New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1890-05-24
w rrDrPlL QUESTIONS INVoLrED.

NO FEDERAL QUESTIONS NPOLFED.
LAWYER Sherman's frivolous proceeding in
tended 10 interfere with the execution of the
murderer Kcmmler has been disposed of by the
Supreme Court at Washington. No other de-
ciSion than the one rendered was anticipated
by lawyers or by any one familiar with the
theory of the Constitution and the construc-
tions put upon it from time to time by the
Supreme Court Ii is true that in the amend
ments adopted by The ISt Congress and there
after ratified cruel and unusual puniShments
were forbidden. But, whether death by cleo
tricity is such n punishment or not, they were
not forbidden to the States. They were for
hidden 10 the Federal Government. The first
ten amendments, as the Congressional rcso-
| lutions accompanying them explicitly declared,
were a Bill of RightS-an assurance that the
newly formed central authority would not OPP
press the people nor interfere with the autono-
nv of the states. They were an enumeration OF
| the precincts over which the Federal power did
not extend, and they were passed to calm the
anti-union sentiment in Massachusetts and Nir-
| GINA. II was the great argument OF those
who opposed the Constitution, an argument
that was powerfully voiced by Patrick Henry
and Richard Henry Lee in Virginia, and by
Elbridge Gerry in Massachusetts, that It con-
tanned no guarantee of popular rights, and only
by promising to afford such guarantee at the
first session of Congress were the Nationalist
able to secure majoritos in several of the
State Conventions. Their promise took shape
in the first ten amendments, each of which
was an agreement that such and such things
should not be done by the United states
For the Federal courts 10 cOnstrue these
amendments into limitation of state author
ity would be an employment Of them, by rhe
very power they were designed 10 hold in
check, as a check upon the people whose lib
critics they were designed TO insure.
II is true that the Fourteenth Amendment
was intended as a restraint upon the states
| It declared that no state should ahrldge the
privileges or immunitcs Of citizens Of the
United States; that is, ( something were
right accruing to man in virtue OF his citizen
ship in the United States, the state he lived
in should not attempt 10 take II from him.
LAWYER Shcrman's powerful intellect deyiSeS
tho contention that il is mans privilege, as a
citizen Of the United StatrS, If he be convicted
| Of murder TO die 10y the nope, and IN decreoing
his death otherwise a State abrldgeS his PRIV
llcgcs. This sort OF argument W0uld fatigue
| a Tombs Police Court Justice The -Four
teenth Amendment meant nothing more and
nothing less than the protection OF all Ameri-
cans against an infringement 10y state laws
of the principle of equal rights, but being put
| 10 death il not a right no matter how agree
| ably it may be administered.
The Supreme Court having disposed OF TINS
| legal busybody and his namccSs clients, We
| shall hope to sec Judge Wallacc'S promise that
he will vacatc his order of habcaS corpus quick
| ~ redeemed. The only results of 1t have been
vast amount Of trouble and ANNOYANCE Z"
the officials of Newly ork. the erection OF false
hope, in poor kcmmcr, and the reaillrma'Ion
of ancient doctrines that every schoolboy l.
| familiar with The sooner 1t Is vacated so
! that District Attorney Qulmby may move Tor
| kcmmlcr's sentence again, the sooner Will
| Justice be done Perhaps, when the day OF
execution Shall have come again, Mr.. Cock
rams point in defence of the death dealing
functions of Shcriffs will be finally decided
and Warden Durston will be permitted to pro-
coed with the duty that was so irregularly
| int