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WILLIAM WEMMS AND SEVEN OTHERS. 469

I have gone through those authorities in law, which I
thought pertinent to this trial. I have been thus lengthy, not
for the information of the Court, but to satisfy you, gentle-
men, and all who may chance to hear me, of that law, which
is well known to those of us who are conversant in courts,
but not so generally known or sttended to by many, as it
ought to be. A law which extends to each of us, as well as
to any of the prisoners; for it knows no distinetion of per-
sons.

And the doctrines which have been thus laid down are for
the safeguard of us all. Doctrines which are founded in the
wisdom and policy of ages; which the greatest men who ever
lived have adopted and contended for. Nay, the matter has
been carried by very wise men much further than we have
contested for. And that you may not think the purport of
the authorities read are the rigid notions of a dry system,
and the contracted decisions of municipal law, I beg leave
to read to you a passage from a very great theoretic writer:
@ man whose praises have resounded through all the known
world and probably will through all ages; whose sentiments
are as free as air, and who has done as much for learning, lib-
erty and mankind as any of the sons of Adam; I mean the
sagacions Mr. Locke: He will tell you, gentlemen, in his Es-
say on Government, page 2, chapter 3, ‘That all manner of
foree withont right puts man in a state of war with the ag-
gressor; and of consequence, that, being in such a state of
war, he may lawfully kill him who puts him under this un-
natural restraint.” According to this doctrine, we should
have nothing to do but inquire whether here was ‘‘force
without right’’: if so, we were in such a state as rendered it
lawful to kill the aggressor, who ‘put us under so unnatural
arestraint.’? Few, I believe, will say, after hearing all this
evidence, that we were under no unnatural restraint. But

intended agninat A, and lighting on B, arose from a sudden transport
of passion which in case A had died by it, would have been reduced
to manslaughter, the fact will admit of the same alleviation if B
should happen to fall by it.” To tha same effect are other author-
ities,

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