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Changing the Constitution
system is still in place, influencing the manner in which the Federal government functions. But no amendment was needed to establish it.
Judicial opinions of the Supreme Court provide still another means for
embellishing the original text of the Constitution—Article II, Section 3
provides, for example, that the President ‘‘shall take care that the laws be
faithfully executed.’’ Does this mean that the President’s duty is limited
to the enforcement of acts of Congress according to their express terms?
The Supreme Court was called upon to provide an answer to this question in the bizarre case of In Re Neagle (1890). The case grew out of a dispute between Justice Stephen J. Field, a member of the Supreme Court,
and David Terry, who had once been Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court. While presiding over a Federal circuit court in California in
a suit involving Terry’s wife, Justice Field criticized the lady’s moral
character during the course of the trial. Mrs. Terry began screaming insults, and Field ordered her removal from the courtroom. David Terry,
her lawyer as well as her husband, became so enraged that he felled with
one blow the deputy who was trying to carry out Field’s order, knocking
him unconscious.
Field later returned to Washington, and Terry began a campaign of vilification against Field, threatening to kill him. A headstrong southern
gentleman who had once killed a friend of Field’s in a duel over a question of honor, Terry had a reputation for violence. He often wore a sixshooter on his hip, and Mrs. Terry also frequently carried a pistol. Alarmed
by these events, the Attorney General of the United States assigned a deputy marshal named David Neagle to protect Justice Field while out west
on circuit duties. By coincidence, Field and Neagle ran into Terry in a railroad restaurant in a small town. Upon sight of Field, Terry leaped from
his table and struck Field twice. Believing Terry was reaching for a gun,
Neagle drew his own weapon and shot Terry dead. There was strong local sentiment for Terry, and Neagle was arrested by State authorities on
a charge of murder.
A Federal circuit court issued a writ of habeas corpus for Neagle’s release under a Federal statute which made the writ available to one ‘‘in
custody for an act done or omitted in pursuance of a law of the United
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