I did not see till last night the opinion of the Judge on the subpoena duces tecum against the President.  Considering the question there as coram non judice, I did not read his argument with much attention.  Yet I saw readily enough, that, as is usual, where an opinion is to be supported, right or wrong, he dwells much on smaller objections, and passes over those which are solid.  Laying down the position generally, that all persons owe obedience to subpoenas, he admits no exception unless it can be produced in his law books.  But if the constitution enjoins on a particular officer to be always engaged in a particular set of duties imposed on him, does not this supersede the general law, subjecting him to minor duties inconsistent with these?  The constitution enjoins his constant agency in the concerns of six millions of people.  Is the law paramount to this, which calls on him on behalf of a single one?  Let us apply the Judge’s own doctrine to the case of himself and his brethren.  The sheriff of Henrico summons him from the bench, to quell a riot somewhere in his county.  The federal judge is, by the general law, a part of the posse of the State sheriff.  Would the Judge abandon major duties to perform lesser ones?  Again; the court of Orleans or Maine commands, by subpoenas, the attendance of all the judges of the Supreme Court.  Would they abandon their posts as judges, and the interests of millions committed to them, to serve the purposes of a single individual?  The leading principle of our constitution is the independence of the legislature, executive, and judiciary, of each other, and none are more jealous of this than the judiciary.  But would the executive be independent of the judiciary, if he were subject to the commands of the latter, and to imprisonment for disobedience; if the several courts could bandy him from pillar to post, keep him constantly trudging from north to south, and east to west, and withdraw him entirely from his constitutional duties?  The intention of the constitution, that each branch should be independent of the others, is further manifested by the means it has furnished to each, to protect itself from enterprises of force attempted on them by the others, and to none has it given more effectual or diversified means than to the executive.  Again; because ministers can go into a court in London, as witnesses, without interruption to their executive duties, it is inferred that they would go to a court one thousand or one thousand five hundred miles off, and that ours are to be dragged from Maine to Orleans by every criminal who will swear that their testimony ’may be of use to him.’  The Judge says, ’it is apparent that the President’s duties, as chief magistrate, do not demand his whole time, and are not unremitting.’  If he alludes to our annual retirement from the seat of government, during the sickly season, he should be told that such arrangements are made for carrying on the public business,