have been charged or even suspected of anything wrong in the matter.  The magistrate who issued the warrant for your arrest may possibly have thought it his duty to do so, without looking beyond the “railing accusation” of a baffled and infuriated murderess, which all the world instinctively knew to be false, yet I suppose there is not an intelligent man, woman, or child on the continent who does not consider it an infamous and unmitigated outrage, or who is not thoroughly satisfied that the brave fellow who defended you so opportunely was legally and morally justifiable in what he did.  I have not been in a condition to think very coherently, much less to read anything in relation to the question of jurisdiction raised by the State authorities in the habeas corpus issued in your behalf by the U.S.  Circuit Court, and it may be that, from the mere newspaper’s reports that have reached me, I have been unable to fully apprehend the objections which are made to the courts hearing all the facts on the trial of the writ; but it occurs to me as a plain principle of common sense that the federal government should not only have the power, but that it is necessary to its own preservation, to protect its officers from being wantonly or maliciously interfered with, hindered or obstructed in the lawful exercises of their official duties, not arbitrarily of course, but through its regularly constituted agencies, and according to the established principles of law; and where such obstruction consists in the forcible restraint of the officer’s liberty, I see no reason why the federal judiciary should not inquire into it on habeas corpus, when it is alleged to be not only illegal but contrived for the very purpose of hindering the officer in the discharge of his official duties, and impairing the efficiency of the public service.  It is true that in such an investigation a real or apparent conflict between State and federal authority may be presented, which a due regard to the respective rights of the two governments would require to be considered with the utmost caution, such caution, at least, as it is fair to presume an intelligent court would always be careful to exercise, in view of the absolute importance of maintaining as far as possible the strictest harmony between the two jurisdictions.  Yet those rights are determined and by fixed legal principles, which it would be impossible for a court to apply in any case without a competent knowledge of the facts upon which their application in the particular case might depend.  For instance, if your court should issue a writ of habeas corpus for the relief of a federal officer upon the averments in his petition that he was forcibly and illegally restrained of his liberty for the purpose of preventing him from performing his official duties, and it should appear in the return to the writ that the person detaining the prisoner was a ministerial officer of the State government authorized by its laws to execute its