the sun, the moon, and stars as his quarry, and with the indulgence of the House he would take a whack at eternity." Mr. Hardin insisted that the obnoxious proposition was the broadest whack at eternity he ever saw.

The labors of the session, taking them all in all, were neither exciting nor of great importance; but they were extended to the constitutional limit of time, and there-March 3, 1823-they ended.

Mr. Hardin was succeeded by his kinsman, Charles A. Wickliffe. He did not seek re-election. Why he did not, he afterward thus explained, in a general way: "I had the misfortune," said he, "and I rather consider it so than otherwise, from time to time to have had a seat in Congress; and I found I could not stand the sacrifice longer than for two or four years at a time. Then I had to quit and resort again to the practice of the law to repair the loss."

CHAPTER X.

N

RELIEF AND ANTI-RELIEF.

EITHER the auspicious termination of the war of 1812 nor the ensuing tranquillity of national affairs proved unmixed blessings to Kentucky. Hard times, very hard times, befell the growing young commonwealth. Western trade was yet in embryo. Labor was in slight demand, and poorly rewarded. Commodities of all kinds were cheap. Markets were distant and difficult of access, and but little money circulated.

In 1807, the first bank in the State, the Bank of Kentucky, had been established. In 1816, the United States Bank had been chartered (against which Mr. Hardin, as a member of Congress, had both spoken and voted). It established branches at Lexington and Louisville. Shippers of produce to New Orleans brought its proceeds home partly in molasses, sugar, and coffee, and partly in Spanish coin.

Notwithstanding these facilities for a circulating medium, the impression prevailed that hard times resulted because of the limited supply of money.

Gold and silver mines were scarce, unproductive, and distant. Banks, however, could be created, and banks could issue money and bring better times. Such was popular logic, and the idea was encouraged by the practice, but not warned by the experience, of continental times. In January, 1818, the Legislature, by one master stroke, chartered forty-six independent banks. All the chief towns were thus blessed, or supposed to be blessed, to say nothing of hamlets and small villages. The aggregate capital of these institutions was $8,720,000. With the one million dollars capital of the Bank of Kentucky and that employed by the branches of the United States Bank within the State, it would seem that all complaints about an insufficient circulating medium would have been finally hushed, and that, if plenty of money secured prosperity, this end was attained. But these comprehensive remedies, after all, proved ineffectual. Within a year, such of the forty-six banks as were in operation, and also the Bank of Kentucky, had suspended specie payment. The

supposed cause was a pressure for specie by the United States Bank. In February, 1820, all the independent bank charters were repealed. But, in November following, the Bank of the Commonwealth, at Frankfort, was chartered, with a branch in every judicial district. It was authorized to issue three million dollars of notes. Dr. Sam Johnson was accustomed, when borrowing a shilling, to add the condition "never to be returned." These notes were based on a similar financial idea. They were not redeemable. The bank's capital was more nominal than real. It shortly took two dollars of its notes to represent a dollar in specie. Imagination will serve instead of description to depict the distress of debtors that ensued.

Almost every one was in debt, and a large percentage hopelessly So. Some idea of the general condition may be gathered from a letter, dated Springfield, August 30, 1823, written by John Pope to Governor Ninian Edwards, of Illinois, who entertained the idea of removing to Kentucky, and buying a farm. The following are extracts from that letter: "There are many fine, well-improved farms in Kentucky, in good neighborhoods, to be had on good terms and long credit, but few such to be exchanged for outlands. They are generally mortgaged or the property of the banks. *** Some of the finest farms in the neighborhood of Louisville are substantially the property of the banks, and can be had on long credit and on good terms."

Let it not be supposed, however, that the legislative arm was idle, in this emergency. It acted with as serene an indifference to all constitutional as of all financial principles. December, 1819, an act was passed by the Legislature to suspend, for sixty days, all judicial and execution sales. February, 1820, the right of replevin was extended from three to twelve months. In cases of imprisonment for debt (then an existing remedy in a creditor's favor), prison bounds were extended to the limits of each county town. In December, 1821, imprisonment for debt was entirely abolished. The right of replevin was then extended from three months to two years, unless the execution creditor endorsed on the writ that notes of the Bank of the Commonwealth might be taken in payment.

How this course of legislation would have culminated, if uninterrupted, can only be conjectured. When it had reached this point, it was suddenly arrested by the adverse decision of a circuit judge.

