Noah Haynes Swayne

“ The learned judge mingled the duty of the court and jury, leaving to the jury no discretion but to obey the direction of the court. Where there is no evidence, or such a defect in it that the law will not permit a verdict for the plaintiff to be given, such an instruction may be properly demanded, and it is the duty of the court to give it. To refuse is error. In this case the evidence was received without objection, and was before the jury. It tended to maintain, on the part of the plaintiff, the issue which they were to try. Whether weak or strong, it was their right to pass upon it. ”

“ Evidence of treasonable acts on his part against the United States was alien to the issue before the jury. To admit it, was to put the plaintiff on trial as well as the defendants. The proofs upon the question thus raised might be more voluminous than those upon the issue made by the pleadings. The trial might be indefinitely prolonged. The minds of the jury could hardly fail to be darkened and confused as to the real character of the case and the duty they were called upon to discharge. The guilt of the plaintiff, if established, could in no wise affect the legal liability of the defendants ”

“ The union of the States, for all the purposes of the Constitution, is as perfect and indissoluble as the union of the integral parts of the States themselves; and nothing but revolutionary violence can, in either case, destroy the ties which hold the parts together. ”