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Captain Black/Part 3

Leath kept his room with extraordinary persistence until the last moment. Farnham, with a vague idea of making amends for his recent suspicions by some sort of friendly advances, looked for him on the tender the next morning, but failed to find him in the crowd of passengers; nor did he get a sight of him until the very last of the number were disembarking, when Leath, wearing a mackintosh reaching to his heels, and with a muffler or scarf swathed about the lower part of his face, suddenly appeared at the head of the gangway leading to the landing-stage, and paused irresolutely, as if loath to come ashore. Farnham, who was awaiting his luggage on the landing-stage and chatting meanwhile with the two detectives, was about to attract his attention by a sign of recognition, when Leath, as if suddenly mastering his indecision, strode rapidly down the gangway, and began roughly pushing his way through the throng of waiting passengers. At this moment Lethbridge touched Farnham on the arm and pointed significantly to a woman who was standing at the foot of the gangway with her eyes intently fixed upon Leath. She was a sad-faced woman, plainly clad, and Farnham noticed that she was holding her hand tremulously to her mouth, as if endeavoring to control excessive agitation. As Leath passed her without a glance of recognition, her eyes dilated as with a sudden sickening terror, and then, apparently moved by an uncontrollable impulse, she flung herself before him with her hands against his breast, crying, “Roger! Don’t you know me?” Leath’s face, for an instant, looked as if it had been turned to stone, then, catching sight of Farnham’s astonished gaze, he instantly passed his arm about the imploring figure before him and said hurriedly, “I did not see you. Come away,” and pushed on with the woman, sobbing convulsively, on his arm.

“Rather a rum meeting, that,” observed Mr. Lethbridge, dryly, and Farnham, who had witnessed the scene with an immediate revival of his former antipathy, shrugged his shoulders in infinite disgust, and washing his hands of Mr. Leath and his affairs, went off to look after his own effects.

No further incidents of importance marked Farnham’s sojourn abroad. He traversed the beaten road of insular and continental sightseeing for his allotted time, and returned to his legal grindstone with such agreeable recollections of his vacation, that the following June found him again in London with the pleasant prospect of further rambles before him during the summer months. He had heard the particulars of the forgery while at home, but it was simply the old story of securities raised from their face value, followed by the coarser crime of actual theft, and ending with a ruined firm and a beggared partner; and the affair had almost passed from his memory, when it was suddenly recalled by an incident of the most startling character.

Farnham, waiting for a friend, was standing at the window of that depressing apartment, the smoking-room of Her Majesty’s Hotel, gazing aimlessly into the side street and observing the grimy wall of a noble lord’s grounds on the opposite side of the way, when his attention was attracted to two men who came from the direction of the neighboring thoroughfare, and stopped, conversing leisurely, at the entrance to the hotel. With the man who faced him Farnham had no concern; but he was instantly and strangely interested in the other, who stood with his back toward him. The subtile individuality which occasionally asserts itself in the human back told him that he knew this man, and the consciousness sent an unaccountable thrill through his veins. A moment after, the other of the two walked away and the owner of the expressive back turned to enter the hotel. As Farnham caught sight of his face his first impression was that he had been mistaken; then there arose in his memory, like a flash of light, a vision of the deck of the Servia a year ago and the two consorting men who had so unpleasantly impressed him, and he recoiled as though he had been shot. The full brown beard had disappeared, and a carefully waxed gray mustache and pointed goatee had replaced it; but if Captain Black ever walked upon the earth he stood in the flesh before Farnham at that moment. As this astounding fact divulged itself the man disappeared through the doorway, and Farnham sank breathless into a chair.

The apparition, for it seemed little more to Farnham’s excited fancy, came directly into the smoking-room, glanced casually at him as he sat quaking in his chair, and went out without a sign of recognition. Farnham breathed again. He had grown stouter and wore a beard, and it afforded him unspeakable relief to feel that these changes in his outward man had effectually concealed his identity. He sat still, watching through the open doorway the man who had apparently risen from the sea, and saw him stop for a moment at the office window and then pass through the hall and up the stairs. He was evidently staying at the hotel, and Farnham, presently recovering his composure, sauntered out of the room with as much unconcern as he could assume and inquired of the hall-porter who the gentleman was who had just come in.

“His name is Pelham, sir,” said the man; “Mr. Francis Pelham, I think. He’s not stopped here before, sir.”

“Thank you,” said Farnham. “Be good enough not to mention that I inquired; he might consider it an impertinence;” and impressing this injunction upon the porter by a judicious bestowal of a shilling, he went out and, oblivious of his appointment, hailed a hansom and was driven to Scotland Yard as fast as an indifferent horse could take him.

Lethbridge was absent, but upon Farnham’s assurance that his business was urgent, he was sent for and presently came in, and Farnham was again reassured by finding that even the detective’s keen eye failed to recognize him in his altered personality. A reference to the events of the preceding summer, however, immediately recalled him to Lethbridge’s memory, and he told, as concisely as possible, the extraordinary discovery which he believed he had made. Lethbridge heard him through and then shook his head incredulously. “I’ve come across strange things in my line, Mr. Farnham,” he said, “but this is the toughest yarn I’ve ever heard yet. It can’t be, sir, it can’t be. Darke and I prodded every corner of the ship, and I tell you the man wasn’t there.”

“And I tell you that the man is in London at this moment,” said Farnham, vehemently. “Apply any test that you please, and you’ll find I’m right.”

Lethbridge pondered dubiously for a moment, and then asked Farnham to repeat to him, in their consecutive order, all the details of Captain Black’s disappearance from the steamer. This Farnham did with scrupulous exactness, Lethbridge listening attentively and checking off the narrative from time to time with affirmative nods of his head.

“Now,” said Lethbridge, “go over the business on the landing-stage in the same way, so I may be sure I’ve got the thing straight in my head.”

Farnham complied as before, and was carefully reciting the sequence of events, when he became suddenly aware of a change in the detective’s manner. Lethbridge was leaning forward in his chair in an attitude of the most alert attention, and with a strange gleam in his eyes that betokened extraordinary emotion; and as the story ended, he brought his hand down upon his knee with a resounding slap and exclaimed exultingly, “By George, I have it!”

“Now look here, sir,” he continued, before Farnham could speak; “you can help us if you will. If this is the right man, he is an extraordinary cool hand, and we mustn’t touch him until we are ready for him. That won’t be until day after to-morrow, as I must send a man out of town to bring up another party that we shall need.”

“But suppose—” said Farnham, who would have preferred immediate action; “suppose, meanwhile, our man takes it into his head to leave.”

“Then I’ll stop him at a venture,” said Lethbridge, with a grim smile, “but I don’t want to move a minute too soon if I can help it. Now, I want you to take a table near him in the coffee-room—say to-morrow at breakfast.”

“But I’m not staying there,” objected Farnham.

“Take a room there over-night,” said Lethbridge, promptly, “and give ’em a wrong name.”

“I don’t fancy doing that,” said Farnham, after a moment’s reflection.

“There isn’t a bit of ’arm in it,” said Lethbridge, “and it will help us a lot.”

“And what then?” said Farnham.

“Why, then,” continued Lethbridge, with a reassuring smile, “when you’re ready to go in to breakfast, just step out of the ’otel door for a moment so I can see you, and then leave word if any one asks for you, to have him shown in direct to your table. That’ll give me a chance for complete observation of your party without attracting any attention whatsoever, and without anybody being any the wiser but me. After that you can go off and leave the business in my hands until everything’s ready. I suppose you’d like to see the end of it, sir?” concluded the detective, with a confident interrogation.

“Well—yes; after having gone so far—I would,” said Farnham.

“Very good, sir, I’ll look you up,” said Mr. Lethbridge, cheerfully. “Mind you sit with your back to him.”

