ally as obligatory upon us to uphold its
authority, and maintain its right to vindicate its own laws
through its own machinery. To determine between these two
hypotheses we must know the _facts_. * * * The same simple
reasoning, it occurs to me, applies to Mr. Neagle's case.
Whether he acted in the line of his duty under the laws of the
United States, as an officer of that government, is clearly a
question within the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary. If
he _did_, he cannot be held responsible to the State
authority; if he did _not_, he should answer, if required,
before its tribunals of justice. I presume no court of
ordinary intelligence, State or federal, would question these
obvious principles; but how _any_ court could determine
whether he did or did not act in the line of his official duty
under the laws of his government without a judicial inquiry
into the _facts_ connected with the transaction I am unable to
imagine. * * *

I am, as always,
Your faithful friend,
J. PROCTOR KNOTT.

Hon. S.J. FIELD,
_Associate Justice Supreme Court U.S._

Letter from Hon. William D. Shipman, formerly U.S. District Judge for
the district of Connecticut:

NEW YORK, _October 20, 1889_.

DEAR JUDGE:

* * * * *

I have attentively read Judge Sawyer's opinion in the Neagle
_habeas corpus_ case, and I agree with his main conclusions.
It seems to me that the whole question of jurisdiction turns
on the fact whether you were, at the time the assault was made
on you, engaged in the performance of your official duty.

You had been to Los Angeles to hold court there and had
finished that business. In going there you were performing
an official duty as much as you were when you had held court
there. It was then your official duty to go from Los Angeles
to San Francisco and hold court there. You could not hold
court at the latter place without going, and you were engaged
in the line of your official duty in performing that journey
for that purpose, as you were in holding the court after you
got there. The idea that a judge is not performing official
duty when he goes from court-house to court-house or from
court-room to court-room in his own circuit seems to me to
be absurd. The distance from one court-house or court-room to
anot