Foreign Country Quotes
See Saint Ambrose {593184} for an earlier expression of this general principle.
In the early days of the Civil War slaves who escaped and reached the Northern lines were routinely returned to their Southern owners as the Fugitive Slave Act required. The first actual emancipation of the Civil war was not the President’s proclamation but was Butler who as a Union General ordered that the slaves escaping from Virginia no longer be returned. He was accused of violating the then existing law, however he had a legal rationale which hoisted Virginia on its own petard.