Farnham went away with a disquieting sense of having been cleverly impressed into the English detective service; but an irrepressible desire to follow up the unravelling of the mystery that lay before him enabled him to stifle certain stirrings of conscience by the self-assurance that he was merely furthering the ends of justice. He wandered aimlessly about, avoiding the vicinity of the hotel until bedtime, when he sneaked in, carrying a satchel, and with a humiliating consciousness of imposture lying heavily on his mind, and was allotted a gloomy back room at the top of the house. Here he passed a horrible night, largely occupied in running down preposterous criminals of all grades, and awoke with a pardonable feeling of repugnance for his self-invited breakfast company.

title: Captain Black/Part 3


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Page:Henry VIII and the English Monasteries.djvu/69

 Rh at Oxford for your favour towards his preferment." Lastly, to allow him to illegally imprison some one who has offended him, Henry, earl of Northumberland, offers to give the cardinal "the chapel books of his late father," which he has been asked to bestow on the college. To induce him to make the bargain, the earl says he will let him have four antiphonals and graduals, "such as were not seen a great while," £200 in money, and a benefice of £100 for his college.

At length, on the eve of the lord cardinal's fall, the king writes strongly as to the methods employed by Wolsey's agents and his own condemnation of them. The letters were called forth by a difference between Henry and his minister as to the appointment of an abbess to Wilton. The king had determined to favour the election, or what might be more truly called the appointment, of Dame Elinor Carey. She was supported by powerful friends, amongst whom was reckoned Anne Boleyn herself. The cardinal, probably with quite sufficient reason, and in distinct opposition to the royal wishes, approved of the choice of the former prioress, Dame Isabell Jordayn. Wolsey wrote to offer humble apologies on being informed of Henry's displeasure, and, in accepting the explanation, the king wrote: "As touching the help of religious houses to the building of your colleges, I would it were more, so it were lawfully; for my intent is none but that it should appear so to all the world, and the occasion of all their mumbling might be secluded and put away. For surely there is great murmuring of it throughout all the realm, both good and bad. They say not that all that is ill-gotten is bestowed on the college, but that the college is the cloak for covering all mischiefs. This grieveth me, I assure you, to hear it spoken of him whom I so entirely love. Wherefore methought I could do no less than thus friendly to admonish you. One thing more I perceive by your letter, which a little, methinks, toucheth conscience, and that is that you have received money of the exempts for having their old visitors. Surely this can hardly be with good conscience. For if they were good, why should you take money? and if they were ill, it were a sinful act. Howbeit, your legateship herein might

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Captain Black/Part 4

Pelham was already seated in the coffee-room when he went down-stairs, and having bespoken the adjoining table, he went to the entrance door of the hotel as agreed and looked up and down the street. Not a sign of Lethbridge could be seen, and Farnham, with a cheering hope that the appointment had miscarried, went in to breakfast and seated himself with his back to his unsuspecting neighbor. He had ordered his customary eggs and bacon and breakfast tea, and was looking through the morning paper, when a dark-complexioned man with a profusion of black hair, and wearing spectacles, was shown in to his table, and, before Farnham could utter a protest, seated himself, and taking from his pocket a bundle of documents, began, “I have looked into the matter of the mining prospectus, and I have all the figures here as you requested.” With this there came a warning pressure of his foot beneath the table, and Farnham knew that Lethbridge sat before him.

Farnham was already sufficiently out of humor to be excessively annoyed by what he considered a useless and ridiculous masquerade, and ate his breakfast in sullen silence, while Lethbridge rattled on with amazing volubility, giving the most astounding statistics about the mining property, and keeping meanwhile a stealthy watch upon the suspected man at the adjoining table, until having presumably familiarized himself to the proper standard, he gathered up his papers and took his departure, to Farnham’s infinite relief. That thoroughly disgusted gentleman dawdled over his breakfast until he heard Pelham leave the room, and seeing him presently pass the coffee-room window, took his own departure, satchel in hand, mentally vowing never to be caught again in a similar mess.

The next morning, just as he had finished breakfasting at his own lodgings, Lethbridge, fresh-faced and fair-haired again, made his appearance in such confident humor that Farnham’s spirits revived somewhat under the buoyancy of the detective’s manner, and he inquired what was the next step to be taken.

“I’m going to bait a hook,” said Lethbridge, with an expression of infinite relish, “and if your man doesn’t rise to it you can call me a Dutchman. It may be a long fish, but if we catch anything it will be as good a day’s work as ever I did in my life.”

The baiting of the hook, which Farnham awaited with considerable curiosity, proved to be a simple matter enough. Lethbridge merely wrote the words “Captain Lansing Black” in a large bold hand on a sheet of note-paper, enclosed it in an envelope addressed “Francis Pelham, Esq.,” and with an air of extreme confidence invited Farnham to accompany him to the hotel and witness the landing of the fish.

They strolled back and forth upon the Piccadilly pavement in a line of observance of the hotel entrance, until Mr. Pelham, gloved and well apparelled, was seen to go out. Then Farnham, acting under Lethbridge’s instructions, walked into the hallway, and explaining that he was awaiting a friend, seated himself at one side of the entrance door and became absorbed in perusal of a morning paper. Presently Lethbridge strolled in and, after a brief interview with the manager in that gentleman’s private office, placed the envelope in Pelham’s letter-box in the hall, and seating himself on the opposite side of the entrance door, became a silent rival of Farnham in the matter of looking up the day’s news. The hall-porter, a pompous fellow with a double chin and wearing a black skull-cap, seated himself in his leather-covered bath-chair, all unconscious of the drama that was developing under his very nose, and dropped off into a nap—and the watch began.

It was a long one, as Lethbridge had surmised, and the hours wore slowly on. Farnham having digested the exhaustive details of events in Her Britannic Majesty’s realm, and the scant references to other portions of the globe peculiar to the British press, was endeavoring to concentrate his attention upon the advertisements and occasionally relapsing into a doze, when Lethbridge coughed, and at the same moment Pelham opened the door and walked into the hall. Farnham, with his heart thumping like a trip-hammer against his ribs, glanced at his companion; but that imperturbable individual was so absorbed in the news that Farnham, for a moment, feared that he had not noticed that their man had arrived. The next instant, however, Lethbridge’s eyes appeared, gleaming like coals of fire over the top of his newspaper, and Farnham, following their gaze, saw that the supreme moment had come. Pelham was at the letter-box.

A lump suddenly rose into Farnham’s throat, and he was conscious that he was trembling violently from head to foot as Pelham took the envelope from the box, glanced carelessly at the address upon it, and then opened it. As his eyes met the name on the enclosed sheet he recoiled, glanced like lightning about the hall, and then, crumpling up paper and envelope, he thrust them into his pocket and was in the street again almost before Farnham could realize what had happened. Lethbridge, alert and as agile as a cat, was after him and at his side before he had taken a dozen steps, and Farnham, looking through the window, saw that there was a brief colloquy, followed by a shrug of Pelham’s shoulders, and then the two men entered a cab and were driven away. “Now for it!” said Farnham to himself, and, calling a cab in his turn, he followed at all speed, in a curious whirl of speculations as to how the matter would end.

He was evidently expected at Scotland Yard, and on giving his name was shown without inquiry into a well-lighted room, where Lethbridge and a military- looking official, who proved to be the inspector, were conversing in a low tone in a corner. Pelham, who had apparently quite recovered his composure, was looking out of the window with his back toward them, standing with his legs well apart, and swinging his walking-stick with an air of supreme unconcern. He glanced indifferently at Farnham as he entered the room, and then, apparently relegating him to the obscurity of the official staff, resumed his former attitude at the window and gazed steadily into the court-yard until the inspector said, “Now then, Mr. Pelham, if you please,” when he turned, showing a face deadly pale, but with features evidently under full command.

“Mr. Pelham,” continued the inspector, with extreme urbanity, “it is probably unnecessary to inform you that we have no power to compel you to give us any information. In fact, it is quite within your discretion to preserve absolute silence if you choose, until you have taken legal counsel. At the same time, as it is quite possible that this is a case of mistaken identity, you can readily avoid further complications, and perhaps your further detention, by answering a few questions.” Here the inspector paused, and Pelham, after a moment’s deliberation, inquired haughtily, “What are the questions?”

“First,” said the inspector, “are you Captain Lansing Black?”

“Captain Black was lost at sea a year ago,” replied Pelham, without manifesting the slightest emotion. “The papers were full of the affair, and you must have known of it through them, if not through the investigations of your own department. The question strikes me as an absurdity.”

