thing that no limit of time be put upon his speech to the jury. He was like an old lawyer friend of mine in Missouri who was never known to mention the points of his argument, but summed it all up in the self-satisfied statement, "Eh Gad, Sir, I spoke to the jury seven solid hours!" To "get the jury" was the summit of his professional ambition; for there was the test of his power, and there he was in his glory. So he loved to try a case mainly because, at the close of the evidence, he could make a speech. His next passion was a quiet game of poker with a big bellied whisky bottle called "Black Betty" in the center of the table. As there were but few law books to study, he had become an adept in weighing jurors, witnesses, and opposing counsel; so there was nothing to do, after court adjouned in the evening, but to toy with cards and bottle at the tavern. In the early years of the republic, the people had more respect for courts and lawyers than now. Then they attended courts in droves, and, bringing provisions for man and beast, they camped in and around the county seat for days. They listened with breathless interest to the evidence in every trial, and from the arguments to the jury drew a goodly share of their meager education. The man that made the best speech was to them the best lawyer.

The ancient country lawyer was always half politician, and from the day he first read Blackstone until death claimed him, he lived in the hope that his country would call him to a position of power, dignity, honor, and glory; and often it did. His method of impressing his superiority upon the people was through the jury. There he was at home, as is the eagle among the crags and the clouds. Conscious of his power, firmly believing his client in the right, he stood before the jury the incarnation of dignity, virtue, and righteousness. Clearing his throat in slow, deliberate monotone, he commenced his argument"Gentlemen of the jury." Gradually warming up to his subject, he took off his stock and unbuttoned his collar; then his coat and vest were laid aside, and then for hours he indulged in his loftiest flights of wit, wisdom, pathos, sarcasm, invective, and illustration. All the arts, tools, tricks, and skill of the advocate were

his. He could coo like the sucking dove, or roar like the lion; but in pleading for the rights of woman, his voice was as low and soft and sweet and tremulous as the summer breeze. In his criticism and ridicule of the arguments of "the distinguished counsel on the other side," his sneering face was in itself a breach of the peace. In his denunciation of the opposing party and witnesses, he lashed himself into a fury, and swept through fact and argument like a cyclone through a forest; his big voice grew into a roar, and to the gaping listeners he appeared as terrible as an army with banners. Yet when the verdict came in and court adjourned, with the judge between them, the two opposing lawyers slowly wended their way to the tavern, where the first thing they did was to pay their respects to the contents of "Black Betty." It ought to be added that if ye lawyer of ye olden time lost a case through an adverse ruling of the court, he, like his modern brother, still found himself possessed of two remedies, both of which he generally pursued: one was to take an appeal; the other was to go down to the tavern and cuss the judge.

I have said that the name of Andrew Jackson is signed to the first constitution of Tennessee. That instrument dates from the year 1796. Jackson was consequently but twenty-nine years of age when he signed it. He was one of the five delegates to the constitutional convention from Davidson county. The fact that at that early age he was selected to fill so important an office, is not his least title to distinction. When the new state was first ushered into the union, he was elected to the seat of its first representative in congress. After attending a session of congress at Philadelphia, he resigned the office and returned to Tennessee to take up the frazzled threads of his private affairs. Soon afterwards Gen. Cocke resigned his seat in the senate of the United States from Tennessee, and Mr. Jackson was appointed in his stead. Again he turned his face toward the Northeast, proceeded on horseback to Philadelphia, and served as a senator during another session of congress. He was thus a member of the house at the age of twenty-nine, and a senator at the age of

thirty. He was barely of sufficient age to be eligible to the latter office. This office he in turn resigned, and returned to Tennessee in June, 1798, to find that Hon. Howell Tatum had resigned the office of judge of the superior court of law and equity. To this office Jackson was immediately appointed, and he filled it until June, 1804, a period of six years, when he resigned it, and was succeeded by John Overton.

The court to which he was thus elevated was created by the first legislature of the state of Tennessee, under the authorization of the new constitution. It was composed of three judges, any one or more of whom might hold any court. The territorial legislature had, two years before, organized a judicial system composed of a superior court and a number of inferior courts. I do not gather from the constitution or statutory provisions relating to the superior court created by the legislature under the new constitution, that it was anything more than a court of nisi prius. It had power to issue writs of certiorari; but I find no provision for writs of error or appeals, nor any provision for the meeting of the judges in banc to hear appeals from courts composed of single judges, or cases reserved by such courts. It will be recalled that the early superior court of Georgia was organized in the same way; though the judges of that court early began, from the necessity of the case, and without any statutory authorization, to meet in banc to decide important cases reserved for that purpose; and this was doubtless the plan of judicial organization of other states at an early period.

