Political conviction

“ If political power shall be lost because of such denial, not imposed because of participation in rebellion or other crime, it is to be hoped that political interests may work in the line of justice, and that the end will be the impartial enfranchisement of all citizens not disqualified by crime. ”

“ So the judiciary, by its mode of appointment, long duration in office, and slight accountability, is rather fitted to check legislative power than political, and enforce what the political authorities have manifestly ordained. ”

“ May they depart with impunity from their legislative functions, sit as kangaroo courts, and try men for their loyalty and their political beliefs? May they substitute trial before committees for trial before juries? ”

“ It is again admitted that, according to our political theory, the judges are invested with a species of political power, not for the purpose of destroying or altering constitutions, nor to disarrange the powers of political departments, but for that of securing the rights of individuals. ”

“ The public should not be taught, by the mode in which trials of this character are conducted, that the prosecution of a crime against the laws securing the freedom and integrity of elections for representatives in congress will be regarded by the court as, in effect, a prosecution of a political party to which the accused belongs. ”

“ They may command what is right and prohibit what is wrong; but they cannot change innocence into guilt, or punish innocence as a crime, or violate the right of an antecedent lawful private contract, or the right of private property. To maintain that a Federal or State legislature possesses such powers if they had not been expressly restrained, would, in my opinion, be a political heresy altogether inadmissible in all free republican governments.' 3 Dall. ”

“ What grounds for alarm and terrible apprehension, when in a confederacy of such vast extent, so many independent States, so many rival commercial cities, so much sectional jealousy, such violent political parties, such fierce contests for power, there should be but one moneyed tribunal, before which all the rival and contending elements must appear! ”

“ What could be more embarrassing, than for a court of law to pronounce for a removal upon the mere ground of political usurpation, or malversation in office, admitting of endless varieties, from the slightest guilt up to the most flagrant corruption? Ought a president to be removed from office at the mere will of a court for political misdemeanours? Is not a political body, like the senate, from its superior information in regard to executive functions, far better qualified to judge, how far the public weal might be promoted by such a punishment in a given case, than a mere juridical tribunal? ”

“ From one of these causes, it has probably happened, that the instances of a bold opposition to unconstitutional laws by State judges, have been so much more frequent than similar proofs of independence on the part of Federal judges. But these considerations do not obliterate truth. It must be admitted that legislative power is the source of nearly all the violations of our political theory. Is it not more magnanimous to assail the principal than his agent? ”

“ In the one case executive officers have sought to impose their political views upon a constituency of divergent convictions, and in the other they have been guilty of a serious offense against public morals. ”

“ Had this been the case, the friends of liberty would not be so willing now to part with it. Can we boast that our government is founded on these maxims? Can we pretend to the enjoyment of political freedom or security, when we are told that a man has been, by an act of Assembly, struck out of existence without a trial by jury, without examination, without being confronted with his accusers and witnesses, without the benefits of the law of the land? ”

“ If one of them does not possess these rights, neither can the other; and by establishing their political subordination to the court, we should exhibit to the world the political phenomenon of two governments, neither possessing a right of self-preservation, and both subjected to six men, not elected by the people, but nominated by one man. ”

“ But that policy was completely altered after the Civil War when nationalism dominated political thought [7] and brought with it congressional investiture of the federal judiciary with enormously increased powers. ”

“ For many generations we have had the trial by jury, the Habeas Corpus Act, the freedom of the press, the right of meeting to discuss public affairs, the right of petitioning the legislature. A vast portion of the population has long been accustomed to the exercise of political functions, and has been thoroughly 56seasoned to political excitement. ”

“ Suppose a legislature appointed to prepare a code of civil law, to be dissolved upon a supposition that the work was perfected. If crimes and evasions, unforeseen and unprovided against, should occur, who would contend that it would ruin the nation, should it appoint another legislature to correct these crimes and evasions? Criminals and sophists. Ought nations to hallow guilt or errour by suffering the evils they cause?
The temptations to violate political law are greater, and the danger of punishment less, than in the case of civil law. In one case, wealth and power are solicitors for crime ”

“ Would it be safe to entrust the political interests of a whole people to a common panel? Would any jury in times of party excitement by found sufficiently firm to give a true verdict, unaffected by the popularity or odium of the measure, when the nation was the accuser? These questions are more easily put, than they can be satisfactorily answered. And, indeed, the very circumstance, that the example of Virginia has found little favour in other states, furnishes decisive proof, that it is not deemed better than others, to which the national constitution bears the closest analogy. ”

“ Practically it is immaterial whether aggressive interference between the States or deliberate refusal on the part of any one of them to comply with constitutional obligations arise from erroneous conviction or blind prejudice, whether it be perpetrated by direction or indirection. ”

“ The 'political' decision, as distinguished from the 'justiciable' ones, occupy most of the spectrum of congressional action. The case or controversy requirement comes into play only when the Federal Government does something that affects a person's life, his liberty, or his property. ”

“ Parliamentary debate offered the means of legal opposition to those who bore no friendship to the Court: conspiracy, though it alarmed at the moment, had become the resort only of the obscure and the powerless. Groups of able men were gathering around recognised leaders, or uniting in defence of a common political creed. ”