“Next,” said the inspector, with unruffled composure, “were you a passenger on the Servia, on her homeward passage in June of last year?”

“I was not,” replied Pelham.

“This gentleman—” said the inspector, quietly, indicating Farnham by a motion of his head—“is prepared to swear that you were.”

Pelham instantly concentrated his gaze upon Farnham, and regarded him intently for a moment with knitted brows, much to that gentleman’s discomposure. The recognition that must have followed this scrutiny was, however, effectually concealed. Beyond a momentary flush upon his face, Pelham evinced no discomfiture whatever, and, turning to the inspector, said, with a contemptuous smile, “Then this gentleman is prepared to swear to a lie,” adding, with a sudden burst of anger, “what rot all this is!”

“Possibly,” replied the inspector, coolly, “but our description of the man we want tallies so closely with your appearance that the mistake is pardonable. Read it, Mr. Lethbridge,” and Lethbridge, taking a folded paper from his pocket, read as follows, Pelham, meanwhile, fixing his eyes upon the ceiling, and resuming his former expression of nonchalance:

“Height, about five feet ten; erect, military carriage, broad shoulders, small hands and feet; brown eyes, stern in expression, regular features, dark complexion; reserved and haughty manner; wore, when last seen, a full brown beard—” here the detective paused.

“That doesn’t help me,” remarked Pelham, with cool effrontery; “a man’s beard may turn gray in a twelvemonth, and shaving is, I believe optional.”

“Go on, Lethbridge,” said the inspector, with his eyes steadily riveted on Pelham’s face; and Lethbridge continued—“Had on his left forearm two crossed arrows in India ink—” when Pelham, removing his gaze from the ceiling, broke in sharply with “What’s that?”

Farnham, who chanced to be watching Lethbridge as he read, saw him exchange a significant glance with the inspector, which for an instant puzzled him; but as he turned his eyes upon Pelham and noticed the expression of his face, the truth burst upon him like a flash. The man had been betrayed into surprise by the mention of this mark in a description of himself.

Pelham instantly saw his mistake, and his features moved convulsively for a moment before he could bring them under control. In the death-like silence that ensued the ticking of the clock was distinctly audible, and it seemed to Farnham’s excited fancy to be solemnly marking off the few minutes that remained before the closing in of the net. Then, with a sang-froid which under the circumstances was amazing, Pelham began to unbutton the sleeve-link on his left wrist. “That is not necessary, Mr. Pelham,” said the inspector, with his deadly gaze still upon the other’s face. “Your word will be sufficient in this case,” with an unpleasant inflection upon the last words which caught Farnham’s alert attention at once. By this time the tension on his nerves had become almost unbearable, and as he moistened his dry lips and clinched his hands, he felt that he was perhaps the most agitated man in the room. Pelham, whose angry flush under the examination had given place to his former deadly pallor, had recovered his nerve and, but for the great beads of sweat upon his forehead, was holding himself well in hand.

The inspector spoke again. “We have one more test to apply, Mr. Pelham,” he said, with an ominous accentuation of the name; and making a sign to Lethbridge, the detective left the room and almost instantly returned, followed by a woman, who stood just within the door gazing at the group with startled eyes. One glance at her showed Farnham a sad, worn face, and a trembling hand shielding the quivering lips, and he recognized the poor creature who stood on the landing-stage a year before, and stayed Leath with her hands against his breast. With this scene thus suddenly recalled to memory, he turned his eyes upon Pelham, who had fixed his gaze with terrible intensity upon the woman’s face, and a strange horror came over him as he saw the semblance of Captain Black apparently fading into a contorted likeness of Leath as if a metempsychosis were unveiling itself before his eyes. The inspector’s voice again broke the silence, addressing the woman. “Mrs. Leath, do you know this man?”

“Stop!” said Pelham, imperiously, before she could reply. “Don’t question her. This lies between ourselves, and you have no concern in it. There is no use in further subterfuge. I shall make proper amends to this injured and deserted woman, and I believe there is no law requiring the detention of a man who has merely absented himself from his home and his wife.”

“None whatever,” replied the inspector, with a grim smile.

“And this gentleman,” continued Pelham, turning with a ghastly smile to Farnham, “will, I hope, pardon the rudeness of a man caught in a hole. The confusion of my face with that of Captain Black was natural enough. We were not altogether unlike, and the lapse of a year might well mislead anyone;” and with this he turned to Mrs. Leath with an assumption of heartiness and held out both his hands. But the woman recoiled with horror in her eyes and with her hands held up to repel him. “God save me!” she cried, tremulously, “it’s like him and it is not. I don’t know him.”

“It’s the beard that confuses you,” said Pelham, anxiously insisting upon his identity. “See, Margaret!” and separating the hair upon his chin, he revealed the hideous scar running downward from the corner of the mouth. “Isn’t that enough?” he added appealingly to Farnham, who could only stare in utter bewilderment at this seemingly incontestable proof; and then realizing that his protestations were being received in ominous silence, he turned to the two officers and cried passionately, “What more, in God’s name, do you want?”

“Well, if it isn’t asking too much,” said the inspector, quite unmoved by this outbreak, “it would be a little more satisfactory to have your wife recognize you.”

“She does recognize me. She must!” exclaimed the suspected man, with desperate eagerness. “We had not met in eighteen years when she saw me land at Liverpool, and I left her there almost without a word. The woman is simply misled by her absurd emotion. Can’t I be allowed even to know who I am?”

“Certainly,” said the inspector, coolly, “but you have been several persons lately. If you are quite sure who you are now, you may expose your left arm. It was Leath who had the mark of the crossed arrows.”

Farnham, glancing at the man who had been so adroitly unmasked, saw him recoil as though he had been stung, and averted his eyes to avoid witnessing the distressing spectacle of collapse which he thought was at hand; but the other, nerving himself for a final defiance, turned his back upon Mrs. Leath with brutal indifference and said, with cool insolence, “I seem to have fallen into your clumsy trap, and,” he added, with a vindictive scowl at Farnham, “I congratulate this gentleman upon his police work as a spy, in running me down. I am Lansing Black. Is there anything more?”

“Yes,” said the imperturbable inspector, “What became of Roger Leath?”

Black glared at him wildly for an instant, and then sank back into a chair and covered his face with his hands, while Mrs. Leath, with a heartrending cry, fell heavily to the floor.

The next morning Farnham was nervously pacing the floor of his breakfast-room, suffering from what may be concisely described as a surfeit of detective work, when Lethbridge was shown in; and a glance at that astute gentleman’s face assured him that matters were not altogether as they should be in the affair of Captain Black. “He swears he never touched Leath,” said the detective, “and we haven’t anything to go on but the circumstantial evidence. I hoped he would break down and confess, but he is as hard as a flint.”

“What explanation does he offer?” inquired Farnham. “The business couldn’t possibly look blacker for him as it stands.”

“Well, his story is pretty straight as it goes,” said Lethbridge. “He says his attention was first attracted to Leath by the scar on his chin, having one precisely like it himself. Then he saw there was enough resemblance between them to pass among strangers if he took off his beard. He swears he wrote the note then without any definite plan and put it into his portmanteau simply to have it already there if he had to act without premeditation. Likewise, he says his idea was to buy up Leath to act with him in some way. That may be or it may not. As luck would have it, Leath drank heavily that night, and Black got his keys from him on pretence of going down to get him some cigars or something of that sort; and when at last they went out of the smoking-room, Leath, who was as full as a lord, put on the other man’s ulster by mistake; so you see things seemed to work pretty handsomely for Captain Black. Now he says the end of it was that Leath insisted on sitting upon the rail, and, by George, the first roll the ship took, over he went.”

“I shouldn’t fancy standing trial on such a yarn as that,” said Farnham.

“No more would I,” said Lethbridge, with a fine idiom, “but there it is. When he was locked up in Leath’s room, of course he read over his papers and was prepared to meet his wife, and by the way, sir, it was his dropping of Mrs. Leath as gave me the clue. He took her out to a cab and told her he’d go and look after his luggage, and that was the last she saw of him. Having been on the ship, I was called in to look him up, but he seems to have an extraordinary way of making way with himself, and I couldn’t find a trace of him. Says he boarded an outgoing sailing-ship and went to Copenhagen, which is likely enough. Now,” continued Mr. Lethbridge, who seemed to have conceived a marked admiration for Farnham’s detective abilities, “I’ve another little thing on hand which perhaps you’d like to follow up with me.”

