A Glance at the Judiciary.

There is nothing in mankind greater than humanity. It is not more permissible for a government than for a man to commit murder. If a drop of blood stains the hand of a murderer, oceans of gore do not make innocent the Dantons. The magnitude of the crime does not transform it into a virtue.—Pyramids of dead bodies rise higher, it is true, but not so high as the execrations of mankind.—Lamartine.

Dear Douglas:—How oddly opinions, modes and combinations are made to shape themselves amongst us at the present time! The social institutions of the United States are founded on the highest idea of human relationships. The brotherhood of the race is the claim which imparts to them their most impressive beauty, their chief security and strength. Yet we are, all of us, called upon daily to abjure this central article of the national creed, to smother all that is most manly, most God-like within us, to turn a deaf ear to the cries of the most injured, afflicted and needy of all our brothers, and in their persons to deny the "Lord that bought us." We must do this, "they" insist, because Congress has enacted it. To hesitate or refuse, is to turn "fanatics," to forswear good "citizenship," to espouse the side of "incendiarism," "insurrection" and "treason" itself.—The authority of God, through the teaching of his word, his providential government, through the toilsome investigations and analysis of philosophers, men of deepest research, of wisdom and genius, and through unsophisticated human nature as it gushes forth spontaneously from the great heart of the million, avails nothing in comparison with an act of Congress. Thus the stump demagogues, the nespaper demagogues, the pulpit demagogues, all conspire to decide the matter. A simple act of Congress, or of any other legislative body, conceived by some

enemy of freedom, right and justice, over his cups at a pot-house or brothel, huckstered through the incipient forms of legislation, and passed by a majority of one aye, at the last moment of a sesssion, which winds up with a drunken row, is to ignore and render futile all that the highest schools of the moralists have taught. It alone is to extinguish the best lights that our systems of modern education have shed upon our path—to arrest in its progress that better and loftier civilization, which the gospel of Christ has vitalized and begins already to diffuse for the "healing and redemption of the nations. It is to pour ridicule and contempt upon the loftier deeds of courage and disinterestedness, which poets have seized upon to commend to the admiration of mankind, both in song and drama. It is to stamp with the infamy and detestation of rebels and traitors, the memories of those men who presumed to suggest the idea of our famous old revolution of 1776, and of those who dared to encounter the perils and carnage of its terrible battle-fields. But this is not my present point. Within a few days the world has been called upon to listen to two brief discourses from two oracles of the judiciary. Judge Conkling of the United States District Court, and Judge Nelson of the United States Circuit Court, have both spoken.—The occasions of their utterances were quite dissimilar, while the object of both of them is not likely to be mistaken. The most shallow observer will not fail to perceive that each of them endeavors to contribute, according to ability, to the general demagogue fund of the times. They are, neither of

them, men of much strength, and their opinions, unaided by their position, would in themselves exert but a trifling and transient influence. I only refer to them now because they belong to a profession strong in itself, and whose members always have had the address to secure for themselves a class of officers which render their power in this country all but irresistible. Judge Conkling was charged with the duty of inquiring into the complaints entered before him, against certain persons in the rescue case at Syracuse. It was a very simple and plain duty. In declaring his decision, no objection could be taken to his explaining the grounds of it; though so much as that is not usual in such cases, and is indicative somewhat of the misgivings of a coward. Whether right or wrong in his conclusions, just or unjust in imposing so high a tariff of bail, I have no opinion to express at this time. Let that be as it may, by what official duty, by what usage of the courts themselves, by what fitness of the occasion, by what rule of common decency among men, was the Judge either required or justified when he voluteered to launch out into a scurrilous lecture in particular against the persons [arraigned] and then before him, and in general, against all persons supposed to sympathize with them, and to cherish opinions similar to theirs, in their main features? It is unrepublican and barbarous enough, in all conscience, for a man to be presented to a Grand Jury, defamed in his absence, without a chance to meet his accusers face to face, to deny the charges urged against him, to justify or explain his cause of conduct; but for one to be traduced and villified by a magistrate after he has been

