The Sun.
London, England, 1869-12-27 00:00:00

ME NEW UNITED STA7ES JUDGES.

(From the Nation.)
The recent history of the Supreme Court of the
United States furnishes au excellent illustration of
the manner in which, in a mixed Government like
ours, the political balan!te of various departments is
in the long run maintained. Thirty years ago the
Supreme Court, and indeed the judiciary generally,
stood as high in the general estimation of the public
as it is given to mortal authority ever to stand. No
doubt of its purity lurked in men's minds ; no poli-
tical bias was believed to influence its decisions; it
was looked upon by the common consent of all
parties as the one great landmark, the one great
bulwark of society which was sure to withstand all
storms, and to secure the nation whose laws it ad•
ministered in the blessings of life, liberty, and tln
pursuit of happiness. But this impression was not
destined long to continue. From the moment that
the popular mind had become folly convinced that
the great question of the hour was the question of
slavery, it became evident that the prestige of the
judiciary had received a severe check. A Court, it
seemed, which had been reverenced for impartiality
and justice, was unable to apprehend the utter in-
justice of compulsory servitude. Judges who had
been held up to the people as models of wisdom ren-
dered decisions whose folly the most uninstructed
could discern at a glance. A co-ordinate depart-
ment of the entire Government was in the hands
and at the beck of a fraction of the people.
We do not say that this change of feeling was
right, but merely that it took place. The Supreme
Court, from hating been the most honoured, be-
came in a few short years the most despised of
American institutions. The Court had not changed.
The fatal Bred Scott decision, which finished the
work in unpopular eyes, might have been ren-
dered with as great unanimity in Washington's
time as in Buchanan's; but in Washington's time the
people cared nothing about the matter, while in
Buchanan's time they cared deeply. But however
that might have been, the prestige of the Court was
gone. Then came the war, and the fierce passions
which it excited served to increase the contempt in
which all judicial processes were beginning to be
held. The raising of armies, the levying of taxes,
the summary arrest of the seditious, the recognition
of the existence of a civil war—all these things be-

came in the mind of the dominant party necessities ;
and in the way of all these stood that terrible ob-
stacle, the Supreme Court. From day to day no
one could tell what decisions it might not render.
It might declare the Legal-Tender Act unconstitu-
tional, and plunge the whole country into ruin ; it
might decide that conscription was unlawful, and
prevent the raising of armies; it might declare the
very war itself unconstitutional. Against all such
chances the people were obliged to prepare them-
selves. And they made their preparations in two
ways. They resolved silently that the decisions of
the Court should not stand in their way, whatever
they might be ; and they began, by means of Pre-
sidential appointments, to change the cpmplexion
of the bench itself. Whenever a Democratic Judge
resigned or died, a ReTublican Judge was put in
his place. And so the Court sank lower than ever
in public estimation. What would have happened
if it had really rendered any important unpopular
decision during the war, it is hard to say. Peril :Ts
we may infer the consequences front what took place
after the war was ended. Then began those fierce
struggles over the Reconstruction Acts which
have only just been brought to a close, and in
which the very existence of the Court was for a
time threatened. Would the Supreme Court de-
clare those acts unconstitutional? What was to
be done if it did ? There was introduced into Con-
gress a bill designed to degrade still further, and to
bring into greater contempt than ever the unfortu-
nate Court—a bill making a two-thirds majority
necessary in adjudging any law unconstitutional,
but leaving it in the power of a bare majority to
declare a law constitutional. This monstrous r ro-
oition failed, but another almost as bad pa,.sed
12
—the bill taking away from the Court the right of