How then? Here is an apparent conflict--not a _real_
one--between the rights of the government of the United States
and the government of the State. The one has a right to the
service of its officer, and the right to prevent his being
unlawfully interfered with or obstructed in the performance of
his official duties; the other has the right to administer its
laws for the punishment of crime through its own tribunals;
but it must be observed that the former has no right to shield
one of its officers from a valid prosecution for a violation
of the laws of the latter not in conflict with the
Constitution and laws of the United States, nor can it be
claimed that the latter has any right to suffer its laws to be
prostituted, and its authority fraudulently abused, in aid of
a conspiracy to defeat or obstruct the functions of the
former. Such an abuse of authority is not, and cannot be in
any sense, a _bona fide_ administration of State laws, but is
itself a crime against them. What, then, would your court do?
You would probably say: If it is true that this man is held
without probable cause under a fraudulent warrant, issued in
pursuance of a conspiracy to which the magistrate who issued
it was a party, to give legal color to a malicious
interference with his functions as a federal official, he is
the victim of a double crime--a crime against the United
States and a crime against the State--and it is not only our
duty to vindicate his right to the free exercise of his
official duties, but the right of the federal government to
his services, and its right to protect him in the legal
performance of the same.
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