“Thank you,” said Farnham, dryly; “I believe I’ve had enough.”

title: Captain Black/Part 4


text: Talk:Captain Black

title: Talk:Captain Black


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Page:Henry VIII and the English Monasteries.djvu/70

 24 peradventure apud homines be a cloak, but not apud Deum. In his reply the cardinal thanks his master "for the great zeal that (he) had for the purity and cleanness of my poor conscience, coveting and desiring that nothing should be by me committed or done, by the colour of my intended college or otherwise, that should not stand with God's pleasure and good conscience, or that thereby any just occasion might be given to any person to speak or judge ill of my doings. And albeit, as is contained in my other letters, I have acknowledged to have received of divers, my old lovers and friends, and other exempt religious persons, right loving and favourable aids towards the edifying of my said college, yet your majesty may be well assured that the same extendeth not to such a sum as some men doth untruly bruit and report, or that any part thereof, to my knowledge, thought, or judgment hath been corruptly or contrary to law taken or given." He then declares that henceforth he will take nothing "from any religious person being exempt or not exempt, so that thereby I trust, nor by any other thing hereafter unlawfully taken, your poor cardinal's conscience shall not be spotted, encumbered, or entangled."

Notwithstanding Wolsey's excuses, Henry seems to have had just grounds for his suspicion that the cardinal had made use of his legatine authority to serve his own purposes. Popular report had spoken of immunities purchased by presents to the cardinal's colleges which were adverse to the king's interests, and which ought not to have been granted. The archbishop of Canterbury complained that, in raising the loan known as the "amicable grant," he had no power at all over the religious houses in his district.


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Rh But when the bird had forever flown,

They brought the nest from the apple tree

To the bed where she lay alone.

O builder of this mystery!"—

The wide and wistful eyes grew dim,

And the soul of the sick girl followed him—

Dear bird! I have had part, through thee,

In the life for which I long and long:

Have shared its hope, its energy,

Its rapture and its song!"


text: Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume I/Interchange


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1861]

the period to which this review of events has advanced, one State had already withdrawn from the Union. Seven or eight others were preparing to follow her example, and others yet were anxiously and doubtfully contemplating the probably impending necessity of taking the same action. The efforts of Southern men in Congress, aided by the coöperation of the Northern friends of the Constitution, had failed, by the stubborn refusal of a haughty majority, controlled by "radical" purposes, to yield anything to the spirit of peace and conciliation. This period, coinciding, as it happens, with the close of a calendar year, affords a convenient point to pause for a brief recapitulation of the causes which had led the Southern States into the attitude they then held, and for a more full exposition of the constitutional questions involved.

The reader of many of the treatises on these events, which have been put forth as historical, if dependent upon such alone for information, might naturally enough be led to the conclusion that the controversies which arose between the States, and the war in which they culminated, were caused by efforts on the one side to extend and perpetuate human slavery, and on the other to resist it and establish human liberty. The Southern States and Southern people have been sedulously represented as "propagandists" of slavery, and the Northern as the defenders and champions of universal freedom, and this view has been so arrogantly assumed, so dogmatically asserted, and so persistently reiterated, that its authors have, in many cases, perhaps,


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78 in bringing themselves to believe it, as well as in impressing it widely upon the world.

The attentive reader of the preceding chapters—especially if he has compared their statements with contemporaneous records and other original sources of information—will already have found evidence enough to enable him to discern the falsehood of these representations, and to perceive that, to whatever extent the question of slavery may have served as an occasion, it was far from being the cause of the conflict.

I have not attempted, and shall not permit myself to be drawn into any discussion of the merits or demerits of slavery as an ethical or even as a political question. It would be foreign to my purpose, irrelevant to my subject, and would only serve—as it has invariably served in the hands of its agitators—to "darken counsel" and divert attention from the genuine issues involved.

As a mere historical fact, we have seen that African servitude among us—confessedly the mildest and most humane of all institutions to which the name "slavery" has ever been applied—existed in all the original States, and that it was recognized and protected in the fourth article of the Constitution. Subsequently, for climatic, industrial, and economical—not moral or sentimental—reasons, it was abolished in the Northern, while it continued to exist in the Southern States. Men differed in their views as to the abstract question of its right or wrong, but for two generations after the Revolution there was no geographical line of demarkation for such differences. The African slave-trade was carried on almost exclusively by New England merchants and Northern ships. Mr. Jefferson—a Southern man, the founder of the Democratic party, and the vindicator of State rights—was in theory a consistent enemy to every form of slavery. The Southern States took the lead in prohibiting the slave-trade, and, as we have seen, one of them (Georgia) was the first State to incorporate such a prohibition in her organic Constitution. Eleven years after the agitation on the Missouri question, when the subject first took a sectional shape, the abolition of slavery was proposed and earnestly debated in the Virginia Legislature, and its advocates were so near the


text:
Page:The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, v1.djvu/119

1820] of their purpose, that a declaration in its favor was defeated only by a small majority, and that on the ground of expediency. At a still later period, abolitionist lecturers and teachers were mobbed, assaulted, and threatened with tar and feathers in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and other States. One of them (Lovejoy) was actually killed by a mob in Illinois as late as 1837.

These facts prove incontestably that the sectional hostility which exhibited itself in 1820, on the application of Missouri for admission into the Union, which again broke out on the proposition for the annexation of Texas in 1844, and which reappeared after the Mexican war, never again to be suppressed until its fell results had been fully accomplished, was not the consequence of any difference on the abstract question of slavery. It was the offspring of sectional rivalry and political ambition. It would have manifested itself just as certainly if slavery had existed in all the States, or if there had not been a negro in America. No such pretension was made in 1803 or 1811, when the Louisiana purchase, and afterward the admission into the Union of the State of that name, elicited threats of disunion from the representatives of New England. The complaint was not of slavery, but of "the acquisition of more weight at the other extremity " of the Union. It was not slavery that threatened a rupture in 1832, but the unjust and unequal operation of a protective tariff.

It happened, however, on all these occasions, that the line of demarkation of sectional interests coincided exactly or very nearly with that dividing the States in which negro servitude existed from those in which it had been abolished. It corresponded with the prediction of Mr. Pickering, in 1803, that, in the separation certainly to come, "the white and black population would mark the boundary"—a prediction made without any reference to slavery as a source of dissension.

Of course, the diversity of institutions contributed, in some minor degree, to the conflict of interests. There is an action and reaction of cause and consequence, which limits and modifies any general statement of a political truth. I am stating general principles—not defining modifications and exceptions with the


text:
Page:Poems, Volume 1, Coates, 1916.djvu/32

HE dances,

And I seem to be

In primrose vales of Sicily,

Beside the streams once looked upon

By Thyrsis and by Corydon:

The sunlight laughs as she advances,

Shyly the zephyrs kiss her hair,

And she seems to me as the wood-fawn, free,

And as the wild rose, fair.

Dance, Perdita! and shepherds, blow!

Your reeds restrain no longer!

Till weald and welkin gleeful ring,

Blow, shepherds, blow! and, lasses, sing,

Yet sweeter strains and stronger!

Let far Helorus softer flow

'Twixt rushy banks, that he may hear;

Let Pan, great Pan himself, draw near!


text:
Page:The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, v1.djvu/120

80 precision of a mathematical proposition or a bill in chancery. The truth remains intact and incontrovertible, that the existence of African servitude was in no wise the cause of the conflict, but only an incident. In the later controversies that arose, however, its effect in operating as a lever upon the passions, prejudices, or sympathies of mankind, was so potent that it has been spread, like a thick cloud, over the whole horizon of historic truth.

As for the institution of negro servitude, it was a matter entirely subject to the control of the States. No power was ever given to the General Government to interfere with it, but an obligation was imposed to protect it. Its existence and validity were distinctly recognized by the Constitution in at least three places:

First, in that part of the second section of the first article which prescribes that "representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective members, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and, excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons." "Other persons" than "free persons" and those "bound to service for a term of years" must, of course, have meant those permanently bound to service.

