The Court of Appeals of Kentucky. finer traits of character occupied with remarkable ability as a teacher. Under his instruction young Robertson acquired a classical training and literary style that characterized his opinions in after years and caused the great but uncouth Ben Hardin to facetiously refer to Dana's Kentucky Reports as "George Robertson's Waverly Novels." When a little more than nineteen years old, Mr. Robertson married Miss Eleanor Bainbridge and about the same time he was licensed to practice law. The young couple "set up " housekeeping in the buckeye log cabin already mentioned in the sketch of Chief Justice Boyle, with the result that the head of the family was in 18 1 6 elected to Congress as already stated. He resigned his seat in Congress in order to enter the lower house of the Kentucky Legislature and champion the cause of the "Old Court " in the heated conflict then raging. He was regarded as one of the most influential advocates of his party and was several times sent to the Legislature as its leader. In 1826 he was appointed Sec retary of State of Kentucky, but he soon resigned that position. His appointment to the bench soon followed. After nearly fifteen years' service in the Court of Appeals, he resigned early in 1843 and retired to private life. For more than twenty years he lived in Lexington in the enjoyment of a large practice, surrounded by a circle of young men who crowded about him to receive instruction in the law. To this day many an old lawyer in Kentucky speaks with special pride of " my old pre ceptor, Judge Robertson." His affection for his students is even yet a matter of com ment. When he came to the bench a second time in 1864, he could not resist a leaning toward one of his old pupils who appeared at the bar before him. The writer once heard two of his admirers in conversation. One said that Judge Robert son sought to aid his favorite by finding an authority in point for him. " Yes," replied
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the other, " he would do more than that, he would find a fact for him if he needed it to win his case." All of this was by way of tender recollections and by no means in harsh criticism. In August, 1864, while the Civil War was in progress and Kentucky was being occupied by the Federal troops, an election for Judge of the Court of Appeals under the Constitution of 1850 came on. Two of the candidates most favored by the people were suspected by the Federal authorities of disloyalty to the Union and they were forced to leave the state to avoid military arrest. A candidate was brought out by the northern sympathizers and sup ported by the military power. At this junc ture some of the leading lawyers of the state met at Lexington and decided that ex-Chief Justice Robertson, then nearly seventy-five years old, must enter the race. He did so in order to redeem the state from the rule of a court chosen at the point of a bayonet. In two days' time, news of his candidacy was carried by swift couriers throughout the dis trict, and before the week was half gone he was triumphantly elected. He took his seat in the court for the sec ond time in September, 1864, and continued to serve until 1871 when he again resigned. In the last year of this period, he was again Chief Justice under the constitutional pro visions already explained. During his last term of service, some of the ablest opinions that appear in the Ken tucky Reports were handed down by Judge Robertson. When in the seventy-fifth year of his age, he delivered an opinion in the court in the case of Griswold v. Hepburn, reported in 2 Duvall, 20-76, in which he held the "Legal Tender Act" passed by Congress in 1862 to be unconstitutional. This case was taken on writ of error to the United States Supreme Court, where, as Hepburn v. Griswold (8 Wallace, 603), it was affirmed in an opinion delivered by Chief Justice Chase.
