Judge calculated) he says, it is 'impossible to suppose the affidavits
could not have been obtained.' Where? At Richmond he certainly meant,
or meant only to throw dust in the eyes of his audience. But all the
principles of law are to be perverted which would bear on the
favorite offenders, who endeavor to overturn this odious republic. 'I
understand,' says the Judge, 'probable cause of guilt to be a case
made out of proof furnishing good reason to believe,' &c. Speaking as a
lawyer, he must mean legal proof, i.e. proof on oath, at least. But this
is confounding probability and proof. We had always before understood
that where there was reasonable ground to believe guilt, the offender
must be put on his trial. That guilty intentions were probable, the
Judge believed. And as to the overt acts, were not the bundle of letters
of information in Mr. Rodney's hands, the letters and facts published in
the local newspapers, Burr's flight, and the universal belief or rumor
of his guilt, probable ground for presuming the facts of enlistment,
military guard, rendezvous, threat of civil war, or capitulation, so as
to put him on trial? Is there a candid man in the United States who
does not believe some one, if not all, of these overt acts to have taken
place?

If there ever had been an instance in this or the preceding
administrations, of federal judges so applying principles of law as to
condemn a federal or acquit a republican offender, I should have judged
them in the present case with more charity. All this, however, will work
well. The nation will judge both the offender and judges for themselves.
If a member of the executive or legislature does wrong, the day is never
far distant when the people will remove him. They will see then, and
amend the error in our constitution, which makes any branch independent
of the nation. They will see that one of the great co-ordinate branches
of the government, setting itself in opposition to the other two, and