Mr. EDMUNDS. My friend is mistaken, as he rarely is, respecting the state of the pen alties in the early statutes. The 1st penal statute that was ever passed by the Government of the U.S.A., or about the 1st one, the act of 1790, the general criminal code of the U.S., does not F.". so far as I observe, holding it in my and, by a rapid examination, any minimum penalties at i. except it may be for the punishment of treason, which is death, which is both the maximum and minimum at the same time; and then the 2nd section for misprision of treason punishes the party by imprisonment not exceeding 7 years and a fine not exceeding $1,000, and so on. The observations which the Senfrom Massachusetts has submitted to us are undoubtedly entitled to great weight as applied to the circumstances that now exist, and to respect; but let me tell him that the difficulty is, when you are passing a penal statute, or any other statute which requires the judicial depts of the government to enforce it or to punish violations of it, if in framing that statute you act upon the theory of distrust of the judicial tribunal that is to vindicate it, you may just as well not pass the statute at all, because if you have a judge before whom any offender against this act is to be tried who is so swerved by political bias or any other improper motive as to induce him to mitigate the punishment below what in justice it ought to be, he never will suffer a conviction at all. I need not tell my learned friendfrom Massachusetts, who is familiar with the courts of that Common wealth, as pure and as able as any in the country, how easy it is for a judge, without exposing himself to the least degree of . susto overthrow a criminal prosecution. othing is easier in the world. Therefore, we cannot have any safety in the administration of this law if we go upon the theory that we cannot trust the courts to punish the infraction of it. If we cannot, we may as well not pass it, o as vindicating ourselves and providing such further means as, if this passes, we shall be provided with for asserting o majesty of the law in another way against any person who offends against it, where some other than the ordinary judicial tribunals of the country will be the grand tribunal before whom the trial and conviction, if conviction ought to follow, will be had.