fallacious,— an untruth, — a fact which he must have known, he having been a circuit judge. Other affidavits are quoted, not as being in their nature newly discovered evi dence, but as tending to prove a theory which the Governor advances to the effect that the bomb was thrown by a personal enemy of Chief Inspector Bonfield. This evidence is, by well-recognized principles of justice, entitled to no weight The second question is an important one; if allowed by our form of government, it permits the Chief Executive to officially brand a co-ordinate department of govern ment as being corrupt, without first giving the accused parties the right of a trial, and the bringing forward of proof to sustain the correctness of their position. The facts are that the Constitution of the State provides that " the Governor and all civil officers of this State shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanor in office." It also provides that, "The powers of government of this State are divided into three distinct depart ments, — the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial, — and no person or collection of per sons, being one of these departments, shall exercise any power properly belonging to ather of the others, except as hereinafter expressly directed or permitted." The Judicial Department is given the power to interpret the law which the Legis lative Department enacts, and apply the law to the affairs of the inhabitants whenever a case is properly brought before it; in other words, to administer justice, — redress wrongs. The Governor is given the power to "par don after conviction; " in other words, show mercy, forgive, remit the punishment in flicted by the Judicial Department. This power is subject to no restraints, but it does not confer upon the Governor authority to interpret the law in a elsewhere the Supreme Court has interpreted it, or to apply the law to the affairs of an inhabitant in a case where the Supreme Court has applied it. The Anarchists' case had become res judicata.
and therefore could not properly be ques tioned by the Executive Department. If the Justices of the Supreme Court of the State have violated their oaths, they are liable to impeachment; but until such time as the interpretation of the law, as made by the Supreme Court of the State, is by it reversed, or reversed by the Supreme Court of the United States, or repealed by legislative action, it is the law of the land, which the Governor in his oath of office has sworn to uphold and to execute. For example, an ambiguous statute is interpreted by the Judges; when they have ascertained and announced the meaning which the Legis lature intended to convey, the statute as interpreted is the expression of the legis lative will, and therefore the law which the Governor is to uphold and to execute; for him to re-interpret the ambiguous statute is for him to say that he will not be bound by the legislative will, — that he acknowledges no co-ordinate department of government, and therefore that he is Governor, Legisla ture, and Judge. Governor Altgeld, in declaring officially that " it is here that the case for the State failed," and " the trial was not fair," has, the writer believes, exercised a power properly belonging to the Judicial Department of government. If the Governor has exercised a power prohibited to the Executive Depart ment, he has committed a misdemeanor, | and is, therefore, liable to impeachment. (See constitutional provision, ante.) The object of impeachment is simply to remove an unfit person, and to set the seal of disapproval upon unauthorized acts. That the seal of disapproval should be set upon the statement to the effect that the Anar chists who were executed were judicially murdered by the State, is evidenced by the many public utterances since made, among which are the following : Herr Most has proclaimed, " We must have a reckoning with this blood-sucking crowd! " A club in Chicago, on the Sunday following the par don, passed a resolution of which the fol-
