1815. CORRESPONDENCE, Judiciary and.—
For the Judiciary to interpose in the
Legislative department between the constituent
and his representative, to control them in
the exercise of their functions or duties
towards each other, to overawe the free correspondence
which exists and ought to exist
between them, to dictate what may pass between
them, and to punish all others, to put
the representative into jeopardy of criminal
prosecution, of vexation, expense, and punishment
before the Judiciary, if his communications,
public or private, do not exactly
square with their ideas of fact or right, or
with their designs of wrong, is to put the
Legislative department under the feet of the
Judiciary, is to leave us, indeed, the shadow,
but to take away the substance of representation,
which requires essentially that the representative
be as free as his constituents
would be, that the same interchange of sentiment
be lawful between him and them as
would be lawful among themselves were they
in the personal transaction of their own business;
is to do away the influence of the people
over the proceedings of their representattives
by excluding from their knowledge, by
the terror of punishment, all but such information
or misinformation as may suit their
own views. [108]
—
Jury Petition. Washington ed. ix, 450.
Ford ed., vii, 160.
(1797)
