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Show WHAT DOES THE CHIEF JimCB MEAN! We yesterday rei-'eii'eJ informiitiuu by lerter of proceeding in the 3rd Judicial Ju-dicial District Court, which demand prompt exposu'e. A young man named Wu. I irdluy, an alien, applied ap-plied for naturalization. Chief Justice McK'iau, as we are informed, was exceedingly ex-ceedingly and unnecessarily stringent in questioning Mr. Ilorsley and hia witnesses, regarding his martial relations. re-lations. Not sati-fijj wiiu asking once if the man had moru than one wife, and receiving a reply in the negative, he pressed the question in a vaiiety of forms, casting doubt, by his repeated queries, upon the truthfulness of the testimony given. But when apparently appar-ently satisfied that Mr. Horsley had but one wife, and never hud but the one, his Honor pushed Lis inquiries further, and asked him if iir believed it would be right and lawful for him to take another wife while his present was living? Mr. Ilorsley very properly declined to answer the question, ques-tion, as an improper one, when the Chief Justice sharply inquired if he was judge in the matter; and received for reply that ho thought he was in that matter. J udge McKean refused to naturalize him, because he refused to answer that question. To what have the courts of this 'I ei-ritory ei-ritory come, whea the Chief Justice can sit like a Grand Inquisitor of the order of Jesuits and probe into a man's conscience, constitute himself an empowered em-powered censor of a man's belief, and refuse to grant the rights of American citizenship to one who merely declines to tell that inquisitorial Judge what hia private sentiments are ? Under what law ou the statute books of the United States, or of this Territory, does Judge McKean ncl when he dares to invade the most sacred rights of mankind rights bestowed by God, guaranteed by the Constitution, and sanctified by all the blood shed in the cause of liberty the world over? This we believe is the first court, in the history of free America's judiciary, where a man was called upon to avow his faith before he could receive bis rights of naturalization. Yet Judge McKean has dared to ask a free-born Anglo-Saxon to open the secrets of his heart, proolaim aloud his faith, and answer the probing questions of- the Grand Inquisitor; and when a reply is declined, refu-es him the right of becoming an American citizen ! lias Jndge McKean any power beyond the law ? And what law gives him such power ? Is it not a stretch of extrajudicial extra-judicial assumption without precedent, almost beyond belief, and in open defiance de-fiance and violation of the spirit of that Constitution which he is sworn to defend and maintain ? We again direct the attention of the press of the entire country to the unheard of course of the Federal officials in this Territory, of which the recent attack agaicst the freedom of the press in the charge to the Grand Jury against this journal, and the proceedings pro-ceedings yesterday in the naturalization case of Mr. Wm. Ilorsley, are the culminating points. |
