"More than fifty years ago, in conversation with an old Virginia lawyer, himself a man of marked ability and originality of thought, he remarked to me that as soon as the Virginians in Kentucky quit fighting Indians and betook themselves to stock-raising, the race began to degenerate. This process he considered as then going on, and predicted the time as not far distant when they would be sunk to the level of stock-breeders everywhere. He was an extravagant talker, and his language made little impression on me at that time. I am now inclined to think more favorably of his views, and that there is some hidden incompatibility between stock-raising and the higher flights of the human mind. Solomon seems to have had a perception 'What can a man know whose task is of

of the same fact, when he asked: bullocks?'"*

That one's physical surroundings affect character was an opinion of Victor Hugo:

"The configuration of the soil decides many a man's actions. The earth is more his accomplice than we believe. The education of lights and shadows is very different. The mountain is a citadel; the forest an ambuscade. The one inspires audacity, the other teaches craft. In the Alps of Switzerland, rather than the dikes of Holland, would one search for a hero."

Without contrasting them or measuring them by a common standard, it is conceded that the type of the pioneer differs from his descendant of the third and fourth and subsequent generations. The latter with less daring is more intelligent, with less vigor lives longer, with less fortitude is more patient, with less activity accomplishes more. To the pioneer belongs the warrior's laurel-to his descendant the moral and intellectual achievements of peace.

"Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war."

CHAPTER III.

A LAW STUDENT.

Ө

N entering his twentieth year, young Hardin was fairly educated. He was not only well grounded in the English branches, but had made considerable progress in Latin and Greek. Besides, he had studied much of the more solid literature of the last century. His early promise had been followed by a development of decided mental vigor and strong purpose. It was but natural that he should seek an arena for the abilities of which he was conscious. Already the ambitious talent of the West-that formerly sought employment and renown in arms and adventure-had turned to statesmanship and the law. The legal profession was especially rich in opportunities by reason of the great litigation that deluged the country.

His kinsmen, Robert Wickliffe, of Lexington, and Martin D. Hardin, then of Richmond, had studied law with the well-known George Nicholas, and, though yet young, had already become prominent in the profession. A circumstance like this was not without influence on young Hardin. From Martin D. Hardin he no doubt received advice and encouragement as to his future. So it was, whatever the cause, that in April, 1804, he entered the law office of the latter at Richmond, as a student.* Of his experience while there little is known. That town, first settled in 1785, was then inconsiderable in population and primitive in manners. It was chiefly important as the seat of justice for the county of Madison-an honor rescued surreptitiously from a rival town-Milford. The modern Richmond has forgotten its rival in the enjoyment of an enviable prosperity—a prosperity little anticipated by those who founded the village on the Town Fork of Dreaming creek. But Madison county was then, as it has always been, the fairest among her sisters. Fertile as a garden, abounding in wealth, rich in tradition, distinguished as the home of talent and genius, noted for its brave men and beautiful women, it has ever stood for the best type of all that has given fame to Kentucky. In the year 1800, of the forty-seven counties in the State, Madison ranked fourth.

Mr. Hardin's Owsley speech.

It was amid such surroundings that Martin D. Hardin began his short but brilliant career. He was the eldest son of Colonel John Hardin, was born in Pennsylvania in 1780, and in early boyhood emigrated with his parents to Kentucky, where he grew to manhood. He was admitted to the bar when twenty years of age. He began public life as a member of the State Legislature in 1805, and rapidly increased his reputation for talents. He was not only a scholarly lawyer, but of exalted moral worth.* The influence of so skillful and excellent a teacher upon so receptive a student, for good, can not be readily overestimated.

At that period in the history of the profession in Kentucky its leaders were usually not without one or more students in their offices. The law student not only enjoyed the use of his preceptor's library, but had the benefit of counsel and instruction. The course of instruction consisted of oral examinations, explanations of legal principles, and directions in the forms of pleading and conveyancing. Professional teachers in universities and law schools have since supplanted, in a large degree, the old mode of teaching the law in the West. It is, however, doubted if any seat of learning ever graduated from its halls a larger average of well-equipped lawyers than were those that took their course in the office and under the instruction of the justlycelebrated George Nicholas, of Lexington.

