The New York herald., 1875-07-16
s.sss.t.a Imp.aeAmsns OF tho

likely to make q deep impression than any
thing which has ever before proceeded from
his incisive pen. Mr. OConor always COM
mands attention. He never appeals to the
public judgment except on questions OF con-
sequence, and his aeumeD, force and moral
intrepidity lay strong grasp on all minds in
telligent enough TO follow his trains of argu-
ment Moreover, his sarcasm is so stinging
and his use of it SO unsparing, and the sea-
soning of his legal arguments is SO pungent
that, in his hands, the driest reasoning Is full
OF life But of all the exhibitions of Mr..
OConor's singular and unrvaled powers the
present letter is fitted to make the greatest
sensation among the Bar. of the State of
which he is now the venerable Nestor, as he
has long been the conceded head. We shall
attempt nothing so presumptuous as critical
review of his positions, but it is perhaps
within the competence of journalists and lay
men to estimate their practical drift and that
drift, as we are constrained to interpret it,
tends toward nothing short of an impeach-
ment of some or all of the Judges of the Court
of Appeals. hsf astam
This remarkable assault on our highest ju-
dicial tribunal by the ablest of all the counsel
that have ever argued cases before it is ostensi-
bly, vindication of Judge Davis in response to
his letter of inquiry. Butt is not probable that
Judge Davis would have asked Mr. o. Conors
opinion except at his own suggestion. Mr..
OConor disdains petty arts of concealment.
He uses language which implies that he is
volunteer in this arraignment Alluding to
the Courts citation and adoption of his own
opinion on the turning point of its decision
Mr. OConor Gays, "that citation has forced
upon me the duty which am now perform
ing He shrinks from no proper RESPONSE
bility and is not puppet to be set in motion
by Judge Davis. He felt ''forced" to take
public notice of the use the Court of Appeals
made of his name, and, instead of Judge
Davis making him q convenience for his
own vindication, Mr.. O'Oonor caused
Judge Davis to furnish him the occa-
sion for his purposed structures on
the Court of Appeals. To be sure, the
letter Hs a powerful vindication of Judge
Davis but its main purpose is to set forth
Mr.. O'Conor's inculpation of the tribunal by
which Judge Davis was overruled. All it's
peculiar pungency is derived from this volun-
teer purpose.
In defending Judge Davis Mr.. O'Conor cites
recent previous opinion of the Court of
Appeals against its Judgment annulling the
sentence OF T~ eed. He admits that he once
employed the argument before that tribunal
which it quotes and pronounces ''unanswera-
ble" This was in 1871; but the case Mr..
O'Conor then argued was decided on other |
grounds, without reference to that particular
argument. He shows that in a subsequent
case, in which the same argument was brought
to the notice of the Court of Appeals, it pro-
nounced this argument invalid, and established
the contrary principle as the law of the State.
Whatever intrinsic force there may have been
in the argument, Mr.. O Conor maintains that
Judge Davis was compelled to disregard it
after it had been solemnly rejected by
the court of last resort by whose
decisions oil the inferior tribunals are
bound. The report Of this decision Of the
Court of Appeals was published in May, 1872;
and it, eighteen months afterward, Judge
Davis bad not followed the rule so recently
promulgated, Mr.. O'Conor says he "might
have been proclaimed inexcusably ignorant
of it, or Justly censured for insubordinatiop."
This neat orgumentum ad curidm is even more
pungent than the argunertum dd homiaem en-
ployed by the Court of Appeals for spiking
Mr. OConor's opposition to their decision.
He thinks il ridiculous Tor them to pronounce
one of his positions ''unanswerable" after
they had solemnly adJudicated it to be unten-
able. At any rate, Judge Davis was con-
strained to follow their authority rather than
the reasoning of Mr.. o Conor which they had
deliberately rejected as unsound. Mr.. O'Conor
not only impugns the substance of their de-
cision, but objects to its form, which remits
the penalty without rcvoking the judgment,
and thereby protects Tweed against liability
to q separate trial and penalty for each
of the offences. The proper appli-
cation of the rule which the Court of
Appeals has established, by reversing It's
own Judgment, would be q series Of
trials on successive indictments, measuring
out justice to the great peculator in regular
instalments. Mr.. O'Conor charges tbat the
Court OF Appeals have precluded the pos
sibility of this by the peculiar form of their
decision, by which a great public tibet is
shielded from separate trials for his offences.
Mr.. O'Conor does not restrict himself to
discussion of this last decision. He sharply
arraigns the whole action of the Court of
Appeals on all the Ring suits which have
been before them. He declares that Tweed,
"either in his own person or through rep
resentative, has thrice bearded public justice
in that high tribunal whose voice islsw, and,
on each occasion, has received the award
that, as against him OF his, the weapons
devised by the peoples advocates were vain
and hurtless." He then speaks in tone of
bitter derision of the way in which the Court
of Appeals deprecated the failure Of justice