officers could be found at Lathrop, where the train stopped for breakfast, and the conductor was requested to telegraph to the proper officers of that place to have a constable or some peace officer on the ground when the train should arrive, anticipating that there might be violence attempted by Terry upon Judge Field. This resulted in no available aid to assist in keeping the peace.

When the train arrived, Neagle informed Judge Field of the presence of Terry on the train, and advised him to remain and take his breakfast in the car. This the Judge refused to do, and he and Neagle got out of the car and went into the dining room, and took seats beside each other in the place assigned them by the person in charge of the breakfast room. The occurrences following hereupon were testified to by Judge Field as follows: "A few minutes afterwards Judge Terry and his wife came in. When Mrs. Terry saw me, which she did directly she got diagonally opposite me, she wheeled around suddenly, and went out in great haste. I afterwards understood, as you heard here, that she went for her satchel. Judge Terry walked past, opposite to me, and took his seat at the second table below. The only remark I made to Mr. Neagle was: 'There is Judge Terry and his wife.' He remarked: 'I see him.' Not another word was said. I commenced eating my breakfast. It seems, however, that he came round back of me I did not see him-and he struck me a violent blow in the face, followed instantaneously by another blow. Coming so immediately together, the two blows seemed like one assault. I heard 'Stop! stop!' cried by Neagle. Of course, I was for a moment dazed by the blows. I turned my head round, and I saw that great form of Terry's, with his arm raised, and his fists clenched to strike me. I felt that a terrific blow was coming, and his arm was descending in a curved way, as though to strike the side of my temple, when I heard Neagle cry out, 'Stop! stop! I am an officer.' Instantly two shots followed. I can only explain the second shot from the fact that he did not fall instantly. I did not get up from my seat, although it is proper for me to say that a friend of mine thinks that I did; but I did not. I looked around, and saw Terry on the floor. I looked at him, and saw that peculiar movement of the eyes that indicates the presence of death. Of course, it was a great shock to me. It is impossible for any one to see a man in the full vigor of life, with all those faculties that constitute life, instantly extinguished, without being affected; and I was. I looked at him for a moment, then rose from my seat, went around, and looked at him again, and passed on." Neagle was arrested immediately, as was also Justice Field, though the latter was soon released, by the authorities of the State of California. The result of Neagle's effort to obtain his release resulted in the now famous case.

IN RE DEBS.

158 U. S., 564. 1894.

In May of 1894, there arose a dispute between the Pullman Palace Car Company and its employees which resulted in a strike

of the employees of the company. The officers of the railway union tried to force a settlement of differences by creating a boycott against the cars of the company, and had prevented certain railroads running out of Chicago from operating their trains and were combining to extend such boycott by causing strikes among employees of all railroads hauling Pullman cars. A bill of complaint was filed on July 2, 1894, by the United States in the Circuit Court of the United States in Illinois against Eugene Debs and others who were the officers and leaders of the labor organizations of the employees. The complaint was that twenty-two railroads were engaged in interstate commerce, into and out of the city of Chicago; that each of the roads was under contract to carry the mails, and were post roads of the government; that they were required also to carry the troops and military forces of the United States. An injunction was issued by the court restraining the defendants and all persons conspiring with them from interfering, hindering or obstructing the business of the railroads as interstate carriers and carriers of mail. This injunction was duly served upon the defendants. Subsequently, on July 17, 1894, an attachment for contempt of court was issued against the officers of the railway union and others because of their disobedience to the said order of the court, and after a hearing they were sentenced to imprisonment. Having been committed to jail, they applied to the Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus in order to test the legality of their confinement.

MR. JUSTICE BREWER delivered the opinion of the court:

Under the power vested in Congress to establish postoffices and post roads, Congress has, by a mass of legislation, established the great postoffice system of the country, with all its details of organization, its machinery for the transaction of business, defining what shall be carried and what not, and the prices of carriage, and also prescribing penalties for all offenses against it. Obviously these powers given to the national government over interstate commerce, and in respect to the transportation of the mails were not dormant and unused. Congress had taken hold of these two matters, and by various and specific acts had assumed and exercised the powers given to it, and was in full discharge of its duty to regulate interstate commerce and carry the mails. As, under the Constitution, power over interstate commerce and the transportation of the mails is vested in the national government, and Congress by virtue of such grant has assumed actual and direct control, it follows that the national government may prevent any unlawful and forcible interference therewith. * * * Have the vast interests of the nation in interstate commerce, and in the transportation of the mails, no other protection than lies in the possible punishment of those who interfere with it? * *The entire strength of the

nation may be used to enforce in any part of the land the full and free exercise of all national powers and the security of all rights entrusted by the Constitution to its care. The strong arm of the

national government may be put forth to brush away all obstructions to the freedom of interstate commerce or the transportation of the mails. If the emergency arises, the army of the nation, and all its militia are at the service of the nation to compel obedience to its laws. * * * So, in the case before us, the right to use force does not exclude the right of appeal to the courts for a judicial determination and for the exercise of all their powers of prevention. * * * Summing up our conclusion, we hold that the government of the United States is one having jurisdiction over every foot of soil within its territory, and acting directly upon each citizen; that to it is committed power over interstate commerce and the transmission of the mail; * * * that in the exercise of those powers it is competent for the nation to remove all obstructions upon highways, natural or artificial, to the passage of interstate commerce or the carrying of the mail; that while it may be competent for the government (through the executive branch and in the use of the entire executive power of the nation) to forcibly remove all such obstructions, it is equally within its competency to appeal to the civil courts for an inquiry and determination as to the existence and character of any alleged obstructions, and if such are found to exist, or threaten to occur, to invoke the powers of those courts to remove or restrain such obstructions.

