Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1872-08-22
Exit Barnard.

The Court of impeachment has fifty closed
its five weeks session. George G. Barnard,
late Justice of the Supreme Court has been
found guilty on twenty-six out of thirty nine
articles of the comprehensive indictment pre-
ferred against him. BY a unanimous vote of
the Court, the charges proven against him
have been sufficient to warrant his removal,
and by vote of 33 to he was disqualified
from holding in all time coming, any office,
place or trust derived directly or indirectly
from the people of the State of New York.
The chief accusations which have been
brought home to Barnard are these: Four
different injunctions in the Heath and Raphael
suits against the Erie Railway Company are
declared to have been issued in wanton con-
tempt of law and "with willful and corrupt
Partially toward James Fisk, Jr., Jay G ould,
and Others" On three separate counts Bar
nard has been convicted of judicial action in
stigated by a willful and corrupt intent to IA
vor Fisk, Jr., and to harrass and Cypress the
Union Pacific Railroad company, One of the
articles under this head has been found not
proven. The unlawful and arbitrary orders
granted with reference to the Albany and
Susquehanna Railroad suits are charged I'M
der eleven separate articles. Seven of these,
including the one relating to the injunction
granted in Fisk's house, whittier Barnard had
UStH ouiHuIpucu iIOul slCh Dcuy
have been found proven. In the orders issued
at the suit of Aaron S. Bright against the
Milwaukee and st. Paul Railroad, Barnard
has been found guilty on four separate counts,
either of favortism to Ira Shafier, plaintiff
counsel, or of wronsing and expressing the
Railway Company, or of both.
In addition to these most notorious and
perhaps most widely injurious of the illegal
act of Barnard having received the seal of
judicial condemnation, he has been coveted
of unlawful and corrupt intent to benefit his
friends Jacob Stanwood and Rufus Andrews,
by signing an unlawful and threatening order,
requiring the Pacific Mail Steamship Com
pany to pay these parties certain moneys al
legged to have been due them. He has also
been convicted for corrupt and partial intent
to favor personal and political friend, Tom
Fields, by refusing, without jurisdiction and
contrary to the statute, alimony to Fields di-
vorced wife. Finally, he has been found
guilty on four separate counts of aiding and
participating in the corrupt conspiracy OF
Fred. A. Lane and others to defraud the
stockholders of the New York Pier and
Warehousing Company. Among the articles
found not proven is that charging corrupt con-
duct in receiving presents from Fisk & Gould,
that stigmatizing the order in regard to the
lease of the Olympic Theatre as corrupt and
partial, and that amplifying upon the effect
of Barnard's unseemiy conduct and indecent
and obscene language while in the discharge
of his judicial functions.
The gain to reform and good government in
volved in the removal and disqualification of
George G. Barnard can only be fully appre-
ciated by remembering how fatal to both
would have been his acquittal. AS the i'm
parchment articles put it, the acts of Barnard
on the Supreme Court Bench have resulted
in ''the impairment of the material prosper.
ity of the State of New-York, in in its com.
mercial financial and general business inter.
ests, /" and have been ''to the great scanda
and reproach of the said Court, and of tn,
justice of the State Of New York" But tina
material injury and the extent of that mora
and legal wrong would have become tenfolt
greater had it been demonstrated that the
highest judicial tribunal of the State was un-
equal to the task of extirpating this leprosy
from the body-politic. 1t was shame enough
to this community to have sat still for nearly
four years, while the Bench of the Supreme
Court was disgraced by the language and
manners of rowdy, and by decisions as ar