years imprisonment in the state prison, and not having been pardoned;
the conviction having by law deprived him of citizenship and right to
vote, unless pardoned and restored to citizenship. The case came up
before the General Term of the Supreme Court, on writ of error. It
appeared that on the trial evidence was offered, that before the
prisoner was discharged from the state prison, he and his father applied
to the Governor for a pardon, and that the Governor replied in writing,
that on the ground of the prisoner's being a minor at the time of his
discharge from prison, a pardon would not be necessary, and that he
would be entitled to all the rights of a citizen on his coming of age.
They also applied to two respectable counsellors of the Supreme Court,
and they confirmed the Governor's opinion. All this evidence was
rejected. It appeared that the prisoner was seventeen years old when
convicted of the felony, and was nineteen when discharged from prison.
The rejection of the evidence was approved by the Supreme Court on the
ground that the prisoner was bound to know the law, and was presumed to
do so, and his conviction was accordingly confirmed.

Here a young man, innocent so far as his conduct in this case was
involved, was condemned, for acting in good faith upon the advice,
(mistaken advice it may be conceded,) of one governor and two lawyers to
whom he applied for information as to his rights; and this condemnation
has proceeded upon the assumed ground, conceded to be false in fact,
that he knew the advice given to him was wrong. On this judicial fiction
the young man, in the name of justice, is sent to prison, punished for a
mere mistake, and a mistake made in pursuance of such advice. It cannot
be, consistently with the radical principles of criminal law to which I
have referred, and the numerous authorities which I have quoted, that
this man was guilty of a crime, that his _mistake_ was a crime, and I
think the judges who pronounced his condemnation, upon their own