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Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State by Stephen Johnson Field;George Congdon Gorham
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brought to the consideration of the Court. Its action thereon was
watched by members of the Republican party with manifest uneasiness
and distrust. Its decision in the Dred Scott case had greatly impaired
their confidence in its wisdom and freedom from political influences.
Many of them looked upon that decision as precipitating the war upon
the country, by the sanction it gave to efforts made to introduce
slavery into the Territories; and they did not hesitate to express
their belief that the sympathies of a majority of the Court were with
the Confederates. Intimations to that effect were thrown out in
some of the journals of the day, at first in guarded language, and
afterwards more directly, until finally it came to be generally
believed that it was the purpose of the Court, if an opportunity
offered, to declare invalid most of the legislation relating to the
Southern States which had been enacted during the war and immediately
afterwards. Nothing could have been more unjust and unfounded. Many
things, indeed, were done during the war, and more after its
close, which could not be sustained by any just construction of the
limitations of the Constitution. It was to be expected that many
things would be done in the heat of the contest which could not bear
the examination of calmer times. Mr. Chief Justice Chase expressed
this fact in felicitous language when speaking of his own change of
views as to the validity of the provision of law making government
notes a legal tender, he said: "It is not surprising that amid the
tumult of the late civil war, and under the influence of apprehensions
for the safety of the Republic almost universal, different views,
never before entertained by American statesmen or jurists, were
adopted by many. The time was not favorable to considerate reflection
upon the constitutional limits of legislative or executive authority.
If power was assumed from patriotic motives, the assumption found
ready justification in patriotic hearts. Many who doubted yielded
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