only when property rights seemed to be threatened with irreparable injury. It would be too much to expect infallibility in all these cases. But errors are corrected on appeal. Assaults upon our judiciary and unwarranted and unjust criticism of our judges undermine the people's trust in the courts and threaten the whole structure of our civilization. The United States judges are justly sensitive to public opinion and distressed by unjust and ignorant criticism. They know how important it is that they should retain public confidence. They realize, as their opinions constantly show, that "next to doing right, the great object in the administration of public justice should be to give public satisfaction." But they cannot sacrifice truth to popularity, the Constitution to present expediency. Those who assail the federal judges should bear in mind that the founders in their wisdom constituted the judicial power our bulwark against unadvised, hasty and tyrannical action on the part of those in power and our shield against "those sudden and strong passions to which we are exposed," and which, if unchecked and unrestrained, may lead to ruin. However unpopular and disagreeable the task may be of setting aside an act of Congress or of a state legislature, however painful it must be to any just man to become the subject of calumny, a federal judge has no choice, no discretion, no will of his own, but must hear and decide according to his conscience every case submitted to him within the jurisdiction of his court as conferred and imposed by the Constitution and laws of the United States. Let us always bear in mind the lofty words of the great Chief Justice in the case of Aaron Burr, in the decision which excited so much public prejudice and clamor one hundred years ago, when, speaking of the duty of a judge, he said: "If he has no choice in the case; if there is no alternative presented to him but a dereliction of duty, or the opprobrium of those who are denominated the world, he merits the contempt as well as the indignation of his country who can hesitate which to embrace."[49] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 23: Address before the New York State Bar Association at its thirty-first annual meeting held in New York, January 25, 1908.] [Footnote 24: 2 Dallas' Reports, p. 419.] [Footnote 25: 6 Wheaton's Reports, pp. 406-407.] [Footnote 26: 134 United States Reports, pp. 1, 22.] [Footnote 27: 108 United States Reports, p. 447.] [Footnote 28: 200 United States Reports, pp. 283, 284.] [Footnote 29: 1 Cranch's Reports, p. 163.] [Footnote 30: 11 Wallace's Reports, p. 183.] [Footnote 31: 16 Wallace's Reports, p. 156.] [Footnote 32: 106 United States Reports, p. 205.] [Footnote 33: 101 United States Reports, p. 343.] [Footnote 34: The Law of the Constitution, 8th ed., p. 189.] [Footnote 35: Reported by Hargrave, 19 Howell's State Trials, pp. 1030, 1073.] [Footnote 36: 6 Best and Smith's Queen's Bench Reports (1865), p. 297.]