The Supreme Court of Kansas. erally as constituting a defence in a criminal action, see the case of The State v. Nixon, 32 Kas. 205, the opinion being delivered by Judge Valentine. With respect to the rights of married women the decisions of the Su preme Court of Kansas have been very lib eral, Judge Valentine delivering the opinions in the leading cases : Going v. Orns, 8 Kas. 85; Deering v. Boyle, 8 Kas. 525; Knaggs v. Mastin, 9 Kas. 532. It has also been de cided by the Supreme Court of Kansas, Judge Valentine delivering the opinion, that the Legislature has the power to confer upon women the right to vote at school elections. (Wheeler v. Brady, 15 Kas. 26.) And in all cases of elections, the Supreme Court of Kansas has rigidly held that the elections must be pure, and that the majority of the legal and honest voters must govern. Among the cases upon this subject in which Judge Valentine has delivered the opinions of the Court, see the cases of The State ex rel. Wells v. Marston, 6 Kas. 524; Morris v. Vanlaningham, 11 Kas. 269. As to the value of the legislative journals and the en rolled bills as evidence of the validity and force of the statutes purporting to have been passed by the Legislature, see the following cases, the opinions having been delivered by Judge Valentine: Division of Howard County, 15 Kas. 194; The State ex rel. v. Francis, 26 Kas. 724. On the question whether the Legislature has the power to authorize municipal cor porations to aid railroad companies in the construction of their railroad, Judge Brewer (now an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States), who was then an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Kansas, although dissenting in this case, pays the following tribute to the ability of Judge Valentine, and the exhaustiveness of his opinion : — "For these reasons I think these acts of the Legislature authorizing municipalities to extend aid to private railroad corporations cannot be sustained upon principle. My brethren think otherwise, and the question is so settled. The
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conclusion reached is no hasty one, but the result of long, patient, and careful examination; and the believers in the validity of municipal aid to rail roads may look in vain through the books for an abler presentation of the arguments in their favor than that given by my brother Valentine." The eminent Judge Cooley, of Michigan, in a conversation with a prominent Kansas lawyer at the time, said that although he perfectly agreed with Judge Brewer in his dissenting opinion in this case, nevertheless the opinion of Judge Valentine was the most exhaustive and the ablest ever delivered on that side of the question. William A. Johnston, Junior Associate Justice, was born in Ontario, on the 24th of July, 1849. His father was a farmer, and as is the case with nearly all farmers' sons, he alternated his time as a youth between work ing on the homestead and attending the country school. When he had arrived at the age of fifteen, he removed to Illinois. He did what many of the best lawyers of the United States were compelled to do, taught school to obtain the means to continue his own studies, during which time he devoted all his spare moments to reading law, and was admitted .to the practice at the relatively early age of twenty-three. Emulating many of the men who from poverty have risen to distinction he sought the West as a more congenial field than the crowded cities of the East; he removed to Minneapolis, Kansas, the county-seat of Ot tawa, in 1872, where he immediately entered upon the practice of his profession with re markable success. He became very popular among the citizens at once, who elected him a Representative to the Legislature, where he served one session, and the next fall was sent as a State Senator, for four organized counties and all the unorganized territory extending to the western boundary of the State. He held this important office for four years, and in 1879 accepted the position of Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Kansas. This he retained until his election, in 1880, as Attorney-General of
