University of Virginia Library

6393. PARDONS, Proper.—

The power of
pardon, committed to Executive discretion,
[can] never be more properly exercised than
where citizens [are] suffering without the authority
of law, or, which [is] equivalent, under
a law unauthorized by the Constitution, and
therefore null.—
To Spencer Roane. Washington ed. vii, 135. Ford ed., x, 141.
(P.F.,,
18191819)gt;