republicans, in the columns of the Farmer's Museum.

But

more than all this, being himself a strict religionist of the Hopkinsian-Calvinistic school, he had been led to regard Mr. Tyler as a man of the world, of the earth earthy, unregenerate, and in short, "little better than one of the wicked." On his part he had considered Robinson as somewhat of a demagogue, coarse, illiterate, and puffed up with a narrow and harsh pietism. When brought together, however, in their present close relationship, they found each other, as good men so often do in such cases, so far from antipathic that they coalesced at once, forming a friendship that continued unbroken till death. When afterwards Robinson was in Washington, a member of the United States senate, they kept up a constant correspondence, and in one letter the senator refers to their early prejudices against each other, how soon these passed away, and relates an incident of the religious discussions into which they fell during this, their first year upon the bench. One of the points of Hopkinsianism much debated by them, was the alleged necessity, as evidence of regeneration, that a person should be conscious of a willingness to be eternally lost, should that be for the glory of God. Judge Tyler, having been on one occasion detained from court, wrote to Judge Jacob, requesting him to inform the chief justice that be really thought he had made some spiritual progress, for, though he could not honestly say that he felt willing to be damned himself, even if it were needful for the glory of the Almighty, yet that he humbly hoped he had attained to a willingness that in such an exigency brother Robinson should be damned.

Henceforward, Judge Tyler's time was mainly engrossed by his judicial duties. The supreme court was required by law to hold one regular term in each of the fourteen counties annually, and in many of these the press of business obliged them to hold adjourned terms besides. This involved at least two journeys up and down the state; and in those days of bad roads and few stage and mail routes, the office was one of almost incessant labor, frequent exposure to inclement weather,

and constant anxiety about home and its inmates, often virtually as far away as Chicago or St. Louis is now.

Notwithstanding the inexperience of the judges it is evident that the court at once became popular, securing the respect and confidence of the people. Governor Tichenor writes to Judge Tyler, January 21st, "It gives me real pleasure to find that the conduct of the court is approved by the wise and good of all classes, and he writes to his wife from Rutland, February 8th, "our new broom of a court, it is said, sweeps clean; and that we are very popular." And again, “It is said our court is popular, both with the bar and the people."

Although the republicans retained and increased their majority in the legislature, no change was made in the supreme court in the fall of 1802. It is much to the credit of Vermont that, however embittered party feeling has become, it has seldom influenced the election of the higher judicial officers. In 1803, the conflict had been especially heated and violent, the republicans still retaining their supremacy. Appointments were generally made from party considerations, Mr. Thompson says (History, part II, p. 91) that "several of the judges. were displaced." This was not so. Judge Jacob only was left off the supreme bench, giving place to Theophilus Harrington. Jacob had made himself especially obnoxious by his pronounced federalism, and Harrington owed his elevation, in part, to his political sentiments. Judge Tyler when chosen was known to be a federalist; but the proprieties of the bench, perhaps more deeply felt then than now, had withdrawn him from the arena of party conflict, and naturally disposed him to view the questions which divided and agitated the people rather from a judicial than a partisan standpoint. Many of the considerations that were telling against the federal party seemed to him well founded; and the virulent personal abuse heaped upon Mr. Jefferson he knew to be undeserved. Meeting one day a Virginian gentleman, a neighbor of the president, he asked him what was thought there of the scurrilities -the negro mistresses and the like-of which the federal pa

pers made so much? "As you would think here," was the answer, "if such things were said of your pastor, the Rev. Dr. Wells" The judge took no active part in politics while he remained on the bench, but it became gradually known that he was in sentiment a republican.

The court was now virtually one in political agreement with the more popular party; but the legislative majority by which it held its power was small, and this unity in republican sentiment stimulated a violent attack upon the judges in the legislature which met at Rutland in 1804, threatening them with impeachment for taking illegal fees. A heated debate lengthened the session far into November, and the legislature finally adjourned without passing a resolution offered by their friends, affirming that the fees they had taken were in accordance with the fee bill; while their enemies carried a law doing away with fees altogether, and fixing their salaries at $1,000 for the chief justice, and $900 for each of the assistants. The effect of this, according to a letter of Chief Justice Robinson to Judge Tyler, was to reduce their pay "by at least $200."

