Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 07.pdf/47

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The Green Bag.

sick he sent a doctor to them, but declared that they should never separate until they had agreed. Finally they brought in a spe cial verdict, that the defendants had resisted the marshal, knowingly and wilfully, but that they did it under the authority of the State of Pennsylvania. On these facts they left it to the Court to direct the form of the verdict according to his view of the law. Thereupon he directed a verdict of guilty,

The fisherman had triumphed. His per tinacity in maintaining his legal rights had equaled his persistent valor, when gashed and bleeding upon the sea, in securing his prize against superior numbers. Born in 1748, and dying at the age of ninety-eight, in 1846, at East Hartford, Conn., he lived for many years after his legal victory to enjoy his reward. But better and more lasting than the fruits of heroism was the

BUSHROD WASHINGTON. which was entered, and after a suitable ad monition General Bright was sentenced to three months' imprisonment and a fine of two hundred dollars, and the men to one month's imprisonment and a fine of fifty dollars each; but these were immediately remitted by the President, on the ground that the defendants had acted under a mis taken sense of duty.1 1 The sources of the foregoing account are the original papers in the case of the Active in the Clerk's Office of the Supreme Court of the United States : Journals of Con gress, Vol. V.; Ross el al. Exrs. v. Rittenhouse, 2 Dallas, 165; United States v. Peters, 5 Cranch, 115; The Whole

vindication of national power. The price less principle had been established that the Constitution and laws of the United States shall be recognized as the supreme law of the land, " and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Con stitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Proceedings in the Case of Olmsted v. Rittenhouse, by Richard Peters, Jr., published at Philadelphia in 1809; Trial of General Bright in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Pennsylvania, printed at Philadel phia in 1809, two scarce pamphlets in the library of the Philadelphia Library Company.