brough, i IO U. S. 65, in which Justice Miller delivered the opinion of the court sustaining the national authority over Congressional elections. "That a government," said Justice Miller, "whose essential character is repub lican, whose executive head and legislative body are both elective, vhose most numerous and powerful branch of the legislature is elected by the people directly, has no power by appropriate laws to secure this election from the influence of violence, of corruption and of fraud, is a proposition so startling as to arrest attention and demand the gravest consideration. If this government is anything more than a mere aggregation of delegated agents of other States and governments, each of which is superior to the general govern ment, it must have the power to protect the elections on which its existence depends from violence and corruption. If it has not this power, it is left helpless before the two great natural and historical enemies of all repub lics, open violence and insidious corrup tion. ... If the government of the United States has within its constitutional domain no authority to provide against these evils, if the very sources of power may be poisoned by corruption or controlled by violence and outrage, without legal restraint, then, indeed, is the country in danger, and its best powers, its highest purposes, the hopes which it in spires, and the love which enshrines it, are at the mercy of the combinations of those who respect no right but brute force, on the one hand, and unprincipled corruptionists on the other." In the Prize Cases the court had vindicated the authority of the Executive to repel the onset of open war by exercising all the powers of a belligerent without waiting for a formal declaration of war by Congress. The celebrated Neagle case, 135 U. S. i, vindi cated the right of self-preservation in time of peace. Neagle, a deputy marshal assigned by direction of the Attorney-General to pro tect Justice Field from threatened assault by
a disappointed litigant, had, in the reasonable exercise of his duty, killed the aggressor; and when apprehended by the California State authorities, he was released by a writ of habeas corpus issued by a United States court. This action was sustained by the United States Supreme Court in accordance with the doctrine of a general criminal law formulated in Tennessee r. Davis, 100 U. S. 257 (in which Justice Field had dissented). Justice Miller's opinion on behalf of the majority of the court is a vindication of the inherent right of the executive, independently of legislative authority, to protect the judiciary in the per formance of its duty. "In the view we take of the Constitution of the United States." said Justice Miller, any obligation fairly and properly inferrible from that instrument, or any duty of the marshal to be derived from the general scope of his duties under the laws of the Constitution of the United States," said meaning of this phrase [that a party seeking the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus must show that he .is 'in custody for an act done or omitted in pursuance of a law of the United States, or of an order, process or decree of a court or judge thereof, or is in custody in violation of the constitution or of a law or treaty of the United States.' U. S. Rev. Stat., Sec. 753.] It would be a great reproach to the system of government of the United States, declared to be within its sphere sov ereign and supreme, if there is to be found within the domain of its powers no means of protecting the judges, in the conscientious and faithful discharge of their duties, from the malice and hatred of those upon whom their judgments may operate unfavorably. It has in modern times become apparent that the physical health of the community is more efficiently promoted by hygienic and preven tive means, than by the skill which is applied to the cure of disease after it has become fully developed. So, also, the law, which is intended to prevent crime, in its general spread among the community, by regulations,
