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Rh. It is a startling doctrine that the public laborer and the public servants of any country may jeer and gibe like angry apes at the great work of its illustrious dead; and that they may do so not only with legal impunity, but even with the pretended sanction of law; that they have rendered, and still may render, void the Constitutional Amendments which the nation enacted for the emancipation of seven millions of freemen; and that, too, upon the puerile pretext, not that their business is, but that it may be affected, if they conform it to the provisions of constitutional law and the existing policy of the nation."

"The bare assertion of power in a mere creature of the State," said the Chief Justice, "to overthrow the Constitution from which its breath of life proceeds, and that, too, through the agency of the professors of the common law, seems to me to rest not upon reason but rather upon the despair of the existence of reason itself."

"If this be true," said the student, "the public servant and the artisan in America must indeed be distinct creations and orders, not amenable to the Constitution. But, sir, may I venture to ask, to whom did the mighty dead of the Republican party, who amidst darkness and danger framed this broad charter of freedom, look for protection from its future enemies?"