"committed" or held to bail by him, is a most monstrous outrage. Such a specimen of impudent assumption in a Judge, has not often been witnessed within the judicial history of this country, I am quite confident.—All know how sacredly the mind of a juror is to be guarded against the approaches of prejudice or the bias of conclusions formed before the testimony was submitted to his consideration, and independent of its appropriate sway. Is a Judge less solemnly bound to preserve the purity of his judgment, to guard the citadel of impartiality, to maintain his own integrity, than the jurors? It will not, for a moment, be pretended. Judge Conkling has done the same thing as to condemn those held to bail by him without evidence or a hearing. They offered no evidence, made no explanation of their behavior, and designedly left the whole subject of their legal justification in the dark till the final hearing. That they had a right to do, and for all the Judge knows to the contrary, they may each of them be able to prove, not only their entire innocence of the charges preferred against them, but their actual absence from the city of Syracuse at the time of the rescue. Is not, then, his attempt to embitter the public mind, to induce a pre-judgment of the case, such an abuse of his official position, as deserves the rebuke and execration of all candid, right-thinking persons? Technical dulness and bass-wood stupidity are sufficiently insufferable, but the gratuitous malice of a petty magistrate, is inspired by the spite of the selfish [illegible], ought to receive such a chastisement as an enlightened community will not fail to administer, sooner or later, through its keen reproofs and virtuous indignation.

What of Judge Nelson? In the regular routine of his official duties, he addresses a

Grand Jury, at Albany. Without fitness, "rhyme or reason," he [seizes] upon that occasion to discourse to the people of Syracuse, of the State, and to all the sincere haters of oppression and human slavery, on the values of the Union, on their federal responsibilities, and to accuse them of gross delinquences and high political crimes, in the matter of their engagements with the South. If the District Judge shows himself servile, cringing, low-born, and base, the Circuit Judge establishes a pre-eminent claim to the character of a heartless reviler, and calumniator of better men than himself. By what authority does he assume to arraign the whole people of the State of New York, for acts of solemn legislation, which they have chosen to approve and adopt? What aspect of duty calls upon him to single out whole classes of citizens, of the most unreproachable life, of the highest moral worth, not to say nine-tenths of all our reading and reflecting people, and administer tact rebukes to them, for opinions and practices commended by, and handed down from Jefferson and the great founders of freedom and the Republic associated with him. It is not too much to say, that in better days of the republic, such conduct as that of which these two judges are guilty, would have exposed judicial officers to the severest criticism, and most probably to impeachment. Did Judge Chase offend against official propriety as grossly? By no means, I think, and yet he was called upon to meet before the Senate, articles of impreachment. He was simply imperious, overbearing and tyrannical. These men are malignant, abusive, slanderous, gratuitously profligate, mean, and wicked. In the entire drift of Judge Nelson's remarks, the low and groveling designs of the petty partisan brawls, are too manifest to escape the notice of any one, who chooses to read and understand. There

seems to be a zest, and relish about his spirit of malignity and quick-scented persecution, that would more than have rivalled that which triumphed in the darkest and bloodiest days of the French Revolution of 1749.—I have already said enough, perhaps too much, and still there remains a remark or two, which I feel inclined to offer to your reader. In the spirit of general reform, which in one way or another, has exhibited itself with the people of the United States, the judiciary as to its forms and re[la]tionships, has perhaps attracted less attention in proportion to its relative importance, than any other social institution among us. It has been looked upon with a sort of awfulness, close to the borders of a shrinking, ghost-smitten superstition. Let that "dispensation" pass, as only worthy of childhood and weakness. In one respect, in our State, it has passed. These gentlemen of the bench are limited in their term of service, and they are compelled to "face" the ballot-boxes. So far, good—very good. In addition, let every honest, fearless public journalist take them in charge, watch over them, for their good, for the public good, and for the honor of freedom. These United States judge-ships, if once filled by the genuine, ["]legitimate" offspring of revolutionary sires, how long would the slave system live, to defeat, defy and defame us, and the great purposes of free government? If that were the case, it would bury itself out of human sight, before an "inquest" could be held over its deformed, ugly carcass, according to our reading and theory of the constitution, these judges are the very men, God-ordained, and annointed expressly to take slavery in hand, and dispose of the whole business, according

to "law and the evidence; that is to say, they are to "do justice between a man and his neighbor;" their decisions are to be dictated and sanctioned by the principles of eternal equity. So far as the United States have any concern or authority, the person, property, and rights of every one of us, are committed to their charge. They are the annointed priests; they alone, to enter within the "holy of holies," and bring forth to the people the decrees of immaculate justice. Give me a thoroughly-reformed judiciary, and you may have, in welcome, the making of the presidents and congresses, in all time to come. I'll see that the humblest, weakest, and most miserable of all the human brotherhood, is cared for and protected, that his rights are as sacredly maintained and defended, as that of the highest and proudest, only give me capable, honest, fearless
judges!

J. H. H.

Our Home, Oct. 27, 1851.