another Milligan decision, undermining, perhaps, the whole fabric of Congressional Reconstruction. Had not the court been deterred by the critical condition of public affairs, it might with perfect propriety have retained its jurisdiction and decided in favor of McCardle, since the Act of March 27 was glaringly unjust as to him. But the judges were intimidated by the awful pother o'er their heads and were glad of an excuse to drop McCardle. It was not so easy to drop Trumbull, however. He was both Senator and retained counsel in this case. Therefore he ought not to have used the former position to help his own side in the litigation. The bill did not originate with him, or his committee, but he voted for it twice, although his vote was not needed. There was a two-thirds majority without him. True, he maintained that the bill did not apply to McCardle, but most of the Senators who took part in the debate held that it did. In a case of doubt involving the rights of a litigant, he ought to have refrained from voting. Eventually he received $10,000 as compensation for legal services in this and one other case in which he had been retained by the War Department. The amount was fixed by Stanton, and was paid in part by him and in part by Secretary Rawlins after Grant became President. Somewhat later this payment became a subject of criticism in hostile newspapers; and inasmuch as the McCardle case had been tried during Johnson's Administration, it was hastily assumed that it had had some shady connection with Trumbull's vote of not guilty in the impeachment case. When it became evident that the opponents of Johnson were the ones who had employed him and fixed the amount to be paid, the accusers said that his action was contrary to law and that he ought not to have taken any pay at all for legal services to the Government while he was a Senator. This charge was made by Chandler, of Michigan, on the floor of the Senate, and it led to a sharp debate, in which Chandler was called to order by the Vice-President for using unparliamentary language. There was a law, enacted in 1808, prohibiting executive officers of the Government from making contracts with members of Congress, and prohibiting the latter from receiving payment therefor. This law did not apply in terms to legal services, and the presumption was that it did not apply to them in spirit, since there were precedents for such employment of members of Congress as late as 1864, when Roscoe Conkling, then a member of the House from New York, had been employed by the War Department and had been paid for the service rendered.