home. When I came to the bench, there were no reports or state precedents. We had no law of our own, and nobody knew what it was. / first introduced a thorough examination of cases and written opinions. "The second case reported in I Johnson's Cases, of Ludlow V. Dale, is a sample of the earliest. The judges, when we met, all assumed that foreign sentences were only good prima facie. I presented and read my written opinion that they were conclu sive, and they all gave up to me, and so I read it in court as it stands. This was the commencement of a new plan, and then was laid the first stone in the subsequently erected temple of our jurisprudence." Although Kent's strong point was not an appreciation of humor, or that of a maker of wit, nevertheless he was not deficient in these attributes, and was often droll and naive. Instance this : " I could generally put my brethren to rout and carry my point by my mysterious wand of French and civil law. The judges were republicans, and very kindly disposed to everything that was French, and this enabled me without excit ing any claim or jealousy to make free use of such authorities, and thereby enrich our commercial law." Of course Kent's author ity soon became dominant in the court, as is seen by the volumes in Johnson, after he became chief judge in 1804. At first the practice was for each judge to prepare his proportion of opinions, but this rule became "more honored in the breach than in the observance," and for the two or three years before Kent left the bench, almost all of the opinions were written by him. " I remem ber," he writes, " that in 8 Johnson all the opinions one term are per curiam. The fact is I wrote them all, and proposed that course to avoid exciting jealousy, and many a per curiam opinion was written and so inserted for that reason. English authority did not stand very high in these feverish times, and this led me a hundred times to attempt to bear down opposition, or shame it by ex
hausting research and overwhelming au thority." On the fifteenth day of February, 18 14, the Chief Justice was translated from the Su preme Court to the Court of Chancery, and the resulting benefit of this richly deserved honor is well treated in the chapter on the growth of the Constitution contained in the "Memorial History of the City New York." When Kent was made Chancellor, Johnson, his old reporter and life-long friend, was di rected by the Legislature to report his de cisions; and the New York Court of Chancery now begins a career which for brilliancy, character, and permanency of value has not been surpassed by the court of any other State. Livingstone, the first Chancellor, en graved nothing on its structure that has been handed down, so we are unable to estimate his judicial work; Lansing, the second Chancellor, left behind him some seventyfour chancery rules, but there was no re porter in his time, and so his merits or de fects are not recorded. Chancellor Kent, however, was attended by the reporters from the beginning, and his services as Chancel lor are known values which need only be studied in order to be ascertained. The material he had at hand was meagre. There was no system of American equity juris prudence at his command ready for him to expound or apply. As has been well said, he " perceived that to an American lawyer of his day two great and living problems were presented for solution : the relations of the common law of the older country to the new republic, and the relations of the judicature branch of government to the leg islative and executive branches in a com posite or federal state." But let the Chan cellor tell his own story : " For the nine years I was in that office there was not a single decision, opinion, or dictum of either of my two predecessors cited by me, or even suggested. I took the court as if it had been a new institution, and never before known in the United States. I had nothing
