One of the wisest men I know posts an article twice a month; here’s an excerpt to perk your interest and a link to the rest.
A book which I would eagerly recommend for your devotional reading would be James MacDonald’s work, “Gripped by the Greatness of God.” It is one of those books which jars the reader with salient thoughts which can have wide ranging impact. One such thought is found on page 106 of that book. The author pulls up an account from 1826 when two men were sentenced to be executed as the result of a crime against the government. Apparently an appeal was made by someone after the first man was hanged. In response to the appeal, the President of the United States issued a pardon for the second man.
This is when the story took a strange twist. The man who had been pardoned refused to accept that pardon! This created quite a stir. Over the next three years the issue found its way to the United States Supreme Court. The decision handed down by Chief Justice John Marshall can be found at http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/pardons4.htm (United States v. Wilson 1833). It was the first Supreme Court decision to be handed down with regard to pardons. The decision stated in part…
