Excerpt from An Undelivered Speech on Executive Arrests There was made, in this city, on Tuesday, the twenty-third of September last, Mr. John H. Cook, a teller in the bank of Kensington, being the victim, one of those audacious arrests which have caused so much public and private indignation. The writer of these pages was applied to, with other counsel, to sue in his behalf out of the District Court of the United States, for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, a writ of habeas corpus, which was obtained, and the prisoner brought before Mr, Justice Cadwalader for hearing, when, after one or two postponements at the instance of the Government, they relaxed their grasp and let Mr. Cook go, no reason being assigned for his discharge, as none had been given for his arrest; and the case there ended. What had fallen from the Bench made it plain enough that the learned Judge intended the question of these Executive seizures to undergo a full examination, and should the conclusion have been to the contrary of their legality - of which it would be scandalous to doubt - all knew that the mandate of that court would have been issued as unhesitatingly against high authority as against the poorest citizen; and once issued, that it would have been maintained without flinching. Under these circumstances it was that the heart of conscience-stricken power cowered. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.