The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1867-03-02
Letters from the People.
Judge LOOMS on the Lawyers
..-.,-,,.s Test Oath.

slaNtnOiuer, tuat III hch aio ooih iic
J and equal" has been strangely twisted
and tortured in these latter days. Bu
no radical has yet demonstrated that al
men are born with an equal quality ant
texture of brain, and therefore We ar
not disposed to complain that Judg
whose experience consists i'll nis
prius practice before the county court
of Fayettee and Wood counties shoult
upon a grave constitutional question
differ from the majority Of the judges
of the Supreme Court of the United
States. We do not, therefore, call at
tention to the opinion of Judge LOOmi'
for the purpose of discussing its impor'
tance as precedent, or its value as 3
legal or literary production, but snly to
that portion Of it which seems to affix
an official and judicial condemnation
upon the personal morality, demeanor
and virtue Of the applicants. Weqrote
from the opinion:
although pardon of the executive
may work complete oblivion of the
past" SO that the crime pardoned, by
fiction Of law has no legal eristeacc, yet
| it is historically true, nevertheless, and
the parties stand by their moral turpi.
tude Of the crime. They have not the
"honest demeanOr," the personal virtue
required by the Code" (Sec. l, Chap.
164.)
We propose to show that the forego-
ing is the empty and frothy. declaration
of the Judge, and not the practical con-
victiOn of the man.
1t will be conceded that larceny is as
great an offence against morality as
treason. While some of the purest men
that the world has ever known were re-
gardcd and stigmatised as rebels, no in
stance can he produced of pure man
who committed theft, treason being 4
mere violation of the statutory law,
(malam prohibitum, } while theft is vi
olation of all law, human and divine,
(n,alxm in se). 1t necessarily follows,
that if it is true that persons who have
committed treason, and have been par
doned, "have not the honest demeanor,
the personal virtue required by the
Code" a fortiOsi, n pardoned thief has
not the requisite honest demeanor and
personal virtue; and yet person who
has received. accepted and pleaded in
open court, the pardon of the Governor
of kentucky for theft, does practice law
in the very Court from which Judge
Loomis has excluded the pardoned reb.
els: nay, more, he is the leading mem
Der of the Legislature which enacts
the laws which govern the Court. Nor
is this all; two of the Circuit
Judges of this State, who, i'll common
with Judge Loomis, occasionally occu-
py seats upon the Appellate Bench, are
unpardoaed rebels, liable at any time to
indictment and prosecution for treason
One of these Judges was n member of
the Virginia Convention, at the time
when the troops of Virginia seized the
Norfolk Navy YaId and the Harpcrs
Ferry Arsenal, and assisted by his vote
to elect delegates to represent the State
of Virginia i'm the Confederate Congress,
ut Montgomery. The other Judge vol
UNFAIRLY left his home in Philadelphia,
during the war, surreptitously passed
through the Federal lines and sought
the more congenial atmosphere of Rich
mond: repeatedly and voluntarily took
IN oath to support the Constitution of
the Confederate States, and sOlicicited
(unsuccessfully) an Office in the Confed-
crate army.
Now il so happens that all these facts
are well known to Judge Loomis, and
to the public; for the journal of the Nir-
ginia convention records the vote of
which we have spoken, and the regular
report of the proceedings of the West
Virginia Legislature contains the con-
fession of the party most interested,
that pardon was granted him for lar
ceny. The same report shows that
charges of treason, with specifications
and the names Ofrespectable witnesses,
were introduced into that body by a
responsible gentlemen against the other
Judpe. (the unsuccessful seeker after
Confederate office,) and his political
friends suppressed the investigation.
To use then, the words of Judge LoOmis,
the above facts ''are portion OF the
history of the times, of which the Court
can take Judicial cognizance.'
With these facts well known and ap-
preciated by the Court and the public,
how utterly absurd and ludicrous is the
grand climax of the LOomis opinion,
the applicants "have not the honest de-
meanor nor the personal virtue required
to practice in this Court"
20 man, poorman
Drest In little brief authority,
Like an angry ape
PLAYS such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep.
We are familiar with the established
policy of the party to which Judge
Loomis belongs, viz: to reward all
rebels who Join them with a fat office,
and to apply test oaths to the more hon
est rebels who do not. But there is a
personal bitterness in the opinion,
which does not flow from policy, the
foundation of which we think we have
discovered. We have not the requisite
space to quote at large from the opin-
ion, but the curious reader will readily
find the entire paragraphs, of which we
give the substance. The Judge takes
.iudiciaI cogni;ance'' of the condition of
Virginia prior to the war, and describes
the great body of the people, including
those who now inhabit the present
State of West Virginia, as ignorant and
unlearned, and dependent on the law.
yers for all their ideas, and
especially their political ideas,
and ergo the lawyers are responsible
for all the bad political ideas of the peo-
pie, more especially responsible for all
who imbibe the heresy of secession.
Now while this description is manifestly
rs absurd as it is disparaging to the
State of West Virginia at large, it is
strikingly true of the primitive village
of Fayetteville, in which the Judge
formerly resided, in the capacity of
county Court lawyer and village ped
tagorue,l at the same time that one
OF the applicants was the leading law
yer of the Fayette circuit. The whole
description, therefore, Is not descrip-
tion of West Virginia, but reminiscence
of Fayette ten years ago, in WHICH one
Of the applicants figures rs the grand
lawyer, full of knowledge and power,
and the ex-pedagogue and the rest OF
the Fayettevillisns as the innocent but
; ignorant people. But by that strange
law Of all revolutions by which light
bodies come to the surface and heavy
: bodies go down, the Wheeling present
differs widely from the Fayette past
,ook upon this picture and then upon