Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1869-05-14
JUDICIAL TYRANNY.

JUDICIAL TYRANNY.
The Gallatin Examiner makes
some very serious charges against
Judge McClain5 the Radical can
didate for Judge of the Supreme
Court from the middle division,
illustrative of the tyranny and bad
temper he has displayed on the
bench as a Judge of the Circuit
Court. The Examiner says:
During the term of the court in
g., 1868, in the making upof jury, a
well known and respectable citizen of
Smith county, Dr. James S Bradley, was
summoned as juror. He said to Judge
MeClain that he was not citizen, or
voter, but hoped to be one soon The
reply threw the Judge into fearful
passion and he replied to Bradley that
if he talked that way. he would send
him to- Jail
The Examiner states that there
was nothing in the manner Of DR..
Bradley, as there was not in his
language, to excite the ire of Judge
McClain, and that his threat to i'm
prison the Doctor was regarded
with establishment. A similar
charge has been made once or
twice by the Huntsville Ttdette,
and if it has ever been denied, or
even an attempt made to palliate
the reprehensible conduct Of Judge
McClain, it has escaped our notice.
We must assume that such is the
case, else the Examiner would not
repeat the charge in the unquali-
fed manner it does. 1t is greatly
to the discredit of Judge McClain
that he should SO far forget the pro
pSieties of the bench as to grossly
insult a peaceable, unoffending
citizen while in the discharge of
hh official duties. But the Examiner
makes a more serious accusation
against Judge McCIain. That paper
says:
ain 1868 Judge McClain granted an
injunction upon the prayer of bill filed
against Gen. VIM. Cullom by two parties,
Alb. Johnson and James A. Thomas, en-
joining the collection Of a judgment
against them in favor Of Cullom, rem
dered in 1861, for thousand dollars and
upwards, for mules sold them by Gull
Ion. And what does the reader inn
agine was the chief and only allie
cation made and relied on in the bill,
upon which McClain granted the i'm
Junction. 1t vas nothing more nor
less than that the said VIM. Cullom had
combined with one Jefferson Davis, Rob-
ert f. Lee, J. p Benjamin and other bad
men to subvert this government, and
therefore having no status, he had no rights
in that court, and, notwithstanding they
had gotten Cullom's mules, and used
them, that GALLON was such a bad
man that they should have his mules
for nothing Itappears almost incredi-
bic, in such an age as this, that Judge
should be found so thoroughly impreg-
mated with the rancor and virulence of
party madness, and yet the records of tie
court prove the facts as stated The
case came up for hearing before Chan
cellOr Shackelford, who, of course, i'm
mediately dissolved it. Radical as he
is, he could not sink the lawyer and the
Judge, and pander 10 the madness which
seemed to rule the hour, and threatened
to oyerleap all barriers"
1t seems almsst incredible that a
Judge could so far degrade, not to
say corrupt the judiciary, as to con-
vert court of justice into a mere
political machine to favor partisans
and defeat law and justice, yet the
Examiner declares that records of
the court will establish the facts as
charged. The man who will per
NIT himself to be thus swayed by
partisan prejudices is unfit to he a
Judge of any court in the State.
The Examiner alds:
Owe are In possession of other facts in
regard to the official course of Judge
McClain, which evince in him a tyranny
that would have made him a most ad-
mirable Judge to carry out the behests of
ianaticiSm. I'm old England he would
have been j etfreys; in New England,
fit Judge for Cotton Mather's Court SEES
sions. Mary Dyer would have gone the
same road she did under his charges of
cOlluSIon with witches and riding on
bToomsticks. In the administration of
BrOwnlOwism he has been a faithful
Judge; enforcing the oath to ATTORNEYS
IN his courts that they never were Ku,
klux; charging the juries to indict all
persons altering seditious language
AGAINST the BrOwnlow government, and
denOmnating it treason, and threatening
from the bench to send attorneys to jail
forever play fully innocent remarks, but
which his resentlul suspicion tortured
into injurious reflections upon the holy
purity u Radical government. We I'M.
derStsnA that quite number Of gentle4
men of the bar of this circuit have en-
countered his threats Of incarceration,
though none of them have been carried
into effect"
These charges of the Examiner
show Judge McClain to be wholly
unfit for the discharge of the highly
important and delicate duties of