and may rightfully, as was done in the case at Trenton, enter a nolle prosequi, or direct that the criminal be prosecuted no further. This is no interference with judicial decisions, nor any invasion of the province of a court. It is the exercise of an indubitable and a constitutional power. Had the President directed the judge at Charleston to decide for or against his own jurisdiction, to condemn or acquit the prisoner, this would have been a dangerous interference with judicial decisions, and ought to have been resisted. But no such direction has been given, nor any such decision been required. If the President determined that Thomas Nash ought to have been delivered up to the British government for a murder committed on board a British frigate, provided evidence of the fact was adduced, it was a question which duty obliged him to determine, and which he determined rightly. If, in consequence of this determination, he arrested the proceedings of a court on a national prosecution, he had a right to arrest and to stop them, and the exercise of this right was a necessary consequence of the determination of the principal question. In conforming to this decision, the court has left open the question of its jurisdiction. Should another prosecution of the same sort be commenced, which should not be suspended but continued by the Executive, the case of Thomas Nash would not bind as a precedent against the jurisdiction of the court. If it should even prove that, in the opinion of the executive, a murder committed on board a foreign fleet was not within the jurisdiction of the court, it would prove nothing more; and though this opinion might rightfully induce the executive to exercise its power over the prosecution, yet if the prosecution was continued, it would have no influence with the court in deciding on its jurisdiction. Taking the fact, then, even to be as the gentleman in support of the resolutions has stated it, the fact cannot avail them. you still longer for the purpose of noticing an observation which appears not to be considered by the gentleman who made it as belonging to the argument. The subject introduced by this observation, however, is so calculated to interest the public feelings, that I must be excused for stating my opinion on it. The gentleman from Pennsylvania has said, that an impressed American seaman, who should commit homicide for the purpose of liberating himself from the vessel in which he was confined, ought not to be given up as a murderer. In this, I concur entirely with the gentleman. I believe the opinion to be unquestionably correct, as were the reasons that gentleman has given in support of it. I have never heard any American avow a contrary sentiment, nor do I believe a contrary sentiment could find a place in the bosom of any American. I cannot pretend, and do not pretend to know the opinion of the executive on the subject, because I have never heard the opinions of that department; but I feel the most perfect conviction, founded on the general conduct of the government, that it could never surrender an impressed American to the nation, which, in making the impressment, had committed a national injury. This belief is, in no degree, shaken by the conduct of the executive in this particular case. In my own mind, it is a sufficient defence of the President from an imputation of this kind, that the fact of Thomas Nash being an impressed American, was obviously not contemplated by him in the decision he made on the principles of the case. Consequently, if a new circumstance occurred, which would essentially change the case decided by the President, the judge ought not to have acted under that decision, but the new circumstance ought to have been stated. Satisfactory as this defence might appear, I shall not resort to it, because to some it might seem a subterfuge. I defend the conduct of the President on other and still stronger It is to be remembered, too, that in the case stated to the President, the judge himself ap-ground. pears to have considered it as proper for executive decision, and to have wished that decision. The President and judge seem to have entertained, on this subject, the same opinion, and in consequence of the opinion of the judge, the application was made to the President. It has then been demonstrated: 1st. That the case of Thomas Nash, as stated to the President, was completely within the twenty-seventh article of, the treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain. 2d. That this question was proper for executive. and not for judicial decision, and 3d. That in deciding it, the President is not chargeable with an interference with judicial decisions. After trespassing so long on the patience of the House, in arguing what has appeared to me to be the material points growing out of the resolutions, I regret the necessity of detaining The President had decided that a murder committed on board a British frigate on the high seas, was within the jurisdiction of that nation, and consequently within the twentyseventh article of its treaty with the United States. He therefore directed Thomas Nash to be delivered to the British ministers, if satisfactory evidence of the murder should be adduced. The sufficiency of the evidence was submitted entirely to the judge. If Thomas Nash had committed a murder, the decision was that he should be surrendered to the British minister; but if he had not committed a murder, he was not to be surrendered. Had Thomas Nash been an impressed American, the homicide on board the Hermione would, most certainly, not have been a murder. The act of impressing an American is an act of lawless violence. The confinement on board a vessel, is a continuation of that violence, and an additional outrage. Death committed with- | President was so expressed as to exclude the in the United States, in resisting such violence, case of an impressed American liberating himwould not have been murder, and the person self by homicide. giving the wound could not have been treated as a murderer. Thomas Nash was only to have been delivered up to justice on such evidence as, had the fact been committed within the United States, would have been sufficient to have induced his commitment and trial for murder. Of