process, and that he held the petitioner in custody by virtue of a warrant of arrest in due form, issued by a competent magistrate, to answer for an offense against the State laws, I presume the court, in the absence of any further showing, would instantly remand the petitioner to the custody of the State authorities without regard to his official position or the nature of his public duties.  But, on the other hand, suppose there should be a traverse of the return, averring that the warrant of the arrest, though apparently regular in all respects, was in truth but a fraudulent contrivance designed and employed for the sole purpose of hindering and obstructing the petitioner in the performance of his duties as an officer of the government of the United States; that the magistrate who issued it, knowingly and maliciously abused his authority for that purpose in pursuance of a conspiracy between himself and others, and not in good faith, and upon probable cause to bring the prisoner to justice for a crime against the State.  How then?  Here is an apparent conflict—­not a real one—­between the rights of the government of the United States and the government of the State.  The one has a right to the service of its officer, and the right to prevent his being unlawfully interfered with or obstructed in the performance of his official duties; the other has the right to administer its laws for the punishment of crime through its own tribunals; but it must be observed that the former has no right to shield one of its officers from a valid prosecution for a violation of the laws of the latter not in conflict with the Constitution and laws of the United States, nor can it be claimed that the latter has any right to suffer its laws to be prostituted, and its authority fraudulently abused, in aid of a conspiracy to defeat or obstruct the functions of the former.  Such an abuse of authority is not, and cannot be in any sense, a bona fide administration of State laws, but is itself a crime against them.  What, then, would your court do?  You would probably say:  If it is true that this man is held without probable cause under a fraudulent warrant, issued in pursuance of a conspiracy to which the magistrate who issued it was a party, to give legal color to a malicious interference with his functions as a federal official, he is the victim of a double crime—­a crime against the United States and a crime against the State—­and it is not only our duty to vindicate his right to the free exercise of his official duties, but the right of the federal government to his services, and its right to protect him in the legal performance of the same.  But if, on the other hand, he has raised a mere “false clamor”—­if he is held in good faith upon a valid warrant to answer for a crime committed against the State, it is equally as obligatory upon us to uphold its authority, and maintain its right to vindicate its own laws through its own machinery.  To determine between these two