USA > Indiana > Courts and lawyers of Indiana, Volume I > Part 24
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It has been handed down by a man well acquainted with all the persons, that the first appointments to the Supreme bench were the result of a political compromise. James Noble, Will- iam Hendricks and Jonathan Jennings were the most power- ful politicians in the state in 1816. The inference from the tradition is that these men counseled together at the Consti- tutional Convention and agreed to play the political game in harmony, though they were not the best of friends politically. Facts fall in remarkably well with the tradition. Jennings became governor, Hendricks, congressman, and Noble, United States senator at the first elections. When it came to the appointment of the Judges the story has it that each chose a man. Jennings chose his friend and neighbor, James Scott, Noble chose his friend and neighbor, Jesse L. Holman, while
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Hendricks, partly no doubt for political considerations, chose John Johnson, of Vincennes. In this connection it may also be observed that Jennings was on intimate terms with all three of the men and had far more reason to favor Johnson than did Hendricks. In 1809 he and Thomas Randolph had been candidates for delegate to Congress. Randolph was holding the undivided support of the Wabash Settlements and since he had yielded his position favoring slavery was also receiving the support of Harrison's friends in Clark and the newly organized Harrison county. In order to break this support, John Johnson entered the race and drew enough of Randolph's supporters to him to insure the election of Jennings. Johnson apparently made a spirited campaign against Jennings and the belief that he had an understanding with him may be entirely gratuitous. The facts, however, are as given and the result, whatever the motives, was the election of Jennings. In fact, O. H. Smith, who came to Indiana in 1817 and was personally acquainted with all the parties concerned, had the impression that Johnson was the choice of Jennings, while Hendricks se- lected James Scott. The latter was a Pennsylvanian and may have been acquainted with Hendricks in that state. At any rate he became acquainted with him at the Constitutional Convention where Hendricks was secretary.
History has left us only the most meager accounts of these earliest Supreme judges. All were commissioned on the same day, December 28, 1816. Each had been prominently con- nected with the history of the territory, and consequently each was fairly well known. Scott and Johnson had sat in the recent Constitutional Convention, Holman being on the cir- cuit bench at the time.
JOHN JOHNSON.
John Johnson was a native of Kentucky; when or where he was born is at present uncertain. He appeared in Indiana as early as 1804, when Governor Harrison and General W. Johnston signed a bail bond for two negroes named George and Peggy at Vincennes. He took an active part in the elec- tion of 1804, favoring the territory passing to the second grade. ' In this he was associated with Benjamin Parke, Gov-
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ernor Harrison, John Rice Jones, Francis Vigo, Henry Hurst and General W. Johnston. In 1805 he was a member of the Ter- ritorial Legislature and as such joined in the petition to Con- gress to abrogate a part of the Ordinance of 1787 so that slaves might be brought into the territory. This same Legis- lature, at its session in 1806, directed two of its members, John Rice Jones and John Johnson, to revise and codify the laws. The Revision usually goes by the name of the Rice Jones Revision, though of course it is impossible at this day to tell which took the leading part in the work. In 1809 John- son was again a candidate for the territorial House of Repre- sentatives. He must have been both well known and popular, for he received more votes than any other candidate, of whom there were five, two only to be elected. He received two hun- dred and three votes. In this same year he made the race for Congress, mentioned above, against Jonathan Jennings and Thomas Randolph, in which he received eighty-one votes out of nine hundred and eleven. This seems to have cooled his political ardor for a while. In 1816 he was a delegate from Knox county in the Constitutional Convention. This same year he was appointed on the Supreme bench. Early the fol- lowing year he died at his home in Knox county. Such are the meager facts known of him. His contemporaries speak highly of his character. He had no chance to show his ability in the new position, since he died (September 17, 1817) during the first vacation, before a single opinion of any importance was prepared.
JAMES SCOTT.
