The sequel, however, as developed in the actual working of our national system, has shown that the executive and legislative departments predominate, naturally, -perhaps inevitably, over the judicial branch, and that, in the popular estimate at least, the Supreme Court is of small importance as compared with the Presidency and the two Houses of Congress.

This disesteem of the judiciary is not verified by a broader and more philosophical view on the subject. The importance, especially, of the conservative opinion of our great National Court in determining, at least negatively, the final validity of all legislation and all subordinate judicial decisions, can hardly be over-estimated. The same may be said of the Supreme Bench considered as the only immovable breakwater against the unscrupulous and rampant spirit of party. It is fortunate that the offices of our Chief Justice and of the Associate Justices are appointive, and are thus removed, in great measure, from the perfidy of the convention and the passion of a partisan election.

It may be of interest to glance for a moment at some of the vicissitudes through which the Supreme Court has passed since its organization in 1789. The court was then instituted by the appointment of John Jay as Chief Justice, who held the office until 1796, when he gave place to Oliver Ellsworth. The latter remained in office until, in 1800, the infirmities of age compelled his resignation. Then came the long and honorable ascendency of Chief Justice John Marshall, who presided over the court from his appointment in 1801 to his death in 1835. This was the Golden Age of the American Supreme Court. From 1835 to 1837 there was an interregnum in the Chief Justiceship, occasioned by the disagreement of President Jackson and the Senate of the United States. But in the latter year the President secured the confirmation of Judge Roger B. Taney as Chief Justice,

who entered upon his long term of twenty-seven years. It was his celebrated decision in case of the negro Dred Scott, relative to the status of the slave-race in America, that applied the torch to that immense heap of combustibles whose explosion was the Civil War.

After the death of Chief Justice Taney, in 1864, President Lincoln appointed, as his successor, Salmon P. Chase, recently Secretary of the Treasury, and author of most of the financial measures and expedients by which the national credit had been buoyed up and preserved during the Rebellion. His official term extended to his death, in 1873, and covered the period when the important issues arising from the Civil War were under adjudication. To Chief Justice Chase fell also, by virtue of his office, the duty of presiding at the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. In 1874 the appointment of Morrison R. Waite as Chief Justice was made by President Grant.

The death of Chief Justice Waite made way for the return to the supreme judicial office in the United States of some member of the political party which had long been out of power. Since the epoch of the Civil War the court had been filled almost exclusively with judges who, by political affiliation, belonged to the Republican party. The first distinctly Democratic appointment which was made in the last quarter of a century was the recent one of Judge Lucius Q. C. Lamar, who, by the nomination of President Cleveland, was transferred from the Secretaryship of the Interior to the Supreme Bench. It thus happened, in the vicissitude of things, that the two political theories which were opposed to each other in the War for the Union, and are still opposed by party name, became confluent in the High Court of the Nation. This circumstance was to some a source of alarm and prejudice; but the fear was not well founded. Partisan dispositions are less potent and danger.

ous-if, indeed, they assert themselves at all-on the Supreme Bench of the United States. Thus far in its history the court has, as a rule, been as pure in its administration and methods as it has been great in reputation. The muddy waters of party conflict have only occasionally reached as high as the chambers of our honored tribunal; and the fear that it may be otherwise hereafter may hopefully be put aside as a groundless and spectral chimera of the hour. On May 1st, 1888, the President appointed Judge Melville W. Fuller, of Chicago, to the vacant Chief Justiceship.

The impression produced by the death of Chief Justice Waite had scarcely passed when the decease of another citizen, most noted for high character and great talents, called the public attention to the rapid disappearance of the nation's most distinguished representatives. On the 18th of April, at the Hoffman House, New York City, Honorable Roscoe Conkling, ex-Senator of the United States, died after a brief and painful illness. A local inflammation, resulting in the formation of a pus-sack under the mastoid bone of the skull, led to the cutting of the skull in hope of saving Mr. Conkling's life; but he succumbed to the fatal malady and the shock of the operation.

Roscoe Conkling was born in Albany, New York, on the 30th of October, 1829. After the completion of an academic course of study, he went as a student of law to Utica, in 1846. On reaching his majority he was admitted to the bar, and was soon afterward appointed to the office of County Attorney. From the beginning of his career his great talents and remarkable force of character were manifest. He made a profound impression, first upon the local, and then upon the general society of New York. In 1858 he was mayor of Utica, and in the same year was sent to the National House of Representatives. He had already become an able politician, and was soon recognized as the

leader of the Republican party in his native State. His rise was rapid, and his influence became marked in the affairs. of the government. He served for six years in the Lower House, and in 1866 was elected to the Senate. In that body he aspired to leadership, and gradually attained it, though not without many struggles and contests with the great men of the epoch. He was twice re-elected Senatorin 1872 and 1878; but in the third term, namely, in 1881, he found himself in such relations with the Garfield Administration as induced him to resign his seat. This step was regarded by many as the mistake of his political life. At any rate he failed of a re-election, the Administration party getting control of the Legislature of New York, and sending another in his place. After this, Mr. Conkling retired to private life, and took up with great success the prac tice of his profession in New York City.

Roscoe Conkling was a man of the highest courage and stanchest convictions. He never shone to greater advantage than when leading the forces of General Grant in the Chicago Convention of 1880. He was a born political general. His will and persistency and pride gave him a power which, if it had been tempered with greater urbanity, could hardly have failed to crown his life with the highest honors of the nation. His talents rose to the region of genius, and his presence was magnificent--an inspiration to his friends, a terror to his enemies. As a summary of the results of his career, it may be said that, at the time of his death, none except his eminent rival, Mr. Blaine, might successfully contest with him the proud rank of the most distinguished private citizen ot the United States.

CHAPTER XLIV.

IN the spring of 1886 had occurred one of the most serious labor agitations which had ever been witnessed in the United States. It were difficult to present an adequate statement of the causes, general and special, which produced these alarming troubles. Not until after the close of the Civil War did there appear the first symptoms of a renewal, in the New World, of the struggle which has been going on for so long a time in Europe between the laboring classes and the capitalists. It had been hoped that such a conflict would never be renewed in the countries west of the Atlantic. Such a hope, however, was doomed to disappointment. The first well-marked symptoms of the appearance of serious labor strikes and insurrections occurred. as early as 1867. The origin of these difficulties was in the coal and iron producing regions of Pennsylvania and in some of the great manufactories of New England. For a while the disturbances produced but little alarm. It was not until the great railroad strike of 1877 that a general apprehension was excited with respect to the unfriendly relations of labor and capital. In the following year much uneasiness existed; but the better times, extending from 1879 to 1882, with the consequent favorable rate of wages, tended to remove, or at least to postpone, the renewal of trouble. A series of bad crops ensued, and the average ability of the people to purchase was correspondingly diminished. The speculative mania, however, did not cease, and the

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