Birmingham state herald., 1896-10-11
GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION"

denouncing generally arbitrary interfer- enee by federal authorities in local af- fairs as violations of the constitution and crimes against free institutions, goes on to specify one Of the most obnoxious forms of this interference, as follows:
 We especially object to government by injunction. as a new and highly dan gerous form of oppression, by which fed eral judges in contempt of the laws of the states and rights of citizens, become at once legislators, judges and exeeu- tioners; and we approve the bill passed at the last session of the United States senate, and now pending in the house of representatives, relative to contempts in the federal courts, and providing trials by jury in certain cases of contempt"
 The section of the platform of which this is the conclusion, has been attrib- uted to Governor Altgeld of Illinois. Whoever may be it's author, he has no need to be ashamed of it, notwithstand- ing the foul epithets and billingsgate that have been expended upon his production.
 An '"injunction," in it's broadest legal meaning, is a judicial command, that the person to whom it is directed shall do or refrain from doing some particu- lar specified act, They are distinguished as "preliminary," or provisional" that is, those granted at the outset or in the course of suit, and "fianl," that is, those issued upon final adjudication of the rights in issue. Of these last, the number is relatively very small, the dan ger of their abuse is slight, and they can hardly do extensive damage; for coming n tect or enforce ascertained rights. But preliminary" injunctions are much more numerous. and more capable of abuse and mischief. In operation, they are equiva- lent very often to judgment and execu- ton before hearing or trial So well rec ognied are these facts that the cases are rare when the law allows them to issue without indemnfying bonds; and they should never issue, except in case of ur- gent necessity, and for good cause, shown by affidavit, and in no ceae where there is an adequate remedy at common law.
 The language of the democratic plat form manifestly bears chiefly on these preliminary injunctions, their abuses and the injuries resulting from them, and hardly, if at all upon those known as final injunctions, which are in substance and in operation, no more than a mode of ex- ecuting deliberate judicial decrees.
 The remedy by preliminary injunction is exceedingly beneficial, when wisely and rightly used Like powerful drugs in medicine, it attains results impossible to other modes of procedure, but like them, the very properties which in the hands of prudence and skill achieve surpris- n D DpH ho J,
 dangerous and deadly in the hands of stupidity, corruption or wickedness.
 The remedy and process by injunction like the system of our equity jurispru- dence generally-is not teutonic nor Eng fish, either in it's origin or spirit. It came from the civil or canon law; it was inn ported from the despotic latitudes of Rome and Constantinople, and was intro- 'duced and developed by the subtlety of monkish chancellors, bred in the atmo- sphere of passive obedience to absolute authority. It found no sympathy nor favor in the popular Anglo-Saxon thought or feeling, nor with the sages and oracles of the common law, who dis cerned in It the grayest menaces to per sonal and civic freedom. Through cen turles. they combatted it's aggressive and despotic tendencies with fearless un- hinching resistance, and it is to this. and to them, that is due largely the differ- ences now between England under Vic toria. and Spain under the Bourbons
 History and experience both concur in proving that to invest any man, no mat ter how wise and good, with power both irresponsible and unlimited in duration is to invite and hazard it's abuse. and the danger is magnifed immeasurably if such power is placed in the hands of men who are weak or interruptions, or both. No more forcible illustration of this truth can be found than in the history of the federal judiciary. Beginning with the early attempt of the supreme court, made about one hundred years ago, to assume Jurisdiction over a sovereign state and pronounce Judgment on its rights as defendant, at the suit of it's own citizens, or those of other states or countries, which caused the eleventh amendment to the constitution, there has been a con- tinuous and apparently systematic dispo- sitlon to crowd in by the federal judiciary on the reserved rights of the states and of the people. To amplify and extend their own power and jurisdiction has seemed to be, with many of them, a cen- tral maxim, controlling all others. How many substantive amendments they have engrafted upon the federal constitution by judicial construction would require much time to show and explain, but their tracks all move one way and that is in the direction of encroachment on reserved rights.
 Up to 1860 these aggressons were kept at a minimum by the predominance of democratic opinion and sentiment among the people, and ip The other coordinate branches of the government, and by the presence on the federal bench of judges trained in the school of states rights and strict construction of the constitution. When, however these safeguards and restraints were removed and the federal bench was disgraced by such knaves as Durrell, Busteed and others like them, without personal honesty, ignorant of the law and regardless of justice and rights, whether of citizens or states, all the bar riers and limits of moderation and de-