Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-05-27

LnWyorH 4aumoa -
The editor Of Wilkes Spirit Of The
Times denounces the.result Of impeach-
ment as ",feachery in the senste-,hs
lawyers conspiracy against the Consiita-
ton" 1t remarks that for some time
past It has been evident thata new politi'
cal conspiracy was brewing" and that
"ths first symptoms Of this disaaection
were the singular deserlions Of the law :
yers Cowan, Doolittle aud Dixon. fo'-
lowed by the quasi detection Of Foster,
of Connecticut" Then further, he says
followed the moro signal detection
made on Monday last in the course
| pursued by Messrs. Grimes, Fessenden
and Trumbull, three more old lawyers,
under the patronage of the Chief JUS
tice, who is at once the head Of the pro-
fesson and their faction
| The most intelligent and best educated
men of America were always the friends
of Republican liberty. The sun never
shone on the United States a single hour
when the members of its bar were not
the truest as well as the most
earnest advocates Of the principles
of a free Constitution. When the
legal profession fails of its duty, its
influence aud power, which has hitherto
been the conserving intellectual force,
controlling aud illuminating the pathway
of the statesman and the patriot the
light of the land will have gone out, and
carpet-baggers, pettifoggers and rogues
will swarm aud crawl like vermin in the
darkness, and undermine with vice and
ignorance the foundations Of our valued
institutions. To consent to Radical
views and be sound and reputable
lawyer at the same time is moral i'm
possibility. The New Orleans Crescent,
which calls attention to the above men
toned utterances of the Spirit Of the
Times, comments as follows: "a Et
The significance Of this language is
deeper than the writer's meaning. Moved |
by an instructive suspicion that the |
spirit of true lawyer and the spirit OF a |
true Radical cannot inhabit the same |
body, he means to point the maligniiy of
Radical xealots against every lawyer
who appreciates the dignity of his pro
fession and sincerely respects the solemn
and obligations of law. And
he has good cause from the standpoint of
a Radical journalist, for wishing to ex-
cite this hostility. To be sure, pettifog-
gers and sbysters may make very SER
adherents of Radicslism. They
DO not pretend to comprehend the phi
losopby of law. Their business is simply
to acquire enough knowledge of law to
enable them TO evade its requirements
and to twist its technicaGties to the
service of villainy. Butler is a dis
tinguished example of what lawyers of
this order-if such they may De called
can contribute to the Radical cause in
he way Of ingenious aud inscriptions
devices. But the legal mind, to use this
designation in its high and honorable
sense, is essentially and invincibly anti
Radical 1t can no more sympathizs or
use with the looseness of Radical
hougbt and the license of Radical intent
and action, than light can coexist with
darkness, order with disorder, statesman
ike discretion with criminal reck-
essness, regulated liberty with illimii-
,ble despotism. The legal mind, analyZ-
ng the force of which the Radical
eaders are eyBOnsEts cannot fail TO per-
,eive that, in its final development, Rad
calism can mean nothing less than the
of both law aud liberty.
For already the Radical faction acknowl-
.dge no law but their own capricious and
uncertain desires and impulses, and
Illow to other people no liberty but the
liberty of conforming to these impulses
md desires. But true law is based upon
Known and substantial facts, and aims to
,e as definite and interchangeable as the
lature of these facts will admit it to be.
Ind true liberty can only live IN an 7
atmosphere of Law. Radicalism, there
ore, must signify, in it's last results,
eath to both law and liberty, and the
either Of universal chaos
n universal despotism. The SPIRIT of
he Times may we'll sound the alarm at
he discovery of what it is pleased to call
he lawyers conspiracy" for there is
10 lawyer 10 this country. if worthy, by
eason of intelligence, learning and
mental discipline, to be called such, who
an be other than the enemy OF the Radi-
al cause of which that journal is an
ryan and a sentinel.