Choate.
CHAPTER XXI.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
Thus ends the history of a struggle between brutal violence and the
judicial authority of the United States. Commencing in a mercenary
raid upon a rich man's estate, relying wholly for success on forgery,
perjury, and the personal fear of judges, and progressing through more
than six years of litigation in both the Federal and the State courts,
it eventuated in a vindication by the Supreme Court of the United
States of the constitutional power of the Federal Government, through
its Executive Department, to protect the judges of the United
States courts from the revengeful and murderous assaults of defeated
litigants, without subjecting its appointed agents to malicious
prosecutions for their fidelity to duty, by petty State officials, in
league with the assailants.
The dignity and the courage of Justice Field, who made the stand
against brute force, and who, refusing either to avoid a great
personal danger or to carry a weapon for his defense, trusted his
life to that great power which the Constitution has placed behind the
judicial department for its support, was above all praise.
The admirable conduct of the faithful deputy marshal, Neagle, in whose
small frame the power of a nation dwelt at the moment when, like a
modern David, he slew a new Goliath, illustrated what one frail mortal
can do, who scorns danger when it crosses the path of duty.
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