ject at any moment to be punished and cashiered by him, and this too, for giving the very decision its conscience might prompt. Thus, matters which would constitute valid and legal objections, to witnesses, to Jurors, and to the Judges themselves, in the most trifling controversy between man and man, are to be overlooked and disregarded, in the support of a new theory, which seeks to constitute the Federal government the sole Judge of its own power.
I have great respect for the Judiciary of every country, but no lawyer or historian can tell, in what age or in what country, the Judiciary have ever been able, even where it was willing, to protect the rights of the people against the usurpations of Government. England has long been blessed with a Judiciary, composed of men, whose intelligence, whose integrity, and whose firmness, would not suffer in comparison with that of any others who have ever been or are now on earth. But when or who of these Judges have ever been able to save the privileges of the people from the prerogatives of the crown, unless the Judiciary was sustained by another branch of the government? And how many examples are there, of acts of Parliament made for the special purpose of saving the people from the Judiciary? For the Judiciary of the United States, I entertain at least as much respect as I do for any other Judiciary. I will not say more; and I cannot say less. With the individual Judges, I have nothing to do. They shall all be, if any one thinks so, what some of them certainly are, "like Mansfield wise, and as old Foster just." But all must know that the robes of office do not cover angels, but mere men, as prone to err, as any other men of equal intelligence, of equal purity, and of equal constancy. We all know, too, that some of the supreme Judges of the United States, have not thought it unbecoming their high places, to accept Foreign Missions, to present themselves as candidates for other offices, and to enter into newspaper disquisitions upon party topics. I do not mean to blame them for such things, but merely to shew from such facts, that the rights of sovereign States, when assailed by the government of the United States, could not be safely confided to a forum so constituted, even if it was possible that it could take cognizance of the subject. Nor can he be con-
