148 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



the King of England in the Declaration of 

 Independence was that of ' transporting us 

 beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses.' 

 We had as well be tried ' beyond seas ' as be- 

 yond our county, if in both instances we are 

 alike deprived of the power of obtaining justice. 

 The world has heaped anathemas upon the 

 tyrant who placed his laws so high they could 

 not be read. How much more blamable was 

 he for placing his laws out of sight than we 

 are when we place our courts (through which 

 alone the laws can be enforced) out of reach ? 



"Again, by the present judicial system the 

 citizen may be twice tried for the same offense 

 once by the State and once by the Govern- 

 ment, where the same act is made criminal by 

 the statutes of both. It is true that this grows 

 out of our anomalous dual system of govern- 

 ment. But that fact should restrain us from 

 extending the jurisdiction of Federal courts 

 further than is absolutely necessary. 



" If there was one feature of our judicial 

 system in the States held more sacred by our 

 forefathers than all others, it was that which 

 secured to parties a trial before an impartial 

 jury of the county or vicinage where the cause 

 of action arose. So sedulous were they in the 

 protection of this right that most of the States 

 ingrafted it into their Constitutions. It is vir- 

 tually destroyed in the Federal courts. There 

 the juries are taken from remote parts of the 

 State or district, and had almost as well come 

 from a different State, being total strangers to 

 the parties and their surroundings. 



" I have already spoken of the great cost to 

 litigants from the administration of justice in 

 the Federal courts. But this is not all ; they 

 are immensely costly to the Government. Un- 

 der Democratic rule, before the changes of 

 which I have spoken, the cost of these courts 

 was only a few hundred thousand dollars a 

 year. Now it is millions, and increasing yearly. 

 Too true is it, as stated by Judge Dillon in his 

 work on the ' Removal of Causes,' that ' the 

 small tide of litigation that formerly flowed in 

 Federal channels has swollen into a mighty 

 stream.' He might have added, ' and that 

 stream threatens to deluge the country with 

 cost, and bear away the dearest privileges ot 

 the citizen.' 



"There is another great evil which flows 

 from our present judicial practices. Deputy- 

 marshals and their posses may go through the 

 States armed, shooting, destroying property, 

 driving off hogs and cattle of the citizens, 

 beating and killing citizens, and when arrested 

 and prosecuted by the State officials they are 

 permitted to file their petitions in the United 

 States district courts and remove their causes 

 thereto, away from those who witnessed the 

 offense and suffered by it. What more ? The 

 district attorney and the Attorney-General 

 for the United States are instructed by the 

 Government to appear and defend the crimi- 

 nal and try to turn him loose. The people 

 of the United States thereby pay officials to 



defend those who violate law. Is this right? 

 Is it an effort to terrify criminals, or does it 

 tend to encourage crime ? I refer to this not 

 as an evil in which the constituents I have 

 the honor to represent are alone interested ; 

 for happily for them they have now admin- 

 istering revenue laws in their midst resi- 

 dent officials who are more observant of their 

 rights than non-residents were ; but I mention 

 it as a question which affects all of our people 

 alike. 



" The tendency to centralization is so ably 

 described in an article recently published by a 

 distinguished citizen of Indiana that I quote 

 his language on the subject : 



" The centralizing tendency of our national legisla- 

 tion is dangerous for another reason, namely : It is 

 creating discontent, and poisoning the affections of 

 the people toward the Government, thus weakening 

 the spirit of patriotism, upon wliich exists the ulti- 

 mate hope of that Government for its just authority 

 and long-continued existence. The humble citizen 

 who, for some technical violation of law. is arrested 

 and taken two hundred or three hundred miles to be 

 tried in a United States court, and after much delay is, 

 perhaps, mulcted in the trifling sum of ten dollars, 

 and finds that the expenses attending the same have 

 amounted to several hundred more, very likely caus- 

 ing the loss of his home and the impoverishment of 

 his family, is painfully impressed with the idea that 

 injustice has been done him, and he becomes from 

 that moment a disaffected member of society. He 

 sees in such treatment a wrong that for ever after 

 rankles in his bosom ? and causes him to look upon 

 the Government as his oppressor and enemy rather 

 than his protector and friend. In vain may you talk 

 to him of the necessity of a strong government. In 

 vain may you explain that her shield covers him as 

 one of her children. In vain may you point to the 

 insignia of her power and the evidence of her wealth 

 and magnificence. In vain may you contrast the 

 splendor of those granite temples which lavish folly is 

 so rapidly multiplying all over the land for the dis- 

 pensation of Federal justice, with the modest court- 

 house of his home, for, to him, what are they all but 

 the domed and turreted mausoleums of expiring lib- 

 erty? 



" Such courts are not the courts for the people. No 

 matter how learned and impartial their judges may 

 be ; no matter how pure the ermine with which they 

 arc clothed ; no matter how exalted the social position 

 which they occupy, they are the creatures of encroach- 

 ing power, and, like the magnates of the Church of 

 England, are expected to "' magnify their offices.' 

 Their rules are arbitrary and their predilections are 

 in the line of absolutism. They live in the gilded 

 sphere of power and luxurious splendor and their 

 sympathies are not with the homely virtues of the 

 masses. No system that takes the citizen a long dis- 

 tance from his home to be tried for general offenses 

 can ever be satisfactory to a people imbued with a 

 proper spirit of liberty. 



" These are words of warning from a man 

 who is of the political party which has been 

 most instrumental in passing these laws. 

 Surely he can not be accused of political bias. 

 I have seen some of the citizens whom I have 

 the honor to represent arrested and earned 

 more than one hundred miles to be tried in a 

 Federal court for a simple misdemeanor. I 

 have seen them required to attend term after 

 term when there was either no case ever made 

 out against them, or so light a case that a 

 mere nominal fine only could properly be im- 



