Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/207

Rh the request of the Secretary, and cannot fail to surprise every member of the legal profession who may chance to read it.

It is a part, and a most important part, of the duties of the Attorney-General, the highest law officer of the Government, to give legal advice to the heads of the Executive Departments, who are not presumed to be lawyers, and sometimes are not. It is, therefore, not only natural, but it may be looked upon as a matter of duty, that the heads of the Departments should ask for such advice when they have to decide disputed points of law. That the point on which I asked advice was a disputed one among lawyers appears from the simple fact that you hold one opinion upon it and Attorney-General Devens another. There is one reason imaginable, and only one, why under such circumstances the head of a Department, “not a lawyer,” might hesitate to ask the Attorney-General for advice. It is, that he might consider the Attorney-General incompetent as a jurist, or corrupt as an officer. How was this in Attorney-General Devens's case? He is highly respected by the profession as a lawyer. I have long known him, and the country knows him, as the very soul of honor. The State of Massachusetts is evidently of the same opinion. He was a judge there before being called to the Attorney-General's duties, and no sooner had he left the Cabinet, than he was placed as a justice on the supreme bench of that Commonwealth. There he is now. Can you tell any reason why this man as Attorney-General should not be trusted for his legal advice on a disputed question of law by a Secretary “not a lawyer”? Do you know any thing about Judge Devens calculated to make it appear “a little remarkable” that he should be so trusted? For when you say that the request of the Secretary of the Interior for legal advice was “a little remarkable,” and