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tary effect, both upon the bar and the bystanders, to show, that, throughout the world, wherever civilization has dawned, there was but one feeling and one voice with regard to an offence of this sort, and that a voice of unmingled reprobation? With regard to the case itself, and the party concerned in it, what was there that called upon the court to measure its terms with regard to such an unmeasured contempt? The witnesses themselves prove that warmth and excitement are not the habits of the Judge. But there are occasions in which warmth and emotion become a judge, and in which coldness and indifference would be unseemly even on the bench. Whenever vice is to be repressed, or the dignity and authority of the court are to be vindicated against aspersion and contempt, the judge must be either less or more than human who could uniformly play the stoic. But he is unwilling that it should be believed either that his manner or phrase was exceptionable, as he conscientiously believes neither to have been so; and to establish the manner and the phrase in its connexion, was one among his strongest reasons for desiring that his witnesses should be heard by the House. Believing it probable that a member of the House, who witnessed the proceeding, has it in his power to do justice to the Judge in this respect, he hopes he may be permitted to claim that justice from him.

There is one point of view in which this case still remains to be considered. Hitherto it has been treated as if the offender had been a stranger to the court. But Mr. Lawless was an attorney and counsel at its bar, and was, therefore, under an increased obligation to treat it with respect, and also under an increased responsibility to the court. He seems to suppose that this relation implies no responsibility on him, except while he was in court, or engaged in some professional duty in relation to a cause in court. But he is mistaken. The relation between the court and the attorneys who stand upon its roll, is a permanent and continuing one, so long as the name is permitted there to stand; and courts have a supervising power over the conduct of attorneys out of court, and may attach them for acts having no connexion whatever with any cause in court.

Thus the court will order an attorney to pay over money received by him as steward of a manor. Ex parte Corp. Christ. College, 2 Petersdorff, 615, case 13.

So they will compel him to pay over money received by him as a collector. Id. 614, case 12.

So when he had received money as a Bill Broker, unconnected with his professional character. Id. 616, case 18, Ex parte Hall.

For extortion, the King will order him to be struck off the rolls, &c.

Id. 605.

So for assigning for error that which he knows to be false. Id. 609,

case 6.

Id. ib. case 8.

For gross misbehavior, the court will do it. It is needless to multiply citations to this effect. They will be found collected by this author under the head of " Attorneys."

The court considers its character so far associated and implicated with that of the attorneys who stand upon its rolls, that they will suffer no man to stand there who has disgraced himself by his misconduct, although that misconduct have no connexion with the court. Cowper, 829, Ex parte

Brownsall.

Attorneys, as officers of the court, are also under its protection; and from this relation, it is their natural duty to set the example of respect to the rest

of the community, and to discourage and repress disrespect in others, instead of exciting that disrespect by their own conduct, speeches, and publications.

By the 35th section of the judiciary act, the courts of the United States are authorized to prescribe the rules by which they will permit attorneys to be admitted, to practice at their bar; and, with relation to contempts committed by such attorneys, the Supreme Court of the United States has decided, with obvious propriety, that the court towards which the contempt has been committed, must, of necessity, be the best judge of the character of the contempt: they doubt their own power to revise such a sentence, and say that the case must be a flagrant one, indeed, in which they would interfere with such a sentence. Ex parte Burr. 9 Wheaton, 529.

If the step taken by the court in this case would have been right towards a stranger, it was, therefore, a fortiori, right with regard to an attorney so intimately connected with it, and owing it habitual respect.

Let us now see the conduct of this attorney, when brought before the court to answer for the contempt.

He is told that the court has decided the publication to be a contempt. It was his privilege to purge himself of this contempt, as he had done in the case just mentioned before the State Court. The opportunity of doing so is afforded him. He is asked whether he wishes to have interrogatories propounded to him, cr whether he will answer them if propounded by the court? He answers that he does not wish them, and that, if propounded, he will not answer them. This declaration that he would not answer interrogatories if they should be propounded, was not only an aggravation of the first contempt, but was a new and substantive contempt, which would, of itself, have justified the sentence that was passed, and in this light it is considered by the books.

4. Black. Com. 287.

1. Dall. 329.

2. Hawk. P. C. 231, B. 2. C. 22, Sec. 43.

219,

do. note to sec. 10.

Do.
Strange's Rep. 1197, 1 Wils. 30.