consequence, the decision of the Mr. Marshall now observed that he had already too long availed himself of the indulgence of the House, to venture farther on that indulgence by recapitulating or reinforcing the arguments which had already been urged. RUFUS KING. RUFUS KING, the eldest son of Richard King, an opulent and worthy merchant of Scarboro', Maine, was born in the year 1755. After due preparation, he was placed in the Byfield Academy, at Newbury, Massachusetts, where, under the severe discipline of the "classical Samuel Moody," he finished his elementary studies: and in 1773, entered Harvard College. In 1777, he received his first degree; with great reputation for his classical attainments, and more especially, for his extraordinary powers of oratory; an accomplishment in which he was particularly desirous to excel, and to the acquisition of which he applied himself with the highest enthusiasm. On leaving college he went to Newburyport, and commenced the study of law in the office of the celebrated Theophilus Parsons, with whom he remained until his admission to the bar in the year 1780. A short portion of this period of his life, however, was devoted to the cause of his country, as, in 1778, he took the field as a volunteer, was appointed an aid to General Sullivan, and acompanied that officer in his enterprise with Count D'Estaing, against the British at Rhode Island. Mr. King appeared at the bar in his first cause, under peculiar circumstances. His opponent was his great instructor, Parsons. Fully aware of the gigantic powers with which he was to contend, he called forth his best efforts, and evinced such talent, both as a lawyer and a speaker, that immediate and confident predictions were made of his future eminence. It is stated, that "the effect of his address upon the court, the bar, and the audience, was electrifying." Soon after this successful entrance upon professional life, he was elected to represent the town of Newburyport in the Legislature of Massachusetts, in which assembly he soon rose to distinction. In 1784, Congress recommended to the several States to grant to the general government, "full authority to regulate their commerce, both external and internal, and to impose such duties as might be necessary for that purpose." A debate arose in the legislature, in which Mr. King supported the grant, and finally prevailed. During the same year, 1784, he was elected, by an almost unanimous vote of the legislature, a delegate to the Continental Congress, from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; and on the sixth of December, joined that body, then in session at Trenton, New Jersey. In 1785 and 1786, he was reëlected to Congress, and took an active and important part in its transactions. On the sixteenth of March, 1785, he submitted to Congress and advocated the passage of the following proposition: "That there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the States, described in the resolve of Congress of the twenty-third of April, 1784, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been personally guilty; and that this regulation shall be an article of compact, and remain a fundamental principle of the constitutions between the thirteen original States, and each of the States described in the said resolve of the twenty-third of April, 1784." By this resolution, slavery was prohibited in the territory northwest of the Ohio.* In 1787, Mr. King was a member of the Convention held in Philadelphia, for the purpose Journals of the American Congress. Edition of 1828, pp. 379, 481. of framing the Federal Constitution, and on the reference of that instrument to the several States for their consideration, he was chosen by his old constituents of Newburyport, a delegate to the Massachusetts Convention. In both of those assemblies, he bore an active and prominent part. In the latter, he and Fisher Ames took the lead. For their wise and patriotic labors here, they are entitled to the deepest gratitude of their countrymen. "The history of the world," says a modern writer, "records no case of more interest, than that which pervaded the United States in 1788. Thirteen independent sovereignties, seriously alarmed for their preservation against each other, more alarmed with the apprehension that they might give up the liberty which they had gained with the utmost exertion of mind and body from foreign tyranny, to one of their own creation, within their own limits, called into the deliberative assemblies of the time all the able men of the country. Some union of the States was admitted by all to be indispensable; but in what manner it was to be effected, what powers should be given, and what powers reserved,-how these should be modified, checked, and balanced,-were points on which honest men might zealously contend. Here was a case in which a whole people, unawed by any foreign power, in peace with all the world, sorely experienced in what may be the exercise of civil authority, dependent on no will but their own, convinced of the necessity of forming some government, were called on to settle, by peaceful agreement, among themselves, the most important questions which can be presented to the human mind." * An intense interest was manifested in the proceedings of the Massachusetts Convention, and it was believed that, if that body rejected the constitution, its adoption by a requisite number of the other States would not be made. There was a great difference of opinion among the members; each one had his own objections, and "there is no doubt," says Sullivan, "if the question had been taken without discussion, there would have been a large majority against the adoption." At this crisis, Mr. King and Mr. Ames, advocated the ratification. "Every day they made converts, and became more popular, until at last the question was carried against the declared determination of those who entered the convention for the express purpose of defeating it." The next year, 1788, Mr. King removed to the city of New York, where he was chosen a member of the State Legislature, and during the summer of the same year, was elected one of the first senators to Congress under the Federal Constitution. In 1794, during the excitement consequent on the promulgation of the British