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my studies, & ride the circuits, & inhale country air, & enjoy otium cum digniI never dreamed of volumes of reports & written opinions. Such things were not then thought of. I retired back to P in the Spring of 1798 & in that Summer rode all over the Western wilderness & was delighted. I returned home and began my Greek & Latin, & French, & English, & law classics as formerly, & made wonderful progress in books that year.

In 1799 I was obliged to remove to Albany, in that I might not be too much. from home, & there I remained stationary for 24 years. When I came to the bench there no reports or State precedents. The opinions from the bench were delivered ore tenus. We had no law of our own, & nobody knew what it was. I first introduced a thorough examination of cases & written opinions. In Jany T 1799 the 2d case reported in 1st Johnsons cases, of Ludlow vs. Dale is a sample of the earliest. The judges when we met all assumed that foreign sentences were only good prime facie. I presented and read my written opinion that they were conclusive & they all gave up to me & so I read it in court as it stands. This was the commencement of a new plan, & then was laid the first stone in the subsequently erected temple of our jurisprudence.

7

Between that time & 1804 I rode my share of circuits, attended all the terms, & was never absent, & was always ready in every case by the day. I read in that time 8 and completely abridged the latter, & made copious digests of all

5 Words omitted in the original.

6 Probably January, 1806, first case in 1 Johnson, Ludlow v. Bowne.

7 For a note indicating an error of memory in Chancellor Kent's allusion to the tenor of this decision, see Professor Schofield's article in 1 Illinois Law Rev. p. 257.

8 Blank in the original.

the English new reports and treatises as they came out. I made much use of the Corpus Juris, & as the Judges (Livingston excepted) knew nothing of French or civil law I had immense advantage over them. I could generally put my Brethern to rout & carry my point by mysterious want of French and civil law. The Judges were republicans & very kindly disposed to everything that was French, and this enabled me without exciting any alarm or jealousy, to make free use of such authorities & thereby enrich our commercial law.

I gradually acquired preponderating influence with my brethern, & the volumes in Johnson after I became Ch. J. in 1804 show it. The first practice was for each judge to give his portion of opinions when we all agreed, but that gradually fell off, but for the two or three last years before I left the bench, I gave the most of them. I remember that in 8th Johnson all the opinions one Term are per curiam. The fact is I wrote them all, & proposed that course to avoid existing jealousy & many a per curiam opinion was so inserted for that

reason.

One

Many of the cases decided during the 16 years I was in the Supr. Court were labored by me most unmercifully, but it was necessary under the circumstances in order to subdue opposition. We had but few American precedents. judge was democratic, and my brother Spencer particularly of a bold, vigorous, dogmatic mind, & overbearing manner. English authorities did not stand very high in those feverish times, & this led me a hundred times to attempt to bear down opposition, or flame it by exhausting research & overwhelming authority. Our Jurisprudence was probably on the whole improved by it. My mind certainly was roused, & was always kept ardent and inflamed by collision.

In 1814 I was appointed Chancellor. The office I took with considerable reluctance. It had no claims. The person who left it was stupid, & it is a curious fact that for the nine years I was in that office, there was not a single decision, opinion or dictum of either of my two predecessors (Ch. Livingston & Ch.

-) from 1777 to 1814 cited to me or even suggested. I took the court as if it had been a new institution, & never before known to the U. S. I had nothing to guide me, & was left at liberty to assume all such English chancery powers and jurisdiction as I thought applicable under our constitution. This gave me great scope, & I was only checked by the revision of the Senate & court of Errors. I opened the gates of the court immediately, & admitted almost gratuitously the first year 85 counsellors, though I found there had not been but 13 admitted for 13 years before. Business flowed in with a rapid tide. The result appears in the seven volumes of Johnson's Ch. reports.

