Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1857-06-27
THE SUPREME COURT OPINIONS.

Justice CURTIS. In doing this we may perhaps
most appropriately take some brief notice of few
remarks recently offered by Richmond contempt
rary, c. The South, y in animadversion on the
criticisms we lately deemed it proper to make upon
the form and style of the opinion pronounced in the
same case by Mr.. Justice DANIEL. Our readers
will remember that in those criticisms we especially
abstained from entering into any examination of
the legal merits of the paper fled by Judge DANIEL,
and confined ourselves entirely to such an appre-
citation of Its tone and temper as was impressed
upon our minds by careful and, we hope, cam
did perusal of the opinion in question. Having at
the very opening of the publication of the judicial
papers connected with this memorable case an
nouneed our determination not to undertake criti-
cal review of the vexed questions which, whether
necessarily unnecessarily, have been involved in
its judicial discussion, we shall not now depart from
che abstinence which we then imposed upon our
selves, and which was dictated by the plainest con-
sideraons of proprety for it would surely be the
greatest presumption on our part to essay such
task in the hope of better acquittng ourselves in
the premises than those who have brought to the
adjudication of this case the professional learning
without which it were idle to approach its settle
ment, and with which it has been found.impossible
to secure unity of opinion among those equally
titled to pronounce upon It's merits in the discharge
of their judicial duty.
But, without raising any question as to the in
tegrity soundness of Mr.. Justice DANIELS
opinion, we ventured to express our conviction, in
behalf of that judicial decorum and discretion which
should characterize every utterance of the Judge
on the Bench, that he had not been SO happy as
his colleagues in the style of his disqusition which,
for some cause seemed to us more fervid and de-
clamatery than properly comported with the gravi-
ty of the Judicial character, which should ever
avoid not only the reality but the appearance of any
bias or mental excitement which may tend to weak
en- the popular confidence in the impartiaty of the
Judiciary. Whether our appreciation of Judge
DANIELS dction and style was correct or not, our
readers have already been able to decide for them
selves, as it appeared in our journal on the same
day with the remarks which have called forth the
complaints of our Richmond contemporary, and
we are quite willing to remit the decision of the
question to the candid judgment of any dispas-
sionate reader
SO much of our particular comments on Judge
DANIELS judicial style, as of the irrelevant fact
that VIC have hitherto foreborne to utter any pro-
test against the indecent haste with which it is
alleged Judges MCLEAN and CURTIS furnished
copies of their opinions to the Northern press, in
advance of the official publication of the opinion
delivered in the case by the Court
Upon this point we may take occasion to say that
we have no authentic information which would war
rant US in affirming that the dissenting Judges are
justly chargeabe with any violation of the etiquette
prescribed by the usages of the Court, but have
hitherto been under the impression that their opin
ions, being filed with the Clerk directly after their
delivery, became Immediately accessible to the
public upon application for them by any person
who would defray the expense of copying them
SUCH we understand, being the customary as well
as legal method of obtaining any judicial paper on
the files of the Supreme Court If "the opinion
OF the Court was not at the same time made
equally accessible to the public it was, perhaps
mainly owing to the fact that that paper is under
stood not to have been completed, or rather was
held under revision for several weeks after by the
Chief Justice, at which time we learned that the
otical publication of these mpatiently-expected
opinions was held in suspense by that revision
which, we have no doubt, was directed rather to
verbal form than to the substance of the opinion
as read in the hearing of the Court, but which will
sufficiently account for the fact that it was not in
any way attanable by the press at an earlier date
At the same time we can readily understand the
considerations of public propriety which made it
desirable that the opinions of the majority and
minority Of the Court should appear simultaneously
and that those of the latter should in their publ
cation be preceded by those of the former for our
readers are aware that it was in Difference to this
sense of propriety that we abstained from the un-
official publication of the dissenting opinions of
justices MCLEAN and CURTIS, to which we may
also add as additional consideration in the same
connexion that we were unwilling to foresall what
was deemed BY the Reporter of the Court the
copyright he possessed in those opinions, which,
whether well-founded or not, we preferred to re-
speet until the opinions had been given to the
public by their official editor and publisher
When, therefore, The South charges that JUS
tees MCLEAN and CURTIS inserted their opinions
in the Black Republican papers in advance of the
official report of the case" it afirms a personal
agency their part which we have no means of
knowing In be authentic beyond that found In the