at this period,
used the following language:

The judge in America who keeps his official ermine spotless,
who faithfully attends to the heavy and responsible duties
of his station, deserves that the people should guard the
sanctity of his person with a strength stronger than armor of
steel and readier than the stroke of lance or sword. Though
the judges be called to pass on tens of thousands of cases, to
sentence to imprisonment or to death thousands of criminals,
they should be held by the people safe from the hate and
vengeance of those criminals as if they were guarded by an
invulnerable shield.

If Judge Field, of the Supreme Court, one of the nine highest
judges under our republican government, in travelling recently
over his circuit in California, had been left to the mercy of
the violent man who had repeatedly threatened his life, who
had proved himself ready with the deadly knife or revolver, it
would have been a disgrace to American civilization; it would
have been a stigma and stain upon American manhood; it would
have shown that the spirit of American liberty, which exalts
and pays reverence to our judiciary, had been replaced by
a public apathy that marked the beginning of the decline of
patriotism.

Judge Field recognized this when, in being advised to arm
himself in case his life was endangered, he uttered the noble
words: "No, sir; I do not and will not carry arms, for when
it is known that the judges of the court are compelled to arm
themselves against assaults offered in consequence of their
judicial action it will be time to dissolve the courts,
consider the government a failure, and let society lapse into
barbarism." That ringing sentence has gone to the remotest
corner of the land, and everywhere it has gone it should fire
the American heart with a proud resolve to protect forever the
sanctity of our judiciary.

Had not Neagle protected the person of Judge Field from the
assault of a dangerous and violent ruffian, apparently intent
on murder, by his prompt and decisive action, shooting the
assailant down to his death, it is certain that other brave
men would have rushed quickly to his rescue; but Neagle's
marvelous quickness forestalled the need of any other's
action. The person of one of the very highest American judges
was preserve