ng, as they
did, to deprive parties by legislative decree of existing rights for
past conduct, without the formality and the safeguard of a judicial
trial, fell within the inhibition of the Constitution against the
passage of bills of attainder. In depriving parties of existing rights
for past conduct, the provisions of the constitution of Missouri
imposed, in effect, a punishment for such conduct. Some of the acts
for which such deprivation was imposed were not punishable at the
time; and for some this deprivation was added to the punishments
previously prescribed, and thus they fell under the further prohibition
of the Constitution against the passage of an _ex post facto_ law. The
decision of the Court, therefore, was for the discharge of the Catholic
priest. The judgment against him was reversed, and the Supreme Court of
Missouri was directed to order the inferior court by which he was tried
to set him at liberty.

Immediately following the case of Cummings that of _Ex-parte_ Garland
was argued, involving the validity of the iron-clad oath, as it was
termed, prescribed for attorneys and counsellors-at-law by the act of
Congress of January 24th, 1865. Mr. A.H. Garland, now United States
Senator from Arkansas, had been a member of the Bar of the Supreme
Court of the United States before the civil war. When Arkansas passed
her ordinance of secession and joined the Confederate States, he went
with her, and was one of her representatives in the Congress of the
Confederacy. In July, 1865, he received from the President a full
pardon for all offences committed by his participation, direct or
implied, in the rebellion. At the following term of the Court he
produced his pardon and asked permission to continue to practice as an
attorney and counsellor without taking the oath required by the act of
Congress, and the rule of the Court made in conformity with it, which
he was unable to take by reason of the offices he had held under the
Confederate government. The application was argued by Mr. Matthew H.
Carpenter, of Wisconsin, and Mr. Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, for the
petitioner--Mr. Garland and Mr. Marr, another applicant for admission,
who had participated in the rebellion, filing printed arguments--and
by Mr. Speed, of Kentucky, and Mr. Henry Stanbery, the Attorney-General,
on the other side. The whole subject of expurgatory oaths was discussed,
and all that could be said on either side was fully and elaborately
presen