Note 18 — Chapter VIII

This language of the Supreme Court contains an admission of the truth of the charge just made against judges, viz: that rather than lose their offices, they will violate what they know to be law, in subserviency to the legislatures on whom they depend; for it admits, 1st, that the preservation of men's rights is the vital principle of law, and, 2d, that courts, (and the Supreme Court of the United States in particular,) will trample upon that principle at the bidding of the legislature, when the mandate comes in the shape of a statute of such "irresistible clearness," that its meaning cannot be evaded.