* * * *

The petition for a writ of habeas corpus is denied.

Section 4.

THE PRESIDENT'S PARDONING POWER.

EX PARTE GARLAND.

4 WALLACE, 333. 1866.

The petitioner, A. H. Garland,* was an attorney and a citizen of Arkansas. In May, 1861, Arkansas purported to withdraw from the Union and attach itself to the Confederate States. The petitioner followed the State and was one of its representatives in the Congress of the Confederacy. In July, 1865, he received from the President of the United States a full pardon for all offences committed by his participation, direct or implied, in the rebellion. July 2, 1862, Congress passed an act prescribing an oath to be taken by every person elected or appointed to any office of honor or profit in the United States. On January 24, 1865, Congress, by a supplementary act, extended its provisions to attorneys of the courts of the United States. One of the sentences in the prescribed oath was, "that he has not voluntarily given aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility to the United States." Garland produced his pardon and petitioned the Supreme Court for leave to practice as an attorney before the court.

MR. JUSTICE FIELD delivered the opinion of the court.

The statute is directed against parties who have offended in any of the particulars embraced by these clauses. And its object is to exclude them from the profession of the law, or at least from its practice in the courts of the United States. As the oath prescribed cannot be taken by these parties, the act, as against them, operates as a legislative decree of perpetual exclusion. And exclusion from any of the professions or any of the ordinary avocations of life for past conduct can be regarded in no other light than as punishment for such conduct. The exaction of the oath is the mode provided for ascertaining the parties upon whom the act is intended to operate, and instead of lessening, increases its objectionable character. All enactments of this kind partake of the nature of bills of pains and penalties, and are subject to the constitutional inhibition against the passage of bills of attainder, under which general designation they are included.

In the exclusion which the statute adjudges, it imposes a punishment for some of the acts specified which were not punishable at the time they were committed; and for other of the acts it adds a new punishment to that before prescribed, and it is thus brought

* The petitioner, A. H. Garland, was afterwards Attorney-General of the United States in the Cabinet of President Cleveland.

Paturn to

OF IN NATIONAL RELATIONS

within the further inhibition of the Constitution against the passage of an ex post facto law.

* * * *

The profession of an attorney and counsellor is not like an office created by an act of Congress, which depends for its continuance, its powers, and its emoluments upon the will of its creator, and the possession of which may be burdened with any conditions not prohibited by the Constitution. Attorneys and counsellors are not officers of the United States; they are not elected or appointed in the manner prescribed by the Constitution for the election and appointment of such officers. They are officers of the court, admitted as such by its order, upon evidence of their possessing sufficient legal learning and fair private character. It has been the general practice in this country to obtain this evidence by an examination of the parties. In this court the fact of the admission of such officers in the highest court of the States to which they respectively belong, for three years preceding their application, is regarded as sufficient evidence of the possession of the requisite legal learning, and the statement of counsel moving their admission sufficient evidence that their private and professional character is fair. The order of admission is the judgment of the court that the parties possess the requisite qualifications as attorney and counsellors, and are entitled to appear as such and conduct causes therein. From its entry the parties become officers of the court, and are responsible to it for professional misconduct. They hold their office during good behavior, and can only be deprived of it for misconduct ascertained and declared by the judgment of the court after opportunity to be heard has been afforded.

*

*

The attorney and counsellor being, by the solemn judicial act of the court, clothed with his office, does not hold it as a matter of grace and favor. The right which it confers upon him to appear for suitors, and to argue causes, is something more than a mere indulgence, revocable at the pleasure of the court, or at the command of the legislature. It is a right of which he can only be deprived by the judgment of the court, for moral or professional delinquency.

The legislature may undoubtedly prescribe qualifications for the office, to which he must conform, as it may, where it has exclusive jurisdiction, prescribe qualifications for the pursuit of any of the ordinary avocations of life. The question, in this case, is not as to the power of Congress to prescribe qualifications, but whether that power has been exercised as a means for the infliction of punishment, against the prohibition of the Constitution. That this result cannot be effected indirectly by a State under the form of creating qualifications we have held in the case of Cummings v. The State of Missouri (4 Wall. 277), and the reasoning by which that conclusion was reached applies equally to similar action on the part of Congress.

This view is strengthened by a consideration of the effect of the pardon produced by the petitioner, and the nature of the pardoning power of the President.