The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1870-01-06
Congress and the Court.

Inc weary ana Tragic wandering OF
the Radical party amongst the accus-
ing sepulchers of its murdered victims
to watch and guard these sepulchres
lest the victims rise from their shrowd
and call it to judgment-this is the in
exorable, ever-recuring drama enacted
at Washington with every meeting of
Congress. The party has made itself
the Wandering Jew of politics. I'M
PEELED by an mate sense of guilt which
it will not confess and cannot quiet.
it seeks refuge in new wrong at each
succeeding session, to find that every
new wrong, instead of bringing the
coveted peace, only gives fresh re-
morse and sharper terror. At times
like the tabled traveller, it imagines it
has escaped the avenger, and sits
down to rest; but rest brings refiec-
ton; and the avenger rises in its own
bosom, and with scorpion lash drives
it forward again through the dismal
labyrinth of original, amendatory and
supplementary reconstruction cata-
combs which it built for the sepulture
of its victims. sf.ls
When the first session of the Forty
first Congress adjourned, there was
not a haunting apparition visible, and
the high priests and necromancers of
the party imagined they had finished
their weary task at last. But they re-
turn to their halls in the Capitol to
find raw head on each desk, and the
audacious skeleton in each curule
chair. The spectacle Is annoying, and
forthwith the necromancers begin
again their incantations. The session
is but five days old, and there are al
ready three new nails brought for
ward to secure the lid of the Recon
struction coffin. A saying has gone
forth that the Supreme Court will
open the coffin and steal away the
corpse by night; it is therefore pro-
posed in the Senate to kill the Su-
preme Court, and bury it in the same
grave with the liberty it has sworn to
protect. Heretofore this shabby work
| was left to such awkward journey
men as Mr.. Drake, while the lawyers
of the Senate stood aloof from the
despfcable work which their conscien-
ces and legal convictions would not
permit them to participate in. But
the Journeymen have failed TO do the
business, and the case has become Sc
desperate that Trumbull, of Illinois
has consented to throw aside his con.
science and his scruples, and come
forward to the rescue, with q bill
which forbids to the Supreme Court
al jurisdiction of political cases ?
As the word political" in this coun.
try, has wide and undefnable sig,
niication, AMI as nearly every law in
the land, affecti ns personal rights ane
duties, may have its origin in polit
ical policy, an insuperable difficulty
meets the learned Judiciary Commit
tee of the Senate on the threshold, il
the shape of the question: What is {
political case? The only way that Mr.
Trumbull can devise for getting
around this troublesome query is tt
answer it in detail by appending tt
each act of Congress which Congress
may wish to keep out of the conrt'
hands the words: !" 1Rts is politica
law hands off" OF course as the bill
makes Congress the interpreter an
expounder of its own acts, with powe
to decide what ones are political ant
what ones are not; and as Congress
in passing any law, thereby approve
and confirms it-it may declare all it
acts political and thereby rescue then
from the reviewing inquiry of tn
: courts.
| Monstrous as is this theory, and in
exorably as it hurries Congress on
the proclamation and assumption c
. its absolute and unchallenged. ON
: Impotence, it has left itself no alterns
tive. It has not the patriotism t
confess its errors and go back to th
safe starting point; and it cannc
i stand still. It is. compelled by til
very law and logic of wrong to g
forward in wrong, and this it wi
;. continue to do until it finds the peopl
y across its path.-Mtssourt Republ
can, Dec. llth.