Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1868-08-21

! Can JuuB6 Vi tuaL Necessity vi COHNSA-
ience.n
ScsevOls was great lawyer IN Rome,
before the days of Caesar, and Ulpian,
Paul and Trebinian, towards the Tune OF
Justinian. Pothier, d'Aguesseau and
Merlin were renowned jurisconsults IN
France, as fifty Judges were in England
and either of them would have stared
with astonishment at RSenator ana law
yer, who should have ventured 10 e1-
press his contempt for the intellect OF the
Prsetor he was addressing, by an arg't-
nlent like that Of Mr.. Henderson, Of
which the contumely Of his constituents
/ for righteous act, is the just and not
excessive punishment.
Mr.. ]. B. Henderson is Senator. The
Legislature of Missouri may take his Of
fee from him, according to his theory,
without consulting him, without inform
/ ing him OF the imputstions against him,
without hearing him in his defence, the
charge being that he was bribed to vote
for the acquittal of the President, This
/ deprives him of no property. The pub
lie only resumes a trust, created for lts
own benefit, because, in its opinion, the
public interest requires it. All that is
true.
But what had this commonplace tru-
ism to do with the case then before the
Court? Is the profession of Minister OF
the Gospel a public Office? Is the elect
i've franchise an Office that the people |
may take away from the citizen at pleas
ure? How the Bar has fallen from its
high estate, when such nonsense can be
grsvely uttered by counsel, and respect
fully listened to by the Supreme Court of
a great Republic? Are not privileges
and franchises PROPERTY
Listen, again, to the stuff which Sen
ator can talk. We hope he is ashamed
of it. II not, it would be cruel to punish
him for an absurd and stupid opinion.
He said that the acts which the party
was required to swear that he had not
committed, were mot denounced by the
Constitution as crimes at all, y nor was
any punishment whatever attached to
their commission. He ssid:
"If one stands on his past record,
however guilty he may be, this provis-
ion cannot touch him. III he Is ever
punished for what he has done, il must
be according TO some previous existing
law, and not under this act. This act
does not deal with the past. 1t looks
only to the future. II it refers to the
past at all, il is only for the purpose of
ascertaining moral character snd fitness
for the discharge of high civil duties,
which give credit ana influence in the
community, and can never be safely in
trusted in the hands of base or incOmpe-
tent men,
We should as soon undertake to reply
to the bsbblings Of a born idiot, as to
these servile babbliDgs of counsel. You
require q man to swear that he has not
been guilty of rebellion and you tell
him that the law requiring it I" does not
deal with the past, but looks only to the
future" If the Legislature of Missouri
were to enact that no man should vote
or hold Office in that State, who could
not swear that ne had not taken bride
to scquit the President, and Mr.. Hen
derson had done SO, would he think
that the act did not deal with the Past
Would he think that it referred TO the
Past, only for the purpose Of ascertaining
whether bis moral character was such
that he was fit to vote? :
He said that the act declared no past I
act of the Defendant to be an offence"
and prescribed no forfeiture whatever for
any such act. It disquslities all VINO ]
will not swear that they have done GER
.sin acts, alleged to be reasonable. OF I
course it declares these to be offences ;
and it prescribe" the forfeiture Of the i
right OF voting, of the elective franchise.
1t is pity that the knaVeries OF the I
Bar have at last become respectable in
he Supreme Court. There was time,
when Marshall and Stacy sat there, when
luch an argument would have been i'm I
heard, and the lawyer who }
made it would have been pitied. Once, q
Iuch lawyers practiced in that Court as G
Writ and Pinckney and Badger and
Webster, and counsel did not assume
hat the Judges were fools or knaves
md lawyers considered that they owed
wen higher duty to the law and pub :
ic than to their client, and you could not a
nave found in the ranks of the profession C
me who would have prOstituted it as y y
speed and Bingham did, in arguing that ;
military commissions in time Of peace b
we're lawful tribunals, to set by the side v
# the civil courts and try women fer !
alleged offences against the ordinary e
riminsl law. To argue such PROPOSE
ions was once left TO the pettifoggers and T
lack sheep of the profession. =