Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 August 1880 — A Peeuliar Defense. [ARTICLE]

A Peeuliar Defense.

i* jh yvas jgeppfcted sevfral <&ys ago that l3*vacfiie, of the Supreme rUnitetJ States, had delivfrom lfis judicial place ♦iOl ofa the D© Qcdyer-Pave-ment-Garfleld transaction. This is the language attributed to a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States;

' The agreement with Gen. Garfield, a member sos Congress, to pay him $5,000 as a contingent fee for procuring a contract which was itself inode to depend upon a future appropriation by Congress, which appropriation could only come from a committee of which he was Chairman, was a sale of official influence which no veil can . cover against the plainest principles of public policy. No counselor-at-Une tchi’s holding high office has a right to put himself in a position of ■ temptation, and, underprehnsoof making a legal argument, exert his official influence upon public officers dependent on his future actions. Certainly courts of justice wilt never lensJfycni selves to enforce contracts obtained by sucft'Vttfluences. What is the defense against ment ? It is that some one else, ard not Justice Swayne, said these things. It appears that Mr. Justice Swayne did not from his high official place utter this indictment against Mr. Garfield. Tho defense is that some one else, and not Mr, Justice Swayne, made this statement. The defense is not that the statement is untrue. It matters little who made this declaration. If the Supreme Court of the United States should make this declaration, it bt ing untrue, Garfield might yet face a frowning multitude of voters. .But the defense mado by tlie friends of Gen. Garfield is that these charges were not made by a Justice of the Supreme Court. Tlie truth of the charges is not denied, and cannot successfully be denied. It matters little whether it was Mr. Swayne, a Republican Justice of the Supreme bench, or Mr. J. R. Doolittle, a Republican attorney of national renown, who made tho statement we quote above. The emphatic and melancholy fact is that the allegation, by whomsoever made, is true, —Cincinnati Enquirer.