71

document not to have force with one of the officers of the very
State whose seal it bears ? [Wendell, 484, 7 Shipley, 650.]

Coming thus supported, they direct to him the order that
has been read in evidence. Under a penalty of $5000 he is
bound to obey the order of the Commissioners, and, therefore,
had to decide for himself upon the validity of that order. And
he was right in the conclusion to which he came. They are
the Commissions dejure, by virtue of their appointment. It
is useless to discuss the right of the Governor to remove for
official misconduct, and to appoint others in their place. For
the sake of this argument it is conceded by the counsel who
just addressed the Court. And they were also the Commis-
sioners de facto. It is not like the case of the Librarian, who
cannot act without the Library. They may establish their
offices and station-houses and telegraphs where they please.
They may adopt a seal. They may act without the aid of the
old Commissioners. They were then Commissioners dejure et
de facto. They had opened their office; they had issued this
very order.

In this state of the case, what is done ? They have the
Sheriff before them, and then, without any complaint or cause
of complaint, they pass an order requiring the Sheriff to give
bond not to obey the law. The law says he shall obey the
order of the Commissioners of Police under a penalty of $5000
for disobedience, but the Criminal Court says you must give
a bond in a penalty of $20,000 to disobey the law and to pay
the fine of $5000. And this order the justice of a police court
passes of his own motion, without any complaint, and decides
in effect, that the appointment of the Governor is invalid, and
that the Commissioners had no power to control the Sheriff.
In this predicament the Sheriff had no alternative but to go
to jail, and there he has been ever since.

What more do they do! They not only arrest him with-
out oath, in violation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights,
but they take him to jail on a commitment that does not
charge the offence, and afterwards, when the petition for ha-
beas corpus had been filed, and the writ served, they issue and
lodge with the warden a new commitment, charging the sup-
posed offence.

The matter was so monstrous that it bordered on the ridi-
culous, and was talked of on the public thoroughfares as a
good political joke, and parties were congratulated on having
made a first rate euchre.

I am not very familiar with this game, but I am told
by those who understand it that the party that holds two
knaves and an ass, or an ace, as I believe they call it, is sure
to gain his point. I am certain that the party on the other
side held no such hand, for they lost the game. They may
have supposed that by holding the two commissioners and the
Sheriff, their hand was invincible; but I think before we are