The Courts and Politics. It being settled, therefore, that judges have always, and probably will always, con tinue to decide great political issues largely on political considerations, it is folly to at tempt to withdraw a case, supremely and critically political, from politics by commit ting it to a court of justice. To take such issues from a political tribunal to a judicial tribunal, is not to relieve the case from poli tics, but to saturate with politics the court. It is to infect judges with politics, without disinfecting courts from partisanship. It tends to alienate the people from the judici ary, resulting in a loss of public confidence, wrought by its entanglement in politics. It is easy to persuade men that a decision against them is against law, or that the judg ment has been procured by corrupt means, or by improper influences. The people come to believe that judicial decisions are made a feature of party spoils; that politics has laid its hands upon the judiciary, and is forcing it to decide legal issues on political consider ations, as unreservedly as would committees of the legislature, or as the people themselves if summoned to decide the questions at the polls. That a judge should not be influenced by partisanship so as to favor litigants by reason of political bias, is a proposition from which no right-minded person dissents. " It is plain," says Mr. Bryce, "that judges when sucked into the vortex of politics must lose dignity, impartiality and influence." We are all pleased to place the judge on a lofty pin nacle, where, as Sir Francis Bacon claims, "he should imitate God in whose seat he sits." Still, though it may seem like a low view of human nature, we cannot help con ceding that judges are as other men; all are as we were made. Honesty and ability do not exempt from weakness; judicial clay will be found to be like all other human clay.
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Judges are human, and the only thing human that is permanent and unchangeable, is hu man nature. The Saxon nations are said to be governed by their judges, and ours is preeminently a judge-governed land. In no other country does the judicial power compare with that power in the United States. " Reduced to its last analysis the intelligent and impartial administration of justice is all there is of a free government." The evil done by a su preme judicial tribunal in establishing a false political dogma as a paramount rule of juris prudence, is irreparable. It is essential to the interests of the community that judicial law, so far as concerns the interests of in dividuals, should vest rights which future changes of public opinion should not disturb. It is essential to the interests of the com munity that political law should not be sta tionary; that it should be endowed with elas ticity which will enable it to expand with the expansion of the State; that it should adapt itself to each public exigency that arises; that it should give the proper agencies to each great moral force by which the com munity may be from time to time impelled. While our judges have not been able en tirely to forget or set aside their political prejudices, they have nevertheless, on the whole, been independent, impartial and fear less, retaining and deserving the traditional respect and affection of the people. It would be extravagant to apply individually to the bench the words of Daniel Webster spoken of the first Chief-Justice of the United States : "When the ermine of the judicial robe de scended upon the shoulders of John Jay, it touched nothing that was not as spotless as itself." However, we may truthfully claim that as a rule the American bench is upright, well-intentioned, standing for justice, and faithfully striving to hold the balance even.
