ot prohibited by the Constitution.
Attorneys and counselors are not officers of the United
States; they are not elected or appointed in the manner
prescribed by the Constitution for the election and
appointment of such officers. They are officers of the
court, admitted as such by its order, upon evidence of their
possessing sufficient legal learning and fair private
character.... The order of admission is the judgment of the
court, that the parties possess the requisite qualifications
as attorneys and counselors, and are entitled to appear as
such and conduct causes therein. From its entry the parties
become officers of the court, and are responsible to it for
professional misconduct. They hold their office during good
behavior, and can only be deprived of it for misconduct,
ascertained and declared by the judgment of the court, after
opportunity to be heard has been offered. (_Ex parte_
Heyfron, 7 How., Miss., 127; Fletcher _vs._ Daingerfield, 20
Cal., 430.) Their admission or their exclusion is not the
exercise of a mere ministerial power. It is the exercise of
judicial power, and has been so held in numerous cases....
The attorney and counselor being, by the solemn judicial act
of the court, clothed with his office, does not hold it as a
matter of grace and favor. The right which it confers upon
him to appear for suitors, and to argue causes, is something
more than a mere indulgence, revocable at the pleasure of
the court, or at the command of the Legislature. It is a
right of which he can only be deprived by the judgment of
the court, for moral or professional delinquency. The
Legislature may undoubtedly prescribe qualifications for the
office, to which he must conform, as it may, where it has
exclusive jurisdiction, prescribe qualifications for the
pursuit of the ordinary avocations of life.

It is now well settled that the courts, in admitting attorneys
to, and in expelling them from, the bar, act judicially, and that
such proceedings are subject to review on writ of error or
appeal, as the case may be. (_Ex parte_ Cooper, 22 N. Y., 67.
Strother _vs._ Missouri, 1 Mo., 605. _Ex parte_ S