A noble decision:

WASHINGTON, D. C., May 13.

To E. W. Fox, St. Louis:

Say to my friends that I am sworn to do impartial justice according to law and the evidence, and I will try to do it like an honest man.

J. B. HENDERSON.

The chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means in the House sent this to West Virginia:

WASHINGTON, D. C., May 12, 1868. Great danger to the peace of the country and the Republican cause if impeachment fails. Send to your Senators public opinion by resolutions, letters, and delegations. ROBERT C. SCHENCK, Chairman.

Wade, president pro tempore of the Senate, and who is one of the triers of the President and expects his place, telegraphed thus:

To JAMES M. SCOVEL: It is all right. The President will be impeached. Nothing can prevent it. B. F. WADE. He was asked by a political friend if he should vote on the trial, and replied, "If I had twenty votes I would give them all."

These are specimens of what has been published to secure conviction. Senators are called upon, not to act judicially, honestly, and wisely, but to convict at all events. Even public meetings have been called to aid in the same object. Thousands of letters have been written for the same purpose, and an army of politicians have attended at Washington to control the votes of Senators. Never, in the history of man, have such efforts been resorted to for controlling judicial proceedings. No State or national court would consent to be thus insulted, and why should the Senate, sitting as the highest court in the world? We give the final action of the Senatorial Court as Appendix Number 2. This attempt to destroy the President will destroy the party engaged in it. The Republicans who refuse to lend themselves to this purpose, are among the ablest, wisest, and best men of that party, who have something to lose by doing wrong, which cannot be said of those who go for a judicial conviction upon grounds of mere political policy. Such men as Fessenden, Trumbull, Grimes, and others, though our political adversaries, are an honor to their party and country, and are not to be crushed out to gratify politicians who can only rise upon the downfall of men better than themselves.

127.-CONGRESS AND THE SUPREME COURT.

The legislation of Congress, concerning the Supreme Court, has been of an extraordinary character for the last few years. That Court had been severely censured and denounced for its decision in the Dred Scott case. The more ardent Republican partisans proposed, when Mr. Lincoln came in, to abolish the court, and thus get rid of those who decided it and appoint a full new court professing Republican principles. But as the judges were appointed during good behavior-during life-no repeal of the law under which they were appointed would deprive them of their commissions. The more prudent men thought it would have an ugly look to have two sets of Supreme Court judges, one on the bench performing duty, and the other off awaiting duty; and so this scheme was abandoned. But the leaders agreed that the court must be Republicanized. On the 3d of March, 1863, the court consisted of nine judges, six of whom were Democrats, or anti-Republicans. Congress then passed an act adding another judge, declaring six a quorum, and Mr. Lincoln appointed a political friend to the new office. On the 12th of October, 1864, Chief-Justice Taney died, and S. P. Chase was appointed in his place. The court then stood five Democrats and five Republicans, being equally divided. Soon after Chief-Justice Chase entered upon his duties-May 30, 1865-Mr. Justice Catron died, which left a majority of Republicans on the bench. Mr. Johnson proposed to fill his place with a political friend, and probably a Democrat, but the Senate would not consent. Had it done so, the court would have continued equally divided between the two political parties. To obviate this difficulty, and to secure a majority of Republican judges, Congress changed its policy, and on the 23d of July, 1866, passed an act to reduce the number of judges from ten down to six. The act provides that no vacancies in the office of justice of the Supreme Court shall be filled until the number shall be reduced to six. Hence the vacancy occasioned by the death of Justice Catron has not been filled, nor has Justice Wayne's, who died last year. The court now consists of eight members. five of whom are Republicans.

These two acts present extraor

dinary shifts, which no one can call just or honest, to secure the political ascendency in our highest judicial tribunal. That the judges were not able to attend and perform all their circuit duties, has long been known, and that was the excuse for raising the number of judges to ten, and constituting ten circuits. In the act reducing the number of judges, the circuits are reduced to nine. Hence there is now one circuit without a Supreme Court judge to preside, and, since the death of Judge Wayne, there have been two, and in the end there will be four. Such are some of the consequences of political manoeuvring with courts.

