Respublica v. Samuel Chapman
Supreme Court of the United States
By a proclamation, dated the 15th June 1778, issued by the Supreme Executive Council, in pursuance of the act of assembly, passed the 6th of Mal-ch preceding, for the attainder of divers traitors, &c. (1 Sm. L. 449), the prisoner had been required to surrender himself on the 1st of August following, &c., or to be attainted of high treason agreeably to that act.
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By a proclamation, dated the 15th June 1778, issued by the Supreme Executive Council, in pursuance of the act of assembly, passed the 6th of Mal-ch preceding, for the attainder of divers traitors, &c. (1 Sm. L. 449), the prisoner had been required to surrender himself on the 1st of August following, &c., or to be attainted of high treason agreeably to that act. The time allowed for his surrender being elapsed ; the attorney-general filed a suggestion, in the usual form, stating that Samuel Chapman the prisoner was the person required by the proclamation to surrender himself, &c. ; that he had…
1Opinion of the Court
The Chief Justice delivered a learned and circumstantial charge to the jury. After stating the proclamation, the issue, and the evidence, he proceeded as follows :
McKean, Chief Justice.
The question that is to be decided on the facts before us, is, whether Samuel Chapman, the prisoner at the bar, ever was a subject of this commonwealth ? The reason which has been principally urged to take him out of that description, is that on the 26th day of December, in the year 1776, when he withdrew from Pennsylvania, no government existed to which he could owe allegiance as a subject. I shall, in the…
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