The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-01-19
The CHIEF Justtksship-Probabi Ap.
Potntment OF Senator Conkiing.

| No judicial Office in the world is of equal
dignity with that of Chief Justice Of the
United States. No other sovereign Power
but the American people has ever consented
that the relations between authority and those
subject to it shall be determined finally by q
rational application of the principles of a writ
ten law. judges in all other countries, In the
highest Courts even, have principally to
determine and define the relations OF lndi-
viduals of the community one with another,
and where they have to declare the relation OF
any portion Of the people with the govern
meut it is because of some violation OF the
criminal law. They assign the punishments OF
the people as they are themselves part OF the
machinery of authority but they generalize
vaguely when the occasion calls for any linn
itation in the exercise of the authority in
whose shadow they stand None of the older
systems of government has recognized that
its power may be Justly scrutinized by those
subject to them; for as they are all founded
in force the appeal to reason is only permitted
to the limit Of their good pleasure, and force
is again asserted wherever substantial reason.
for authority seems to fail. Although the
original notion that the judge asserted the
kings will and that the kings will was the
rule of right lis presumably replaced in the
| freer countries of the Old World by the notion
that the judge iuterprets law that is above
the kings will and independent of 1t, the
truth is that the judges character as an adj
junct of the authority of the individual sover-
eign is unchanged and if the law as he finds
it is not agreeable with the impulses of that
sovereign viii, he makes on the bench law
that is agreeable with it But the function Of
the Judges of the. United States Supreme
Court is altogether of ampler scope. for those
Judges do not stand in the shadow of author
ity and simply assign its exercise, but author
ity rather waits upon their decision to know
its own limit and the head of court with
this power, that is virtually the custodian of
the liberties of forty millions of people, whose
dictum on given cases practically restricts the
operations Of authority to those limits within
which the trainers of the constitution deemed
it wise to confne it, is, in virtue of the moral
dignity Of his duties, the most exalted legal
! functionary Of our times
! From the very character Of this Office the
man to properly I'LL it would scarcely be
sought in the ranker atmosphere of political
life. 1t requires some faith in the possibilities
of metamorphosis to believe that successful
follower Of fortune in the train of authority
can make good Chief Justice. How can the
fibre proper to the great Office bend to that
pursuit? There is q necessary inconsistency.
Suppleness, the perception of opportunity and
the instinct to improve it; some easy indiffer-
ence to the niceties of an exalted morality;
the disposition to regard thrift as foremost
fact; the possession of intellectual dexterity
rather than the Charge discourse of reason,'
adroitness rather than science, cunning rather
than wisdom, tact rather than simple conf
dence in the truth; these are the attributes
that from time immemorial have fitted men to
flourish in the smiles of power, and power
seems to Us no more worthy in its character
or its surroundings to-day than it has been
hitherto. But all these attributes make
up an intellectual and moral quantity
that is the very anipodes of the sober simplic-
lily of thought theearnest regard to the right
the rigid Indifference to the fluctuations of
opinion, which give the moral outline of the
typical Chief Justice, and the great knowledge
of the law which should be his one grand in
tellectual qualification. Indirection and craft
seem the necessary features of one character;
absolute rectitude is the one indispensable ele-
ment of the other. We do not believe that
any such political or moral miracles are to
happen in these days as will reconcile the con-
tradictions we have indicated, and therefore
we must necessarily regret the evident proba-
bility that we are to have Chief Justice
chosen from the circle of the PRESIDENT closer
political adherents; for we had imagined that
President who had seen in his own expert
ence some Of the dreadful results of the abu-
sive judgments given in the Supreme Court
was the most likely man to take lofty,
impartial and unselfsh view of the
qualifications Of Chief Justice. If
the man who saw the American
people of the North and South scattered dead
and dying over the whole country, from Fort
Henry to Shiloh, vicksburg and Chatta-
nooga, and from the Rappahannock to Apo
mattox, and who could definitely trace ali that
slaughter to political Judgment given in the
Supreme Court-if such man could appoint
politician, to be Chief Justice what human
lesson can be expected to be impressive2
1t seems evident whatever may be said.
that we must contemplate as fact the forth
coming appointment of Senator Conkling.
AS we have already said, this is the best name
that can be drawn from the circle of the Presi-
dents immediate adherents, and perhaps we
ought to rejoice that the matter does not as
sumo worse shape Against this appoint
ment the burden of complaint would be that
it is political, and we can conceive that ap-
pointments might be made while the Execu-
tive is choosing among his retainers to which
fhA nhiacti0na Would hA infinifalu orouar