THE SUPREME COURT OF TENNESSEE.
I.
UNDER THE CONSTITUTION OF 1796.
By Albert D. Marks.
At the time of the admission of the State of Tennessee into the Union in 1796, the now general division of the governmental functions in three co-ordinate departments was not fully developed. The Constitution then adopted (Art. V. Sec. I) provided that "the judicial power of the State shall be invested in such superior and inferior courts of law and equity as the Legislature shall from time to time direct and establish."
Under this authority the first act passed by the Legislature of the new State provided for Superior Courts of Law and Equity, empowered to finally decide cases. There were to be three judges, to be elected by the Legislature. Among its judges arc to be found the names of many men who after wards were illustrious in the history of both the State and nation. Archibald Roane and Willie Blount were thereafter Governors of Tennessee. Gen. Andrew Jackson served for six years, resigning in 1804. Judge John Overton succeeded General Jackson, and sat until the abolition of the court. Judge Roane, having been elected Governor, resigned in 1801 to accept that office. Hugh Lawson White was appointed in his stead, and continued to act until his resignation in 1807.
This system proved unsatisfactory, because of the lack of harmony in the rulings of the several judges throughout the State. The evil of having the same questions decided differently according to the county in which the suit happened to be was prominently brought to the attention of the people and the Legislature by a series of articles contributed to the press by Thomas H. Benton, then a citizen of Tennessee practising law at Nashville. As the result of this agitation, the Act of Nov. 16, 1809, was passed. By that act the Superior Courts of Law and Equity were abolished, and circuit courts substituted. There was created by the same act a Supreme Court of Errors and Appeals, composed of two judges in error to be elected by the Legislature, with whom a circuit judge was to sit.
Hugh Lawson White was elected as a judge of the new court, and George W. Campbell was chosen as his colleague. Judge Campbell, who was afterwards Secretary of the Treasury under President Madison, and Minister to Russia, resigned in 1811, John Overton succeeding him.
Hugh Lawson White, whose term of judicial service began as a judge of the Superior Court in 1801, and who was one of the judges of the newly created Supreme Court, was a most remarkable man. He was doubtless called to fill more positions of trust than any man in the history of the country, though he never made a canvas for an office. Born in Iredell County, N. C, Oct. 30, 1773, he came to East Tennessee in 1781 with his father, Gen. James White, who there founded the town of Knoxville.
At twenty he became the private secretary of William Blount, then territorial governor, and was made a judge of the Superior Court, at the early age of twenty-eight, in 1801. The period of his judicial service extended down to 1814. He served as a judge of the Supreme Court after its creation in 1809. He was twice a State Senator, afterwards United States District Attorney, a Commissioner on the part of the United States under the Florida treaty with Spain, and President of the Bank of
