Chancellor James Kent. to guide me, and was left at liberty to assume all such English chancery powers and juris diction as I thought applicable under our Constitution. This gave me grand scope, and I was only checked by the revision of the Senate or Court of Errors. I opened the gates of the court immediately, and ad mitted almost gratuitously the first year eighty-five counselors, though I found there had been but thirteen admitted for thirteen years before. Business flowed in with rapid tide. The result appears in the seven vol umes of Johnson's Chancery Reports. My course of study in equity jurisprudence was very much confined to the topics elected by the cases. I had previously read the mod ern Equity Reports down to that time, and of course I read all the new ones as fast as I could procure them. I remember reading Peere Williams as early as 1792, and made a digest of the leading doctrines. I always took up<the cases in their order, and never left one until I had finished it. This was only doing one thing at a time. My prac tice was first to make myself perfectly and accurately (mathematically accurately) mas ter of the facts. It was done by abridging the bill, and then the answer, and then the depositions, and by the time I had done this slow and tedious process, I was master of the case, and ready to decide it. I saw where justice lay, and the moral sense decided the case half the time, and then I sat down to search the authorities until I had exhausted my books, and I might once in a while be embarrassed by a technical rule, but I most always found principles suited to my view of the case, and my ob ject was so to discuss a point as never to be teased with it again, and to anticipate an angry and vexatious appeal to a popular tribunal by disappointed counsel." Kent innovated but seldom; indeed, he ex pressly stated that he did not intend to do so. On account of this self-limitation it has been said that " he denied himself an opportun ity of expressing his own conceptions of
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equity," but his own words, as above quoted, show that he always found principles suited to his view of the case. The Chancellor at this time was invested with extended author ity. Not only did he inherit the powers of a Chancellor under the former English sys tem, but by virtue of his office he sat in the court of last resort, and might argue in sup port of his own judgment below, though he could not vote. To this extraordinary power must also be added the right to sit in the Council of Revision, and cast a vote on all legislation under the first Constitution. It will be remembered that the famous Erie Canal bill passed the Senate in 1817, but was subjected to another severe ordeal in the Council of Revision, of which Lieut enant-Governor Taylor was president, one of the most distinguished as well as formid able opponents of the measure. There were present the Chancellor, Chief-Justice Smith Thompson, Judge Jonas Piatt, and Judge Joseph C. Yates, afterwards Governor of the State. According to Mrs. Lamb's " History of the City of New York," the Chancellor said it seemed like a gigantic project which would require the wealth of the United States to accomplish, and he thought it inexpedient to commit the State until public opinion could be better united. The Chief Justice said the bill gave arbitrary powers to the commis sioners over private rights without sufficient provisions and guards; he was, therefore, opposed. The crisis was alarming. Taylor held the casting vote. Near the close of the discussion Vice-President Tompkins entered the Council Chamber, and took his seat familiarly; he expressed a decided opinion against the bill, remarking that the late peace with Great Britain was a mere truce, and that the credit and resources of the State ought to be employed in prepar ing for war. "Do you think so?" asked Chancellor Kent. " Yes," was the reply. "England never forgave us our victories; and, my word for it, we shall have another war within two years." The Chancellor
