I suggest that there should also be required by statute a residence within any Congressional district in which a right to vote may be claimed, for six months next preceding the election. This measure stands upon the same grounds of propriety which require such residence in the city or town, and would prevent the possible effort to defeat the will of the majority of bona fide inhabitants of a Congressional district, by the colonization of voters from another district, in a case where some of the wards of a city lie in one district and the remaining wards in another.

The General Statutes.

I respectfully suggest to the Legislature the propriety of refraining from alterations of the General Statutes of the Commonwealth, not clearly requisite in order to repair accidental errors or omissions, or to conform legislation to new wants, or to reform abuses.

The General Statutes as recently revised, have been less than one year in operation. The revision received more or less attention from several successive Legislatures. It was the work of eminent Commissioners, which they constructed with critical, intelligent and laborious care and learning. Their Report was submitted to a numerous Joint Committee of both branches of the Legislature of 1859. This Committee sat for one hundred and nine days in reexamination of the work, and its final Report was, in turn, made to the Legislature convened in special session for the

This session,

single purpose of its consideration. commencing September 7th, closed December 28th, and the labors of the Commissioners and the Committee were subjected to a minute, independent and thorough criticism, never surpassed under similar circumstances. Finally, the Governor of the Commonwealth, in the exercise of his duty of original reexamination preparatory to the expression of approval or dissent, discovered a single instance of possible conflict between these Statutes and the laws of Congress. This consisted in the omission of a word from one of the chapters, which led him to apprehend a want of conformity between that chapter and a certain provision of the Federal law touching the organization of the militia. With conscientious zeal he invoked the opinion of the Attorney-General and of the Judges of the Supreme Court upon the question. Their reply confirmed his objections, and he returned to the Legislature the whole body of the Revised Statutes unapproved in consequence of the omission. The Legislature restored the omitted word, and the unhesitating bestowal of the executive sanction then conferred upon the work the authority of law.

I mention this to illustrate the minute fidelity with which the revision was accomplished. Able hands conducted the enterprise; vigilant eyes watched and criticised it at every step of its progress; and the most eminent lawyers and statesmen of the party in opposition, were members of the Committee, and sat in the

Legislature by which it was at last perfected. Printed copies of the Report of the Commissioners were profusely distributed among lawyers and jurists, whose aid was invoked for the discovery of errors, or inaccuracies of any kind. The intelligence, learning, good faith, and patriotism of the entire legal mind of the Commonwealth was thus directed to the labor.

A large measure of respect is due to a body of law prepared with a care so elaborately exhaustive of all possible means of accuracy. And I think that it is due to truth and to the merits of the work to declare that in my humble judgment such respect will be amply justified by the experience of the future.

The Provisions of the Statutes concerning Personal Liberty.

I cannot, however, forget at this moment some recent impeachments of our legislation providing safeguards for personal liberty; but it is impossible for me to compress within the restricted space allowable for the purpose, a review of the objections alleged against that legislation, or even of the reasons by which it commends itself to good citizens who believe in its propriety. The subject opens too broad a field of juridical inquiry and erudition to be mapped out on this occasion. But I think that if it could be remembered that the liberties of white men and of their children are involved in its consideration, and if it could be forgotten, in the discussion, that people of color have an

existence, some advance would thereby be made towards clearing a vision now too easily beclouded, touching all matters which concern the African race.

The governments of the United States and of this Commonwealth have co-ordinate jurisdiction, each within its own sphere, over the same territory. When either, by its appropriate officers, has obtained actual and lawful custody of a person or of property, for the purpose of legal inquiry into the title to the property, or the right to hold the person, or in order to try that person for crime, the person or the property, until that investigation shall be completed, is withdrawn from the exercise of the corresponding jurisdiction of the other government. This is implied from the very coexistence of the two governments in federal relationship, and it is rarely expressed in the statutes of either, although it applies with equal force to both. does not depend upon any supremacy or preference of the one government over the other, but upon the naked question which of them first acquires jurisdiction of the subject matter to be determined.

It

The application of this principle to the provisions of the General Statutes of Massachusetts concerning the writ of habeas corpus, relieves them from all constitutional objection. Although our Statutes in terms require this writ in all cases except of imprisonment or restraint by a sheriff or similar officer of the Commonwealth, to be addressed to the sheriffs and their deputies (as being the appropriate officers to execute

the process of the Commonwealth,) and to direct them to take the body of the person alleged to be restrained of his liberty, as well as to summon the person who is alleged to restrain him; yet if the person so restrained is held by a marshal of the United States by virtue of a lawful warrant from a judge or other authorized officer of the United States, for the purpose of conducting any legal inquiry, he cannot be taken out of the custody of the United States until the hearing upon that question has been finished and the result declared. The most that can be done is to summon the marshal to appear and show the cause of the restraint; and this summons the marshal is bound by his duty as a citizen and a subject of the State, to obey. If he shows a process issued by lawful authority, valid to hold his prisoner, the State Court cannot take the prisoner from his custody for the purpose of a further exercise of its jurisdiction. But if the process, being produced, proves to be invalid or insufficient for the purpose for which it is proposed to be used, or if an alleged fugitive is not in the custody of an officer of the United States, but in that of a private person, there is nothing in the Constitution or Laws of the United States to prevent the trial by the State Courts upon habeas corpus, or other appropriate process, of the right of restraint alleged; and in such cases the modes of proceeding and rules of evidence are to be determined by the Constitution and Laws of the State.