As
To Such Subjects Congress Can Make No Law, And Over Them Congress
And The National Tribunals Have No Jurisdiction.
Congress cannot
say that a man shall be hung for murder in New York, nor if a man be
condemned to be hung in New York can the President pardon him.
The
legislature of New York must say whether or no hanging shall be the
punishment adjudged to murder in that State; and the Governor of the
State of New York must pronounce the man's pardon - if it be that he
is to be pardoned. But Congress must decide whether or no a man
shall be hung for murder committed on the high seas, or in the
national forts or arsenals; and in such a case it is for the
President to give or to refuse the pardon.
The judges of the States are appointed as the constitution or the
laws of each State may direct in that matter. The appointments, I
think, in all the old States, were formerly vested in the governor.
In some States such is still the case. In some, if I am not
mistaken, the nomination is now made, directly, by the legislature.
But in most of the States the power of appointing has been claimed
by the people, and the judges are voted in by popular election, just
as the President of the Union and the Governors of the different
States are voted in. There has for some years been a growing
tendency in this direction, and the people in most of the States
have claimed the power - or rather the power has been given to the
people by politicians who have wished to get into their hands, in
this way, the patronage of the courts.
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