Secondly, it was recognized by the ninth section of the same article, which provided that "the migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight." This was a provision inserted for the protection of the interests of the slave-trading New England States, forbidding any prohibition of the trade by Congress for twenty years, and thus virtually giving sanction to the legitimacy of the demand which that trade was prosecuted to supply, and which was its only object.

Again, and in the third place, it was specially recognized, and an obligation imposed upon every State, not only to refrain from interfering with it in any other State, but in certain cases to aid in its enforcement, by that clause, or paragraph,


text:
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Rh of the second section of the fourth article which provides as follows:

 * "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

The President and Vice-President of the United States, every Senator and Representative in Congress, the members of every State Legislature, and "all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several States," were required to take an oath (or affirmation) to support the Constitution containing these provisions. It is easy to understand how those who considered them in conflict with the "higher law" of religion or morality might refuse to take such an oath or hold such an office—as the members of some religious sects refuse to take any oath at all or to bear arms in the service of their country—but it is impossible to reconcile with the obligations of honor or honesty the conduct of those who, having taken such an oath, made use of the powers and opportunities of the offices held under its sanctions to nullify its obligations and neutralize its guarantees. The halls of Congress afforded the vantage-ground from which assaults were made upon these guarantees. The Legislatures of various Northern States enacted laws to hinder the execution of the provisions made for the rendition of fugitives from service; State officials lent their aid to the work of thwarting them; and city mobs assailed the officers engaged in the duty of enforcing them.

With regard to the provision of the Constitution above quoted, for the restoration of fugitives from service or labor, my own view was, and is, that it was not a proper subject for legislation by the Federal Congress, but that its enforcement should have been left to the respective States, which, as parties to the compact of union, should have been held accountable for its fulfillment. Such was actually the case in the earlier and better days of the republic. No fugitive slave-law existed, or was required, for two years after the organization of the Federal


text:
Page:Poems, Volume 1, Coates, 1916.djvu/33

Rh Stately

She moves, half smiling

With girlish look beguiling,—

A dawn-like grace in all her face;

Stately she moves, sedately,

Through the crowd circling round her;

But—swift as light—

See! she takes flight!

Empty, alas! is her place.

Follow her, follow her, let her not go!

Mirth ended so—

Why, 't is but woe!

Follow her, follow her! Perdita!—lo,

Love hath with wreaths enwound her!

She dances,

And I seem to see

The nymph divine, Terpsichore,

As when her beauty dazzling shone

On eerie heights of Helicon.

With bursts of song her voice entrances

The dreamy, blossom-scented air,

And she seems to me as the wood-fawn, free,

And as the wild rose, fair.


text: Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume I/Perdita

title: Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume I/Perdita


text:
Author:Bao Zheng

Works

 * Xiao Su Sir Bao's memorial (孝肃包公奏议)
 * Bao Zheng Set (包拯集)

title: Author:Bao Zheng


text: Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume I/The "Penseur"


text:
Page:Poems, Volume 1, Coates, 1916.djvu/60

38 Inward and inward still his vision sinks.

What does he here?—He thinks!

Thought is the travail that absorbs him thus;

Himself the workshop, most mysterious,

Wherein are wrought what human strengths there be.

Detached, aloof, with eyes that seem to stare

Beyond us and beyond apparent things,

He gazes far into futurity,

And doth with gods unbourned horizons share.

For thoughts, upborne on never-tiring wings,

Boldly adventure regions foul and fair:

To Hades sink, then rise to Heaven again,

Still finding everywhere

The mystic threads whereof are joy and pain

Shaped in the penetralia of the brain!


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Page:Poems, Volume 1, Coates, 1916.djvu/59

ODIN'S it was—this vital thing, this Soul,

This striving force imprisoned in clay,

This monster Shape inert, held in control

By that it doth enshrine:

Rodin's it was; but, ah, to-day

It is the world's—and mine!

What mystery here is meant?

Is this Time's great event—

This creature earthward sent

With subtle might against himself to strive—

To struggle upward from the brutish thing

And, ruling the blood's rioting,

Keep the celestial spark in him alive?

What miracle is meant,

Suggested by this frame relaxed and bent?

What wonders to this Titan are revealed,

Sitting enisled and motionless as if

Lone on some cloud-invested Teneriffe?


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Page:The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, v1.djvu/122

82 Government, and, when one was then passed, it was merely as an incidental appendage to an act regulating the mode of rendition of fugitives from justice—not from service or labor.

In 1850 a more elaborate law was enacted as part of the celebrated compromise of that year. But the very fact that the Federal Government had taken the matter into its own hands, and provided for its execution by its own officers, afforded a sort of pretext to those States which had now become hostile to this provision of the Constitution, not only to stand aloof, but in some cases to adopt measures (generally known as "personal liberty laws") directly in conflict with the execution of the provisions of the Constitution.

The preamble to the Constitution declared the object of its founders to be, "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." Now, however (in 1860), the people of a portion of the States had assumed an attitude of avowed hostility, not only to the provisions of the Constitution itself, but to the "domestic tranquillity" of the people of other States. Long before the formation of the Constitution, one of the charges preferred in the Declaration of Independence against the Government of Great Britain, as justifying the separation of the colonies from that country, was that of having "excited


text:
Page:The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, v1.djvu/123

1854] domestic insurrections among us." Now, the mails were burdened with incendiary publications, secret emissaries had been sent, and in one case an armed invasion of one of the States had taken place for the very purpose of exciting "domestic insurrection."

It was not the passage of the "personal liberty laws," it was not the circulation of incendiary documents, it was not the raid of John Brown, it was not the operation of unjust and unequal tariff laws, nor all combined, that constituted the intolerable grievance, but it was the systematic and persistent struggle to deprive the Southern States of equality in the Union—generally to discriminate in legislation against the interests of their people; culminating in their exclusion from the Territories, the common property of the States, as well as by the infraction of their compact to promote domestic tranquillity.

The question with regard to the Territories has been discussed in the foregoing chapters, and the argument need not be repeated. There was, however, one feature of it which has not been specially noticed, although it occupied a large share of public attention at the time, and constituted an important element in the case. This was the action of the Federal judiciary thereon, and the manner in which it was received.

In 1854 a case (the well-known "Dred Scott case") came before the Supreme Court of the United States, involving the whole question of the status of the African race and the rights of citizens of the Southern States to migrate to the Territories, temporarily or permanently, with their slave property, on a footing of equality with the citizens of other States with their property of any sort. This question, as we have seen, had already been the subject of long and energetic discussion, without any satisfactory conclusion. All parties, however, had united in declaring, that a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States—the highest judicial tribunal in the land—would be accepted as final. After long and patient consideration of the case, in 1857, the decision of the Court was pronounced in an elaborate and exhaustive opinion, delivered by Chief-Justice Taney—a man eminent as a lawyer, great as a statesman, and stainless in his moral reputation—seven of the nine judges who


text:
Page:The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, v1.djvu/124

84 composed the Court, concurring in it. The salient points established by this decision were:

1. That persons of the African race were not, and could not be, acknowledged as "part of the people," or citizens, under the Constitution of the United States;

2. That Congress had no right to exclude citizens of the South from taking their negro servants, as any other property, into any part of the common territory, and that they were entitled to claim its protection therein;

3. And, finally, as a consequence of the principle just above stated, that the Missouri Compromise of 1820, in so far as it prohibited the existence of African servitude north of a designated line, was unconstitutional and void. The Supreme Court of the United States in stating (through Chief-Justice Taney) their decision in the "Dred Scott case," in 1857, say: "In that portion of the United States where the labor of the negro race was found to be unsuited to the climate and unprofitable to the master, but few slaves were held at the time of the Declaration of Independence; and, when the Constitution was adopted, it had entirely worn out in one of them, and measures had been taken for its gradual abolition in several others. But this change had not been produced by any change of opinion in relation to this race, but because it was discovered from experience that slave-labor was unsuited to the climate and productions of these States; for some of these States, when it had ceased, or nearly ceased, to exist, were actively engaged in the slave-trade; procuring cargoes on the coast of Africa, and transporting them for sale to those parts of the Union where their labor was found to be profitable and suited to the climate and productions. And this traffic was openly carried on, and fortunes accumulated by it, without reproach from the people of the States where they resided."

