his profession in the courts of Garrard county, where he was immediately successful, Boyle being always his friend and faithful helper. He represented Garrard county in the legislature, in 1809 and 1811. In the meantime, In the meantime,

he had been appointed by Gov. Scott, an associate justice of the court of appeals, but the legislature having reduced the number of judges of this court from four to three, he soon afterwards resigned. A vacancy occurring in 1813, he was again appointed by Governor Shelby. Those who opposed the decision of the court on the stay laws, charged Judge Owsley, as they had charged Chief Justice Boyle, with an adherence to the precedents of the English common law, inconsistent with its adaptation to litigation of a new country and a Republican form of government. Those not familiar with the administration of the laws, will understand that in the absence of a statutory provision, the common law still obtains in this country. But at the period in question the sentiment against England was so intense that not even its admirable system of common law procedure was acceptable to the masses. To them nothing good could come out of the English Nazareth.

Benjamin Mills, the third member of the court, was a native of Maryland, born January 12, 1779. He obtained his education at Washington, Pennsylvania, whither his family had removed, and afterwards studied medicine. He was for a time president of Washington Academy, afterwards known as Washington College and later and now bearing the high distinction of Washington and Lee University of Virginia. On the removal of his family to Bourbon county, Kentucky, he abandoned medicine and collegiate work, taking up the study of law, to the practice of which he was admitted at Paris in 1806. He soon established an excellent practice and for six years represented Bourbon county in the legislature. In 1816 he was defeated for a seat in the United States senate by three votes,

his successful opponent being Isham Talbott of the same county as himself. In 1817, Governor Slaughter appointed him a circuit judge and in February, 1820, the same governor commissioned him a judge of the court of appeals to succeed John Rowan, resigned.

Judge Lucius Little, writing of this momentous period in the history of the state says: "Fortunately for the honor of the bench and the state, and the safety of the fundamental law, three men of more firmness, of greater intellectual and moral courage, or better fitted in all respects, to meet the issue forced upon them, never at one time adorned the bench of that Court."

"The judges," said the late Chief Justice Robertson, "were charged with arrogating by their decision supremacy over the popular will. Their authority to declare void any act of the legislature was denied. They were denounced by the organs and the stump orators of the Relief party as usurpers and self-made kings."

There sprang into existence in a single night, a full-fledged party, a mushroom growth, known at first as the Relief party and later as the New Court party, which was destined to a brief but tempestuous existence, though, for a time, by its sophistry and the demands. of self-interest, it dominated all the affairs of the State. It is not difficult to understand why this should be so. The people were deeply in debt; they were honest people and wanted to pay their debts. They believed that the stay laws enacted by the legislature gave them an opportunity to do this and they viewed with little or no patience the decisions of the courts which interfered with their honest intent.

Years afterwards, when the panic of 1893 had deranged financial affairs and the masses were in debt beyond their power to pay, false prophets came preaching the free coinage of silver as a panacea for all woes of indebtedness and the people heard them gladly. These

were honest people, recognizing their obligations and desiring to discharge them to the last cent. When in 1896, a prophet appeared among them offering a silver dollar as the solution of their troubles they flocked to his standard and six millions of them declared pathetically at the polls, their desire to have the government set its mints to work, coining, without money and without price, the silver which should set them free.

It is a callous spirit, indeed, which can contemplate the helpless debtors of 1823 and of 1896, without a sympathetic feeling, however much he may differ from them as to the means to be adopted for their relief. Time

has shown them to have been in error in each instance, but it will never show them to have been otherwise than anxious for some means which would enable them to discharge their indebtedness to the last penny. That in each of these eras, demagogues took advantage of the situation to advance their own political interests in no wise reflects upon the honest citizenship which they misled. There are more honest than dishonest people in the world and the final outcome of all questions of policy, is that the right will prevail at the final issue and that the demagogue will lose his hold upon the people whom he misled.

