and imprisonment, but would reduce to writing the reasons under whicj he had
acted, and forward them, with the proceedings, to the President, so that the
latter might discharge his constitutional duty to "take care that the laws are
faithfully executed."

That opinion will always be remembered, and, in the words of the biographer
of the Chief justice, "will command the admiration and gratitude of every lover
of constitutional liberty so long as our institutions shall endure." The action of
that venerable man was as brave as was that of England's steel-gloved barons
when they wrested Magna Charta from King John under the branching oaks
of Runnymede.

There were still stirring events to follow in Maryland, but they do not
directly belong to this history, and so the reader must now follow the fortunes of
the Maryland Line.