Of the judicial work of Mr. Justice Jackson, no printed memorial has come down to us. A few of the decisions in Overton's reports, subsequently compiled and published, partly on the recommendation of ex-Judge Jackson, may have been rendered while he sat as a judge of the court; but they are all per curiam opinions. All of the reported cases in the decision of which he may have participated, will be found in 1 Overton, from pages 3 to 17, and in 2 Overton, page 1.*

*These cases were: Hoggart v. McCrary; bill in equity to settle disputed boundaries; issue framed and tried by a jury. Green v. Em

The decisions which are collected in these two volumes, which I have cited by the name of Overton, but which are generally cited by the name of 1 and 2 Tennessee, are tersely but clearly reported. They They exhibit a commendable independence of thought, and a just disposition to adapt the common law of England to the new situation and surroundings. They afford a rare mingling of common sense with legal sense. They have always been held in high esteem by the profession, and deservedly so.

Of Jackson's character as a judge we know as little from tradition as from print. It is said that, when presiding, he wore a gown; if so, it indicates a proper appreciation of the dignity of his office. But it is to be said that there was then a greater disposition to imitate English habits and customs than there has been since the war of 1812. Some of those habits and customs might well be resumed. The judges of our appellate courts ought to be enrobed. The members of the bar and the auditors ought to rise spontaneously when the judges come into court to take their seats. The bar, standing, ought to bow to the judges, and the judges ought to bow to the bar, as they do in France.* And when the proclamation of the opening of the court has been made, the presiding judge ought to invite the bar to be seated merson, 1 Overton, 13; trespass for the accidental killing of a slave; submitted to the jury against the objection of the defendant that the remedy was case, and not trespass, the court saying that the distinction between these two remedies was often a nice one. Kerr v. Porter, 1 Overton, 15; bill in equity to set aside a grant of land made by the State of North Carolina. The court refused to hear evidence of alterations and erasures in the entry book of the surveyor-general, and refused to go behind the grant and to hear evidence that the grantee had not rendered the services to the State of North Carolina which entitled him to make the entry. Sweetman v. Wilbur, 2 Overton, 1. This was an action of ejectment. The court refused to issue an attachment for contempt against the defendant because of his refusal to confess lease, entry, and ouster, on the ground that no such process had been used in this state, and that the use of it might affect the liberty of the citizen.

* While this is the French custom, we address our judges as “Your Honor," and the French advocate addresses the president of the court as plain "Monsieur."

before the business of the court is proceeded with. Instead of that, the judges enter the court dressed in all sorts of ways, and often not neatly or well dressed. The members of the bar, dressed equally badly, pay no attention to the judges when they come in. Some are standing with their backs toward the bench, and do not turn round. Some are sitting with their legs over the arms of their chairs; and some even salute the bench with the soles of their shoes, poised on the counsel table. too much democracy even for democratic institutions.

This is

While we know little of the actual work of Jackson as a judge, of his character as a judge we can, from our knowledge of his character as developed in his subsequent career, form a safe conclusion. In three characteristics he surpassed almost all other men: (1) A love of justice and a corresponding hatred of wrong; (2) an absolute courage and a total want of fear; (3) an outspoken frankness which was a stranger to all guile. Added to this, his faculties were intuitively quick, and his temper was hot and rash. His honesty was so intense that it amounted to prejudice, for prejudice is nothing but intensified honesty. We must then regard him as a judge who saw the justice of a case at a flash, as soon as the facts were stated to him. From that moment he ceased to be a judge, and, losing all further receptivity, he became an advocate, but an advocate for justice and right—an advocate for the weak against the strong. If the jury went wrong, away went their verdict. It took thirteen men to commit a wrong of that kind in his court. It was impossible for him to be neutral. It was said of him in after years that he never had been neutral, even in a dog fight; but he had this good quality, that he always took sides with the under dog: Jackson rebelled against tyranny and oppression, and took sides with the poor and oppressed. He was not like some of our modern judges whose intellects are completely hoodooed whenever a rich suitor, or a powerful corporation, or an aggrandized trust, stalks into court in the person of eminent counsel. We may be sure that he did not regard his court as the mere bulwark of the sacred