Robert Cooper Grier

“ When the decisions of the state court are not consistent, we do not feel bound to follow the last, if it is contrary to our own convictions-and much more is this the case, where, after a long course of consistent decisions, some new light suddenly springs up, or an excited public opinion has elicited new doctrines, subversive of former safe precedent. ”

“ Those who look for the rule of action which is to govern term, seek it no longer in the code which has been abrogated, and, having effected its temporary purpose, has become obsolete and null, but in that which has the sanction of their own legislature. ”

“ It reads as follows: 'Persons imprisoned or without the United States,'-having the words 'beyond seas' erased; whereas the printed statutes retain the words 'beyond seas,' and add or interpolate the word 'or.'
It is no doubt true, as a general rule, that the mistake of a transcriber or printer cannot change the law; and that when the statutes published by authority are found to differ from the original on file among the public archives, that the courts will receive the latter as containing the expressed will of the legislature in preference to the former. ”