Samuel Freeman Miller

“ Its tendency is to make the very debts which the citizens of one section may owe to another an inducement to revolution and insurrection, and it rewards the man who lifts his hands against his government by protection to his property, which it would not otherwise possess, if he can raise his efforts to the dignity of a civil war. ”

“ The case before us was not one of a sale by judicial proceeding. No aid of a court was needed or called for. It was purely the case of the execution of a power by a person in whom a trust had been reposed in regard to real estate, the land, the trustee, and the cestui que trust all being, as they had always been, within a State whose citizens were loyally supporting the nation in its struggle with its enemies. ”

“ A proposition like this, which gives an immunity to rebels against the government not accorded to the soldier who is fighting for that government, in the very locality where the other resides, must receive the gravest consideration and be supported by unquestioned weight of authority before it receives our assent. ”