allegiance. Though the subsequent occurrences which have closed these Courts in Georgia may have rendered the continuance of such protection within her limits impossible at this time, we know that a different state of things existed at the time of the hostile occupation of the fort. The revolutionary secession of the State, though threatened, had not then been consummated. This party's duty of allegiance to the United States, therefore, could not then be affected by any conflicting enforced allegiance of the State. He could not then, as a citizen of Georgia, pretend to be an enemy of the United States, in any sense of the word 'enemy' which distinguishes its legal meaning from that of traitor. _Future cases may perhaps require the definition of more precise distinctions and possible differences under this head. The present case is, in my opinion, one of no difficulty, so far as the question of probable cause for the prosecution is concerned._" Having decided that, in the present state of things, he could not commit the prisoner for trial, to be conveyed to Georgia, because there were no Courts of the United States there, and because it would be a violation of the Constitution of the United States--that he could not have a speedy trial--he decided that, under a subsequent act of Congress, he had a right to require the prisoner to find sureties to be of good behavior towards the United States. I have thus ended what I had to say upon this subject, with but one single exception.