treaty, Mr. King appearing, with his friend Alexander Hamilton, at a public meeting in New York, attempted to explain and defend it, but the people refused to listen, and a short time after the sentiments which were to have been offered, were conveyed to the people through the press, in a series of essays under the signature of Camillus; the first ten numbers of which were written by Hamilton, and the rest, which treated of navigation, trade, and maritime law, by Mr. King. About this time a warm and protracted controversy arose in the Senate of the United States, relative to the eligibility of Albert Gallatin,t who had been elected a Senator from the State of Pennsylvania. A petition was presented against his taking his seat, in which it was set forth that he was not legally qualified by having been a citizen of the United States a sufficient number of years. Owing to the various modes of naturalization adopted by different States, the question was involved in some obscurity: at the same time it was one of the highest importance. Among the debaters on the subject were the ablest men of both parties. The opponents of the petition, who maintained the right of the returned member to his seat, were Mr. Monroe, Mr. Burr, and John Taylor, of Virginia; opposed to these, were Ellsworth, Strong, King, and their political friends; and to Mr. King, it was assigned to answer Mr. Burr, if he should take part in the debate. Mr. Burr opened the case in "a discourse of considerable ingenuity." When he had finished, Mr. King immediately replied, in a speech which is said to have been one of the most gigantic displays of eloquence of modern times. One of his auditors says, "he worked himself up into such a fervor, that he leapt from the floor, and that, extravagant as this action Familiar Letters upon Public Characters, by William Sullivan, page 61. + See the sketch of Albert Gallatin, in the subsequent pages of this work. may appear, it was no more then, than 'the action suited to the word.'"* The debate resulted in the exclusion of Mr. Gallatin. Early in the year 1796, he was appointed by President Washington, minister to the Court of Great Britain, in which service he remained seven years. While abroad his relations with the literary and public men of the day, were intimate and distinguished. By the "mild dignity of his manners, and his capacity for public business, he acquired and maintained a powerful personal influence, which he exerted to advance the interests of his country." He returned to New York in 1803, and five years after removed to his estate on Long Island, where he resided until the commencement of the war of 1812, when he again entered the scenes of political life. In 1813 he was chosen by the legislature of New York, a Senator of the United States. The nation was at that time involved in a war with England. "At this momentous crisis," says one of his cotemporaries, "when many of the stoutest hearts were appalled, and the weak despaired of the Republic, Mr. King was neither idle nor dismayed. His love of country dispelled his attachments to party. No habit of opposition could induce him to forget that the United States was his country, and that the rights and honor of that country he ought to support and maintain. It has been observed that the conduct of the British, exhibited in their destruction of Washington, tended to unite all parties in America. The speech of Mr. King, in the Senate, on this occasion, while it may compare with any of his former efforts, in eloquence, has the rare and enviable distinction of being approved and applauded for its sentiments also, by the entire nation." During his attendance at Congress, in 1816, he was nominated for the office of Governor of New York. With reluctance, and after much solicitation, he acquiesced in the nomination. The result, however, was unfavorable to the expectations of his friends. In 1820 he was again returned to the Senate, where he continued until the expiration of the term, in March, 1825. The most important measures originated by him during his senatorial term are, the law requiring cash payments upon sales of the public lands, and the act of 1818, which is the foundation of the navigation system of the United States. On his retirement from Congress, he intended to close his political career; but, with the hope of contributing to the adjustment of several disputed questions between Great Britain and the United States, he accepted the mission to the British Court, tendered him by President Adams. His appointment proved satisfactory to the ministers of the British Court. On his arrival in England he was treated with distinguished and respectful consideration; but his health was so impaired, by a disease often the consequence of a voyage, that he never entered upon the active duties of his office. After remaining abroad a year, in the hope of re-establishing his health, without any improvement, he returned to his native land, where, cheered by the attentions of an affectionate family, and with resignation, he died on the 29th of April, 1827.† THE NAVIGATION ACT. THIS speech on the "American Navigation | power of nations. Agriculture is the chief and Act," was delivered by Mr. King, in the Senate of the United States, on the third day of April, 1818: Agriculture, Manufactures, and Foreign Commerce are the true source of the wealth and * Delaplaine's Repository: Article Rufus King. + Maryland Gazette, 1813, and the American Annual Register. Curtis's History of the Constitution of the United States. The first section of this Act provided, "that from and after the 30th of September, 1818, the ports of the United well rewarded occupation of our people, and yields, in addition to what we want for our own use, a great surplus for exportation. Manufactures are making a sure and steady progress; and, with the abundance of food and of raw materials, which the country affords, will, at no distant day, be sufficient, in the principal States should be and should remain closed against every vessel owned, wholly or in part, by a subject or subjects of His Britannic Majesty, coming or arriving from any port or place in a colony or territory of His Britannic Majesty, that was or should be by the ordinary laws of navigation and |