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18 A.B.A. J. 445 (1932)
Chief Justice Hughes Addresses Judicial Conference of Fourth Circuit

handle is hein.journals/abaj18 and id is 471 raw text is: CHIEF JUSTICE HUGHES ADDRESSES JUDICIAL CONFERENCE OF FOURTH CIRCUIT First Experience in Riding Cireuit-Travels and Travails of Earlier Supreme Court Judges-The Judicial Power and Its Supreme Exercise in Maintaining Constitu- tional Balance and Enforcing Principles of Constitutional Liberty-The Best Way to Deal with Criticism of the Courts-Improvement in Administration of Justice and Responsibility of Local Bench and Bar- Changes in Rules Ordered by Supreme Court, Effective Sept. 1, etc.* T HIS is my first experience in riding circuit. I am here to enjoy the privilege of judicial fra- ternity without assuming judicial burdens. It is a sort of joy ride. At the outset it was ex- pected that through their circuit work the Justices of the Supreme Court would be in close contact with the people. The Justices left their impression upon the communities they visited, and these com- munities had their effect upon the Justices. But the great labor involved in circuit duty soon brought suggestions of a change. Attorney Gen- eral Randolph, in 1790, after commenting upon the endowments which it would be desirable to find in judges, and their slender opportunities to explore the extensive range of science. pressed the ques- tion --W.Vhat leisure remains from their itinerant dispensation of justice? Sum tip all the fragments of their time, hold their fatigue at naught, and let them bid adieu to all domestic concerns, still the average term of a life, already advanced, will be too short for any important proficiency. Justice Iredell, speaking of his laborious journeys through North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, de- scribed himself as a traveling post boy. Delays and many inconveniences resulted from the practice hut the continued protests of the judges went un- heeded. Not only did Justices of the Supreme Court on circuit duty suffer the extreme hardships of travel in the early days. but they were exposed to the even greater peril of subsequent reversal at the hands of their brethren. If you find dissenting opinions hard to bear, no doubt you think that re- versal is far worse. But there are comforting precedents. In Bank v. Da*ndridqe, 12 Wheat. 64, all the Justices, except the Chief Justice himself, con- curred in reversing Marshall's judgment at circuit in Virginia. Needless to say that Chief Justice Marshall dissented from this judgment of his court. He said that he should, as was his custom when he had the misfortune of differing from the court, acquiesce silently in its opinion. did he not be- lieve that the judgment at circuit gave general surprise to the profession and was generally con- demned. He then made the interesting observa- tion that the commission of even gross error, after deliberate exercise of the judgment, was more excusable than the rash and hasty decision of an imlportant question. And he set forth at length the reasons and the imposing authorities which had guided him in rendering the judgment that the *Address delivered before the Tudicial Confeence of Federal Judges of the Fourth circuit at Asheville, N. C., on Thursday, June 9. court had reversed. You may recall that Webster, the successful counsel in that case, wrote after the argument: As to Dandridge, we hear nothing from the Court yet. The Chief Justice, I fear, will die hard. Yet I hope that. as to this question, he is inaribuiodius. In everything else, I cheerfully give him the Spanish benediction 'may he live a thou- sand years.' Webster said that he felt a good deal of concern, for one reason among others, that he had spoken somewhat more freely than usually befits the mouth of an humble attorney at law of the 'manifest errors' in the opinion of the Great Chief. At a later day, Chief Justice Taney found great difficulty at circuit in construine the opitiions of his own court. Tn Williams v. Gibbes, 17 How. 239 and Goodiagn v. Gibbes, id., 274, Chief Justice Taney's judgments dismissing the complainants' bills at cir- cuit were reversed by the Supreme Court, and the Chief Justice, following the illustrious example of Chief Justice Marshall. expressed his dissent from this result. He said that he had dismissed the bills of complaint under the impression that he was bound to do so up~on the principles upon which this court (Supreme Court) had decided them in cer- tain suits theretofore brought. But he added It appears, however, by the opinions, just delivered, that I was mistaken and placed an erroneous con- struction on the opinions formerly delivered .... And I think it will be found that the language of the former decisions was fairly susceptible of the construction I put upon it, although that construc- tion has turned out to be erroneous. I do not mean to say that the construction which the majority of the Court puts upon its former decisions now, is not the true one; but that the language used in it might lead even a careful inquirer to a contrary con- clusion. The careful inquirer in that case was the Chief Justice himself. I commend to you these out- standing examples of judicial sufferings and of be- coming fortitude. And these reflections suggest the especial pleasure with which T come to this circuit in the present comparatively unfettered and alto- gether agreeable relation. In these difficult days, political philosophers are fertile. There is no lack of schemes for the regeneration of society,-schemes not infrequently of a sort which would not be needed by a society capable of freely adopting them. The construction of a theoretical paradise is the easiest of human ef- forts. The familiar method is to establish the per- fect, or almost perfect, State, and then to fashion human beings to fit it. This is a far lighter under-

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