Vermont telegraph. [volume] (Brandon [Vt.]) 1828-1843, 1837-08-16

JuD1cIAL UsURPATIoN.


Nothing will sooner undermine the Ju-
dietary in this country than arbitrary acts
of individual Judges, without authority of
law. The people OF the United States do
not believe with Lord Coke that 1t is the
part of a good Judge to amplify his juris-
diction, but they begin to believe, and will
soon insist that so long as the Office of
Judge is held for life, every Judge shall
be displaced or punished, or his Cour
taken from under him by law, unless in
all his judicial acts he can shew the au-
thority of express statute or OF settled
practice of the Courts under the common
law, previous to the adoption Of the sonsti
tuition of 1888.
No judicial officer in this common
wealth has been more frequently charged
with stretching his judicial power, than
Judge Thacher Of the Municipal Court,
and to such an extent had the belief gore
of his disregard of the legal rights Of the
citizens, and of his disposition to assume
power not delegated 70 him in his Office,
that even his own political friends and
towns:nen, not long ago, made move
ment in the Legislature to abolish the
Municipal Court Of Boston, for the sole
purpose of thus doing, what could not be
directly done, displacing the Judge of that
Court
We state this as fact, and not as our
own opinion, and in all we say on this sub
iect, while we speak with the freedom Of
citizen, we would temper it with entire
ly respectful consideration for Judge
Thatcher, with whom we have always had
the pleasure of holding friendly relations,
and against whom we have no personal
complaint whatsoever to make, as mem
Der Of the Bar. Every allowance should
be made for the perplexities incident TO the
labo-ious Office Of Judge Of the Municipal
Court, but the Judge of that or any other
Court should never forge: two maxims for
his conduct;-6rst, that the accused are to
be regarded as innocent till found guilty {;
and second, that it is the constitution and
laws OF the land that must govern, and not
the will or caprice of the individual who
happens to be Judge. The day for un-
questioned judicial usurpations has gone
by. THE law, shew us the law" is the
demand Of the people for every act of a
Jud &c. To the Lam they will always sub
mit-to lawless Judge never. Judge
Lynching is getting as odious as mob
Lynching. Such has been the progress
Of public sentiment on this point, that at
this moment we have codiiers appointed
to reduce the common law from the vague
jurisdiction it is supposed to give to Judges
to the certainty Of statutes. Is this time
| for any Judge to invade the liberty of the
press or the right of a citizen, upon an
imaginary construction of the still more
imaginary and long ago exploded British
doctrines ofeontempt!
No Judge in this commonwealth has
0hough we believe unconscious!y) struck
so directly at the liberty Of the press and
OF the citizens as has the learned Judge Of
the Munici pal Court Many of his charg-
rs 10 Grand Juries would do honor to any
Judicial officer, and entitIe him to respect !;
but IN many instances he has maintained
doctrines founded on usurpations of the
common law that are destructive of every
principle of our constitution. Thus he
has maintained that publications made
here on slavery, are indictabIe offences,
when the Supreme Court has decided that
the very first line of the Constitution of
Massachusetts, abolished slavery. In the
lace of this, learned Judge of an inferi-
or Court tells Us that to speak against that
very slavery which the Constitution de-
nounces, is an indictable offence! On
this lawless doctrine of Judge Thacher,
Governor Everett founded the famous and
universally execrated passage in his first
Message.
Again, the learned Judge has told US
that for three or more laboring men to
agree together that they will ask certain
price for their labor, is a conspiracy in
dictable at Common Law, while at the
same moment his Honor was one of a
combination of Lawyers pledged by print
ed rules not to do their labor under GER
tain prices! And further, his Honor,
without any color of statute Jaw, pronounc-
Ell labor combination indictabIe here under
the laws derived from Great Britain.
when in 1924, and long before he gave
that opinion, the Parliament of Great
Britain had repealed the whole OF the
laws against concerted labor prices!-I
Thus American citizens were to be nun
lshed under British law, never adonted
IN this State, and that had actually been re-
pealed in Great Britain, IS being ton mr.
bnrary and unjust even for monarchical
form of government, = |
On another occasion his Honor, in q
case Of libel, not only sentenced the narv
after conviction by the jury, which was |
all he could do. but ordered him to pive
bonds in penal sum, not to publish anotb-
er libel for whole year; thus directly
infringing the liberty of the press, by
censorship over the future acts Of pub
Usher Of newspaper. The Eudee could
only punish iibeller for an actual off;snct,