This statement, it must be remembered, does not proceed from any partisan source, but is extracted from a judicial opinion pronounced by the highest court in the country. In illustration of the truthfulness of the latter part of it, may be mentioned the fact that a citizen of Rhode Island (James D'Wolf), long and largely concerned in the slave-trade, was sent from that State to the Senate of the United States as late as the year 1821. In 1825 he resigned his seat in the Senate and removed to Havana, where he lived for many years, actively engaged in the same pursuit, as president of a slave-trading company. The story is told of him that, on being informed that the "trade" was to be declared piracy, he smiled and said, "So much the better for us—the Yankees will be the only people not scared off by Buch a declaration." (It will be remembered that it had already been declared "inoperative and void" by the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854.)

Instead of accepting the decision of this then august tribunal


text: Index:Microcosmographia, Crooke, 1615.jpg


text:
Author:Peter Philip Bilhorn

Works

 * "Wondrous Story"

title: Author:Peter Philip Bilhorn


text:
User talk:Majrjejm

cygnis insignis 05:28, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Licence for On Being the Right Size?
You state that the work was written in 1926, which being after 1923 means that we enter into a different copyright space with regard to the US, especially as the author died in 1964 which is 46 years ago. Was the work originally published in 1926, or just written, if just written, where and when was it published? Have you checked for a copyright renewal of the work in the US sources? — billinghurst  sDrewth  04:04, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

It appears to have been published in Harpers in March of 1926. I have not checked for a copyright renewal of the work and could use guidance on how to do so. --Majrjejm (talk) 04:11, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I found more information. The essay was also included in Possible Worlds by J. B. S. Haldane, Copyright 1928 by Harper & Row. Again, I need guidance on researching current copyright information. If the work is still under copyright, I'll remove it. --Majrjejm (talk) 04:17, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Made a request at Possible copyright violations for someone to assist. — billinghurst  sDrewth  04:49, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Some opinions at Possible copyright violations — billinghurst  sDrewth  21:36, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Majrjejm


text: Author talk:Peter Philip Bilhorn

title: Author talk:Peter Philip Bilhorn


text:
Page:The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, v1.djvu/125

1860] —the ultimate authority in the interpretation of constitutional questions—as conclusive of a controversy that had so long disturbed the peace and was threatening the perpetuity of the Union, it was flouted, denounced, and utterly disregarded by the Northern agitators, and served only to stimulate the intensity of their sectional hostility.

What resource for justice—what assurance of tranquillity—what guarantee of safety—now remained for the South? Still forbearing, still hoping, still striving for peace and union, we waited until a sectional President, nominated by a sectional convention, elected by a sectional vote—and that the vote of a minority of the people—was about to be inducted into office, under the warning of his own distinct announcement that the Union could not permanently endure "half slave and half free"; meaning thereby that it could not continue to exist in the condition in which it was formed and its Constitution adopted. The leader of his party, who was to be the chief of his Cabinet, was the man who had first proclaimed an "irrepressible conflict" between the North and the South, and who had declared that abolitionism, having triumphed in the Territories, would proceed to the invasion of the States. Even then the Southern people did not finally despair until the temper of the triumphant party had been tested in Congress and found adverse to any terms of reconciliation consistent with the honor and safety of all parties.

No alternative remained except to seek the security out of the Union which they had vainly tried to obtain within it. The hope of our people may be stated in a sentence. It was to escape from injury and strife in the Union, to find prosperity and peace out of it. The mode and principles of their action will next be presented.


text:
CMH 60-3: Infantry, Part I: Regular Army

 * ARMY LINEAGE SERIES
 * INFANTRY

________________________________________ ________________________________________
 * Part I:
 * Regular Army
 * by
 * John K. Mahon
 * and
 * Romana Danysh
 * OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF MILITARY HISTORY
 * UNITED STATES ARMY
 * WASHINGTON, D.C., 1972
 * Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 74-610219
 * First Printing

 * 1) Foreword
 * 2) The Authors
 * 3) Preface
 * 4) History of the Organization of the Infantry
 * 5)  The Era of Revolution
 * 6)  Through the Second War With England
 * 7)  The Germinal Period, 1816-1860
 * 8)  The Civil War
 * 9)  A Diverse Half Century, 1866-1915
 * 10)  The First World War
 * 11)  Between World Wars, 1919-1941
 * 12)  The Second World War
 * 13)  World War II to Korea
 * 14)  The Korean War
 * 15)  The Pentomic Concept and the Combat Arms Regimental System
 * 16)  ROAD and Flexible Response
 * 17)  The War in Vietnam


text:
Infantry, Part I: Regular Army /Foreword

 * Foreword

 * In all of the major wars of the United States from the American Revolution through the conflict in Southeast Asia the dominant combat arm of the United States Army has been the infantry. It was natural therefore in producing an Army Lineage Series to devote the first published volume to that arm. Appearing in 1953, the first infantry lineage book has long been out of print, and subsequent organizational developments have amply warranted a revised and enlarged edition and its publication in more durable form. As explained in the Preface, Infantry is now to appear in two parts, this one with Regular Army and the one to come with Army National Guard and Army Reserve lineages and heraldic data; the historical narrative on the branch is to be included in both. In addition to the second parts of this work and of the ArmorCavalry volume, other volumes on artillery and on divisions and separate brigades are now being prepared.

 * The Army Lineage Series is designed to foster the esprit de corps of United States Army units, and within the Army it is intended for use at all levels of command, in service schools, and in training programs. The short history of the infantry that precedes the lineages in this volume is an illuminating and thoroughly researched survey that should appeal to everyone interested in military history.

 * Washington, D.C.
 * 15 April 1971

 * JAMES L. COLLINS, JR.
 * Brigadier General, USA
 * Chief of Military History


text: Talk:Essays of Elia/My First Play

title: Talk:Essays of Elia/My First Play


text:
Author:John K. Mahon

Works

 * CMH 60-3: Infantry, Part I: Regular Army

title: Author:John K. Mahon


text:
Template:OCLC link/uribyoclc/doc

This subtemplate of OCLC link is used to form the URI to the appropriate page at.

title: Template:OCLC link/uribyoclc/doc


text:
Template:OCLC link/uribyoclc

https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/

title: Template:OCLC link/uribyoclc


text:
Author:Romana Danysh

 * Romana Danysh graduated from Barnard College in 1962 and received the M.A. degree in history from Stanford University in 1963.
 * Since 1964. she has served as a historian in the Organizational History Branch of the Office of the Chief of Military History.

Works

 * CMH 60-3: Infantry, Part I: Regular Army

title: Author:Romana Danysh


text:
Rundle v. Delaware/Separate Catron

Mr. Justice CATRON.

My opinion is, and long has been, that the mayor and aldermen of a city corporation, or the president and directors of a bank, or the president and directors of a railroad company, (and of other similar corporations,) are the true parties that sue and are sued as trustees and representatives of the constantly changing stockholders. These are not known to the public, and not suable in practice, by service of personal notice on them respectively, such as the laws of the United States require. If the president and directors are citizens of the State where the corporation was created, and the other party to the suit is a citizen of a different State, or a subject or citizen of a foreign government, then the courts of the United States can exercise jurisdiction under the third article of the Constitution. In this sense I understood Letson's case, and assented to it when the decision was made; and so it is understood now.

If all the real defendants are not within the jurisdiction of the court, because some of the directors reside beyond it, then the act of February 28, 1843, allows the suit to proceed, regardless of this fact, for the reasons stated in Litson's case. 2 How. 597.

