St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-02-05

/ thought and talent in aid of the estab-
| llShment of the supreme court, has the
power to-day to provide relief against
! the overtaxing of its powers. Is it too
| much to ask that in this centennial year
something of the interest which ELS
worth and his cOmpeers showed may
now be accorded to provide the relief
which the court needs, which the Ameri-
can bar sOlicits and which the rights Of
! suitors demand?
DINING WITH GRAND JURY,
One Interesting incident of the first
session of the supreme court in this city
may detain us for a moment longer. 1t
established a precedent which is hap
PLY recognized and followed to-day.
The court accepted an invitation to din
ner. The host who entertained it was
the grand jury of the city and county
of New York. This body, representing
the most ancient jurisdiction Of the
common law of England, and one of its
| chief conservators of private rights and
liberties, was the first to extend a well
and last resort, and in the interchange
of patriotic greetings and sentiments to
forecast its brilliant future.
GROUND WORK OF JUDICIAL POWER.
The fact is conspicuous that, as the
leaders of American independence fast
ened upon the idea of substituting for
the loose compact of the confederation
union of the states based on the abSo-
lutte sovereignty of the people and the
surrender by the separate states of all
powers needed to constitute national
government without trenching Oh the
rights reserved to the states, the root
and groundwork of this complex idea
was the establishment of some system
nv xubiah nrtr mir Ia w nf tha IIt,itnH
States and the statutes of their
| congress should be the supreme
law of the land, binding every
where and enforceable every where. To
their minds it became clear that If JUS
tice'iS the basis of society it must be so
administered as to control society by
operating upon all its members, and
where separate states should agree to
carve out of their own sovereignty the
powers needed to set up government
for all, the grant of powers must be am
pie to make their exercise etfectual.
While the power of each state to pun
ish violations of its own laws and
maintain all the ends OF government
within its own territory must be eXer-
cised by state courts and judges
and officers, without interference,
/ like absolute power IN the federal
government must go hand in hand with
the delegation by the state of the right
to regulate all those matters which were
to come within the circle of the enumer-
ated powers of the United States. The
national government must be as cOmpe-
tent to punish crimes forbidden by its
laws and to enforce the Judgments de-
clared by its courts as are the states
within theil separate boundaries in re-
spect to their own local laws and the
jul iisdiction of their local courts. More
| than this, the true sphere of the ma
tional jurisdiction having been once es-
tablished, no state should have power
to make any law in conflict with the
organic law. or with the statutes of the
whole realm, and, still further, the
| national congress itself should have no
power to invade the constitution by any
| enactment cOntravening its provisions.
THE CONSTITUTION A DEVELOPMENT.
In.the light of the researches stimu-
! lated by the revival ofinterest in Amer
! icalTsideas which marks this centennial
| epoch, we have come to see how largely
| tile principle of growth and develop
meny which inheres i'll every onward
! movement of the race was at work in
| the unfolding of our organic law. The
| federal constitution WAS. in great part,
| the result of what had gone before in
] the making of the colonial local govern
/ mentS and of the tateS and of the cOu-
| federacy. 1t was ~ disqualification of
elements which it .eeded only the agi-