sequel verified the assertion. He was tried and convicted, and sentenced to death.

Beauchamp had been instigated to the deed by his wife, with whom, it was charged, Sharpe had maintained improper relations. The paternity of a bastard being ascribed to him in the legislative canvass, his friends sought to repel it by showing the child of negro blood. This circumstance actuated the woman to revenge, and she only married Beauchamp on his promise to kill Sharpe. After Beauchamp's conviction, and shortly before execution, he and his wife attempted suicide. The latter succeeded, but Beauchamp, in a semi-conscious state, suffered the penalty of the law.

A bill was shortly introduced and passed the House repealing the reorganization act. In the Senate the vote on the bill was a tie, and Lieutenant-Governor McAfee voting against it, defeated it. After this a joint resolution was adopted by the General Assembly providing that "a committee of six from each house be raised for the purpose of conferring and devising such practical measures as to them shall seem most expedient, in order to settle the difficulties in relation to the Appellate Court." From this committee, as well as from others, came various propositions of settlement. To state them, or any of them, would reflect no credit on the proposers. An unpleasant suspicion of trickery was around them all. All were rejected, and matters remained as they were.

The new court sat during the spring term, and part of the fall term of 1825. In October it ceased to decide causes, although it continued its sittings a short while longer. After the Legislature convened that year, Blair, the clerk, closed his office and refused either to surrender the records or permit either litigant or counsel to have access to them. Thereupon the House passed a resolution declaring that it was the duty of the old court, through its sergeant, to regain possession of its records. On this Blair guarded his office with an armed force. The Legislature adjourned after a session of six weeks. The majority in the House published a florid address "To the Freemen of Kentucky," in which old court woes and new court sins were elaborately enumerated. "On you," said the address, "hangs the fate of the Constitution. Having done all that we could, we submit the issue to God and the people." Mr. Hardin was one of the signers, but to George Robertson belongs the credit of authorship.

Although maintaining a precarious existence, the new court was doomed. The year 1826 witnessed the final and complete triumph of

the Old Court party. In both branches of the Legislature its majority was decided. That year, James Clark, the circuit judge who first declared the replevin law unconstitutional, was elected to Congress from the Ashland district, by nearly one thousand majority. During the legislative session that followed an act was passed declaring to be in full force all acts pretended to be repealed by the reorganization acts. The bill was vetoed by Governor Desha, but passed, notwithstanding, and became a law December 30, 1826. The force under Blair laid down its arms, and that warlike functionary surrendered the records of which he had made conquest. Thus formally and finally ended this memorable contest.

During its existence, the new court rendered seventy-two opinions -the first April 19, 1825; the last October 28, following. Of these Haggin delivered twenty-seven, Trimble seventeen, Davidge fifteen, Barry thirteen. Although preserved in 2 Monroe's Reports, they have always been regarded as the apocrypha of Kentucky law. Deprived of extrinsic authority, their merits have never given them currency. It is stated by Collins that the old court sat and decided cases simultaneously with the new. This statement is, perhaps, inadvertent. At all events, no opinions were published by the old court during the period the new court sat, except for about two weeks. The reports of old court decisions show an interval from December 15, 1824, until October 15, 1825, during which no opinions were delivered by it. The last opinion of the new court bears date the 28th of October. The old court resumed its regular sittings December, 1825, although the reorganization act was not repealed for more than a year afterward.

Judge Boyle resigned as chief-justice November 8, 1826, to become Federal district judge for Kentucky. This position he held until his death, January 28, 1835. "As a lawyer,” said Judge Robertson, “he was candid, conscientious, and faithful; as a statesman, honest, disinterested, and patriotic; as a judge, pure, impartial, and enlightened; as a citizen, upright, just, and faultless; as a neighbor, kind, affable, and condescending; as a man, chaste, modest, and benignant; as a husband, most constant, affectionate, and devoted." Judge Mills continued in office until 1828. He then resigned and resumed practice at Paris, in which his success was commensurate with his wishes. An apoplectic stroke ended his life December 6, 1831. Although kind to those with whom he associated, he sought public approval by inflexible integrity rather than by popular arts. His success in the

