Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches Part 27

That act of Neagle's was no crime. It was a deed that any and every American should feel proud of having done. It was an act that should be applauded over the length and breadth of this great land. It should not have consigned him for one minute to prison walls. It should have lifted him high in the esteem of all the American people. When criminals turn executioners, and judges are the victims, we might as well close our courts and hoist the red flag of anarchy over their silent halls and darkened chambers.

The New York _Herald_, in its issue of August 19, 1889, said:

The sensation of the past week is a lesson in republicanism and a eulogium on the majesty of the law.

It was not a personal controversy between Stephen J. Field and David S. Terry. It was a conflict between law and lawlessness--between a judicial officer who represented the law and a man who sought to take it into his own hands. One embodied the peaceful power of the nation, the will of the people; the other defied that power and appealed to the dagger.

Justice Field's whole course shows a conception of judicial duty that lends grandeur to a republican judiciary. It is an inspiring example to the citizens and especially to the judges of the country. He was reminded of the danger of returning to California while Judge Terry and his wife were at large. His firm answer was that it was his duty to go and his would go.

He was then advised to arm himself for self-defense. His reply embodies a n.o.bility that should make it historic: "When it comes to such a pa.s.s in this country that judges of the courts find it necessary to go armed it will be time to close the courts themselves."

This sentiment was not born of any insensibility to danger; Justice Field fully realized the peril himself. But above all feeling of personal concern arose a lofty sense of the duty imposed upon a justice of the nation's highest court. The officer is a representative of the law--a minister of peace.

He should show by his example that the law is supreme; that all must bow to its authority; that all lawlessness must yield to it. When judges who represent the law resort to violence even in self-defense, the pistol instead of the court becomes the arbiter of controversies, and the authority of the government gives way to the power of the mob.

Rather than set a precedent that might tend to such a result, that would shake popular confidence in the judiciary, that would lend any encouragement to violence, a judge, as Justice Field evidently felt, may well risk his own life for the welfare of the commonwealth. He did not even favor the proposition that a marshal be detailed to guard him.

The course of the venerable Justice is an example to all who would have the law respected. It is also a lesson to all who would take the law into their own hands.

Not less exemplary was his recognition of the supremacy of the law when the sheriff of San Joaquin appeared before him with a warrant of arrest on the grave charge of murder. The warrant was an outrage, but it was the duty of the officer to serve it, even on a justice of the United States Supreme Court.

When the sheriff hesitated and began to apologize before discharging his painful duty, Justice Field promptly spoke out: "Officer, proceed with your duty. I am ready, and an officer should always do his duty." These are traits of judicial heroism worthy the admiration of the world.

The _Albany Evening Union_, in one of its issues at this time, has the following:

JUSTICE FIELD RELIES UPON THE LAW FOR HIS DEFENSE.

The courage of Justice Stephen J. Field in declining to carry weapons and declaring that it is time to close the courts when judges have to arm themselves, and at the same time proceeding to do his duty on the bench when his life was threatened by a desperate man, is without parallel in the history of our judiciary. We do not mean by this that he is the only judge on the bench that would be as brave as he was under the circ.u.mstances, but every phase of the affair points to the heroism of the man. He upheld the majesty of the law in a fearless manner and at the peril of his life. He would not permit the judiciary to be lowered by any fear of the personal harm that might follow a straightforward performance of his duty. His arrest for complicity in a murder was borne by the same tranquil bravery--a supreme reliance upon a due process of law. He did not want the officer to apologize to him for doing his duty. He had imprisoned Judge Terry and his wife Sarah Althea for contempt of court. * * * The threats by Judge Terry did not even frighten him to carry weapons of self-defense. This ill.u.s.tration of upholding the majesty of the law is without precedent, and is worth more to the cause of justice than the entire United States army could be if called out to suppress a riotous band of law-breakers. Justice Field did what any justice should do under the circ.u.mstances, but how many judges would have displayed a like courage had they been in his place?

The _New York World_, in its issue of Monday evening, August 26th, has the following article:

A NEW LEAF TURNED.

When Judge Field, knowing that his life was threatened, went back unarmed into the State of California and about his business there, he gave wholesome rebuke to the cowardice that prompts men to carry a pistol--a cowardice that has been too long popular on the coast. He did a priceless service to the cause of progress in his State, and added grace to his ermine when he disdained to take arms in answer to the threats of a.s.sa.s.sins.

The men who have conspired to take Judge Field's life ought to need only one warning that a new day has dawned in California, and to find that warning in the doom of the bully Terry. The law will protect the ermine of its judges.

The New York _World_ of August 18th treats of the arrest of Justice Field as an outrage, and speaks of it as follows:

THE ARREST OF FIELD AN OUTRAGE AND AN ABSURDITY.

The California magistrate who issued a warrant for Justice Field's arrest is obviously a donkey of the most precious quality. The Justice had been brutally a.s.sailed by a notorious ruffian who had publicly declared his intention to kill his enemy. Before Justice Field could even rise from his chair a neat-handed deputy United States marshal shot the ruffian.

Justice Field had no more to do with the shooting than any other bystander, and even if there had been doubt on that point it was certain that a justice of the United States Supreme Court was not going to run away beyond the jurisdiction. His arrest was, therefore, as absurd as it was outrageous. It was asked for by the demented widow of the dead desperado simply as a means of subjecting the Justice to an indignity, and no magistrate possessed of even a protoplasmic possibility of common sense and character would have lent himself in that way to such a service.