There were no public law libraries at that day in Kentucky. Legal publications in the United States were few and of little importance. Story was yet an experiment as a young lawyer, and Kent did not commence his "Commentaries" until nearly twenty years later. American authors were scarce, and, for the most part, they contented themselves with annotating reprints of English works. It is doubtful if the Year books of England or the works of Glanvil, Bracton, Britton, or Fleta, or even the less ancient treatises of Stamford, Cromton, or Lambard and Dalton were to be found in any library in Kentucky in 1805. As the student was being inducted into the mysteries of the legal science, and by way of a first degree had his spirit broken on the wheel, as it were, or, in other words, was set at "Coke upon Littleton," it may be doubted if he regretted anything more ancient. The following books were usually found in the libraries of the best equipped lawyers: Tucker's Blackstone, Adams or Tillinghast on Ejectment, Tidd's Practice, Espinasse's Nisi Prius, Hale's Pleas of the Crown, Foster's Crown Law, Gilbert's Evidence, Bacon's Abridgment, Fonblanque's Equity, and Noy's Maxims. To these were often added a

Collins' History, Vol. II.

miscellaneous collection of English, Irish, and Scotch reports, the eight or ten volumes of Virginia reports, the four volumes of Dallas, and the case law of Kentucky then embraced in Hughes and Sneed's respective volumes. The Virginia Body of Laws, and Bradford's Collection of Session Acts comprised the statute law. The law library when thus well equipped was the exception rather than the rule, and through such a mass of incongruous learning the student was expected to struggle for two or three years before he was considered ready to practice.

There is authority for saying that at that period the law, especially in Kentucky, was a difficult science. The General Assembly in 1801 expressed the opinion that the criminal laws were so complex that it was impossible for the people to read and understand them. To remedy this evil that body appointed two revisors to fully "delineate " the criminal laws, thus "to inform the public mind and facilitate the administration of justice."

The gentlemen to whom this task was entrusted were Harry Toulmin and James Blair, both then residents of Frankfort. Toulmin was a Baptist preacher, who had been prominent in public affairs from the organization of the State. He had published a history of Kentucky in 1792, and when James Garrard was elected governor he appointed Toulmin his secretary of State. The governor (differing in this respect from some of his successors) was also a Baptist minister. In 1805 Toulmin was appointed by President Jefferson to a Federal judgeship in Mississippi territory. In 1807 he published a digest of the laws of that territory. "The last public record of him," says Mr. Lynch, in "Bench and Bar of Mississippi," is a correspondence, held in 1813, between him and Governor David Holmes, in regard to organizing and equipping the territorial troops in anticipation of the approaching Creek war, after which he passed from the stage of public affairs and carried with him into his retirement the meed of a life adorned with a conscious and acknowledged benefaction." His death occurred in 1815.

The forefathers of James Blair were the founders of Princeton college, where he was educated. Coming to the West, he became the first attorney-general of Kentucky. He was afterward appointed district attorney, for which favor he was indebted to his wife's kinsman, John Breckinridge, attorney-general under Mr. Jefferson. Mr. Blair was a great student-the loss of a leg precluding him from participating in the active life of the pioneers. He was the father of Francis

P. Blair, who went from Kentucky to Washington during Jackson's administration and won distinction by the spirited manner in which he conducted the Globe newspaper at that period.*

The revisors, under authority of the Legislature, published in 1804-5, in three volumes, "A Review of the Criminal Law of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.'

To render this work more generally useful, the legislative act had provided that no abbreviations nor any Latin or French phrases should be used. The authors virtuously eschewed the proscribed abbreviations and phrases, but admitted difficulty in substituting corresponding terms for the "cant" names of some of the writs. This was among the earliest attempts at codification in the United States. It might be inferred from this solicitude for the public understanding of the criminal law, that, in regard to civil matters, the Legislature would frame its statutes in the most perspicuous and unmistakable language. But the very reverse of this was true. Of all the involved and complicated systems, whereby an honest and confiding people were robbed of homes and fortunes, the Kentucky land laws may be set down as most striking and peculiar. It was a system that expatriated Boone and beggared Kenton. "The claims to land in this State," truly observed Chancellor Bibb in 1815, "are found in statutes which leave very much to be supplied by the discretion of the judges." As the decisions of the court of last resort were but meagerly published, and on this account either unknown or imperfectly understood, the inferior courts were driven to formulate rules to eke out the insufficient statutes. It resulted that they varied with every change of tribunal. Not unnaturally, this state of affairs caused popular discontent. In his dedication to the first volume of his reports, Bibb thus reproves the murmuring people: "But you complain of the multiplicity and intricacies of the laws already published. Do you want a code of laws that every man can carry about him and understand without study?" If the want existed it was one not to be supplied. The difficulty was to understand the law even by study. The assurance that a multiplicity of laws is inseparably connected with political and civil liberty did not, to the plain citizen, afford justification for their hopeless confusion. The student was little enlightened by text books or by adjudications outside of the State. To learn the art and mystery of "entries, notoriety, diligence, pre-emptions, settlements and settlers, and certificates," the student had not only to read the statutes. and their exposition by the Appellate Court, but was compelled to

Letter of Mrs. Admiral Lee.