My study in Equity jurisprudence was very much confined to the topics elicited by the cases. I had previously read, of course, the modern Equity reports, down to the time, & of course I read all the new ones as fast as I could procure them. I remember reading Pear Williams as early as 1792 and made a digest of the leading doctrines. The business of the court of chancery oppressed me very much, but I took my daily exercise, & my delightful country rides among the Catskill or the Vermont mountains with my wife, & kept up my health and spirits. I always took up the cases in their order, & never left one until I had finished it. This was only doing one thing at a time. My practice was first to make myself perfectly & accurately

Blank in original.

(mathematically accurately) master of the facts. It was done by abridging the bill, and then the answers & then the dispositions, & by the time I had done this slow tedious process I was master of the cause & ready to decide it. I saw where justice lay and the moral sense decided the cause half the time, & I then set down to search the authorities until I had exhausted my books, & I might once & a while be embarrased by a technical rule, but I most always found principles suited to my views of the case, & my object was to discuss a point 10 as never to be teazed with it again, & to anticipate an angry & vexatious appeal to a popular tribune by disappointed counsel.

During those years at Albany, I read a great deal of English liturature, but not with the discipline of my former division of time. The avocations of business would not permit it. I had dropped the Greek as it hurt my eyes. I perservered in Latin, & used to read Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, Lucan, Salust, Tacitus, &c & Ciceros offices, & some of them annually. I have read Juvenal, Horace & Virgil eight or ten times. I read a great deal in Pothiers works and always consulted him when applicable. I read the Ed & Q reviews and Annl register ab initio & thoroughly, & voyages & travels & the Waverley novels &c, as other folks did. I have always been excessively fond of voyages and travels.

In 1823 a solemn era in my life arrived. I retired from the office at the age of 60, & then immediately with my son visited the Eastern States. On my return the solitude of my private office & the new dinasty did not please me. I besides would want income to live as I had been accustomed. My eldest daughter was permanently settled in N. York.

10 "So" omitted.

& I resolved to move away from Albany, & I ventured to come down to N. Y. & be Chamber Counsel, & the trustees of Columbia College immediately tendered my again the old office of professor which had been dormant from 1795. It had no salary, but I must do something for a living, & I undertook (but exceedingly against my inclination) to write & deliver law lectures. In the two characters of Chamber Counsellor and College lecturer, I succeeded by steady perseverance beyond my most sanguine expectations, & upon the whole the five years I have lived here in this City since 1823 have been happy & prosperous, & I live aside of my daughter, & I take excursions every summer with my wife & daughter all over the country. I have been twice with he 11 Canada &

in every direction. I never had better health. I walk the battery uniformly before breakfast. I give a great many written opinions, & having got heartily tired of lecturing I abandoned it, & it was my son that pressed me to prepare a volume of lectures for the press. I had no idea of publishing them when I delivered them. I wrote over one volume and published it as you know. This led me to remodel & enlarge, & now the 3rd volume will be out in a few days, & I am obliged to write a 4th to complete my law.

11 So in original.

My reading now is as you may well suppose, quite desultory, but still I read with as much zeal and pleasure as ever, I was never more engaged in my life than during the last Summer. I accepted the trust of receiver to the Franklin (insolvent) Bank, & it has occupied, & perplexed, & vexed me daily, & I had to write part of the 3rd volume, & search books a good deal for that very object, and I have revised the proof sheet.

If I had a convenient opportunity (though I do not see how I can have one) I would send the 3rd volume out to you, & another to our excellent friend, Governor Carroll, to whom I beg you will be so good as to present my best respects & the expression of my great esteem.

Your suggestion of an Equity treatise contains a noble outline of a great & useful work, but I cannot & will not enter on such a task I have much more to lose than to gain & I am quite tired of Equity law. I have done my part, & choose to live more at my ease, & to be prepared for the approaching infirmities of age. On reviewing what I have written, I had thoughts of burning it, I speak of myself too entirely, & it is entirely against my habit or taste, but I see no other way fairly to meet your desires.

I am with great respect and good wishes, JAMES KENT. Thomas Washington, Esq.,

"If "

Or the Lawyers' Dream

SOME young lawyers and law clerks published in 1901!" protested the law

were gathered in the State Library, bent upon sprinkling salt on the tail of the elusive precedent.

