New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-01-25
NEW ORLEANS REPUBLICAN,, SUNDAY, JANUARY 25, 1874

Randolph, the Attorney General, main
tanned the affirmative; Georgia denied the
Jurisdiction of the court. Immediately
there began to be crawfshing on the
bench, and Justice Iredell, of North Car
DINA, endeavored to avoid a decision by a
trivial objection to the form of action.
At this time johnson aforesaid con-
cluded to 60 hence.
Randolph pressed his opinion, and the
court thereby made the first record by
which the States were shorn of their SOW
ereignty as far as to be amenable to the
federal tribunals. Congress, however,
took immediate measures for an amend
ment to the constitution to protect the
States against suits by individuals.
| It may be said just here, to show that
history always goes backward, that Ran
dolph soon got into cabinet quarrel even
| more serious than Attorney General Will
liams has recently had, and was put out
OF the Attorney Generals Office. Never
theless, there are to this day jurists who
claim that he was the most sagacious and
constructive legal mind of his period.
| William Writ described him in the British
! Spy
! In 1896 Washington's nomination of
Rutledge TO be Chief Justice was rejected
| by the Senate. at Washington's own re-
quest, Tor denouncing jays treaty at
Charleston, where he had not apparently
heard of his reelection. Thus the first
| Chief Justice Of the United States was re-
| preached by the man who nearly sue
| ceeded him as ''the concoctor of treaty
! stupidity if not corruptly signed, and des-
| titute of o single article worthy of ap-
prevail" For saying this Rutledge was
| rejected, and he went crazy. But another
| man who took the same position against
Jay at the same meeting in Charleston,
William johnson. was put Ga the Supreme
bench in 1904 by President Jefferson, and
remained there until 1884.
Here we have q queer instance Of the
executive and Judicial departments falling
afoul. John Jay is called an idiot by
John Rutledge. Although Washington
had designed to put Rutledge in jays
silken gown. he would have none of him
for being Jay-hawker. But to compen-
safe the memory of Mr.. Rutledge for
going crazy over his rejection, President
Jefferson raises to the Supreme bench
man who shared in Rutledges ofeuse
against Jay.
The fact is. that politicians Of different
sorts come and go upon those high
benches; but the Supreme bench, in its
high reality. is its decisions, which in
crease and become institutes Of law. and
the scriptures Of free government.
It was in Rutledges place that the
original Cushing was nominated and,
Mr. Hildreth says, approved. No
reason was given why this venerable man
refused to shove up. But he was the
last of his race. His chair appears to
have been taken out Of the courtroom en-
account of the depressing example it
would have had on subsequent class of
justices, some of whom go to the Presi-
dent and ask the Chief Justiceship;
others lie awake in bed, mentally saying:
'Thy will be done, but we think we de-
serve it" for others organs are established
and editorials are written.
That beautiful courtroom requires but
one thing to complete it, the bust of Will
liam Gushing set on bracket at the ex-
IRENE end of the bench, looking toward
the middle, inscribed beneath: "My opin-
ion at the bottom is as good as yours at
the top"
And there, declining to be put in the
position Of the Prophet Elisha when the
little boys cried, go up thou bald head!''
old William Gushing sat from 1896 to
1910, and his opinions in the Supreme
Court decisions are as good as if be had
been at the head of the bench.
Oliver Ellsworth was then nominated, !
and. leaving the Senate, became Chief
Justice. The same year Samuel Chase.
Of Maryland, became Associate Justice.
Now came the trial of the sedition |
cases. wherein Chase, who had been op.
posed to the federal constitution, for over |
riding the State authority, was the most |
hot-headed federalist The bench had
been put into shape and held to opinion
that, without statute authority, the fede- |
diction over otfenses against the United |
States corresponding to the common law
jurisdiction exercised by the State courts.
The justices on circuit, therefore, began
to try editors, witnesses, public speakers,
and what not. And we had, during the
trial of the impeachment of Andrew John
son, after the lapse Of seventy years, Mr.,
Groesbeck accusing Benjamin F. Butler,
before the Chief Justice and the Senate,
of having framed an article which was
nothing more than revival of the sedi-
ton law. Groesbeck said:
'It expired by its own limitation. It |
was the most offensive law that has ever
been passed since the government was or
ganized. SO offensive was it that the
people would not rest under It. although |
it was passed to last but three years.
They started, as it We're. the hue and cry
against everybody who defended j: or
were concerned in it. and hunted them to
a political death"
And yet the Supreme bench. in its ear
lest years, assented to this law. and Mat
thew Lyon, q candidate for Congress, had
to defend him self in person before Justice
Patterson for saying usual political things
about the President on the stump, and he
was sentenced to four months !mprisop-
ment and a fine of $1,000.
Among the extraordinary opinions de-
liver.d at this time was one by Chief JUS
:ice Ellsworth himself. in the case of Isaac
that sit was not in the power
Of any man to throw off by his own roli-
ton the allegiance to the country in which
he had been born. Williams was a nat.
uralized French citizen. and Ellsworth
sent him to Jail for privateering under the
French flag.
Here we see the difference between the
highest decision at law in the first quarter
of century and the public opinion of
in the third quarter. 1t is con-
sidered to be the great act of George Ban
crott's diplomatic life that he prevailed
upon the Prussian government to aban-
don the principle which an American
Chief Justice had solemnly announced.
In the year Washington died his old
Attorney General. Randolph, attacked the
principle of the Supreme Court, that it