Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/319

 CH. XII.] "No one is so visionary, as to dispute the assertion, that the sole end and aim of all our institutions is the safety and happiness of the citizen. But the relation between the action and the end is not always so direct and palpable, as to strike the eye of every observer. The science of government is the most abstruse of all sciences; if, indeed, that can be called a science, which has but few fixed principles, and practically consists in little more, than the exercise of a sound discretion, applied to the exigencies of the state, as they arise. It is the science of experiment.

"But if there is one maxim, which necessarily rides over all others, in the practical application of government, it is, that the public functionaries must be left at liberty to exercise the powers, which the people have entrusted to them. The interests and dignity of those, who created them, require the exertion of the powers indispensable to the attainment of the ends of their creation. Nor is a casual conflict with the rights of particular individuals any reason to be urged against the exercise of such powers. The wretch beneath the gallows may repine at the fate, which awaits him; and yet it is no less certain, that the laws, under which he suffers, were made for his security. The unreasonable murmurs of individuals against the restraints of society have a direct tendency to produce that worst of all despotisms, which makes every individual the tyrant over his neighbour's rights.

"That 'the safety of the people is the supreme law,' not only comports with, but is indispensable to, the exercise of those powers in their public functionaries, without which that safety cannot be guarded. On this principle it is, that courts of justice are universally acknowledged to be vested, by their very creation, with power to impose silence, respect, and decorum, in their presence, and submission to their lawful mandates, and, as a corollary to this proposition, to preserve themselves and their officers from the approach of insults or pollution.

"It is true, that the courts of justice in the United States are vested, by express statute provision, with power to fine and imprison for contempts; but it does not follow, from this circumstance, that they would not have exercised that power without the aid of the statute, or not, in cases, if such should occur, to which such statute provision may not extend. On the contrary, it is a legislative assertion of this right, as incidental to a grant of judicial power, and can only be considered house. The power was exerted in the case of Robert Randall, in December, 1795, for an attempt to corrupt a member; in 1796, in the case of ———, a