The Kansas City _Times_, in its issue at this period, uses the following language:

NO ONE WILL CENSURE.

_Grat.i.tude for Judge field's Escape the Chief Sentiment._

Deputy Marshal Neagle acted with terrible prompt.i.tude in protecting the venerable member of the Supreme Court with whose safety he was specially charged, but few will be inclined to censure him. He had to deal with a man of fierce temper, whose readiness to use firearms was part of the best known history of California.

It is a subject for general congratulation that Justice Field escaped the violence of his a.s.sailant. The American nation would be shocked to learn that a judge of its highest tribunal could not travel without danger of a.s.sault from those whom he had been compelled to offend by administering the laws.

Justice Field has the respect due his office and that deeper and more significant reverence produced by his character and abilities. Since most of the present generation were old enough to observe public affairs he has been a jurist of national reputation and a sitting member of the Supreme Court.

In that capacity he has earned the grat.i.tude of his countrymen by bold and unanswerable defense of sound const.i.tutional interpretation on more than one occasion. In all the sad affair the most prominent feeling will be that of grat.i.tude at his escape.

_The Army and Navy Journal_, in its issue of August 24, 1889, had the following article under the head of--

MARSHAL NEAGLE'S CRIME.

The public mind appears to be somewhat unsettled upon the question of the right of Neagle to kill Terry while a.s.saulting Judge Field. His justification is as clear as is the benefit of his act to a long-suffering community. Judge Field was a.s.saulted unexpectedly from behind, while seated at a dining-table, by a notorious a.s.sa.s.sin and ruffian, who had sworn to kill him, and who, according to the testimony of at least one witness, was armed with a long knife, had sent his wife for a pistol, and was intending to use it as soon as obtained. * * *

The rule is that the danger which justifies homicide in self-defense must be actual and urgent. And was it not so in this case? No one who reflects upon the features of the case--an old man without means of defense, fastened in a sitting posture by the table at which he sat and the chair he occupied, already smitten with one severe blow and about to receive another more severe from a notorious ruffian who had publicly avowed his intention to slay him--no one surely can deny that the peril threatening Judge Field was both actual and urgent in the very highest degree.

"A man may repel force by force in the defense of his person, habitation, or property, against one or many who manifestly intend and endeavor by violence or surprise to commit a known felony on either." "In such a case he is not obliged to retreat, but may pursue his adversary till he find himself out of danger; and if in a conflict between them he happens to kill, such killing is justifiable. The right of self-defense in case of this kind is founded on the law of nature, and is not, nor can be, superseded by any law of society. Where a known felony is attempted upon the person, be it to rob or murder, the party a.s.saulted may repel force by force; and even his servant attendant on him, or any person present, may interpose for preventing mischief, and, if death ensue, the party interposing will be justified." (Wharton Amer. Crim.

Law, Vol. 2, Sec. 1019.)

This is the law, as recognized at the present day and established by centuries of precedent, and it completely exonerates Neagle--of course Judge Field needs no exoneration--from any, the least, criminality in what he did.

He is acquitted of wrong-doing, not only in his character of attendant servant, but in that of bystander simply. He was as much bound to kill Terry under the circ.u.mstances as every bystander in the room was bound to kill him; and in his capacity of guard, especially appointed to defend an invaluable life against a known and imminent felony, he was so bound in a much greater degree.

"A sincere and apparently well-grounded belief that a felony is about to be perpetrated will extenuate a homicide committed in prevention of it, though the defendant be but a private citizen" (25 Ala., 15.) See Wharton, above quoted, who embodies the doctrine in his text (Vol. 2, Sec. 1039).

* * * * *

Let us be grateful from our hearts that the old Mosaic law, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed,"

is shown by this memorable event to have not yet fallen altogether into innocuous desuetude; and let us give thanks to G.o.d that he has seen fit on this occasion to preserve from death at the hands of an intolerable ruffian the life of that high-minded, pure-handed, and excellent jurist and magistrate, Stephen J. Field.

The Philadelphia _Times_ of August 15th has the following:

ONLY ONE OPINION.

_Marshal Neagle Could Not Stand Idly By._

The killing of Judge Terry of California is a homicide that will occasion no regret wherever the story of his stormy and wicked life is known. At the same time, the circ.u.mstances that surrounded it will be deeply lamented. This violent man, more than once a murderer, met his death while in the act of a.s.saulting Justice Field of the Supreme Court of the United States. Had he not been killed when he was, Judge Field would probably have been another of his victims. Terry had declared his purpose of killing the Justice, and this was their first meeting since his release from deserved imprisonment.

In regard to the act of United States Marshal Neagle, there can be only one opinion. He could not stand idly by and see a judge of the Suprene Court murdered before his eyes. The contumely that Terry sought to put upon the Judge was only the insult that was to go before premeditated murder. The case has no moral except the certainty that a violent life will end in a violent death.

The _Philadelphia Inquirer_ of the same date says as follows:

A PREMEDITATED INSULT.

_Followed Quickly by a Deserved Retribution._

Ex-Judge Terry's violent death was a fitting termination to a stormy life, and the incidents of his last encounter were characteristic of the man and his methods. He was one of the few lingering representatives of the old-time population of California. He was prominent there when society was organizing itself, and succeeded in holding on to life and position when many a better man succ.u.mbed to the rude justice of the period.