If the United States courts could be ousted of jurisdiction, and citizens of other States and subjects of foreign countries be forced into the State courts, without the power of election, they would often be deprived, in great cases, of all benefit contemplated by the Constitution; and, in many cases, be compelled to submit their rights to judges and juries who are inhabitants of the cities where the suit must be tried, and to contend with powerful corporations, in local courts, where the chances of impartial justice would be greatly against them; and where no prudent man would engage with such an antagonist, if he could help it. State laws, by combining large masses of men under a corporate name, cannot repeal the Constitution; all corporations must have trustees and representatives, who are usually citizens of the State where the corporation is created; and these citizens can be sued, and the corporate property charged by the suit; nor can the courts allow the constitutional security to be evaded by unnecessary refinements, without inflicting a deep injury on the institutions of the country

title: Rundle v. Delaware/Separate Catron


text:
Rundle v. Delaware/Dissent Daniel

Mr. Justice DANIEL.

In the opinion of the court, just announced in this cause, I am unable to concur.

Were the relative rights and interests of the parties to this controversy believed to be regularly before this court, I should have coincided in the conclusions of the majority; for the reason, that all that is disclosed by the record, either of the traditions or the legislation of the States of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, shows an equal right or claim on the part of either of those States to the River Delaware, and to the uses to which the waters of that river might be applied. From such an equality in each of those States, it would seem regularly to follow, that no use or enjoyment of the waters of that river could be invested in the grantees of one of them, to the exclusion of the like use and enjoyment by the grantees of the other. The permission, therefore, from Pennsylvania to Adam Hoops, or his assignees, to apply the waters of the Delaware in the working of his mill, whatever estate or interest it might invest in such grantee, as against Pennsylvania, could never deprive the State of New Jersey of her equal privilege of applying the waters of the same river, either directly, in her corporate capacity, or through her grantee, the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company. My disagreement with my brethren in this case has its foundation in a reason wholly disconnected with the merits of the parties. It is deducible from my conviction of the absence of authority, either here or in the Circuit Court, to adjudicate this cause; and that it should therefore have been remanded, with directions for its dismission, for want of jurisdiction.

The record discloses the fact, that the party defendant in the Circuit Court, and the appellee before this court, is a corporation, styled in the declaration, 'a corporation created by the State of New Jersey.' It is important that the style and character of this party litigant, as well as the source and manner of its existence, be borne in mind, as both are deemed material in considering the question of the jurisdiction of this court, and of the Circuit Court. It is important, too, to be remembered, that the question here raised stands wholly unaffected by any legislation, competent or incompetent, which may have been attempted in the organization of the courts of the United States; but depends exclusively upon the construction of the 2d section of the 3d article of the Constitution, which defines the judicial power of the United States; first, with respect to the subjects embraced within that power; and, secondly, with respect to those whose character may give them access, as parties, to the courts of the United States. In the second branch of this definition, we find the following enumeration, as descriptive of those whose position, as parties, will authorize their pleading or being impleaded in those courts; and this position is limited to 'controversies to which the United States are a party; controversies between two or more States,-between citizens of different States,-between citizens of the same State, claiming lands under grants of different States,-and between the citizens of a State and foreign citizens or subjects.'

Now, it has not been, and will not be, pretended, that this corporation can, in any sense, be identified with the United States, or is endowed with the privileges of the latter; or if it could be, it would clearly be exempted from all liability to be sued in the Federal courts. Nor is it pretended, that this corporation is a State of this Union; nor, being created by, and situated within, the State of New Jersey, can it be held to be the citizen or subject of a foreign State. It must be, then, under that part of the enumeration in the article quoted, which gives to the courts of the United States jurisdiction in controversies between citizens of different States, that either the Circuit Court or this court can take cognizance of the corporation as a party; and this is, in truth, the sole foundation on which that cognizance has been assumed, or is attempted to be maintained. The proposition, then, on which the authority of the Circuit Court and of this tribunal is based, is this: The Delaware and Raritan Canal Company is either a citizen of the United States, or it is a citizen of the State of New Jersey. This proposition, startling as its terms may appear, either to the legal or political apprehension, is undeniably the basis of the jurisdiction asserted in this case, and in all others of a similar character, and must be established, or that jurisdiction wholly fails. Let this proposition be examined a little more closely.

The term citizen will be found rarely occurring in the writers upon English law; those writers almost universally adopting, as descriptive of those possessing rights or sustaining obligations, political or social, the term subject, as more suited to their peculiar local institutions. But, in the writers of other nations, and under systems of polity deemed less liberal than that of England, we find the term citizen familiarly reviving, and the character and the rights and duties that term implies, particularly defined. Thus, Vattel, in his 4th book, has a chapter, (cap. 6th,) the title of which is: 'The concern a nation may have in the actions of her citizens.' A few words from the taxt of that chapter will show the apprehension of this author in relation to this term. 'Private persons,' says he, 'who are members of one nation, may offend and ill-treat the citizens of another; it remains for us to examine what share a state may have in the actions of her citizens, and what are the rights and obligations of sovereigns in that respect.' And again: 'Whoever uses a citizen ill, indirectly offends the state, which is bound to protect this citizen.' The meaning of the term citizen indicating persons in their natural character, in contradistinction to artificial or fictitious persons created by law, is further elucidated by those jurists, in their treatises upon the origin and capacities and objects of those artificial persons designated by the name of corporations. Thus, Mr. Justice Blackstone, in the 18th chapter of his 1st volume, holds this language: 'We have hitherto considered persons in their natural capacities, and have treated of their rights and duties. But, as all personal rights die with the person; and, as the necessary forms of investing a series of individuals, one after another, with the same identical rights, would be inconvenient, if not impracticable; it has been found necessary, when it is for the advantage of the public to have any particular rights kept on foot and continued, to constitute artificial persons, who maintain a perpetual succession, and enjoy a kind of legal immortality. These artificial persons are called corporations.'

This same distinguished writer, in the first book of his Commentaries, p. 123, says, 'The rights of persons are such as concern and are annexed to the persons of men, and when the person to whom they are due is regarded, are called simply rights; but when we consider the person from whom they are due, they are then denominated, duties,' And again, cap. 10th of the same book, treating of the PEOPLE, he says, 'The people are either aliens, that is, born out of the dominions or allegiance of the crown; or natives, that is, such as are born within it.' Under our own systems of polity, the term, citizen, implying the same or similar relations to the government and to society which appertain to the term, subject, in England, is familiar to all. Under either system, the term used is designed to apply to man in his individual character, and to his natural capacities; to a being, or agent, possessing social and political rights, and sustaining, social, political, and moral obligations. It is in this acceptation only, therefore, that the term, citizen, in the article of the Constitution, can be received and understood. When distributing the judicial power, that article extends it to controversies between citizens of different States. This must mean the natural physical beings composing those separate communities, and can, by no violence of interpretation, be made to signify artificial, incorporeal, theoretical, and invisible creations. A corporation, therefore, being not a natural person, but a mere creature of the mind, invisible and intangible, cannot be a citizen of a State, or of the United States, and cannot fall within the terms or the power of the above-mentioned article, and can therefore neither plead nor be impleaded in the courts of the United States. Against this position it may be urged, that the converse thereof has been ruled by this court, and that this matter is no longer open for question. In answer to such an argument, I would reply, that this is a matter involving a construction of the Constitution, and that wherever the construction or the integrity of that sacred instrument is involved, I can hold myself trammelled by no precedent or number of precedents. That instrument is above all precedents; and its integrity every one is bound to vindicate against any number of precedents, if believed to trench upon its supremacy. Let us examine into what this court has propounded in reference to its jurisdiction in cases in which corporations have been parties; and endeavor to ascertain the influence that may be claimed for what they have heretofore ruled in support of such jurisdiction. The first instance in which this question was brought directly before this court, was that of the Bank of the United States v. Deveaux, 5 Cranch, 61. An examination of this case will present a striking instance of the error into which the strongest minds may be led, whenever they shall depart from the plain, common acceptation of terms, or from well ascertained truths, for the attainment of conclusions, which the subtlest ingenuity is incompetent to sustain. This criticism upon the decision in the case of the Bank v. Deveaux, may perhaps be shielded from the charge of presumptuousness, by a subsequent decision of this court, hereafter to be mentioned. In the former case, the Bank of the United States, a corporation created by Congress, was the party plaintiff, and upon the question of the capacity of such a party to sue in the courts of the United States, this court said, in reference to that question, 'The jurisdiction of this court being limited, so far as respects the character of the parties in this particular case, to controversies between citizens of different States, both parties must be citizens, to come within the description. That invisible, intangible, and artificial being, that mere legal entity, a corporation aggregate, is certainly not a citizen, and consequently cannot sue or be sued in the courts of the United States, unless the rights of the members in this respect can be exercised in their corporate name. If the corporation be considered as a mere faculty, and not as a company of individuals, who, in transacting their business, may use a legal name, they must be excluded from the courts of the Union.' The court having shown the necessity for citizenship in both parties, in order to give jurisdiction; having shown farther, from the nature of corporations, their absolute incompatibility with citizenship, attempts some qualification of these indisputable and clearly stated positions, which, if intelligible at all, must be taken as wholly subversive of the positions so laid down. After stating the requisite of citizenship, and showing that a corporation cannot be a citizen, 'and consequently that it cannot sue or be sued in the courts of the United States,' the court goes on to add, 'unless the rights of the members can be exercised in their corporate name.' Now, it is submitted that it is in this mode only, viz. in their corporate name, that the rights of the members can be exercised; that it is this which constitutes the character, and being, and functions of a corporation. If it is meant beyond this, that each member, or the separate members, or a portion of them, can take to themselves the character and functions of the aggregate and merely legal being, then the corporation would be dissolved; its unity and perpetuity, the essential features of its nature, and the great objects of its existence, would be at an end. It would present the anomaly of a being existing and not existing at the same time. This strange and obscure qualification, attempted by the court, of the clear, legal principles previously announced by them, forms the introduction to, and apology for, the proceeding, adopted by them, by which they undertook to adjudicate upon the rights of the corporation, through the supposed citizenship of the individuals interested in that corporation. They assert the power to look beyond the corporation, to presume or to ascertain the residence of the individuals composing it, and to model their decision upon that foundation. In other words, they affirm that in an action at law, the purely legal rights, asserted by one of the parties upon the record, may be maintained by showing or presuming that these rights are vested in some other person who is no party to the controversy before them.

