Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1870-09-09
chief Justice Pearson.
WILMINGTON. /


our State. The judicial ermine is o.
such sensitive purity, such exceed
ing Wilderness, that it can be affected by
even the slightest touch. Approaching
this and the consequent importance o.
circumspection of speech and act in re-
gard to the Law and its Judges. we are al
yavs slow to criticise them. There are
times, however, when it becomes neces-
sary to talk plainly, and such, we think, is
the present time.
Chief ustice-Pearson has, by his course
during the recent HabeaS Corpus proceed
ings, destroyed reputation for Judicial
probity that he had enjoyed since his &C
cession to the bench. It is painful to see
one who has enjoyed the confidence and
respect of o whole people in bis old age
so carried away by eagerness for office or
partizan feeling, as to destroy in a few
short weeks the honorable fruits Of an
honored life time.
Judge Pearson, under the pretence that
the enforcement of the law would produce
civil war, left prisoners, innocent OF any
crime in the eye of the law, to rot in vile
dungeons, under threat Of trial by illegal
drum head courts martial and at the mercy
of the usurper and tyrant Holden and his
1ninions, the blood-thirsty Kirk and the
brute Bergen. Knowing all these things,
Chief Justice Pearson declares the power
of the civil law to be exhausted, adjourns
his Court and retires to the comforts and
80 ha CHI nd
sparkling springs Of Richmond Hill, to
contemplate at his ease. doubtless, the SUI
ferings of the poor prisoners sweltering In
their dungeons in the summers heat
prisoners, whom he, the sworn officer OF
the law, had abandoned to their fate.
Breathing thepure mountain air, shaking
his thirst with deep draughts from limpid
mountain streams, appeasing his hunger
with the choicest viands that his hocks
and herds could supply, the learned Chief
Justice, as he cast his eye over his green
fields and waving crops might we'll thank
high Heaven that he was not as other men
Were-especialIy that he was not as his
old judicial compeer and friend, the Hon
orable JOHN KERR man, indeed, honor
able alike for Well-spent years, for person
al honesty, for judicial probity, for legal
learning and a well-earned political
prominence throughout the length and
breadth of North Carolina.
Well might the Chief Justice utter pious
calculations of thankfulness that his lines
had fallen among the pleasant places of
Richmond Hill, rather than in the foul air
and filth and lice and excrement of Kinks
dungeons.
Well might Richmond Montford Pearson
sing peans of praise and songs of triumph
as he remembered that he was Chief Jus
tice of North Carolina and surrounded by
all that money could procure to make life
pleasant. and JOHN KERR, of Caswell, the
man without fear and without reproach,
the dauntless patriot, the eloquent advo |
cate, the learned lawyer, the incompatible
jurist, was lying in foul dungeon, placed
there by the Chief Magistrate who
had sworn to see the laws executed,
kept there by himself, Richmond
Montford Pearson, Chief Justice of
North Carolina, who had sworn to
perfor4a sail the duties Of his office agreeable
to the Constitution and laos Of The State, so
help him God. =" and who yet refused to issue
such process, civil, legal process, as would
compel his iuiea5e from admitted illegal
imprisonment As strange as it may seem.
these are nevertheless the facts. We say, |
and not irreverently, that the wisdom to
which such unequal fates seem right, is,
indeed, to us inscrutible.
But Chief Justice Pearson was not the
only Judge in North Carolina. Federal
Judge BROOKS did not consider that the
Courts had been exhausted or that he
would be justified in refusing to issue
process because any man in defiance of
law threatened to disobey that process
ard trembled not at the threats of war.
He believed that the Judge who failed to
perform his sworn duty was recreant to
the high trust committed to his charge. |
He performed his duty fearlessly, honestly, !
and to-day JOHN KERR is the equal of
RICHMOND PEARSON in personal freedom.
In all things else that make the man he is
his superior.
forgive her Chief Justice, nor will North
Carolinians remember without kindly
feelings that it was a United States Judge
who indicated civil law and rendered life
and liberty secure throughout their State.
As we have once before said, with an
" opportunity to gain for himself an i'm
" mortality of fame, Chief Justice Pear
" son has preferred SO to act as to damn
A" himself to everlasting infamy. Instead
IS of transmitting his name to the end of
&c time with that of the great MANSFIELD,
' freighted with the blessings of each
" succeeding generation, he has preferred
Sc to share with a JEFFRIEs their curses
" and execrations.'
Representative Government.
Firmly believing in the correctness of