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Attorney-general Pierrepont

Attorney-general Pierrepont image
Parent Issue
Day
10
Month
March
Year
1876
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

wrote a letter (o his assistants, the At tornoys at Chicago, Milwaukee, and SI Louis, warning them against promisin iuimunity or proteotion to any suspect ed criminal willing to give evidenc against other suspected crimináis, o parties under indiotment or on trial President Grant was furnished a copy o this letter, and oonveniently left i within reach of the trusted Baboock who furnished a copy of it to his law yer. Mr. Htorrs. Lawyer Storrs, boing a shrewd lawyer and able to see througl a grindstone with a hole in it, gave i it to the newspapers, - and forthwitl the mouths of several wituesaes expect ed to testify against his cliënt were hermetioally sealed. Kesult : Babcock' acquittal. President Grant also gave orders to Attorney-General Pierrepon for the prompt prosecution of ex-Secre tary Belknap, Marsh - the oriminating witness, and Evans - the post-trade bied for the joint profit of Belknap anc Marsh. This order il given as prompt ly to the newspapers, - and the neit morning Marsh reports himself safely in Canada and beyond the reach of procesa. Were the letters of the Attorney-General and the order of the President writtsn and made with the stated result i view ? An experienced attorney like Pierrepont should have looked for no other issue: eren a layman like the President should have suspected it. An arerage pólice court lawyer would not have thus silunoed or driren away his witnesses. The COUNTRY was startled on Thursday of last week by the official report of a House committee preferring grave charges against Gen. W. W. Belknap, until that day Secretary of War. The report was accompanied by the testimony taken by the oommittee, and also by resolutions of impeachment, which were unanimously adopted after brief discussion. An abstract of the proceedings, with the main points of the statement of Mr. Marsh, the orimiuating witness, will be found on our fourth pego. The Judioiary Committee is charged with the prsparation of formal articles of impeachment, with power to take further testimony ; and on ,Wednesday, by a voto of 206 to 10, the House passed a bilí for the proteotion of witnesses testifying before committees, the House, or the Senate. Schenck has resigned. The President has - with " regret " no doubt - accepted his resignation. But he wus careful, in the interest of Schenck, not to do so until after that gentleman was olear of the coast of England and out of reach of a detaining warrant. The famous order " let no guilty man escape " soems to have been of the open and shut or " now you see it and now you don't see it." kind. The President ii too thick-headed (or something else) to learn anything from his oonfessed mistake in making haste to accept the resignation of Belknap. Mr. Grant's blunders (?) are always in the wrong direction. The following bilí passod by Conres at tke present Bession and approved February 5, cures a " mistake " in ;he Kerisöd Statutes of the U. S., and also maltes Talid a large number of declaration8 of intentions made before clerks of courts before the provisión of ;he Itevised htatutes became known : " Be enne teil by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of Amerca in Congress assemblee!, That the declaraton of ïnteutioii to become a citizon of the 3nited States, required by section two thousand one humlred and aizty-tive of the Kevised 5tatut3 of the United States, may be made y an alien before the clerk ot any of aid courts named in aaid section two thcusand ono hundred and sixty-fíve ; aud all such declarations heretofore mad before any such clerk are hereby declared as legal and valid as if made beforo oue of the courts named in said section." Hon. CharTeT T!"Gorh"ia, of Marshall, bas been appointed and has aocepted the position of Asst. Seoretary of the Interior. Chandler, Qorham, Gaylord, and we don't know how many Michigan subordinates in that department.

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Subjects
Old News
Michigan Argus