and the course pursued in the trial of Miss Anthony; and all the more for the reason that no judicial court has jurisdiction to review the proceedings therein.
I need not disclaim all purpose to question the motives of the learned Judge before whom this trial was conducted. The best of judges may commit the gravest of errors amid the hurry and confusion of a nisiprius term; and the wrong Miss Anthony has suffered ought to be charged to the vicious system which denies to those convicted of offenses against the laws of the United States a hearing before the court of last resort—a defect it is equally within the power and the duty of Congress speedily to remedy.
Mr. Tremaine, from the House Judiciary Committee, reported adversely on the prayer of Miss Anthony's Petition, and Benjamin F. Butler favorably.
Forty-third Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Report No. 608, Susan B. Anthony, May 25, 1874, recommitted to the Committee on the Judiciary and ordered to be printed.
Mr. B. F. Butler, from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the following Report to accompany bill H. R. 3492:
The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the memorial of Susan B. Anthony, of the city of Rochester, in the State of New York, praying that a fine alleged to have been unjustly imposed on the petitioner by a judgment of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York, may be remitted, having considered the prayer of the petitioner and the statement of facts set forth in the memorial, respectfully beg leave to report:
••••••••••••
Are these positions of the petitioner well founded? By necessary division there arise two questions: First, has Congress any power, or is there any precedent for entertaining such petition for such purpose? And, secondly, are the acts and order of the judge in accordance with the law of the land, and not in derogation of the right of the citizen to trial by jury at common law as guaranteed by the Constitution, as known and practiced in the courts of the United States? If the first should be answered in the negative, of course the committee and the House would be spared the discussion of the second.
It seems to your committee that there are two very noted and historical cases which may form the precedents for this application, and favorable action thereon by Congress—in the proceeding concerning the fines imposed by the courts on Matthew Lyon and General Jackson.
Lyon was fined by a United States judge for a seditious libel. He petitioned for a remission of fine upon the ground that the law was unconstitutional under which he was convicted. That petition was very fully considered, and, in 1820, a report was presented to the Senate by Mr. Barbour, of Virginia, which, after elaborating the considerations, concludes thus:
In this case, therefore, the committee think the Government is under a moral obligation to indemnify the petitioner.
