son.

At the election of a new legislature in August, 1826, the final blow was struck against the New Court, a decided majority of members of each house being chosen favorable to the Old Court. During the following legislative session an act was passed declaring in full force and effect all acts pretended to be repealed by the reorganization acts. Governor Desha vetoed this bill, but it was passed over the veto by the necessary majority and became a law, the governor's objections to the contrary notwithstanding, December 20, 1826.

Mr. Blair capitulated; his army laid down its arms, the records of the office were surrendered to the constituted authorities of the Old Court, and the New Court passed out of existence after a stormy and by no means beautiful life. During its brief and tempestuous existence the New Court rendered seventy-two decisions. These are preserved in second Ben Monroe's Reports. These decisions are not relied upon by lawyers in their practice. The Old Court was sitting after December, 1825, though the repealing act was not passed for a year afterwards.

It is interesting to note that in August, 1826, when the death-knell of the New Court was sounded by the people at the polls, Judge James Clark, whose decision declaring the relief laws unconstitutional, had caused the long and bitter conflict, was elected to congress, thus adding a bitter note to the blow which ended the existence of the New Court.

Of the judges connected with this unexampled condition, Judge Boyle resigned as chief justice, November 8, 1826, to become federal judge of the district of Kentucky, which position he filled with great honor until his death January 25, 1835. Judge Robertson, one of Judge Robertson, one of the greatest judges the state has ever known, said of him: "As a lawyer he was candid, conscientious and faithful; as a statesman,

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." The extravagant style of expression at that day was exhausted in this eulogium of Boyle.

Judge Mills remained in office until 1828, when he resigned to resume the practice at Paris, where he was sucessful. He died December 6, 1828, from a stroke of apoplexy, thus depriving the state of one of its ablest sons who ever sought the good of the majority. Judge Owsley retired at the same time with Judge Mills.

Though the New Court had passed out of existence, its influence yet remained. National politics had been injected into state affairs. Judge Little, in his "Life of Ben Hardin," says Duff Green, in a letter dated Louisville, September 6, 1826, and addressed to Governor Ninian Edwards of Illinois, says: "The Old and New Court question is already lost in this state. The New Court men, with scarcely an 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 took refuge as a body, 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 discussion attending the propositions for the constitutional convention of 1849, it was observed by an intelligent writer that "the political parties in the 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 attempts 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 then, 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."

A presidential election was now impending and it was expected that President Adams would succeed himself. If Adams were not his own successor, it was expected that Henry Clay would be chosen in his stead.

Clay had represented his country with great honor at Ghent when the treaty of peace with England had been arranged. He had a brilliant career in congress, unequalled by that of any other man; as speaker of the house he had acquitted himself with credit. His talents and his patriotic devotion to his country, were everywhere acknowledged. He had held the position of secretary of state which, for years, had pointed to the presidency. Yet across his path to that high honor there stalked the grim figure of Andrew Jackson.

The people of the United States, peace-loving as they are, have always had a warm spot in their hearts for the successful soldier. The east, then as now, considered no man from the west as its equal. The man whose ancestors had not set foot upon Plymouth Rock was not to be considered in the selection of a president. Jackson was a plebeian, a North Carolina mountaineer, and, though he had won the great victory at New Orleans, he was not to be considered as a possible president. Henry Clay, a Virginian, not an aristocrat by birth, but an able man by reason of intellect, made an appeal to them which Jackson could never do. Adams was elected president by the house, but the vote of Mr. Clay for Adams

in the house sounded the death knell of his presidential hopes. Either he should win in 1828, or Jackson should take the prize.

Of the campaign in that year, Judge Little reports Baldwin as saying: "The election of Adams by the house of representatives was turned to account with all its incidents and surroundings, with admirable effect by General Jackson. No one now believes the story of bargain, intrigue and management told upon Adams and Clay, but General Jackson believed it and what is more, made the country believe it in 1825. Adams was an unpopular man, of an unpopular section of the country. Crawford's friends were as little pleased as Jackson's with the course affairs took. The warfare upon Adams was hailed by them with joy and they became parties to an opposition of which, it was easy to see, Jackson was to be the beneficiary."

Clay's ambition, or incaution, betrayed him into the serious and as it turned out, so far as concerns the presidency, the fatal error of accepting office, the first office, under the administration which he called into power. It was in all political respects, an inexcusable blunder. The office added nothing to his fame. It added nothing to his chances for the presidency. He was, on the contrary, to share the odium of an administration at whose head was a very obstinate man of impracticable temper, coming by a sort of bastard process, into office, bearing a name which was the synonym

of political heterodoxy and whose administration was fated to run a gauntlet from the start to the close, through a long lane of clubs. wielded by the Forsythes, McDuffies, Randolphs and almost the whole talent of the south.

Mr. Clay was a statesman and an absolutely honest man. He made a mistake in voting for Mr. Adams and but for that mistake, he would, soon or late, have been president of the United States. He was not a mere politician; had he been, he would have played the game differently. He might have voted for Crawford, who was not likely to live until the next election. But Clay placed himself alongside of those who supported Mr. Adams and brought about the latter's election. The opposing forces of that day charged Mr. Clay with corruption. Time softens the asperities of politics and today there is none to believe that Mr. Clay was corrupt. The worst that The worst that can be said, is that he made a mistake in accepting a position in Mr. Adams' cabinet. Mr. Clay's place was in the senate, and there he should have remained. No greater senator has held a seat in that body-not Webster; not Calhoun; no man was greater there than Henry Clay.

