Laying down the position generally,
that all persons owe obedience to subpoenas, he admits no exception
unless it can be produced in his law books. But if the constitution
enjoins on a particular officer to be always engaged in a particular
set of duties imposed on him, does not this supersede the general law,
subjecting him to minor duties inconsistent with these? The constitution
enjoins his constant agency in the concerns of six millions of people.
Is the law paramount to this, which calls on him on behalf of a single
one? Let us apply the Judge's own doctrine to the case of himself and
his brethren. The sheriff of Henrico summons him from the bench, to
quell a riot somewhere in his county. The federal judge is, by the
general law, a part of the posse of the State sheriff. Would the Judge
abandon major duties to perform lesser ones? Again; the court of Orleans
or Maine commands, by subpoenas, the attendance of all the judges of
the Supreme Court. Would they abandon their posts as judges, and the
interests of millions committed to them, to serve the purposes of a
single individual? The leading principle of our constitution is the
independence of the legislature, executive, and judiciary, of each
other, and none are more jealous of this than the judiciary. But would
the executive be independent of the judiciary, if he were subject to
the commands of the latter, and to imprisonment for disobedience; if the
several courts could bandy him from pillar to post, keep him constantly
trudging from north to south, and east to west, and withdraw him
entirely from his constitutional duties? The intention of the
constitution, that each branch should be independent of the others, is
further manifested by the means it has furnished to each, to protect
itself from enterprises of force attempted on them by the others, and
to none has it given more effectual or diversified means than to the
executive.
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