2. Bar. K. B. 219.

4. Burr, 2105, Rex vs. Edwards.

5. T. R. 362, King vs. Horsley.

In Mr. Lawless' memorial, he states, that, in reply to the question of the court, "1st. That he did not require interrogatories to be filed;

none.

2d. That if interrogatories were filed, he would not answer them;
3. That, as he had committed no contempt, he would purge himself of

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"That the said Judge thereupon declared, that the refusal to answer any interrogatories that might be filed, was a great aggravation of the contempt already committed by your petitioner, and deserved a severer punishment than that which he would possibly have otherwise inflicted."

But there was not a mere refusal to answer interrogatories. A paper was read by Mr. Lawless, or, as the evidence states, by Mr. Lawless or his counsel, in which the truth of the article signed "A Citizen," is, in a spirit of contradiction, re-asserted in the face of the decision of the court then made. [See report of committee, pp. 46 and 47.]

Why, if no disrespect, no contempt, was intended, did not Mr. Lawless avail himself of the opportunity to declare this in the form which the law prescribes?

The opportunity was fairly opened to him by the tender of interrogateries, but his refusal to answer them was flat and peremptory.

Among the questions propounded to Mr. Lawless, while before the committee, there is the following one: "Were you required by the court to make any apology or other atonement for the publication of the article signed A Citizen, before the order was made for your imprisonment, and for suspending you from the bar?"

Judge Peck has met with no elementary book, nor any adjudged case, which prescribes it to the court as a duty, to make any such overture to a party standing before it convicted of a contempt.

The only course prescribed by them was that which the court did pursue, of tendering interrogatories: and after Mr. Lawless had answered, in reply to this overture, that he did not wish to have them exhibited, and added, indignantly, that he would not answer if they were exhibited, and read a written paper re-asserting the truth of the "Citizen," and denying the jurisdiction of the court, any further overture, like that proposed in the question, would have been far more likely to produce a new insult to the court than to propitiate the offender.

Had the contempt consisted of a hasty or unguarded expression, a recantation, in the presence of the court, might have been received as an atonement with propriety. But where the contempt consisted in the misrepresentation of the decisions of the court through the medium of the public prints, with intent to bring the court into contempt; and consisted, also, in an attempt to influence the public in relation to causes depending before the court, and to excite indignation against the court, it was due to the administration of justice that there should be an example made.

It would have been indefensible on the part of the court, if it had viewed the offence merely in the light of a personal affair, and capable of being atoned for by an acknowledgment of error without the solemnity of an oath

With respect to the imprisonment of Mr. Lawless in the criminal's apartment of the gaol, the sentence of the court was general, that he should be imprisoned for the particular period. It did not occur to the court that there were different apartments in the gaol, nor was there any suggestion made in relation to that subject.

The sentence would have been complied with by putting him in the debtors' apartinent. Had he requested to be put there, there is no question but that his request would have been complied with. He shows that, at his request, he was immediately taken into another room.

In page 35 of the report, it is said, in the testimony of Mr. Lawless, "that, when he presented himself to the court, at the expiration of the term of his suspension, the Judge inquired particularly of the clerk, if the time had expired?"

The House will see how improbable this evidence is, when they reflect that the order of suspension was in the Special Court, held at St. Louis, under the act of 26th May, 1824, for the trial of land causes; the records of which court would remain at St. Louis, and had no connexion with the records of the District Court held at Jefferson City. Yet, in page 36 of the report, Mr. Lawless states, that, after his suspension, he first re-appeared in court at Jefferson City. This is adverted to, because it appeared to be the object of the testimony to show a disposition on the part of the court to enforce, rigorously, against Mr. Lawless, its sentence.

Upon the whole, Judge Peck declares that, in this proceeding, he was actuated by a sense of official duty. He considered it his duty to sustain the dignity and authority of the court over which he had been appointed to preside; he considered it due to the Government which he represented-due to the tribunal, and due to the suitors whose rights were committed to its protection, to punish this contempt as he did punish it. He did consider himself, and does still consider himself, as sustained, at every step, by the highest authority. He believed it, conscientiously, to be his solemn and imperious duty to make the example which he did make, more especially in relation to the country in which he holds his courts, and the nature of the claims which he was called upon to adjudicate, and which had produced this agitation. If, in so doing, he has erred, he has erred in company with judicial characters with whom any judge may be proud to associate; and he has yet to learn that such an error would be a high misdemeanor in the sense of the Constitution of the United States.

Judge Peck is perfectly aware of the purposes to be answered by his removal, and is, therefore, not at all surprised at the pertinacity with which it has been sought for the last four years.

