Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1884-06-11
AJUolcIAL CRITICISM.
Something About the Three Justices and
the Capital Commission Case.
Grand Eorka Herald

Something About the Three Justices and
the Capital Commission Case.
Grand Forks Herald.
Some of our exchanges are rather in
clined to be quite severe in their critl.
cism of the three Dakota judges who
seemed to think that congress did not
know what it meant when it said that
"the governor and legislative assembly
shall proceed to locate and establish the
seat OF government for the territory at
such place as they may think proper; but
such place shall thereafter be subject to
be changed by the governor and legisla.
tive assembly," These papers. looking
at the words of the congressional com.
mand and turning them over again and
again, can see nothing in them to mystify
anybody as to what was the legislative
intent, and in their phrensy at not being
able to find any words in any language
(not including the Si-ox shlef's,) which
would more clearly and positively
limit the sole power of location and re-
moval as complete and definite acts in
the above named bodies, which do not
mean Tom, Dick and Harry, nor Doc
either, are led to imagine that the fault
lay in the judges themselves. Thus the
Chamberlain Register, whose editor was
temporary chairman OF the Huron con.
vention, lunges at Palmer, of Towner
county, as follows: Judge Palmer has
not disappointed all if he has some.
There were few that read how he
opened court with prayer, and how he
talked to the back benches in his sickly
sentimental way about being opposed to
divorces, and then read the sickly, full.
some praise about him, believing fully
that he was o hypocrite sold for a price"
OF course We do not endorse that view.
But We observe that King makes q
charge which Judge Palmer cannot
pass over in silence. In recent years,
We have been accustomed to see that jus.
tice is not any longer the typical blind
goddess Of those pristine days when the
heathen philosophy of Plato, Socrates
and Cicero was still respectable. On the
other hand it is painful to confess that
Justice has been represented on the
bench too much by the personal pecul-
iarities which Shylock pleads when he
says, "Hath not Jew eyes, etc." But
we hope that the Dakota judiciary is free
from such suspicious. .Conceiving that
even student who had read Black
stones commentaries for but the first
time would know that where the Ian.
guage of law is plain, courts, in inter.
probation. never travel outside the text
for its meaning and that precedents,
parallel cases, etc. are only invoked " hen
the law itself is couched in doubtful or
ambiguous terms, the little mon
arch Of the Register raises his fish-pole
and hits the one with the
Cody name, from the Black Hills,
in the following cruel style:
"As for Judge Church, OF the Black
Hills, he stopped on his way to take his
seat, to get instructions frtm Ordwsy,
and any man that will follow such an
adviser is on the track OF wickedness and
money regardless OF how or Why" There
is much force in what Editor King says,
for the good book declares: "Evil com:
munications corrupt good manners;' and
saintly though Church's name, have We
not the authority OF the parallel case