“ The promise of judicial intervention in matters of this sort cannot but encourage popular inertia in efforts for political reform through the political process, with the inevitable result that the process is itself weakened. ”

“ Strictly speaking, then, the power partakes of a political character, as it respects injuries to the society in its political character; and, on this account, it requires to be guarded in its exercise against the spirit of faction, the intolerance of party, and the sudden movements of popular feeling. The prosecution will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties, more or less friendly, or hostile to the accused. ”

“ Nothing strikes so sharply at our conception of liberty as the failure of criminal justice, and the conviction of a defendant not legally proven guilty or the acquittal of an influential criminal has a more [Pg 186] disastrous effect upon the body politic than ten thousand bales of anarchistic propaganda. The partisan judge, who makes up his mind to convict or acquit if he can, may be right nine times out of ten, but the other time he commits an outrage. The judicial temperament is a jewel above all price. ”

“ The judge who owes his election to pandering to demagogic sentiments or class hatreds and prejudices, and the judge who owes either his election or his appointment to the money or the favor of a great corporation, are alike unworthy to sit on the bench, are alike traitors to the people; and no profundity of legal learning, or correctness of abstract conviction on questions of public policy, can serve as an offset to such shortcomings. ”

“ We would secure to every man what the Constitution secures, 'The right of trial by jury.' We would do what we can for the encouragement and improvement of the colored race, and restore to them that inestimable right of which they have been so meanly, as well as unjustly, deprived, the RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE. We would look to the best interests of the country, and the whole country, and not legislate for the good of an Oligarchy, the most arrogant that ever lorded it over an insulted people. ”

“ To what wise or fortunate protection of the stability of government does the people of this country owe its escape from this great peril? Solely, I cannot hesitate to think, to the potency—with a justice-loving, law-respecting people—of the few decisive words of the Constitution which, to the common apprehension, had impressed upon the transaction the solemn character of trial and conviction, under the sanction of the oath to bind the conscience, and not of the mere exercise of power, of which its will should be its reason. ”

“ A President of the Union, on the other hand, though he may even pardon treason, when prosecuted in the ordinary course of law, could shelter no offender, in any degree, from the effects of impeachment and conviction. Would not the prospect of a total indemnity for all the preliminary steps, be a greater temptation to undertake, and persevere in an enterprise against the public liberty, than the mere prospect of an exemption from death and confiscation, if the final execution of the design, upon an actual appeal to arms, should miscarry? ”

“ Hence the infamous renown of political decisions in legal controversies, such as bills of attainder and ex post facto laws, or special legislation to satisfy claims which could not be defended before legitimate courts, or the scandals always attending the trial of election petitions. The object of true courts is to shield the public from these and kindred abuses. ”

“ Without stopping to remark upon the caution which should ever be manifested in the admission of claims which, if not founded in violence or in mere might, yet refer us for their origin certainly not to regular unquestioned legal or political authority, it may be safely said, that claims founded upon the acts of a government de facto must be sustained, if at all, by the nature and character of such acts themselves, as proceeding from the exercise of the inherent and rightful powers of an independent government. ”

“ It is evident that, in order to avoid consequences so grave, the determination of the result of this Presidential election should be confided to a tribunal whose verdict will command universal confidence, and in order to command universal confidence in times of excited party feeling the tribunal should be as far as possible removed from party strife, party interest and party ambition. ”

“ If a crime could once be committed with impunity, is that a reason why it should be regarded as less criminal when perpetrated a second time? If an act of usurpation was once submitted to without resistance, is that a reason why its repetition should not be condemned, rebuked and resisted? If so, then the integrity, nay, the very existence of republican government in this country hangs on a very slender thread indeed. ”

“ Public affairs ought to be so conducted that a settled conviction shall pervade the entire Union that nothing short of the highest tone and standard of public morality marks every part of the administration and legislation of the General Government. Thus will the federal system, whatever expansion time and progress may give it, continue more and more deeply rooted in the love and confidence of the people. ”

“ But as new-fangled and artificial treasons have been the great engines by which violent factions, the natural offspring of free government, have usually wreaked their alternate malignity on each other, the convention have, with great judgment, opposed a barrier to this peculiar danger, by inserting a constitutional definition of the crime, fixing the proof necessary for conviction of it, and restraining the Congress, even in punishing it, from extending the consequences of guilt beyond the person of its author. ”

“ If the writer's condemnation or acquital, is to depend on the political factions, and selected by an officer, under the absolute influence and control of his prosecutors and enemies; will it not put a total stop to all political writings, but those in favor of the measures of government: and how long will even the shadow of liberty remain, after the door of information, is by that means effectually barred against the body of the people? ”

“ He can bring no witnesses for himself. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side, is the side of the oppressor. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. Let it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice are filled with judges, who hold their offices under an open and palpable bribe, and are bound, in deciding in the case of a manʼs liberty, to hear only his accusers! ”

“ The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the Confederacy shall be removed from office on conviction by the Congress of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors: a vote of two-thirds shall be necessary for such conviction. ”