Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-04-20

should be excluded from the highest courts of
all the loyal states.
The senate disposed of the nomination pfeyi-
ousIy before them on the Sd of February, 1870
which was THURSDAY. On Monday, Feb. It'll,
the nominations of Judge Strong and Mr.. Brad.
ley were sent in. They had been determined on
the preceding week, and actually prepared for
transmission either on Saturday or early on
Monday morning. The decision of the supreme
court on the legal tender act in Hepburn vs.
Griswod was announced on the same day |
do not believe that the president had any
knowledge of what the decision was to be. Some
of the newspaper correspondents were asserting
i'll the press UP to that very morning that il was
TO be decision the other way. ! 10 not know,
however, that Mr.. Bradley was selected ON the
ground of professional fitness for the position
as an eminent sound, and able lawyer knew
he was a republican, and supposed, though |
did not know, that he thought the legal tender
ac; constitutional. But | had 10 more reason
TO suppose that he was of that opinion than
that Chief Justice Chase was; OF that he was
any less likely to change his opinions upon the
strength of new arguments. | had been told
that he had advised clients TO pay their old
debts in specie, without regard TO legal compul-
sion, which agreed precisely with my notions
of honesty.
This is perhaps all that need be said upon the
specific charge against the president. But |
think justice requires something more to be
said on the subject
These judges of President Grants selection
have been long enough upon the bench TO afford
some opportunity for a Judgment on their fit
ness for the office. They have been quietly,
asSdouslv, honorably, devoting themselves
TO The discharge of their great duties. have
hot heard it suggested that either of them has
been engaged in political intrigues Is not
su,h charge as the Missouri meeting made an
outrage and wrong to them.
You may not value my testimony highly, but
have no hesitation in saying that, so far as |
have known them, the selections for judicial
office by President Grant have been made with
the purpose of securing the best attainable
judicial service for the people, and with the full
understanding of their great and far-reaching
Importance. | think, as a whole, they will COM
pare tavorably with those of any of his predeces-
sors, and that, If any mistakes have been made,
he has been mised by men in whom he had the
right to trust
You still adhere 10 the opinion that to reopen
the lega-tender question was a heavy blow at
judicial independence. So it does not seem to
me. lived many years in the hope Of SEEING
the fugitive slave law declared unconstitutional,
and the bred Scott decision reversed by the
peaceful method Of natural and successive
changes in the composition of the supreme
court. Questions of constitutional construction
must from their nature always be open queS-
tons, anf the proprety of reopening them must
depend upon the amount, continuance, and
weight of authority in favor Of the earlier con-
Struction.
My own belief in specie payments is such
that hope the right of making anything else
legal tender will soon become and for ever con-
tinue a question of mere constitutional theory
and not of practice. You may perhaps find oc-
casion to do President Grant the further justice
of calling to mind that he has steadily and per-
sistently urged upon congress the duty of pro-
yiding for a speedy return to specie payments,
and so redeeming the broken promises Of the ma
ton. L. r. HoAR.
Concord, Mass, April Is, 1872.