nstruction. He thereupon applied to the Circuit Court of the United
States for the District of Mississippi for a writ of habeas corpus, in
order that he might be discharged from his alleged illegal imprisonment.
The writ was accordingly issued, but on the return of the officer showing
the authority under which the petitioner was held, he was ordered to be
remanded. From that judgment he appealed to the Supreme Court. Of
course, if the Reconstruction Acts were invalid, the petitioner could
not be held, and he was entitled to his discharge. The case excited
great interest throughout the country. Judge Sharkey and Robert J.
Walker, of Mississippi, David Dudley Field and Charles O'Connor, of
New York, and Jeremiah S. Black, of Pennsylvania, appeared for the
appellant; and Matthew H. Carpenter, of Wisconsin, Lyman Trumbull, of
Illinois, and Henry Stanbery, the Attorney-General, appeared for the
other side. The hearing of it occupied four days, and seldom has it
been my fortune during my judicial life, now (1877) of nearly
twenty years, to listen to arguments equal in learning, ability, and
eloquence. The whole subject was exhausted. As the arguments were
widely published in the public journals, and read throughout the
country, they produced a profound effect. The impression was general
that the Reconstruction Acts could not be sustained; that they were
revolutionary and destructive of a republican form of government in
the States, which the Constitution required the Federal government to
guarantee. I speak now merely of the general impression. I say nothing
of the fact, as the Court never expressed its opinion in judgment. The
argument was had on the 2d, 3d, 4th, and 9th of March, 1868, and it
ought to have been decided in regular course of proceedings when it
was reached on the second subsequent consultation day, the 21st. The
Judges had all formed their conclusions, and no excuse was urged
that more time was wanted for examination. In the meantime an act was
quietly introduced into the House, and passed, repealing so much of
the law of February 5th, 1867, as authorized an appeal to the Supreme
Court from the judgment of the Circuit Court on writs of _habeas
corpus_, or the exercise of jurisdiction on appeals already taken. The
President vetoed the bill, but Congress passed it over his veto, and
it became a law on the 27th of the month.[3] Whilst it was pending in
Congress the attention of the Judges was called to it, and in