See CURIA REGIS.
HIGH GERMANY, Old League of.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1332-1460.
HIGH MIGHTINESSES, Their.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1651-1660.
HIGHER LAW DOCTRINE, The.
William H. Seward, speaking in the Senate of the United
States, March 11, 1850, on the question of the admission of
California into the Union as a Free State, used the following
language: "'The Constitution,' he said, 'regulates our
stewardship; the Constitution devotes the domain to union, to
justice, to defence, to welfare, and to liberty. But there is
a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our
authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble
purposes. The territory is a part, no inconsiderable part, of
the common heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the
Creator of the universe. We are His stewards, and must so
discharge our trust as to secure in the highest attainable
degree their happiness.' This public recognition by a Senator
of the United States that the laws of the Creator were
'higher' than those of human enactment excited much
astonishment and indignation, and called forth, in Congress
and out of it, measureless abuse upon its author."
_H. Wilson,
History of the Rise and Fall
of the Slave Power in America,
volume 2, pages 262-263._
In the agitations that followed upon the adoption of the
Fugitive Slave Law, and the other compromise measures
attending the admission of California, this Higher Law
Doctrine was much talked about.