“To commence a suit, is to demand something by the institution of process in a court of justice; and to prosecute the suit, is, according to the common acceptation of language, to continue that demand.”

Now let me take the different clauses of this definition, and see if every one of them does not necessarily include the demand made by a slave claimant against the alleged slave.

“We understand a suit,” say the court, “to be the prosecution or pursuit of some claim, demand, or request.” Here, then, according to the supreme court, a suit is the prosecution of some claim; and, according to the very letter of the constitution, the fugitive slave is to be delivered up, on claim. The slave, then, can be constitutionally and legally “delivered up” in no other way than “on claim,” by “suit.”

Again, say the court: “In law language, it

To proceed with the opinion of the court: “The Mirror defines a suit to be ‘the lawful demand of one’s right;’ or, as Bracton and Fleta express it, in the words of Justinian, it is the form of prosecuting in trial, or judgment, what is due to any one.” Here service is alleged to be due; and the one who is said to owe that service is “prosecuted by trial and judgment,” that he may render the service claimed.

“To commence a suit is to demand something by the institution of process in a court of justice; and to prosecute the suit is, according to the common acceptation of language, to continue that demand.” In the appeal to a court for the possession of an alleged fugitive, is not something “demanded”? And what is the warrant that is issued for his arrest but the “institution of process”?

If any one, then, will show that a “claim” for an alleged fugitive, by process of law, to be followed up by proof in support of the claim, and to be consummated by judgment, is not a “suit,” he must show that it is not “the prosecution or support of a claim;” he must show that it is not “the prosecution of some demand in a court of justice;” he must show that it is not “the lawful demand of one’s right;” nor “the form of prosecuting in trial or judgment;” and finally, he must show that it is not “to demand something by the institution of process in a court of justice,” and then “to continue that demand” until judgment is rendered for or against him.

But should the claimant of a fugitive slave show any one of these four things, he would show himself the way out of court.

And this brings me to the second proposition, namely,—

The claim for a person “held to service or labor” is, in view of the constitution, a “suit at common law.”