The next year at Danville, after several days' acrimonious debate, it was resolved, 100 to 82, "That it is the sense of this house that the fees taken by the judges of the supreme court were taken with upright views, and that no further order ought to be taken on the subject." This is evidently a compromise resolution. It does not say but that illegal fees were taken. The chief justice, who was confined at home by sickness during the Rutland legislature, evidently feared a possible impeachment. Judge Tyler was the only one of the justices there. Robinson writes to him: "I hope you will not leave, and shall cheerfully make allowance in your expenses to watch and pray for us. Send for brother Harrington. He can do as much as any one in the present storm. Yourself with him, and my two deputies, Gen. Wright and Mr. Hascal, I hope will be able to ward off the lowering tempest which threatens us."

J. T. Buckingham, having established a monthly magazine, The Polyanthus, in Boston, applied to Judge Tyler for literary aid. Articles in verse and prose furnished in response to this appeal were all that his judicial duties left him time to write for the press during the first years of his judgeship.

The same routine of fatiguing duty was annually repeated. Judge Tyler drove his own horse, with sleigh or sulky, at least twice a year, up the Connecticut valley, across the northern part of the state, and down the western side of the mountain, thankful if he could secure May and June for a vacation at home. While sufficiently dignified in manner, he was affable, and exceedingly popular. Almost every man in the state came to know him. In his solitary rides, often through wild and rough country, he was wont to stop and chat with the dwellers in the scattered log cabins by the way. One day he pulled up before an especially dilapidated shanty, standing in a small clearing encumbered with stones, and overgrown with weeds and brushwood. The ragged occupant, leaning over the broken gate, having furnished a light for his pipe, some talk ensued about his rather unpromising domain. "Well, judge," said he, "after all, I am not so poor as you think I am, for," he added, in answer to an incredulous look, "I don't own this land."

66

No change was made in the justices of the supreme court until the fall of 1807, when the republicans, for the first time, made a "clean sweep" in the state, electing Israel Smith, governor over Tichenor, and increasing their majority in the legislature. As Mr. Smith was one of our United States senators, a vacancy was created there. When the legislature met Robinson was chosen senator; Royall Tyler succeeded him as chief justice; Harrington became first, and Jonas Galusha second assistant justice.

Senator Robinson left immediately for Washington, and soon after wrote to Chief Justice Tyler, commencing a correspondence that was continued by weekly letters during his

term of office.

Mr. Tyler's reply is interesting, as setting forth the principles which guided him in his presidency over the court.

"You enquire," he writes, "how will the new court harmonize? Truly, I cannot at present even predict; but I can say that no endeavors of mine will be wanting to effect this desirable union, for you know it has ever been my principle that, when men are associated by public voice to do important duties, all minor considerations should give place to this great object. Just before we parted at Woodstock, I called my brethren together, and, when alone with them, I recapitulated the principles we had laid down for the government of our official conduct, and the happy consequences they had produced, even in times of great political ebullition. I observed that, like you, I should consider my present seat as affording no superior prerogatives. I wish to regard myself, as relative to them, as merely primus inter pares; was sensible how much I should need their friendly assistance; that there might be some causes, so involved in the tecnia of commerce or the law, in which, when invited by them, I should readily take the lead, but in the general run of court business in a country of farmers, I should oftener have to yield the lead to them."

The new chief justice was certainly popular with the court and bar, as well as with the people. Hon. Mr. Witherel, member of congress, in a postscript to a letter written soon after, says: "I cannot conclude without remarking, and remarking with pleasure, that all the communications from Vermont speak in the highest terms of the chief justice of the supreme court."

Ever since he had been upon the bench, Judge Tyler had spent much time in collecting and arranging reports of the decisions of the court, proposing to publish them after the close of his official labors, but at the urgent request of members of the bar he prepared, and in 1809 and 1810 published