while Hardin supplied the bullion of the argument." Shields, the biographer of Prentiss, characterized the speech as Hardin's "greatest effort." Rowan spoke of it as being "as remarkable for vigor of intellect as for vehemence and impassioned zeal."

The citizens of Harrodsburg had been in warm sympathy with the Wilkinson party. That sympathy deprived Mr. Hardin during the trial of those courteous attentions which his age and reputation entitled him to expect. Prentiss was the hero of the hour.

Hospitality turned her "cold shoulder" to Hardin. He smarted under the studied neglect with which he was treated. Mounting his old gray horse in front of the hotel to start home after the trial, he dropped an observation to an unsympathetic crowd standing by which was afterward remembered with bitterness of soul in that corporation. Mercer county (of which Harrodsburg was the seat of justice) then embraced the town of Danville, and the rich and fertile territory subsequently included in Boyle county. Danville had long sought to establish a new county, which Harrodsburg had vigorously opposed. It so happened at that time that Mr. Hardin had two influential sonsin-law in the Legislature.

"I will see," said he, reining up his horse, "I will see that John Helm and Dr. Palmer run a stake and ridered fence between here and Danville." In performance of that threat or fulfillment of that prophecy it so happened that in a year or so afterward the Legislature carved the county of Boyle from the very heart of Mercer.*

Judge Wilkinson died in 1860, and side by side in the Roman Catholic cemetery at Bardstown he and his wife sleep well "after life's fitful fever."

CHAPTER XXIII.

IN

SOME CELEBRATED CASES.

N the course of his long and busy career, Mr. Hardin was employed in many cases that might with propriety-on account of their character, the questions involved, the array of counsel, or the importance of their results-be set down in this chapter. These cases, taken together, involved well nigh every question usually litigated in tribunals removed from the seaboard, where maritime interests are in question.

Land law, commercial law, constitutional law, criminal law, etc., were some of the subjects daily investigated and expounded by him in the course of practice. The reports of decisions of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky not only show him to have been a regular practitioner before that tribunal, but many of the cases very entertainingly illustrate his skillful, diligent, and profound lawyership. But these cases can not be even enumerated here. As a specimen the curious reader will find the case of Rust against Larue, etc., reported in 4 Littell's Kentucky Reports, page 411, interesting and instructive. In a petition for rehearing, Mr. Hardin examines and discusses very exhaustively, and forcibly combats that phase of the doctrine of champerty, which avoids contracts between client and attorney, by which the latter is to receive part of the matter in controversy for his compen

sation.

It is not intended, however, to even allude to the many noted cases in which he was engaged from time to time. Four of these, dissimilar in character, have been selected, in each of which he was leading counsel, and in all of which he distinguished himself for lawyership. A brief sketch of each will be given.

GREEN VS. BIDDLE. SUPREME COURT OF UNITED STATES.

This action arose in Kentucky about 1820. Green sought to recover certain lands occupied by Biddle, and the latter, claiming for improvements, the constitutionality of two acts of the Legislature was drawn in question. The acts referred to were passed in 1797 and in 1812 respectively and were intended for the protection of occupy

ing claimants of lands under a title of record, when ousted by superior title. It was provided that in case of eviction the tenant should not only be entitled to recover the value of all improvements placed upon the land, but should only answer for rent from the time he had notice of the superior title. Mr. Hardin was of counsel for Green. He denied the constitutionality of the laws in question because in contravention of the "Compact with Virginia."

This "compact" was part of the first, as it has been of the second and third Constitutions since adopted in Kentucky, and in effect provided “that all the rights derived from Virginia prior to separation should continue valid and be governed by the laws then existing in that State."

Green derived his title from Virginia prior to 1792, and claimed that his rights-being secured by the "compact"-could not be taken. away or diminished by the "occupying claimant" laws above alluded to. The case began in the federal circuit for Kentucky-the judges of which divided equally on the aforenamed constitutional questions; it was carried to the Supreme Court. It was first argued at the February term, 1821, by Mr. Talbott and Mr. Hardin for Green, no counsel appearing for Biddle. Justice Story delivered the opinion of the court holding the occupying claimant law unconstitutional. After this decision was pronounced, Mr. Clay, as amicus curia, moved a rehearing on the ground that but one side had been represented by counsel, and that the question involved was vital to many citizens of Kentucky. The motion was granted and the case continued until another term. Meantime, the Legislature of Kentucky, regarding the question of public interest, employed Mr. Clay and Judge Bibb to maintain the constitutionality of the disputed law.

In 1823 the case was again argued before the Supreme Court by Mr. Hardin and Mr. Montgomery for Green, and by Messrs. Clay and Bibb contra. The briefs of counsel are published with the report. of the case, and are very elaborate.* Mr. Justice Washington delivered the opinion of the court, Mr. Justice Johnson delivering a separate opinion. Both concurred in the decision previously pronounced. The court, in reply to the point of Mr. Clay that the "compact" was not binding because not ratified by Congress, held otherwise, declaring that it was a contract between the two States and was valid as such.

