The leading case, however, and, in some respects, the most extreme, in upholding the power of the federal courts in the matter of the issuance of writs of habeas corpus to state authorities is that of Re Neagle.9 In that case it was held that without express statutory authorization, the general authority of the President to see that the laws of the Union are faithfully exe-cuted empowered him to appoint a deputy marshal to protect a federal judge whose life was threatened; and that upon such deputy being arrested and brought to trial in a state court upon the charge of murder for a homicide committed while acting within the line of the duty thus assigned him, he was entitled to release on habeas corpus issued by a federal judge. In this case the objection was raised that inasmuch as there was no federal statute expressly authorizing such protection as Neagle had been instructed to give, he could not be said, in the language of the act of 1867, to be "in custody for an act done or omitted in pursuance of a law of the United States." To this Justice Miller, who rendered the majority opinion of the Supreme Court, replied: "In the view we take of the Constitution of the United States, any obligation fairly and properly inferable from that instrument, or any duty of the marshal to be derived from the general scope of his duties under the laws of the United States, is a 'law' within the meaning of this phrase. It would be a great reproach to the system of government of the United States, declared to be within its sphere sovereign and supreme, if there is to be found within the domain of its powers no means of protecting the judges in the conscientious and faithful discharge of their duties, from the malice and hatred of those upon whom their judgments may operate unfavorably. . . . We do not believe that the government of the United States is thus inefficient, or that its Constitution and laws have left the high officers of the government so defenseless and unprotected." 10

9 135 U. S. 1; 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 658; 34 L. ed. 55.