consultation on the 21st they postponed the decision of the case
until it should be disposed of. It was then that Mr. Justice
Grier wrote the following protest, which he afterwards read in Court:

IN RE }
MCARDLE.} PROTEST OF MR. JUSTICE GEIER.

This case was fully argued in the beginning of this month. It
is a case that involves the liberty and rights not only of the
appellant, but of millions of our fellow-citizens. The country
and the parties had a right to expect that it would receive
the immediate and solemn attention of this Court. By the
postponement of the case we shall subject ourselves, whether
justly or unjustly, to the imputation that we have evaded the
performance of a duty imposed on us by the Constitution, and
waited for legislation to interpose to supersede our action
and relieve us from our responsibility. I am not willing to be
a partaker either of the eulogy or opprobrium that may follow;

and can only say:

"Pudet haec opprobria nobis,
Et dici potuisse; et non potuisse repelli."[4]

R.C. GRIER.

I am of the same opinion with my brother Grier, and unite in
his protest.

FIELD, J.

After the passage of the repealing act, the case was continued; and
at the ensuing term the appeal was dismissed for want of
jurisdiction.--(7 Wall., 506.)

The record had been filed early in the term, and, as the case involved
the liberty of the citizen, it was advanced on the calendar on motion
of the appellant. From that time until its final disposition the Judges
were subjected to close observation, and most of them to unfriendly
comment. Their every action and word were watched and canvassed as
though national interests depended upon them. I was myself the subject
of a most extraordinary exhibition of feeling on the part of members
of the lower house of Congress, the immediate cause of which was a
circumstance calculated to provoke merriment. Towards the close of
January, 1868, I was invited to a dinner given by Mr. Samuel Ward to
the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. McCullough. It was understood that
the dinner was to be one of unusual excellence, and that gentlemen
of distinction in Congress would be present. As some of the invited
guests desired to go to New York on the same evening, the hour was
fixed at five. A distinguished party assembled at that time at the
rooms of Welcker, a noted restaurateur in Washington. Our