Messrs. Clay and Bibb received a fee of four thousand dollars from the State treasury for their services. Mr. Hardin argued the case

See 8 Wheaton, page 547.

orally. Governor Pope, himself a most excellent lawyer, was present, and pronounced Mr. Hardin's one of the finest legal arguments to which he had ever listened, saying it was as pure and clear as an icicle, and quite a contrast in that respect to some of his jury speeches. Judge Rowan and Mr. Clay sought still another rehearing, but it was denied.

At the period (shortly after this decision) when the Legislature was denouncing and preparing to overthrow the Court of Appeals for holding the relief law unconstitutional, the latter as well as the Supreme Court of the United States received the following euphonious rebuke in a preamble to certain resolutions offered in the Legislature, evidently the composition of Judge Rowan:

"The Appellate Court of the nation and State (by consentaneous impulse), as if in the view to exemplify the illusive nature of hope and the fallacy of the fairest prospects, uttered their respective edicts. The former proclaimed that the State of Kentucky possessed no legislative dominion over its soil; the latter, that the Legislature of the State possessed no power to alter, amend, or modify its remedial laws. The former having disfranchised the State and reduced it to the degraded posture of a province of Virginia, the latter denies to it even provincial legislative powers."

It is proper to mention in this connection that so far from the State being reduced "to the degrading posture of a province of Virginia," its sovereignty was vindicated in the most emphatic manner. When the mandate of the Supreme Court was offered to be filed in the Court of Appeals, the latter tribunal refused to allow it. It was disregarded there, and so the constitutionality of the occupying claimant laws was happily (although somewhat uniquely) placed beyond all cavil or question; and, moreover, demonstration was given of how infinitely superior in majesty is the court of a sovereign State to that of a government exercising mere delegated powers.

In that great controversy in Kentucky, known as the "old and new court contest," which raged with great fury from 1823 to 1825, the New Court party, in the expressive vernacular of the legal profession, pleaded the decision in Green against Biddle "in aggravation of damages." But it was a circumstance that hastened the overthrow of that party, that it had undertaken to condemn in popular opinion not only the Court of Appeals, when John Boyle was its chief-justice, but also to bring to obloquy the Supreme Court of the United States, when that greatest of all American jurists, John Marshall, adorned that high tribunal.

DEPARCO VS. RICE, LIBEL, NELSON CIRCUIT COURT.

Few cases ever produced more excitement, or attracted more widespread interest, than that of Deparcq against Rice, tried in 1836. In 1858 the following statement was published by Dr. Rice, in the Presbyterian Expositor, as to the origin of the law-suit, which he entitled "The Mysterious Disappearance: "

"Some twenty years ago, a young woman, the daughter of Roman Catholic parents, entered a nunnery not far from Bardstown, Kentucky. She at first entered as a pupil, but after some time she was induced to take the veil, and entered upon what was regarded as a religious life. After she had been from twelve months to two years in, perhaps, two nunneries, she suddenly threw off her religious habit, and returned to her father's house. This unexpected step surprised her parents, and they demanded her reasons for abandoning the convent. Knowing their superstitious veneration for the priesthood, she hesitated to reveal her reasons, unless in the presence of some two Protestant neighbors. This her father refused to permit, and sent for a married son and his wife, who were not more intelligent than himself, and were equally bigoted. The daughter stated as her reasons for leaving the nunnery, the licentious conduct of the presiding priest, and the prevalence of corruption in the institution. When she entered the convent, she regarded it as the gate of heaven; now, she viewed it as the gate of hell.

"These statements, so far from satisfying her superstitious relatives, excited their highest displeasure, and, discovering that she was likely to be roughly handled, she fled to the house of an aged Baptist minister about a mile distant. From childhood she had known him and his family. To them she related her story, and begged their protection. She desired to state the facts under oath, and the minister prevailed upon a neighboring magistrate to go to his house and hear what she had to say. Unwilling, however, to excite the enmity of his Romish neighbors, he declined administering the oath.

"The young woman remained several months in the neighborhood, spending her time in different families. Of course, the revelations she made soon became a matter of conversation among the people, and the indignation of the more zealous Papists was excited against her, and threats of violence were heard. Soon she disappeared from the neighborhood, and nothing more was heard of her. The magistrate, in whose family she had spent several weeks, made inquiries of her father respecting her, but received an evasive answer. Some years afterward, he was called to write the old man's will, and, observing that he did not mention the name of his daughter, he ventured to ask him whether he did not intend to leave her anything. He answered that he supposed she was dead.