844 V. BENCH AND BAR existing jealousy & many a per curiam opinion was so in- serted for that reason. Many of the cases decided during the 16 years I was in the Supr. Court were labored by me most unmercifully, but it was necessary under the circumstances in order to subdue opposition. We had but few American precedents. One judge was democratic, and my brother Spencer particularly of a bold, vigorous, dogmatic mind, & overbearing manner. English authorities did not stand very high in those feverish times, & this led me a hundred times to attempt to bear down opposition, or flame it by exhausting research &; overwhelm- ing authority. Our Jurisprudence was probably on the whole improved by it. My mind certainly was roused, & was always kept ardent and inflamed by collision. In 1814 I was appointed Chancellor. The office I took with considerable reluctance. It had no claims. The person who left it was stupid, & it is a curious fact that for the nine years I was in that office, there was not a single decision, opinion or dictum of either of my two predecessors {Ch. Livingston Sf Ch. (^) ) from 1777 to 1814 cited to me or even suggested. I took the court as if it had been a new institution, & never before known to the U. S. I had noth- ing to guide me, & was left at liberty to assume all such English chancery powers and jurisdiction as I thought applicable under our constitution. This gave me great scope, & I was only checked by the revision of the Senate & court of Errors. I opened the gates of the court imme- diately, & admitted almost gratuitously the first year 85 counsellors, though I found there had not been but 13 ad- mitted for 13 years before. Business flowed in with a rapid tide. The result appears in the seven volumes of Johnson's Ch. reports. My study in Equity jurisprudence was very much con- fined to the topics elicited by the cases. I had previously read, of course, the modern Equity reports, down to the time, & of course I read all the new ones as fast as I could procure them. I remember reading Pear Williams as early as 1792 and made a digest of the leading doctrines. The • Blank in original.
