Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-02-08
"TO ESTABLISH JUSTICE.
THE POWERS OF THE UNITED STATES
SUPREME COURT.
Review, at the Close of Century, of the
Manner in Which Those Powers
Have Been Exercised.

Henry Hitchcock, of St. Louis, delivered
an address, at the recent centenary celebra-
ton of the organization of the Supreme
Court of the United States, upon the exer-
else of the powers of the Court since its or
ganization. He began by referring to the
suit of the State of Florida against the
State of Georgia, brought in the Supreme
Court to determine the boundary line be-
tween them, of which Chief Justice fancy
said: "a suit in Court of justice between
such parties, and upon such question, is
without example in the jurisprudence of
any other country" This impressive
statement, said the speaker, illustrates, in
part, the nature, the novelty and the dig
nifty of the unexampled powers which that
Court has exercised during the period of
an hundred years, whose auspices close
we celebrate this day.
The Supreme Court exists by the ex-
press mandate of the Constitution, which
distributes the powers Of government
among three great departments. Refer
ring to the precept, quoted by Madison,
that the accumulation of these powers in
the same hands is the very definition Of
tyranny, the speaker said THE splendid,
the unparalleled achievement of our fore
fathers lay in their successful application
of that precept to the problems before
them. For not only did they distribute
among three distinct and independent de-
partments the powers Of the national gov
eminent, securing to that government abb
solute supremacy within its appropriate
but limited sphere, while also preserving
to the several States the autonomy and in
ternal powers essential to their welfare;
but they so framed and established the
national Judiciary, the weakest Of those
departments, holding neither purse nor
sword, strong only in the reverence of the
people for the sanctions of law, as to make
the Courts while strictly exercising their
judicial functions in pursuance Of estab-
ished rules and principles of law, at once
the arbiters of public and private right,
and the bulwark of limited Constitution
against legislative encroachment.'
The vast reach of the powers of the
Court springs from the great political fact
that the Government of the Union is one
which in all its departments operates d.
rsetly upon individuals. To the Supreme
Court, "the living voice Of the Constitu
ton" belongs the ultimate development
of the powers which that instrument con-
fers. In fulfilling its great trust, that
Court, in whatever has concerned the
national welfare, has stood for the con-
science of the people of the United States.
Observing that the judicial power can
be exercised only for the determination of
a controversy brought before the Court in
legal form, and only of such cases as are
specified in the Constitution or some Act
of Congress pursuant thereto, the speaker
alluded to numerous important cases in
which the Court had decided to take
jurisdiction of political questions or those
involving the exercise of legislative or ex-
ecutive discretion; also referring to the
Slaughterhouse cases and other important
decisions in which the Court has upheld
the police power of the States. Under
this head the history of the Court was
epitomized in the words of Chief Justice
Chase judicial duty is not less ftly
performed by declining ungranted juris-
diction than in exercising firmly that
which the Constitution and laws confer"
In the affirmative exercise of its powers,
the chief, said the speaker, is that of in
terpreting the supreme law of the land.
Consider for moment what this implied,
a hundred years ago. To the Court itself,
a tribunal without example, was confded
the development of a Constitution which
had no precedent. That Constitution was
itself an experiment, compromise-"ex-
torted," as John Quincy Adams said,
''from the grinding necessities of a reluc-
tant people" the people Of thirteen indie
pendent States, reluctant to surrender on
any terms even to a government created
by themselves, the jarring powers which
threatened, like the warriors sprung from
the dragons teeth sown by Cadmus in
Attic soil, to perish in deadly mutual
strife.
A spirited sketch was given of the great
case of Chisholm VS.. Georgia, in which, in
1873, the Supreme Court, unmoved by the
general excitement and alarm, held that I'M
der the Constitution as adopted State could
be sued as debtor in that Court This led
TO the adoption of the Eleventh Amend
ment, forbidding suits to be brought by in
dividuals against State. The vital prin-
ciple maintained in the Chisholm case was
the supremacy of the Judicial power of the
United States within the limits of the
Constitution. whatever the Court should
determine those limits to be. The Eleventh
Amendment narrowed those limits but
affirmed that principle.
The great services of Chief Justice Mar
shall were described in glowing terms.
Beacon lights of the nations jurisprudence,
illuminating with prophetic radiance the
dark waters of the distant future, those
luminous judgments have shone out and
still shine for us afar, marking out its
course, warning it of perils on either hand
the quicksands of legislative or execu-
tive encroachment, and the dangerous OPP
posing reefs of uncontrolled State sover-
eighty, white with the breakers of anarchy
and civil war.
A rapid sketch was given of the exercise
by the Court of its great power to control
the judgments of State Courts, and to de-
clare void laws repugnant to the Constitu-
ton; reference being made to Gibbons VS..
Ogden, the Pensacola Telegraph case and
other cases, in which was enforced the
power of Congress to regulate commerce.
The development by the Court OF the great
purpose of the Constitution ito establish
Justice was illustrated by the Dartmouth
College case and other important decis-
ions unfolding the sanctity of contracts
and BY other judgments, protecting the
rights of the Indians, and determining
controversies between States concerning
their boundaries. Unexampled in the his
tory of jurisprudence are such suits, be
tween such parties, before such tribunal.
Mr.. Hitchcock also traced the develop
ment of the admiralty jurisdiction Of the
United States, at first limited to Underwater,
but which, in the mastery judgment of
Chief Justice fancy, in the case Of the
Genesee Chief. in 1851, was held to include
all navigable waters, thus extending to the
commerce of our inland seas the uniform
rules of admiralty.