In 1823, the Democratic and Whig parties were temporarily retired from the political stage in Kentucky, to be succeeded by the Relief and Anti-Relief parties, in which Whig and Democrat, erstwhile political foes, touched elbows in the ranks of one or the other of the new parties, forgetful of past differences and afire with the enthusiasm of the new alignment. A rehearing of the adverse decision of the court of appeals delivered October 8, 1823, had been asked for and denied.

After this denial, the ranks of the Relief party were closed up and the great struggle was on. When the legislature assembled in 1823, the discussion had been largely academic. Judge George Robertson, an Anti-Relief man, had been elected speaker of the house notwithstanding that the Relief party had an apparent majority of sixteen. A high authority has stated that "a month later such a thing would have been morally impossible." The scattering vote, the element in every legislature which does not quite know what it believes until it learns in which direction the majority wind blows, was consolidated into a compact mass and the Relief party was ready for active warfare, with a following more intensely partisan than the state had ever before known.

The greatest advocate of the Relief party was John Rowan, then a member of the house from Jefferson county. Rowan was a native

of Pennsylvania, a great lawyer and advocate. He had been a delegate to the constitutional convention in 1799 from Nelson county; secretary of state under Governor Greenup; a member of congress for one term; five times a member of the legislature from Nelson. county, and twice from Jefferson; and by appointment, a judge of the court of appeals in 1819, which position he had resigned in 1820. Col. John Mason Brown, a distinguished lawyer at the Louisville bar, at the time of his death, wrote of Rowan: "His magnificent presence, his rotund and mellow voice, ready and apt flow of speech and a manner that was at once noble and aggressive, gave him complete domination over the majority." He had no associate that was his equal in either learning or resource. Imperious and forceful, he stood towering above all his associates, ready, willing and equal to meeting every attack upon the cause which he espoused.

On the Anti-Relief side, there stood high among his associates George M. Bibb, a great lawyer, who had been the chief justice of the court of appeals and a United States senator. By his side, as able lieutenants, were W. T. Barry, Amos Kendall and Francis P. Blair, the former being lieutenant governor with the high qualities of a popular orator. Kendall and Blair, in later years, were to assume prominence as national characters. With

these, there stood, also Crittenden, Robertson, Green, Wickliffe and Hardin, the latter that distinguished Kentuckian who was later to be known in national, as in state affairs, as Ben Hardin, to whom John Randolph the eccentric Virginia statesman, applied the soubriquet of "Kitchen Knife," in recognition of his sometimes rude but always forceful attacks. It is claimed that Mr. Clay was in sympathy with the Anti-Relief party, but had in a private letter expressed the determination to take no part in Kentucky politics, his great mental powers being, at that time attracted toward national affairs.

The Relief party was prepared for action, but hesitated in deciding what that action should be. The appellate court had given its decision against the constitutionality of the relief laws already enacted by the legislature, and had refused to grant a rehearing. The legislature had attempted to "address" Judge Clark out of office and had failed. The people were in admitted distress, yet were conservative, and the masses had high respect for the courts. They desired relief; indeed, they were entitled to relief, but in what shape should it be offered them? A mistake upon the part of the majority in the legislature would be fatal, yet something had to be offered the people. What should it be, in what shape should it come? That was the great question confronting the Relief leaders. They had a majority but not a two-thirds majority, and hesitated at an attempt to "address from office" the judges of the court of appeals who had rendered the obnoxious opinion. Suppose they could procure the necessary majority and force these judges from office, whom would Governor Adair appoint in their places? He was a man who had nobly served his country in war and in peace. Unjustly or not, he had been suspected of sympathy with the projects of Aaron Burr. It is simple justice. to say, even at this late date, that there was no more than a suspicion to that effect and

never any proof. He seems entitled to something more than the Scotch verdict, "not proven."

Governor Adair was an old man; he adhered to the majority but kept on good terms with the minority. In latter day political phraseology, it is feared that the governor would now be accused of "carrying water on both shoulders."

