blic sentiment between applause and reproaches of the Chief-Justice,
as the principal figure both in the administrative measure and in its
judicial condemnation. But soon, a new phase of the unsettled agitation
on the merits of the constitutional question, drew public attention, and
created even greater excitement of feeling and diversity of sentiment.
The court, which had been reduced by Congress under particular and
temporary motives, hostile to the appointing power of President Johnson,
had been again opened by Congress to its permanent number, and its
vacancies had been filled. A new case, involving the vexed question, was
heard by the court, and the validity of the disputed laws was sustained
by its judgment. The signal spectacle of the court, which had judged
over Congress and the Secretary, now judging over itself, gave rise to
much satire on one side and the other, and to some coarseness of
contumely as to the motives and the means of these eventful mutations
in matters, where stability and uniformity are, confessedly, of the
highest value to the public interests, and to the dignity of government.

Confessing to a firm approval of the final disposition of the
constitutional question by the court, I concede it to be a subject of
thorough regret that the just result was not reached by less uncertain
steps. But, with this my adverse attitude to the Chief-Justice's
judicial position on the question, I find no difficulty in discarding
all suggestions which would mix up political calculations with his
judicial action. The error of the Chief-Justice, if, under the last
judgment of the court, we may venture so to consider it, was in
following his strong sense of the supreme importance of restoring the
integrity of the currency, and his impatience and despair at the
feebleness of the political departments of the Government in that
direction, to the point of concluding that the final wisdom of this
great question--_inter apices juris_, as well as of the highest reasons
of state--was to deny to the brief exigency of war, what was so
dangerous to the permanent necessities of peace. But a larger reason and
a wider prudence, as it would seem, favor the prevailing judgment, which
refused to cripple the permanent faculties of government for the
unforeseen duties of the future, and drew back the court from the
perilous edge of _law-making_, which, overpassed, must react to cripple,
in turn, the essential judicial power. The past,