The New York herald., 1873-09-16
The Necessity Of the Appointment of .
Chief Justice-Further Delay il Dam

The nomination for Chief Justice of the
United States is matter too important to the
country and to the liberties of the American
people to be longer neglected by the Presi-
dent Chief Justice Chase has been dead for
months. The vacancy created by his death
has already existed too long time. Delays
are unnecessary always, and in matters of such
supreme importance they are only too likely
to be dangerous. The Supreme Court is above
the Executive, above the Legislative branches
of the government, for it alone has power
to interpret the laws which Congress
enacts and which the President is required to
execute 1t is even above the law when the
law does violence to the constitution. That
such court, so august in its functions, so
great in its responsibilities and so all-powerful
in its judgments, should be without head
for longer time than is required to fill the
vacancy with proper circumspection and con-
sideration, seems at best to be inexcusable fri
volty-a playing upon one pretext or another,
with the highest and noblest Office which it
can fall to the lot of President to fill It is
not an Office to be filed upon any pretext
whatever, nor is it one which any President can
offer as a political reward or partisan
bribe. Indeed, it cannot be regarded as in
the President gift 1t is not his to bestow
from personal considerations; but when it
is to be filed the appointment of Chief
Justice is q solemn duty, to be performed with
the greatest discretion and the highest Wis
dom and from the purest motives. This duty
for weeks and months ought to have been
pressing upon the Presidents conscience day
and night The Chief Justice should be now
in his seat, confirmed by higher power than
the Senate Of the United States-the universal
sentiment of the country. Any further
postponement can only be meant to await
the result of State elections, SO as to secure
the nomination of Mr.. Conkling Mr.. FIRE.
linghuysen or some other Senatorial favorite.
without endangering o seat in the Senate
The highest Office in the government must not
thus be allowed to serve the exigencies of
party; it must not be made on element of
success in the political schemes of the Presi-
dent or his partisans, and the people will be
Judicial Department without head upon q
pretext and as bribe they witness fragrant
exhibition Of C@sarism.
When people ta1nely allow their rulers to
trife with justice there is an end to liberty
controlled by law. English liberty was not
really menaced until Charles H. made Sir
George Jeffreys Chief Justice of the
Kings Bench. The character of that
infamous. Judge is only too well known,
for he made the administration of justice
the expression of bigotry and hatred and re-
venge. Macaulay's picture of him will last
while literature lasts. ''That man" said the
King, 'has no learning, no sense, no manners,
and more impudence than ten carted street
walkers" This man was appointed to his
high Office for political reasons; but while
Charles H. selected him especially to destroy
he whig party, James II. used him as the in
strument of thousand crimes. Jeffreys first
exploit was the judicial murder of Algernon
Sidney But under James he was even more
useful than as a murderer-useful as he was
in this respect-for his first service to the new
King was to enable the government to col
lect the customs without the authority of law,
except such as he could give He pre-
sided at the trial of Oates and Baxter. After
Monmouth's failure he made what the King
fippantly called 'the Chief Justices CAM
paign in the West" In that campaign his
first act was to murder Alice Lisle, a lady of
rank, who had innocently secreted two Of the
rebels Then followed the bloody Assizes, and
the work of browbeating and Of blood-for
which he was rewarded by being made Lord
Chancellor of England-went on till James
was driven from the throne.
1t will be the first impulse of every man to
cry out that it is impossible this hideous mon
ster should be reproduced in q Chief Justice
of the United States. His ferocity, perhaps,
is impossible of reproduction, but not his
truculence or his power for evil But it is not
so much Jeffreys' enormities that we are be-
wailing now as the wickedness of Charles ii.
in appointing him Chief Justice because of
his usefulness, and of James H. in using him,
creating him peer of the realm and finally
elevating him to be Lord Chancellor of England,
Political reasons alone controlled them in
making him their instrument in controlling
liberty and the law. The great crime was their
crime and it will be as much criminal sur
render of this supreme station in this country
to subordinate it to considerations of politics
as was the making of Jeffreys Chief Justice of
the Kings Bench and Lord Chancellor. Then
Justice was wounded by the King; now
the danger is that it will be stabbed by
the President however honest may be
character We want no bad men, no I'M
learned lawyers, no truculent judges on the
Supreme Bench. Especially do we want no
weak or wicked Chief Justice. A bad man, or
even feeble one, may do great harm in that
position. The authority of Congress may be