The majority were afraid to proceed to extreme measures, while uncertain as to the action Governor Adair might take. They decided upon a policy of education for the people, showing them the errors of the appellate court and teaching them that all power rested in their hands and flowed from them at the polls to the men whom they selected to represent them, and that any executive or judicial interpretation contrary to the will of the legislative body "uprooted free government.'

Mr. Rowan, probably the author of this theory and certainly its exponent, introduced in the house a preamble and resolutions, the latter covering less than one page, while the preamble required twenty-six for its complete setting forth. This was certainly a fair illustration of thundering in the index.

The concluding sentence of this voluminous protest which was probably not understood by one-half of those members who gave it their support was as follows: "The members of the legislature, while they admit the power of the court to declare any law unconstitutional and void which is obviously and palpably so, feel themselves reluctantly constrained by the most solemn obligations of duty-obligations of duty to themselves, to their constituents, to posterity and to the principles of rational liberty throughout the civilized world to make their deliberate protest against the erroneous and usurping doctrines of that decision."

In other words, the legislature was called upon to usurp judicial authority and declare for itself what was or was not constitutional,

when a decision of the courts ran counter to its own opinions, though the constitution makes equal the Executive, Judicial and Legislative departments.

The resolutions, happily less extensive in form, were in keeping with the preamble, and denunciatory of the decision as "subversive of the dearest and most invaluable political rights," declaring if it were not reversed by the court, the legislature should withhold facilities for its enforcement and should also deny the agency of ministerial officers in propagating its eroneous doctrines. "The legislature," it said, "should repeal laws believed to be constitutional, when not expedient, not the courts." There followed the introduction of this revolutionary preamble and resolutions, a spirited and able discussion, but the opposition was of no avail, as they were adopted by the large majority which the Relief party now had in the house.

It was now important to educate the people into a belief that the preamble and resolutions were not only law but gospel. A state election was imminent and it was apparent that the political division would be upon the question of Relief.

The older political parties, at that day, had not adopted the now familiar practice of presenting political platforms. Political prejudice had hitherto been "a good enough platform until after election." Now, however, the Relief party had a platform in the preamble and resolutions drawn by Mr. Rowan and adopted by the legislature.

At the approaching election in 1824, a governor and other state officers were to be chosen. As has been stated, there were, for the time being, no such parties as the Whig and Democratic parties. In their stead, for the coming election at least, the parties were Relief and Anti-Relief. A distinguished gentleIman of that day, writing of the situation, said: "I fear our state will undergo a degree

of excitement and division of parties that may disturb it for years to come.”

The Relief party named for governor, Joseph Desha, and Robert McAfee, for lieutenant governor; the Anti-Relief party nominated for governor Christopher Tompkins, and for lieutenant governor, W. B. Blackburn. The counties, contrary to the practice now prevailing, put forward their strongest men for the general assembly. The contest was a memorable one, and at the election, then held in August, the Relief party won. As is now the case, only half of the senate was chosen, the remaining half holding over from the previous session. That body stood twenty-two Relief and sixteen Anti-Relief. In the house, numbering one hundred members, sixty-one members were of the Relief party; thirty-nine, Anti-Relief. The popular vote for governor was as follows: Desha, 38,378; Tompkins, 22,499.

There were changes in the house membership, but it remained a very strong body. Mr. Rowan came back as a matter of course. The Anti-Relief party lost in numbers, but made some strong intellectual gains. James Simpson, who came from Clark county, was afterwards an able member of the court of appeals, as was Daniel Breck, who with Squire Turner, an able lawyer, represented Madison county. Henry Crittenden, afterwards a member of congress, came from Shelby; Robert Wickliffe from Fayette, and Ben Hardin and Ben Chapeze, from Nelson. Judge Little, who has known many legislatures, says: "Rarely has a legislative body averaged so well in talent."

When the legislature assembled November 1st, it was organized, of course, by the Relief majority, Robert J. Ward, of Scott, a new member, being chosen speaker.

This legislature, like its predecessor, seemed to believe in the value of preambles and resolutions, especially where they were of great

Vol. 1-16.