such time and manner as the Attorney-General
may direct." Section 788, R.S., provides that "the marshals and their
deputies shall have, in each State, the same powers in executing the
laws of the United States as the sheriffs and their deputies in such
State may have, by law, in executing the laws thereof." By section 817
of the penal code of California the sheriff is a "peace officer," and
by section 4176 of the political code he is "to preserve the peace"
and "prevent and suppress breaches of the peace." The marshal is,
therefore, under the provisions of the statute cited, "a peace
officer," so far as keeping the peace in any matter wherein the powers
of the United States are concerned, and as to such matters he has
all the powers of the sheriff, as peace officer under the laws of the
State. He is, in such matters, "to preserve the peace" and
"prevent and suppress breaches of the peace." An assault upon or an
assassination of a judge of a United States court while engaged in any
matter pertaining to his official duties, on account or by reason of
his judicial decisions, or action in performing his official duties,
is a breach of the peace, affecting the authority and interests of the
United States, and within the jurisdiction and power of the marshal or
his deputies to prevent as a peace officer of the National Government.
Such an assault is not merely an assault upon the person of the judge
as a man; it is an assault upon the national judiciary, which he
represents, and through it an assault upon the authority of the nation
itself. It is, necessarily, a breach of the national peace. As a
national peace officer, under the conditions indicated, it is the duty
of the marshal and his deputies to prevent a breach of the national
peace by an assault upon the authority of the United States, in the
person of a judge of its highest court, while in the discharge of his
duty. If this be not so, in the language of the Supreme Court, "Why
do we have marshals at all?" What useful functions can they perform in
the economy of the National Government?

Section 787 of the Revised Statutes also declares that "It shall be
the duty of the marshal of each district to attend the District and
Circuit Courts when sitting therein, and to execute throughout the
district all lawful precepts directed to him and issued under the
authority of the United States, and he shall have power to command all
necessary assistance in the execution of his dut