These two volumes of Dr. Lawson's inestimable work are as useful and interesting as those which precede them. They increase the debt due him by historians and members of his profession. The parts which show the greatest care in their preparation are the reports of the trial of the Knapps and Crowninshield for the murder of White in Massachusetts, which contain Webster's most famous speech to a jury, and of that of John Brown and his associates in Virginia. The reprint of the trial of Alexander McLeod for taking part in the burning of the steamship Caroline under authority from the British government, will also, since the original edition is rare, be of value to the historian. The state authorities and the state judge, an eminent common lawyer, then acted against the protest of the national government and were severely criticized by Webster for their conduct. Had the accused not been acquitted, the case would have caused serious international complications. Dr. Lawson omits any reference to the act of Congress passed in consequence of this prosecution (act of August 29, 1842, c. 257, 5 St. at L. 539, now incorporated in U. S. R. S. § 753), which gives the federal courts power to issue a writ of habeas corpus when a prisoner in a state jail
being a subject or citizen of a foreign state, and domiciled therein, is in custody for an act done or omitted under any alleged right, title, authority, privilege, protection, or exemption claimed under the commission, or order, or sanction of any foreign state, or under color thereof, the validity and effect whereof depend upon the law of nations.
The editor describes John Brown as an "insane fanatic" but in the biography he omits any reference to the massacre authorized by Brown at Pottawatomie.
The arrangement of the contents is less at haphazard than in the former volumes, although it is still neither chronological nor topical and by no means logical or scientific. The juxtaposition of the court martial of Benedict Arnold, resentment at which seems to have been the motive of his treason, with the trials of André and Joshua H. Smith is commendable. So is the conclusion of volume VII., two cases affecting liquor sellers in which one lost and the other won.
The first is the trial in New Bedford, Mass., 1845, of the publishers of the Dew Drop for a libel upon a liquor seller, where an acquittal was secured by an admirable argument by Henry Stanton, the husband of that great woman Elizabeth Cady Stanton. This is followed by the trial in Albany, New York, 1855, where a jury acquitted a hotel-keeper upon the ground that the New York prohibition act of April 9, 1855, was unconstitutional although the trial judge had charged them that the statute was valid. This last report preserves from oblivion one of the greatest arguments to a jury that was ever delivered, a speech which will stand comparison with any by Erskine, Choate, or Webster. It was made by John K. Porter, whose memory, like that of most lawyers,