Whether these purposes are such as the interests of the United States call upon them to countenance by ordering further proceedings in this case, is a question for others, not for Judge Peck. Confident he is, that, if he had been made of more pliant materials, and could have reconciled it to himself to consult his repose rather than his sense of duty, the House would not have been troubled with this inquiry.

Washington, April 13, 1830.

JAMES H. PECK.

PETITION OF LUKE EDWARD LAWLESS.

To the Honorable the House of Representatives of the United States. The petition of Luke Edward Lawless, a citizen of the State of Missouri, and of the United States,

RESPECTFULLY SHOWETH:

That, on the 30th day of March, in the present year, 1826, there appeared in the Republican, a newspaper printed in the city of St. Louis, State of Missouri, an article purporting to be the final decree or opinion of the Judge of the District Court of the United States for the district of Missouri, in the cause in which the widow and heirs of Antoine Soulard were plaintiffs, and the United States defendant.

That the said opinion was sent to the press and published at the request of James H. Peck, Judge of the aforesaid District Court, whose opinion it purported to be.

That, in fact, a final decree had been rendered by said Judge in the above cause, and an appeal taken therefrom by the plaintiffs, to the Supreme Court of the United States, previous to the publication of said opinion.

That, for the purposes of said appeal, all the necessary steps had been taken by the appellants, and said Judge Peck was no longer, at the date of said publication, invested with any judicial control or consideration of said

cause.

That your petitioner having, after an attentive perusal of said published opinion, discovered, or believed that he discovered, in it, many and serious mistakes in fact and doctrine, did, on the 8th day of April, 1826, in an article signed "A Citizen," published in the Missouri Advocate and St. Louis Enquirer, a newspaper printed in the city of St. Louis, submit to the public a concise statement of some of the principal errors into which your petitioner conceived that the said Judge Peck had fallen.

That your petitioner, in making said exposition, not only availed himself of what he believed to be his right as a private citizen, but acted from a sense of duty to those numerous land claimants by whom he was employed as counsel.

That the object of your petitioner was, if possible, to counteract the effect that Judge Peck's opinion was calculated to produce on the value of the unconfirmed Spanish and French land titles, and to save the claimants from those speculators who would have availed themselves of the panic which the opinion created, to buy up those titles for an inadequate consideration.

That your petitioner believes that he has, to a considerable extent, attained this object; and therefore submits, that his conduct in publishing the article, was not only not criminal, but was meritorious.

That, in the exposition of the errors, whether in fact or in doctrine, of said opinion, your petitioner has attributed nothing to said Judge either untruly or maliciously, nor has he, in the tone and language used by him, violated any rule of courtesy or decorum.

That the opinion of Judge Peck, and the article signed "A Citizen," were, both of them, published after the court had adjourned, and out of term, the said Judge having adjourned on the 30th day of December, 1825, to sit again on the third Monday of April, being the 20th day of April, 1826.

Your petitioner further showeth, that, on the third Monday of April, 1826, being the first day of the term of the United States' District Court for the decision of land claims, immediately subsequent to the publication of the opinion of Judge Peck, a rule was made by said Judge, and served by the deputy Marshal upon Mr. S. W. Foreman, the editor of the Missouri Advocate and St. Louis Enquirer, which rule is in the following terms:

"The court being satisfied, from the evidence of Luke E. Lawless, that Stephen W. Foreman, of this city, is the editor and publisher of the Missouri Advocate and St. Louis Enquirer, published in the said city, and that the paper of that name of the eighth of April instant, which contains a false statement of and concerning a certain judicial decision made in the case of Julia Soulard, widow, and James G. Soulard, Henry G. Soulard, Eliza Soulard, and Benjamin A. Soulard, children and heirs of Antoine Soulard, deceased, against the United States, issued from the press of the said Stephen W. Foreman, it is ordered, that the said Stephen W. Foreman show cause, on to-morrow morning, at eleven o'clock, why an attachment should not issue against him for a contempt of this court in publishing the said false statement, tending to bring odium on the court, and to impair the confidence of the public in the purity of its decisions."

In obedience to this rule, Mr. Foreman appeared, and by your petitioner, who acted as his counsel. showed against the rule, and urged that,

First. He, Judge Peck, had no jurisdiction of the matter as a contempt

of court.

Secondly. That the article, in point of merits, was a correct statement of the positions and doctrines therein attributed to the Judge.

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