In a case arising in the Bourbon Circuit Court in 1822, Judge James Clark decided the two years' replevin law unconstitutional, on

THE LEGISLATURE ASSERTS ITS RIGHTS.

ΙΟΙ

the ground that so far as retroactive it impaired the obligation of contracts, and thus violated the Constitution of the United States. Wide and profound was the sensation produced by this decision, and the unlucky judge was regarded as little less than a public enemy. The Legislature, having been convened in extra session for another purpose, rushed to the rescue. May 18, 1822, Mr. Slaughter, member for Warren, offered a resolution in the House of Representatives, stating in the preamble that Judge James Clark had rendered a decision in contravention of the laws of the Commonwealth," "had grossly transcended his judicial authority and disregarded the powers of the Legislature." A committee was appointed to inquire into the decision of the judge and report. On the 21st the committee reported. It had, it said, read Judge Clark's opinion in the case of Williams vs. Blair, published in the Western Citizen, of Paris.

"The principles and doctrines assumed in this opinion," says the report, "are incompatible with the constitutional powers of the legislative department of the Government, subversive of the best interests of the people, and calculated in their consequences to disturb the tranquillity of the country and to shake public confidence in the institutions and measures of the Government, called for by the condition and the necessities of the people." Five hundred copies of the report were ordered printed and Judge Clark summoned to appear before the House and answer to the "charge." On the 27th he made answer in writing. He thus apologized or rather explained to the affronted Solons: "In pronouncing a law that is incompatible with the Constitution to be void, the Judiciary does not assume a superiority over the Legislature. It merely affirms the paramount obligation of the fundamental rule. It announces only that the will of the people, as expressed in their Constitution, is above the will of any of the servants of the people. The decision was given after the most mature deliberation which I was able to bestow, and from a firm conviction of the principles there mentioned, and I must have been not only faithless to my conscience, but to the Constitution of the United States and the dignity due the judicial office, had I expressed any other opinion."

The response altogether was a manly and convincing paper. It did not, however, avert or appease legislative wrath.

Under the former State Constitution, as now, judges were removable from office by "address." If two-thirds of each branch of the Legislature voted an address requiring the governor to remove a

judge, the governor thereupon dismissed him from office. The Legislature now invoked this remedy. On the question of the address to remove Judge Clark, the vote in the House stood fifty-nine for, to thirty-five against, and so, for lack of the requisite two-thirds, the measure failed.

Meanwhile, an appeal had been taken from the obnoxious decision to the Court of Appeals. Another appeal (Lapsley vs. Brashear), from a decision of the General Court in which the stay law had been upheld, was simultaneously prosecuted. Messrs. Harrison, Breckinridge, and Robt. Wickliffe, as counsel, ably argued the unconstitutionality of the stay law. Opposing were Judge Rowan, Chancellor Bibb, Judge Haggin, and Lieutenant-Governor Barry. In October, 1823, both cases were determined in elaborate opinions by Chief-Justice Boyle and Judge Mills, respectively. The relief law was pronounced unconstitutional. The question involved has ever been one of difficulty. The Federal Constitution forbids the enactment of any law impairing the obligations of contracts. How far the Legislature may relax or interfere with the creditor's remedy, or means of enforcing a contract, without impairing its obligation, has ever been a vexatious question in all the courts of the country. Before the decision was rendered those favoring relief measures had been confident in the belief of the constitutionality of the stay law. It is true Clark's decision had created serious apprehension, but the counter opinion of the General Court had allayed this feeling.

The General Court consisted of two circuit judges, and so it was thus two to one. The legal profession wrangled and divided over the question. Able lawyers denounced the stay law as unconstitutional. But Bibb, ex-chief justice, and Rowan, ex-judge of the Court of Appeals, both affirmed its validity with specious and elaborate logic. Their high character and ability gave their utterances the weight of authority. Coupled with this, the Legislature, in the proceedings against Judge Clark, had not only pronounced its own opinion in favor of its constitutional power by an overwhelming majority, but manifested its purpose to resort to extreme measures with that officer or tribunal by whom its power was disputed. The preponderance of the debtor class and their unmistakable interest more potently, perhaps, than all else warped the public mind. In the face of all this the Appellate decision was indeed a shock and surprise. Instantly it provoked a civic storm that swayed and swept over the whole of the State.