James Scott was residing in Clark county as early as 1810. On December 14, of that year, he was appointed prosecutor of the county by Governor Harrison. On June 14, 1813, he was commissioned a Chancery Judge in a Chancery court, presumably for Clark county, though it is not stated what county it was for. At this time he was a representative; but following his resignation a special election was held August 2 to fill the vacancy. On November 6, 1813, the governor di- rected him and Waller Taylor to hold Oyer and Terminer on November 15 to try Hugh Espy for horse stealing and Richard Aston and Josiah Taylor for arson. The docket for this trial
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is still preserved in Jeffersonville. His next public service was in the Constitutional Convention, 1816, where, on the Judiciary committee, he helped form the Constitution of the state. He served on the Supreme bench from December 28, 1816, till January 28, 1831, when his second term expired.
Senator O. H. Smith, who knew him well, says he was a Pennsylvanian, one of the most upright men, a good scholar, and a fine lawyer. He held him in high regard, rating his opinions on the bench second to none.
JESSE L. HOLMAN.
The third member of the first court was Jesse L. Holman. He was a native of Kentucky, having been born in Danville in 1784. Marauding bands of Indians were common in Kentucky at this time. At the hands of one of these the father of Mr. Holman was killed. The widow was able to give her son a good common-school education. He was well enough prepared to be able to teach school or preach. These professions seem not to have been satisfactory, so he read law in the office of Henry Clay at Lexington. He evidently came into possession of a considerable estate soon after he became of age. Slavery was distasteful to him and he brought his slaves with him to Indiana, thereby liberating them.
Just when he came to Indiana does not appear, but it is thought to have been in 1810, when he was twenty-six years old. On May 28, 1811, he was appointed prosecutor of Dear- born county in the place of Gen. James Dill, of Lawrenceburg. His home was near Aurora, on the banks of the river. In 1814 he was elected a representative, resigning the same year to accept an appointment as Judge of the Second district of the territory. He sat on the Supreme bench from 1816 to 1831. In this same year he was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate to succeed his old friend, Gen. James Noble, who died that year in Washington. John Tipton de- feated him by a single vote. Until 1835 he held no office. At that time he succeeded Benjamin Parke as District Judge of the United States court. Further notice of him will be found under that heading.
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As the Judge of the State Supreme court he can hardly be said to rank with our leading jurists. Smith says he was a good lawyer and one of the most conscientious men he ever knew. Like all the early lawyers and Judges of Indiana, he was an all-round man. In religion he was a Baptist, serving as pastor of the Aurora Baptist church during most of his life. He not only preached without a salary, but did more than any one else to support the church. Being a proprietor of Aurora, he naturally took a deep interest in its welfare. As a member of its board of visitors or of the board of trustees for twenty years, he naturally took a deep interest in the welfare of Indiana University. His son, William S. Holman, served his state in Congress many years.
ISAAC BLACKFORD.
If there was any political motive in the appointment of Isaac Blackford it does not appear. He perhaps had made the acquaintance of Governor Jennings some years before the state was formed. Both were natives of New Jersey, Jennings was two years the elder, and probably preceded the Judge to the territory about two years. Both spent some time at Vin- cennes where they affiliated with the same party, opposing Governor Harrison and voting with the eastern settlers. How- ever the connection was formed, Governor Jennings was well acquainted with him when, in 1817, they attended Judge John- son's funeral together.
At this time Governor Jennings informed him that he had decided to appoint him to the vacant judgeship. He is said to have begged the governor not to do it, pleading his youth, in- experience, and the possibility of finding stronger men, several of whom he suggested. However, this latter may be, it is hardly in keeping with his whole history. He was an inveter- ate office-seeker and office-holder. He was, on the other hand, a reticent, retired man in his later years especially, and the thought of being a Judge over a Supreme court, where such men as Parke, Dewey, Lane or Noble might practice, may have been alarming to him.
Isaac Blackford was born at Bound Brook, New Jersey, November 6, 1786. He was of pure English descent, his father
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having come from that country. His parents were in good circumstances and the son entered Princeton College in 1802. His father died about this time. At Princeton young Black- ford devoted himself to the classics, leading in Latin and Greek. His class of fifty-four members contained a number of distinguished men. He evidently early turned to the law, since in his senior year he made a careful study of Black- stone. His studious habits formed in college clung to him through life, so that he was rightly known as a bookish man. This trait was especially distinctive in a new country such as Indiana territory was at that time.