Thus stood the decision of the Bank of the United States v. Deveaux, wholly irreconcilable with correct definition, and a puzzle to professional apprehension, until it was encountered by this court, in the decision of the Louisville and Cincinnati Railroad Company v. Letson, reported in 2 Howard, 497. In the latter decision, the court, unable to untie the judicial entanglement of the Bank and Deveaux, seem to have applied to it the sword of the conqueror; but, unfortunately, in the blow they have dealt at the ligature which perplexed them, they have severed a portion of the temple itself. They have not only contravened all the known definitions and adjudications with respect to the nature of corporations, but they have repudiated the doctrines of the civilians as to what is imported by the term subject or citizen, and repealed, at the same time, that restriction in the Constitution which limited the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States to controversies between 'citizens of different States.' They have asserted that, 'a corporation created by, and transacting business in a State, is to be deemed an inhabitant of the State, capable of being treated as a citizen, for all the purposes of suing and being sued, and that an averment of the facts of its creation, and the place of transacting its business, is sufficient to give the circuit courts jurisdiction.'

The first thing which strikes attention, in the position thus affirmed, is the want of precision and perspicuity in its terms. The court affirm that a corporation created by, and transacting business within a State, is to be deemed an inhabitant of that State. But the article of the Constitution does not make inhabitancy a requisite of the condition of suing or being sued; that requisite is citizenship. Moreover, although citizenship implies the right of residence, the latter by no means implies citizenship. Again, it is said that these corporations may be treated as citizens, for the purpose of suing or being sued. Even if the distinction here attempted were comprehensible, it would be a sufficient reply to it, that the Constitution does not provide that those who may be treated as citizens, may sue or be sued, but that the jurisdiction shall be limited to citizens only; citizens in right and in fact. The distinction attempted seems to be without meaning, for the Constitution or the laws nowhere define such a being as a quasi citizen, to be called into existence for particular purposes; a being without any of the attributes of citizenship, but the one for which he may be temporarily and arbitrarily created, and to be dismissed from existence the moment the particular purposes of his creation shall have been answered. In a political, or legal sense, none can be treated or dealt with by the government as citizens, but those who are citizens in reality. It would follow, then, by necessary induction, from the argument of the court, that as a corporation must be treated as a citizen, it must be so treated to all intents and purposes, because it is a citizen. Each citizen (if not under old governments) certainly does, under our system of polity, possess the same rights and faculties, and sustain the same obligations, political, social, and moral, which appertain to each of his fellow-citizens. As a citizen, then, of a State, or of the United States, a corporation would be eligible to the State or Federal legislatures; and if created by either the State or Federal governments, might, as a native-born citizen, aspire to the office of President of the United States-or to the command of armies, or fleets, in which last example, so far as the character of the commander would form a part of it, we should have the poetical romance of the spectre ship realized in our Republic. And should this incorporeal and invisible commander not acquit himself in color or in conduct, we might see him, provided his arrest were practicable, sent to answer his delinquencies before a court-martial, and subjected to the penalties of the articles of war. Sir Edward Coke has declared, that a corporation cannot commit treason, felony, or other crime; neither is it capable of suffering a traitor's or felon's punishment; for it is not liable to corporeal penalties-that it can perform no personal duties, for it cannot take an oath for the due execution of an office; neither can it be arrested or committed to prison, for its existence being ideal, no man can arrest it; neither can it be excommunicated, for it has no soul. But these doctrines of Lord Coke were founded upon an apprehension of the law now treated as antiquated and obsolete. His lordship did not anticipate an improvement by which a corporation could be transformed into a citizen, and by that transformation be given a physical existence, and endowed with soul and body too. The incongruities here attempted to be shown as necessarily deducible from the decisions of the cases of the Bank of the United States v. Deveaux, and of the Cincinnati and Louisville Railroad Company v. Letson, afford some illustration of the effects which must ever follow a departure from the settled principles of the law. These principles are always traceable to a wise and deeply founded experience; they are, therefore, ever consentaneous, and in harmony with themselves and with reason; and whenever abandoned as guides to the judicial course, the aberration must lead to bewildering uncertainty and confusion. Conducted by these principles, consecrated both by time and the obedience of sages, I am brought to the following conclusions: 1st. That by no sound or reasonable interpretation, can a corporation-a mere faculty in law, be transformed into a citizen, or treated as a citizen. 2d. That the second section of the third article of the Constitution, investing the courts of the United States with jurisdiction in controversies between citizens of different States, cannot be made to embrace controversies to which corporations and not citizens are parties; and that the assumption, by those courts, of jurisdiction in such cases, must involve a palpable infraction of the article and section just referred to. 3d. That in the cause before us, the party defendant in the Circuit Court having been a corporation aggregate, created by the State of New Jersey, the Circuit Court could not properly take cognizance thereof; and, therefore, this cause should be remanded to the Circuit Court, with directions that it be dismissed for the want of jurisdiction.

title: Rundle v. Delaware/Dissent Daniel


text: The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government/I/X


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In re Thomas Kaine an Alleged Fugitive from Great Britain/Dissent Taney

Mr. Chief Justice TANEY.

I concur in opinion with my brother Nelson. The questions involved in this application are very grave ones; and I should have felt it to be my duty to state the grounds on which my opinion has been formed, had not the whole subject been so fully and, to my mind, satisfactorily discussed by him. But, concurring, as I do, in all that he has said, I shall forbear any discussion on my part, and content myself with expressing my entire assent to the opinion he has just delivered.


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In re Thomas Kaine an Alleged Fugitive from Great Britain/Dissent Daniel

Mr. Justice DANIEL.

The question just disposed of by the court, involving the lives and liberties, not only of those who from abroad may seek protection under our laws, but the lives and liberties of our own citizens, is undoubtedly one of the most important which can claim the vigilance of our government in every department. Having deliberately compared my own views of this vital question with what has been so well expressed by my brother Nelson, and concurring, as I do, in all that he has said upon it, I deem it unnecessary to do more than thus solemnly to attest my adherence to the great principles of law, justice, and liberty vindicated by him.


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title: Template:OCLC link/doc