Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/695

THE MUSSEL 8L0UGH CASE. ���Ue ���time. Even if, in the appeal of.^thetliree cases thàt were appealed, those judgments should be reversed, it.would in no way affect this judgnient. The only"'way of affecting this judgment is to reverse it or to set it aside by some other recog- nize'd Judicial proceeding in the courts; and, the judgment being perfected, the time for staying proceedings on appeal having expired, the plaintiïï had a right to the execution o! that writ, and it was the duty of the governmënt of the United States, if it required ail the force ,within its control.to execute that writ and that judgment ; and if the gdverament shoûld fail to execute that writ, while that judgment stands and is still subsisting, it would fail to perform the proper and most important functiona of the governmënt, and if it should sub- mit to the resistance anarchy -would necessarily corne. �Any one who conspires to resist the execution of that writ commits an ofiEence against the laws of the United States» and any one who resists the officers in the execution of that judg- ment and -writ commits an oÔence against the laws of the United States ; and those are the offences that are charged in this indictment, and you have siraply to inquire whether those ofences have been committed or not, without reference to any other or any extraneous questions or considerations. �Now, gentlemen, a cojispiracy is "à combination of two or more persons by some concerted action to accomplish somë criminal or unlawful purpose." That ia the definition of eonspiracy, so far as it is applicable to this case. "A combi- nation of two or more persons" — it may be two, but there must be at least two, and there may be more — "by some concerted action to accomplish some criminal or unlavpful purpose." �Now, there is a charge here that these defendants, with otters, concerted together to resist the marshal; thàt there Wàe a concerted action ; that they conspired togeiher to resist the marshal. Gentlemen, the evidence of eonspiracy is gen- erally circumstantial. It is not to be supposed that parties enter ihtô a formai written or verbal obligation, or, if they do, that the obligation can be proven in terms. "The evidence in proof of a eonspiracy will, generally, iffôm the nature of ����