It is perhaps useless to conjecture why he immigrated to the west at this time. A dozen reasons sufficient to lure like characters to the young west suggest themselves. Jonathan Jennings, who was born only a few miles from Bound Brook, had preceded him to the territory. Whether any communica- tion between them was had before Blackford decided to mi- grate does not appear. Benjamin Parke, also a New Jersey man, had come to Indiana in 1801, ten years ahead of Black- ford. He had also been back to Washington as a delegate from the territory to the federal government. All three of these men lived for a time at the capital, Vincennes.
Before coming to Indiana, Blackford entered the law office of Gabriel Ford, said to have been one of the best lawyers of his state. He entered Princeton in 1802 and presumably graduated in 1806. If so, he spent five years in New Jersey after finishing his college career before coming to Indiana. The first of these five years he is said to have spent in the law office of Col. George McDonald. In 1810 he was admitted to the New Jersey bar.
It is said he walked all the way to the Allegheny river, where he took boat for Lawrenceburg. He bore a letter of recommendation to Isaac Dunn, of that place, from his law teacher, Ford. Either on his way west or after arrival at Lawrenceburg, he visited Dayton, Ohio, but finally settled down at Brookville. He stood no chance of ever winning a living in the Circuit courts of Indiana of that or any other day. After serving as cashier in the unfortunate Vevay bank, editor of a paper at Vincennes, and clerk of Washington
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county, he was chosen clerk of the House of Representatives in 1813. It is impossible the influence of both Parke and Jen- nings was not supporting him at this time. Governor Posey appointed him President Judge of the First territorial circuit. In 1816 he was chosen representative from Knox county. When this General Assembly convened at Corydon he was elected speaker. At the time of his appointment to the Supreme court he was cashier of the Vincennes State Bank.
These latter honors are evidently due to his own popularity. He made friends slowly, but they remained firm after he had made them. James Noble, who was elected United States senator by this Assembly, has testified to his ability and fair- ness.
His service as Judge was contemporaneous with the life of the Old Supreme court. Only one short session had been held before he came on the bench and he remained until the old court was dissolved, a period of thirty-seven years. Few judges in this or any other state have served so long. His narrow, intense, cautious mind was the governor belt on the young judicial system of the state. His court was a seminary for the circuit lawyers after they had graduated from the school of the circuit.
In comparison with a score of lawyers who practiced at his bar he would suffer, yet he, no doubt, made a better Judge than any of them would have done. In sheer mental strength he was not equal to Dewey. In mental circumference he was not equal to John B. Niles. In a knowledge of the practice of law he was far inferior to O. H. Smith. In a profound under- standing of the civil law, Samuel Judah surpassed him. In pure intellectual strength and vision which open up to a lawyer the path over which society is traveling, George G. Dunn sur- passed him. In the law of commerce, Stevens surpassed him. In trial procedure, it is probable Sample, Eggleston and Mc- Donald were his superiors. And so one might find others greater in a special field of the law, yet it is perhaps just as true that in all these points combined he excelled any one of them.
He founded his decisions on the best judicial dicta available. He rested very largely on precedent. It took a strong burden
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of argument to overthrow in his mind the weight of established principle. It is this characteristic that made his "reign" so valuable to the young state judiciary. He himself overthrew many of his own decisions and many of them have since been overthrown, but not till practically all lawyers had felt they should be reversed.
He has been criticised as too cautious, too conservative. This is mere opinion, and may be right. At least it cannot be answered, only denied. In his court the lawyers knew just about what the law was, and that is certainly a healthy con- dition of the law. In the face of the great social change, just beginning when he left the bench, it is difficult to hazard what he would have done. His service to the state was great and there is nothing to be gained by attempting to discount it by saying he must have failed had he served another third of a century.
