them from their imprisonment in the jail of Pike county, and give
them safe conduct back into the State in which they were captured:
and that the Governor of Kentucky has declined to accede to that
demand ; and in view of these filcts it is claimed that their subsequent
(letention by the jailer of Pike county, in pursuance of regular proc-
ess in the name of the Commonwealth, to answer to the indictments
against them for the crime of murder alleged to have been committed
by them in that county, was in violation of the Constitution and laws
of the United States, and that your Honor should consequently dis-
charge them without delay. It is for us to see, therefore, whether
there is any valid reason by wvhich a proposition so startling and ex-
traordinary can be sustained.
                       THE (QUESTION STATED.
   Neither the guilt nor innocence of the prisoners, nor the atrocity
of the crimes with which they are charged, nor their nationality or
citizenship is at all pertinent to this inquiry. Conceding that their
capture in West Virginia and deportation into Kentucky were without
warrant, by force, against their will, and totally without legal or moral
justification, after all the naked. question is: What provision of the
Federal Constitution, or what law made by authority of the United
States has been violated, or will be violated, by their detention in the
jail of Pike county, under the authority and in obedience to the Com-
monwealth of Kentucky, to answer indictments for crimes alleged to
have been committed against her laws.

                  ARGUMENT OF THE PRISONERS STATED.
   What reasonable answer can be made to this question, other than
that no such provision can be found at all, I confess my utter inability
to conceive, notwithstanding I listened with the most profound interest
and attention to the verv earnest remarks of the learned counsel
(MR. ST. CLAIR) who opened this discussion. He argued, however,
if I understood him correctly, that the only right which a State has to
claim the arrest of a fugitive from its justice, who may be found in the
territory of another, is under the third clause of the second section of
the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States, and that
such claihn can only be asserted in the manner therein prescribed; that
they were citizens and residents of the State of West Virginia; that
the State of Kentucky has obtained custody of them through a differ-
ent method, namely: by having them seized under a regular writ and