ccomplished their purpose? Can no preventive measures be
taken under the police powers of the State, when ruffians give notice
that they are about to obstruct the administration of justice by the
murder of high judicial officers? It was not so much to insure the
punishment of Terry and his wife if they should murder Justice Field,
as to prevent the murder, that the executive branch of the United
States Government surrounded him with the necessary safeguards. How
can justice be administered under the federal statutes if the federal
judges must fight their way, while going from district to district,
to overcome armed and vindictive litigants who differ with them
concerning the judgments they have rendered?

But it was said Judge Terry could have been held to bail to keep the
peace. The highest bail that can be required in such cases under the
law of the State is five thousand dollars.

What restraint would that have been upon Terry, who was so filled
with malice and so reckless of consequences that he finally braved the
gallows by attempting the murder of the object of his hate? But even
this weak protection never was afforded. Shall it be said that Justice
Field ought to have gone to the nearest justice of the peace and
obsequiously begged to have Terry placed under bonds? But this he
could not have done until he reached the State, and he was in peril
from the moment that he reached the State line. The dust had not been
brushed from his clothing before some of the papers which announced
his arrival eagerly inquired what Terry would do and when he would do
it. Some of them seemed most anxious for the sensation that a murder
would produce.

The State was active enough when Terry had been prevented from
doing his bloody work upon Justice Field. The constable who had been
telegraphed for before the train reached Lathrop on the fatal day,
but who could not be found, and was not at the station to aid in
preserving the peace, was quick enough to _arrest Neagle without a
warrant, for an act not committed in his presence_, and therefore
known only to him by hearsay. Against the remonstrances of a supreme
justice of the United States, who had also been chief justice of
California, and who might have been supposed to know the laws as
well at least as a constable, the protection placed over him by the
Executive branch of the Federal Government was unlawfully taken from
him and the protector incarcerated in jail. The constable dou