His political ambitions overreached his political ability. There is no doubt but he coveted political honors. In 1825 he made the race against James Brown Ray for governor. Ray was a good popular campaigner, Blackford a poor one. In spite of this handicap, he received 10,418 votes to 13,040 for his rival, a remarkable tribute to his reputation. At the next session of the General Assembly he was a candidate for United States senator and seems to have been defeated by a single vote. His opponent was William Hendricks, the most astute politician of early Indiana, after Jennings. He was person- ally opposed to Harrison on account of the stand he had taken regarding slavery in territorial Indiana. When Harrison was a candidate in 1836 he refused to support him and went over to Van Buren. This move effectually shattered what little political reputation had been left him by the unfortunate political dickering by Governor Ray in 1831. He was defeated for Judge in 1852 by Samuel Perkins; for Supreme court re- porter in convention; and by Thomas A. Hendricks in the Democratic congressional convention. This left him com- pletely disillusioned concerning his political availability. How- ever, he enjoyed a national reputation and in 1855 President Pierce appointed him Judge of the United States Court of Claims at Washington. Here he spent the remainder of his
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life, dying December 31, 1859, at midnight, the last of his family.
His character in his profession was never assailed. His honesty, integrity and energy were never questioned. Lawyers seem as a rule to have received his decisions without a murmur. However, toward the close of his career the press began to criticise him severely. It was stated that he had made and was making a large amount of money out of his "Reports." He was charged with neglecting his official duties in order to edit them. Laymen could not understand why he spent day after day on his editorial and proofreading work when the court was two years behind with its work, while lawyers and litigants were clamoring for an early hearing. This charge had not a little to do with his later unpopularity.
There is no doubt that he did a great amount of work re- porting. The seven volumes of "Reports" are a careful selec- tion only from the great number of cases that came before the court. Each opinion was carefully restated, boiled down and corrected. The first volume of the "Reports" was published in 1830, the second in 1834, the third in 1836, the fourth in 1840, the fifth in 1844, the sixth in 1845, the seventh in 1847 and the eighth and last in 1850. These are his life work and on them his reputation must rest. The love, time and attention devoted by most men to their families was by him lavished on these volumes.
An all-round interest which he possessed in early life had rapidly narrowed until he devoted all his attention to the law. He collected a considerable library in his room in the govern- or's mansion, where he devoted himself assiduously to its study.
In 1820 he married Caroline, a daughter of his first law preceptor, Col. George McDonald, of Vincennes, where her father had located in 1819 and where he continued to practice for many years. The young wife of Blackford died a year after her marriage at the birth of a son, named George. The child was brought up at Vincennes, but died before becoming of age.
Judge Blackford lived somewhat like a hermit in his "Mansion" at Indianapolis. He boarded at a cheap hotel and
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was miserly in all his dealings. He frequently left a whole year's salary so it would accumulate interest. This became known and led people to exaggerate the amount of money he was making out of his "Reports." He belonged to no church, club, or lodge, but, with his colored servant, William Franklin, lived very much alone.
As soon as news of the death of Judge Blackford reached Indianapolis, Governor Willard called a meeting of the mem- bers of the bar to prepare for the funeral. Eulogies were pro- nounced by Judge Morrison, Governor Willard and others, after which the body was buried at the capital, although his sister, Mrs. Condit, of Terre Haute, at first had intended that the burial should be at Terre Haute.
In the National Intelligencer of January 6, 1860, is an ac- count of the bar meeting in Washington. From its proceed- ings I quote the following tribute from Governor Porter, then a representative in Congress :
"It is hardly possible for persons who live in an old com- munity to appreciate the extent to which, in a new country, the character of a public man may be impressed on the public mind. There is not a community in Indiana, not a single one, in which the name of Judge Blackford is not a household word. He has been identified with our state since the first; he may be said to be a part of our institutions. Judicial ability, judicial purity approaching almost to the divine, private worth singu- larly blending the simplicity of childhood with the sober gravity of age, these were represented not simply in the mind of the profession, but in the universal popular mind of Indiana, in the person of Isaac Blackford.
