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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



increasing its power and jurisdiction. And in 

 saying this I mean no reflection upon the in- 

 tegrity of the individuals who compose the 

 judicial department of our Government. I am 

 glad to bear testimony to the fact that in many 

 instances our Supreme Court has stood as a 

 bulwark against passionate and inconsiderate 

 legislation. The trouble arises in a great mea- 

 sure from Congressional interference and from 

 too great an increase of the jurisdiction of the 

 inferior United States courts. 



"That the tendency of Federal legislation 

 for the last fifteen years has been toward the 

 concentration of too much power in the Fed- 

 eral judiciary and to an unwarranted inter- 

 ference with the judicial authority of the States, 

 no candid man acquainted with the history of 

 the country will deny. I am glad to see that 

 Representatives on both sides of this Chamber 

 realize this fact. I was pleased to hear the 

 gentleman from Maine [Mr. FryeJ, when speak- 

 ing on this subject, say : 



" I agree with the gentleman entirely in the view 

 that in the past we have gone too far in extending the 

 jurisdiction of the Federal courts and allowing the 

 transfer of causes from the State courts. 1 think that 

 the time has now come when we can and ought to cor- 

 rect this matter. 



" To remedy this evil the bill before us was 

 introduced and has been recommended by the 

 committee. It is not and can not be made a 

 sectional question. It is equally important to 

 Maine and California, to Michigan and Louisi- 

 ana. 



" Before coming directly to the sections to 

 be repealed, let us examine what has been said 

 by some of the founders of our Government, 

 and see whether or not they thought there was 

 danger in our situation. Among the signers 

 of the Declaration of Independence was the 

 man who wrote that great charter of liberty ; 

 who conceived our form of government and 

 was chief of those who kept it up during the 

 struggle for independence; who presided over 

 the young republic for eight years as Chief 

 Magistrate; and who was spared to witness 

 the operation of our system for half a century. 

 Finn and honest in his convictions, he was not 

 moved by passion nor terrified by peril. He 

 saw the dangers ahead, and, like the faithful 

 sentinel on the watch-tower, warned his peo- 

 ple against them. My limited time will not 

 permit me to produce all he has said on the 

 subject, but I quote a few of his utter- 

 ances. 



" Mr. Jefferson wrote to Judge Roan, March 

 9, 1821 : 



" The great object of my fear is the Federal judiciary. 

 That body, like gravity, ever acting, with noiseless 

 foot and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by 

 step, and holding what it gains, is ingulfing insidious- 

 ly the special governments into the jaws of that which 

 feeds them. The recent recall to first principles, how- 

 ever, by Colonel Taylor, by yourself, and now by Al- 

 exander Smith, will, I hope, be heard and obeyed and 

 that a temporary check will be effected. Yet be not 

 weary of well-doing. Let the eye of vigilance never 

 be closed. Jefferson's Works, volume vu, page 212. 



" On November 21, 1821, he wrote Nathan- 

 iel Macoii : 



" Our Government is now taking so steady a course 

 as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to 

 wit, by consolidation first, and then corruption, its 

 necessary consequence. The engine of consolidation 

 will be the Federal judiciary ; the two other branches 

 the corrupting and corrupted instruments. 



"He wrote to Mr. Nicholas on the llth of 

 December, 1821, as follows : 



" I fear, dear sir, we are now in such another crisis, 

 with this difference only, that the judiciary branch is 

 alone and single-handed in the present assaults on 

 the Constitution. But its assaults are more sure and 

 deadly as from an agent seemingly passive and unas- 

 suming. May you and your contemporaries meet 

 them with the same determination and effect as your 

 father and his did the alien and sedition laws, and pre- 

 serve inviolate a Constitution which, cherished in all 

 its chastity and purity, will prove in the end a bless- 

 ing to all nations of the earth. 



"Still later, on the 25th of March, 1825, 

 after (to use Mr. Jefferson's own language) 

 * chilling winters had rolled over his head and 

 whitened every hair on it,' he wrote to Mr. 

 Edward Livingston : 



" One single object, if your provision attains it, will 

 entitle you to the endless gratitude of society that of 

 restraining judges from usurping legislation. And 

 with no body of men is this restraint more wanting 

 than with the judges of what is common'y called our 

 General Government. . . . They are practicing on the 

 Constitution by inferences, analogies, and soph'isms as 

 they would on an ordinary law. 



"They do not seem aware that it is not even a con- 

 stitution formed by a single authority and subject to a 

 single superintendence and control, but that it is a 

 compact of many independent powers, every single 

 one of which claims an equal right to understand it 

 and to require its observance. . . . This member of 

 the Government was at first considered as the most 

 harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has 

 proved that the power of declaring what the \a\v is ad 

 libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without 

 alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what 

 open force would not dare to attempt. 



"These are a few of the prophecies of the 

 immortal Sage of Monticello touching the dan- 

 ger to our institutions from the Federal judi- 

 ciary. They are the predictions of one whose 

 'Declaration' has controlled the destiny of a 

 hemisphere, turning the tide of the world from 

 the darkness of despotism to the delights of 

 freedom, and whose 



' fame on brightest pages, 

 Penned by poets and by sages, 

 Shall go sounding down the ages ' 



as long as man loves to be free. 



" We would do well to pause and ponder his 

 admonitions, and not pass by in silence and 

 unheeded the warnings of the greatest politi- 

 cal philosopher and prophet of all countries 

 and all times. 



"Mr. Speaker, I have said that unwarranted 

 encroachments have been made upon the State 

 courts by Federal tribunals. We have only to 

 look at the United States statutes and the judi- 

 cial construction of them for painful proof of 

 this fact. Let us first examine the law as to 

 civil cases. By the judiciary act of 1789, Re- 



