my duty
requires. Every other gentleman will do the same. Previous amendments,
in my opinion, are necessary to procure peace and tranquility. I fear,
if they be not agreed to, every movement and operation of government
will cease, and how long that baneful thing, _civil discord_, will stay
from this country, God only knows. When men are free from restraint,
how long will you suspend their fury? The interval between this and
bloodshed is but a moment. The licentious and wicked of the community
will seize with avidity every thing you hold. In this unhappy situation,
what is to be done? It surpasses my stock of wisdom to determine. If you
will, in the language of freemen, stipulate that there are rights which
no man under heaven can take from you, you shall have me going along
with you; but not otherwise.

* * * * *

=_John Rutledge, 1739-1800._= (Manual, p. 484.)

From "Speech on the Judiciary Establishment."

=_60._= AN INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY THE SAFEGUARD OF LIBERTY.

While this shield remains to the states, it will be difficult to
dissolve the ties which knit and bind them together. As long as this
buckler remains to the people, they cannot be liable to much, or
permanent oppression. The government may be administered with violence,
offices may be bestowed exclusively upon those who have no other merit
than that of carrying votes at elections,--the commerce of our country
may be depressed by nonsensical theories, and public credit may suffer
from bad intentions; but so long as we have an independent judiciary,
the great interests of the people will be safe. Neither the president,
nor the legislature, can violate their constitutional rights. Any
such attempt would be checked by the judges, who are designed by the
constitution to keep the different branches of the government within
the spheres of their respective orbits, and say thus far shall you
legislate, and no further. Leave to the people an independent judiciary,
and they will prove that man is capable of governing himself,--they will
be saved from what has been the fate of all other republics, and they
will disprove the position that governments of a republican form cannot
endure.

We are asked by the gentleman from Virginia, if the people want judges
to protect them? Yes, sir, in popular governments constitutional checks
are necessary for their preservation; the people want to be protected
against themselves; no man is so a