"Who that has long known him can ever forget the magni- tude and conscientious fidelity of his judicial labors; the modesty which constantly disparaged those labors ; the exalted purity of his private life, and that laugh which in the social circle in rare moments of relaxation seemed to ring more mer- rily than a child's ?
"While Judge Blackford held a place on the bench, no man, no chosen friend, no public body could ever elicit from him a private opinion upon any question of law. When he was written to by a suitor merely as to when his case would prob-
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ably be decided, the letter was carefully folded in the tran- script of the record, to be seen by all who might possibly be interested in the case."
In closing his eulogy, William McKee Dunn said: "Indiana is proud of her great jurist, but today she mourns one of her most eminent citizens. Let his body be borne back to the state with whose judicial history his name is inseparably connected, and there at its capital let him be buried where those from all parts of the state may visit his tomb and pay affectionate tribute to his memory."
Judge Blackford is the most widely and favorably known of all the Indiana Judges. For this reason it does not seem out of place at this time to include the following opinion of him taken from an editorial in the Indianapolis Journal, Janu- ary 4, 1860 :
"Preparing opinions and getting out reports were about the only features of a career of unusual evenness, and admir- ably suited the scholastic tastes and retired habits of the Judge. Buried in the little room in the upper story of the Governor's Mansion, he studied, wrote and read, and thus passed all of that lifetime of a whole generation. Of course such a man was ill fitted to contend with the keen, energetic politicians who had grown up since he became a recluse, and when the selection of Supreme Judges was passed over to the people he found himself nowhere in the struggle with his young asso- ciate, Perkins.
"Judge Blackford was not a man of great talents. His in- tellect, though discriminating and logical, was not very strong or acute. He spoke but little and that little very badly, hesitat- ingly, confused and not very coherent. He would have been overcrowded in an instant by any brass-lunged spouter who should have ventured into debate with him. To the last hour of his life he was painfully diffident in any situation that ex- posed him to special attention. But in his room alone, with his facts in his transcript, and his law in his library, he was a giant, as a coral is a giant, not in power but in production. Slowly, but with absolute certainty, he would dig on from point to point till he saw daylight through it. And when he
(13)
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went through a case there was never any need for another road till the present generation began guessing at the law as Judge Wick expressed it. He was laborious, careful and, above all, conscientious. His legal opinions, as those of his great asso- ciates, Dewey and Sullivan, were models of their kind, clear, compact and complete. They carried no weight of immaterial discussion, and they lost no weight through grammatical leaks or rhetorical cracks. Probably if his successors had aimed no higher they would have fallen no lower. The same qualities that made his opinions sound made his reports valuable. They are quoted in every state in the Union and even in England with as much respect as any reports ever produced in this country."
Governor Ray determined to break up the old Supreme court when the Judges had finished their second terms. On the 28th of January, 1831, he therefore nominated Stephen C. Stevens, of Jefferson county; Gen. John T. Mckinney, of Franklin, and Isaac Blackford to constitute the new court. Many conjectures have been made concerning the reasons for not nominating Scott and Holman and for nominating Black- ford. No plausible explanation for the foolish deed has ever been made. In 1826 Governor Ray had accepted an appoint- ment from the federal government to negotiate an Indian treaty. This was a direct violation of the State Constitution. When the General Assembly convened it appointed a com- mittee to investigate this matter. The feeling was high against the governor. General Mckinney defended the gov- ernor, as also did Stevens. An explanation of their appoint- ments may be found in this incident. It is certain Governor Ray was ambitious to go to the United States Senate ; but it is hard to reconcile his conduct in this case with any political sagacity. Scott and Holman were strong men, capable of exerting considerable political influence. Ray may have thought Blackford had political power; but if he did, he was certainly mistaken. Ray prided himself on being a non- partisan. He coveted the applause of the people. He courted this by doing the spectacular. Some simple notion like this very likely prompted him to destroy the Old Supreme court. It is futile to attempt to explain it along the line of political
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