And I turn to the report of the trial now, to call attention to the language of the court in its charge, as delivered by Chief Justice Durfee.  I present the following extract from that charge:—­

“It may be, Gentlemen, that he really believed himself to be the governor of the State, and that he acted throughout under this delusion.  However this may go to extenuate the offence, it does not take from it its legal guilt.  It is no defence to an indictment for the violation of any law for the defendant to come into court and say, ’I thought that I was but exercising a constitutional right, and I claim an acquittal on the ground of mistake,’ Were it so, there would be an end to all law and all government.  Courts and juries would have nothing to do but to sit in judgment upon indictments, in order to acquit or excuse.  The accused has only to prove that he has been systematic in committing crime, and that he thought that he had a right to commit it; and, according to this doctrine, you must acquit.  The main ground upon which the prisoner sought for a justification was, that a constitution had been adopted by a majority of the male adult population of this State, voting in their primary or natural capacity or condition, and that he was subsequently elected, and did the acts charged, as governor under it.  He offered the votes themselves to prove its adoption, which were also to be followed by proof of his election.  This evidence we have ruled out.  Courts and juries, Gentlemen, do not count votes to determine whether a constitution has been adopted or a governor elected, or not.  Courts take notice, without proof offered from the bar, what the constitution is or was, and who is or was the governor of their own State.  It belongs to the legislature to exercise this high duty.  It is the legislature which, in the exercise of its delegated sovereignty, counts the votes and declares whether a constitution be adopted or a governor elected, or not; and we cannot revise and reverse their acts in this particular, without usurping their power.  Were the votes on the adoption of our present constitution now offered here to prove that it was or was not adopted; or those given for the governor under it, to prove that he was or was not elected; we could not receive the evidence ourselves, we could not permit it to pass to the jury.  And why not?  Because, if we did so, we should cease to be a mere judicial, and become a political tribunal, with the whole sovereignty in our hands.  Neither the people nor the legislature would be sovereign.  We should be sovereign, or you would be sovereign; and we should deal out to parties litigant, here at our bar, sovereignty to this or that, according to rules or laws of our own making, and heretofore unknown in courts.

“In what condition would this country be, if appeals could be thus taken to courts and juries? This jury might decide one way, and that another, and the sovereignty