But even these changes do not satisfy the Republican leaders. Some of the Republican judges do not follow all their wild and reckless leaders, and occasionally hold the legislation of Congress unconstitutional and void, and some of the acts of Republican tribunals illegal. It is now gravely proposed to require three-fourths of the court to make a decision, and to withdraw certain questions from the consideration of the court-for instance, the constitutionality of the reconstruction and other acts of Congress-for fear that such acts may be held to be unconstitutional and void. They fear a court constituted of a majority of their own party-judges selected at their instance and appointed by a Republican President, with the consent of a Republican Senate. They see that the Court must take the back track, and reverse and condemn its own action, or it must refuse to uphold the action of Congress. A well-constituted court cannot follow the lead of a political party. Hence their desperation and extraordinary course on the subject of this court. The proceedings of Congress must be condemned either for increasing or diminishing the number of members of this court. The two positions are in conflict, and both cannot stand. If the new propositions are enacted, it will serve to increase the embarrassments of those who do it, instead of relieving them; it will be found unprofitable to try to use the courts as political machines, to decide according to order. But Congress is now taking a new tack. It proposes not only to control the Executive, but also to forbid the Judicial Department to act in cases before it, until it shall permit. It claims that it is the political department of the Government, and that it alone is competent to

determine political questions. In this, Congress assumes more than is true. The judiciary has properly decided that it will not determine political questions, but will confine itself to those of law; but that on political questions it will follow the action of those departments that control such questions. But it has not said that Congress alone can determine political questions. On the contrary, in Luther vs. Borden—the Rhode Island case (7 Peters, 1)-the Supreme Court expressly recognizes the right of the President, where there are two parties, each claiming to be the true State government, to decide the question, and the court followed the decision of President Tyler on that subject. The Chief Justice said: "If there is an armed conflict, like the one of which we are speaking, it is a case of domestic violence, and one of the parties must be in insurrection against the lawful government. And the President must, of necessity, decide which is the government, and which party is unlawfully arrayed against it, before he can perform the duty imposed upon him by the act of Congress. In cases of foreign nations, the government acknowledged by the President is always recognized by the courts of justice. And this principle has been applied by the act of Congress to the sovereign States of the Union."

Mr. Trumbull, in the bill lately introduced in the Senate, has not truly stated the action of the Supreme Court in past cases, nor is he correct in stating that it rests exclusively with Congress to determine whether a State government exists or not, under the reconstruction laws. Under the decision quoted, the Executive has as much right as Congress to determine that question, and the courts are bound to recognize his acts. Congress seems to suppose that it can force upon a State what it thinks is a republican form of government. It has no such power. When Congress admits a State, it cannot go back of the admission and inquire whether, in the judgment of Congress, it has a republican form of government. The United States have guaranteed to protect a State in such a form. But until the State calls upon the United States to fulfil this obligation, the government has nothing to do with the question. If the State organized a government satisfactory to itself, that is all that can be required. Congress has no

special power over the subject. The guaranty is by the United States, and not by Congress. That body is not clothed with any special power to determine whether a State has or has not a government republican in form, which it is to protect, before it is called upon to fulfil the guaranty. The statutes of the United States, as in the Rhode Island case, place this question in the hands of the President, when properly called upon by the Legislature or Governor. If the power thus provided is insufficient to protect the State, then, and then only, can Congress be called upon for greater assistance, not to make or force amendments of her constitution; but if it is, in the opinion of Congress, republican in form, then it will aid the President in protecting such State. If it has not such a form, then Congress, as one branch of the Government, can refuse its aid, and nothing more. The guaranty is clear and explicit, and Congress cannot by its action, in denying the right claimed, bind any branch of the Government but the legislative. If a State is satisfied with its government, even if not republican in form, Congress cannot change it, nor require the State to do so, nor can it refuse any of its constitutional privileges because it will not change. While Rhode Island lived under its charter from an English monarch, its government was not republican in form, and still the Federal Government, as late as 1843, fulfilled its guaranty of protection, and, on the action of the President, sustained it against the Dorr government, which represented the majority of the people, with a constitution republican in form. The recent movements in Congress are based upon these principles-that Congress alone controls all political power; that they have the exclusive right to determine what laws are political; that they determine all the reconstruction and other kindred laws to be political, and therefore no other department of the Government has authority to do or say any thing concerning them; and they forbid the Executive and the courts from construing or acting under them. In all this Congress is clearly wrong, and attempting to usurp the powers of all other departments of the Government. If this is to be submitted to, then we live under a consolidated Government, without distribution of powers, and where the Legislature can make, construe, and execute laws with no power of restraint