"This law business isn't all that it's cracked up to be," said one of the law clerks, recently graduated from a law school. "Cases, cases, everywhere, and not a case in point."

"What's the trouble?" asked a fellowworker. "You make me think of the young man who, after attending an evening law class for three weeks, was asked how he liked the law, and said that he was sorry he had learned it; there was nothing in it. Isn't that something like your case?"

"Perhaps so," admitted the law clerk, joining in the laugh against him, "but it isn't so much that I don't know how to find what is wanted, as that it is such a blame lot of work. Now look here! Here Greenleaf on Evidence (16th Ed.) states the situation as follows:

"According to one view, the evidence of execution [of the will] introduced by the proponent may suffice to raise a presumption of sanity, so as to require the opponent to introduce evidence of insanity. By another view, the evidence of execution does not raise this presumption, and the proponent therefore has the duty of coming forward, as in any other case, with some evidence of his facium probandum; i. e., sanity.'

"That isn't very conclusive, and I'd like to know how the courts have handled this question since the 16th edition of Greenleaf was published. How can I get a line on the later cases?"

"You'll have to hunt through the digests," said the librarian.

"And Greenleaf's 16th edition was

clerk. "I have got to chase through all the digests since that time, and take my chances on guessing the right digest heading at that. If they would only get up a complete table of American Cases with references to all the reports where they are reported and all the digests where they are digested, that would be a snap! Then I could take this case, Gordon v. Burris, 141 Mo. 602, cited by Greenleaf, find in the Table where it is digested and so get the reference that would cover all later cases. If publishers would do that, there'd be some sense in it."

"Yes, if!" laughed all the others, mockingly.

(And there was a joke on somebody.)

"I'd like to add to your Table,” said another young lawyer, “an annotation to show whether the cases cited have been reversed or affirmed by a higher court. Now, here I have a case, Beardslee v. Ingraham (N. Y.) 106 App Div. 506. 94 N. Y. Supp. 937. I'm going to argue a case to-morrow, and the man against me is going to rely on this case. I have an idea that it may have been reversed, but the only way I can find out is to go through every subsequent volume of the New York Appellate Division Reports. If your universal Table of Cases would give me that important bit of information, it would save a good deal of time that ought to be worth money to me."

"Yes, if!" laughed all the others, mockingly.

(And the joke was still there.)

"I have another suggestion to make," said a third lawyer in the room, who had been listening to the preceding conversation. "I had a case cited to me the other day, Montgomery v. Crossthwait, 90 Ala. 553. I've got to see that case. It is absolutely essential; but it happens there isn't a copy of that volume of Alabama Reports in town, not even in this library. I can't get that case without sending away for the volume, or sending to the clerk of court for a certified copy. Now, the chances are that that case is right here within reach of my hand, if I knew where to find it. It has certainly been reported in the Southern Reporter, probably in the Lawyers' Reports Annotated, or in the American State Reports; but I can't find it there without hunting laboriously through the tables of those several sets. Now, if your universal Table of Cases would only give parallel references to all other standard reports where the case is to be found, it would save me a lot of trouble."

"I can see another use for that Table," chipped in another lawyer, who had been listening quietly at another table. "I am struggling here with a miscitation. The Supreme Court cited the other day, in a decision which I want to use, the case of Hodges v. Causey, 77 Mass. 353. Now there is no such case as Hodges v. Causey in 77 Mass. The court has got the citation wrong, but I've got to find that case if it is in existence. My future depends upon it. I suppose it's up to me to look through every volume of every set of State Reports there are in the country. Are there forty-five now, or forty-nine? Now, if your Table of American Cases were at hand, all I would have to do would be to run my finger down the H's until I struck Hodges v. Causey, and there I'd find the correct citation, of course. If some enterprising publisher would only adopt your suggestion—”

"Yes, if!" laughed all the others, mockingly.

(And the joke was that a complete

"Yes, if!" laughed all the others, Table of American Cases, containing all mockingly.

(But they didn't see the joke.)

of these features, will be included in the Decennial Digest.)

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