Being upon all these followers of Christ who, however divided in creed, yet join in one "sublime chorus to celebrate the truths of Christianity, and lay upon its holy altars the never-fading treasures of their immortal wisdom."
These addressers crave permission to remind that august, enlightened, and illuminating body, the Supreme Court of the United States, the most illustrious of a judiciary where all are illustrious, that unto jurisprudence, which is the natural, and should be the true, auxiliary of Christianity, is committed the rare and extraordinary authority of expounding that important branch of the administration of government, upon the correct application of the principles of which depends the happiness of seven millions of human beings who are citizens of the United States. They make bold to bring to the remembrance of these vicegerents of the Almighty, that their predecessors have never failed in fidelity to the principles of liberty protected by law; that the greatest triumph of their genius has been unfolded in following and protecting the solid precedents of popular freedom, by exact learning and profound reasoning; that these proud memorials are a monument of fame more lasting and far exceeding in grandeur those of political or martial glory; that the task of developing a system of law in full accord with the national polity in its true aspect has fallen to the lot of the present and future courts of justice; that this development necessitates the opposition of positive to negative tendencies in the administration of justice in civil-rights cases, and the exchange of vague for fixed and settled rules, by means and instrumentalities attainable only through the comprehensive medium of jurisprudence. They beg to remind these supreme expounders of the law, that the constitutional doctrines which the amendments introduced are for the building up of all the elements (lower as well as higher) of the state; that they aim to deal with the entire body of the state in its progressive movement towards a more advanced civilization than a pro-slavery constitution permitted; that the fate of the civil rights of the nation rests upon the life-giving principles of these amendments, and that the duty is incumbent upon the bench to see that the old dogmas are so relaxed as to be adjustable to the altered conditions which the
