Note 22 — BOOK I. HISTORY OF THE POLITICAL PARTIES OF THE UNITED STATES. (continued 8)
Reading edition
On the 23d of July, 1861, the Attorney-General, in answer to a letter from the United States Marshal of Kansas, inquiring whether he should assist in the execution of the fugitive slave law, wrote:
Attorney-General’s Office, July 23, 1861.
J. L. McDowell, U. S. Marshal, Kansas:
Your letter, of the 11th of July, received 19th, (under frank of Senator Lane, of Kansas,) asks advice whether you should give your official services in the execution of the fugitive slave law.
It is the President’s constitutional duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” That means all the laws. He has no right to discriminate, no right to execute the laws he likes, and leave unexecuted those he dislikes. And of course you and I, his subordinates, can have no wider latitude of discretion than he has. Missouri is a State in the Union. The insurrectionary disorders in Missouri are but individual crimes, and do not change the legal status of the State, nor change its rights and obligations as a member of the Union.
A refusal by a ministerial officer to execute any law which properly belongs to his office, is an official misdemeanor, of which I have no doubt the President would take notice. Very respectfully
EDWARD BATES.