Herald Of The Times

Case of T. W. Dorr.—It appears by the Providence papers, that, after a long consultation with his counsel, on Saturday last, Mr Dorr signed an application to the Supreme Court of the U. S. for a writ of error to bring before it, the points decided by the Supreme Judicial Court, of this State, in his trial for treason. This will carry Mr. Dorr's case, with his own consent, before the first mentioned tribunal, and puts an entirely different aspect on the business from what it presented when we spoke of the probable course of the Legislature in regard to him in the last week's Herald. We think, as things now stand, it would clearly be inexpedient for the General Assembly to take any steps in regard to the release of Mr. Dorr, until this matter of the writ of error is finally and satisfactorily disposed of. When the Court shall have given their opinion, as we have no doubt they speedily will, that they have no authority to sustain his application for the writ, it will be time enough to deliberate as to the terms of Mr. Dorr's release. That the Assembly will ever so far err in judgment as to release him unconditionally, or without taking the oath of allegiance to the present Government, required in all similar cases, we certainly never intended to intimate. That they may extend their clemency, at the proper time and on fit conditions, to the man of all others the most answerable for the dangers and calamities which overtook the State, we think highly probable—judging from the lenity they have ever been willing to practice towards minor offenders, engaged in the same desperate cause.