A historian of that period has written of the attacks upon Mr. Clay and those who believed with him: "Those assaults were not slow in coming. The public mind had been fallow for some years, and was prepared for a bountiful crop of political agitation. Jack son raised the war cry and the hills and valleys all over the land echoed back the shout. A lava-tide of obloquy poured in a flood over Clay. It seemed to take him by surprise. The idea that his voting for Adams and then occupying the first office in his gift, seconded by the supports which the hypotheses of 'bargain' found, or were made for it, should originate such a charge, seems never to have entered his imagination, and when it came he had the weakness to attempt to strangle it by

personal intimidation or to avenge it by violence.

it.

"The election of Adams under such circumstances, was the making of Jackson. It filled up his popularity. It completely nationalized The States Rights party, to whom the name and lineage of Adams were enough for opposition, turned at once to the man who could best defeat him and saw at a glance who that man was, and the popular sympathy was quickly aroused in behalf of the honest, old soldier, circumvented by two cunning politicians."

In 1832, Mr. Clay was again a candidate for the presidency, but was defeated by General Jackson, who had been referred to in preceding campaigns as "the honest old soldier, circumvented by cunning politicians." If history were a place for jokes, this would be a point where one could be interjected. The idea of Andrew Jackson being circumvented by cunning politicians is calculated to cause a smile wherever the actions of that sturdy old soldier are known. soldier are known. What he did not know about the practical side of politics it was worth the time of no man to learn. Mr. Clay possessed the politician's hatred for General Jackson and when each of them had passed from the arena in which their lieutenants had bravely struggled, they left a heritage of hatred which did not die for years. How pitiful is this bitterness of politics. Men who stand shoulder to shoulder in business affairs; who entrust thousands of dollars to each other without a written word to witness the transaction, profess not to believe in the honesty of their political opponents and can find no words which properly define that distrust. It is sickening and disgusting to know that this is true, and the writer of these words is glad to know that he has reached an age when he can give to political friend and political opponent an equal meed of praise. The man who cannot do so, is a man who puts political place and power above political decency. The masses

of mankind are personally honest and the man who arrogates to himself and those who join in his beliefs, all the honesty and relegates to the opposition all the dishonesty of political belief, is a man who should be constantly watched because he is not a good citizen. The division of political parties in our country is too nearly equal for all the good men to belong to the one party, all the bad men to the other.

The Whig party in Kentucky, which had supported Mr. Clay with an enthusiasm rarely equaled, felt very bitterly the effects of defeat. He was the idol of his party and justly So. No greater man had led party to victory or defeat than he. Not the solid Republican phalanx which in after years, stood like a stone wall by the side of Mr. Blaine, the favorite son of his party, was more earnest than the men who aligned themselves by the side of Mr. Clay and who, time after time, went down to defeat with Kentucky's favorite son. The Whig party maintained its organization in Kentucky but to do so, it must maintain a constant struggle. The seeds of dissolution had been sown and it was not long until they would blossom into full fruitage and the party cease to be. It only remained for Mr. Clay to pass from the field of action when there should be no Whig party in Kentucky or elsewhere.

Jackson was the hero of the moment. The people of the United States have never feared "the man on horseback." To the contrary, they have always advanced him to high executive position. Mr. Clay did not recognize this fact. He claimed that the people should distrust the military chieftain, whose election to high position was dangerous to the safety of the government. The people thought otherwise. They elevated to the presidencyWashington, the Father of his Country, who was nothing if not a soldier; they put into power later, Harrison, Taylor and Grant, the latter long after Mr. Clay had passed away;

and under none of these did the republic suffer. "The Man on Horseback," may prove a shibboleth for the opposition, but he can never disturb nor distress the republic, whether successful or not in his efforts to reach the presidency. Mr. Clay, though of humble birth, was, in the end, a patrician. He could never abide the low-born Jackson and after the success of the latter, he is found writing to a friend: "The military principles have triumphed and triumphed in the person of one devoid of all the graces, elegancies and magnanimity of the accomplished men of the professions." But it was not then as it is not now, a wise thing to underestimate the power of one's adversary. Jackson was president and president he was destined to be for eight years, during which by a skillful use of the tremendous power of the presidency, he built up a party which the opposition could not successfully assail and which gave to him the opportunity to name his successor in the executive office.

Mr. Clay, though the idol of his party, and justly so, was compelled to bide his time, awaiting new opportunities and by the irony of fate new defeats. The Whig party in Kentucky awaited with Mr. Clay, the coming of the day when it should come into power, ever hopeful; ever doomed to defeat. It had no part in the control of the affairs of the government; it had a high disdain for those who controlled national affairs; it was the aristocrat of politics and looked with disdain upon those who enjoyed the loaves and fishes which it imagined belonged by divine right, to itself. It was dying not slowly but swiftly and did not know it. There came a few years afterwards the dreadful war which separated our people and among other ideas which were definitely settled by that contest were the questions which the Whig party had deemed its own, and which were no more to be considered by the people of Kentucky. It was not slavery alone which that contest definitely set