practice rested on his profound knowledge of the law. He was a clear and forcible speaker, but a lack of good voice detracted from his oratory. Judge Owsley resigned simultaneously with Judge Mills. His subsequent life was in part unpleasantly interwoven with that of Mr. Hardin, and will be referred to in future pages. In concluding the subject, it may be observed that the influence of the old and new court struggle did not end with the overthrow of the latter. Said Duff Green in a letter dated Louisville, September 6, 1826, to Governor Edwards, of Illinois: "The old and new court question is already lost in this State. * * * The new court men, with scarce one exception, are for Jackson, and the strong men of the old court party are more than divided in his favor." Why the new court men as a body took refuge under the banner of the "old hero," is one of those political problems for which many reasons can be given, yet none with entire assurance. A quarter of a century later, during the discussions attending the proposition for the constitutional convention of 1849, it was observed by an intelligent writer (but ardent Whig) that "the political parties in our State took the form and organization which they have retained with little variation ever since, in the fierce and bitter struggle growing out of the attempt of the Legislature to interfere with the contracts of individuals, and the firm resistance of the courts to this interference." * * "Whatever names parties may have worn since, whatever questions may have agitated or excited them, the lines then drawn have never been obliterated, and never will be. They are the eternal lines which distinguish the great antagonistic principles in society, which divide the constitutional conservative on the one side from the Jacobin and the radical on the other."* In so far as this writer traces the organization of parties he is in the main correct. However mistaken it was, still it is unjust to attribute to the New Court party the principles of Jacobinism or radicalism. Republican government was a newer institution then than now. The principle that the majority should rule was unthinkingly accepted as the essence of liberty. The Legislature represented the people, and a majority in the Legislature represented a majority of the people. Such was the argument. The division of the powers of Government into co-ordinate departments was not practically understood. Constitutional limitations on the power of a legislative majority seemed restrictions on Republican freedom. Questions arising on the distinction between the remedy and obligation of contracts have ever been difficult and vexatious to the learned. That a party, respectable in

An anonymous writer in "Old Guard."

numbers and intelligence, should have fallen into error as to such questions, or as to the just limit of legislative power, at a period when the burdens of the debtor class were ruinous, furnishes no just ground to charge its members with lack of political integrity, or with being intentionally unfaithful to the cause of constitutional government. Referring to the "old and new court" controversy, Mr. Hardin, on a memorable occasion long afterward, said: "I was in the battle from the commencement to the end. I devoted my time in the cause of the old judges. I spent my money and shed my blood at the capitol door in its defense."

CHAPTER XIII.

JACKSONIAN LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.

may well be believed that for a score of years immediately after 1824 the career of every prominent politician in the United States was materially affected by the advent into political life of a single individual—and it is positively asserted to be so as to those of Kentucky. Ordinarily, nothing is more idle than to speculate as to the course of events, had certain prime causes not transpired. But in the year 1824 nothing seemed more a matter of course than that John Quincy Adams should succeed himself, or whether he did or not, that Henry Clay would succeed him. The history of the twenty-five years preceding assuredly warranted the assumption. Jefferson had been secretary of State under John Adams, and had succeeded him in the presidency. Madison had been secretary under Jefferson and succeeded him. Monroe, who had been secretary under Madison, succeeded him to the presidency.* John Quincy Adams had been secretary under Monroe and he, likewise, succeeded his chief. Mr. Parton calls it the period of the "secretary dynasty." Clay being secretary under Adams, why should he not also attain the presidency?

Clay had represented his country with great honor at the peace of Ghent. His career in Congress had been brilliant-eclipsing all rivals. He had been the friend and supporter of the preceding administrations and enjoyed their favor. He had frequently been chosen to the speakership of the House of Representatives, and acquitted himself always with credit. His talents and patriotism were conceded on all hands. The causes that helped Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams to the presidency seemed to have lost none of their force in his favor, but, on the contrary, pointed to him as the heir apparent. Yet, with the precedents of a quarter of a century and all these auspicious omens, the advent of a single man reversed all precedents and turned the tide of events. That man, it is needless to say, was Andrew Jackson. Why this was so is one of the curious phenomena of political history.

* Mr. Hardin, in February, 1816, in a speech in Congress, referred to Mr. Monroe as the "heir apparent."

ΙΟ