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The Highest Courts of Law in New Hampshire. Evans and Clifton Claggett, and they rode the circuits with general acceptance. Even at this early period politics and justice maintained a partnership, and the fact that these judges stood well with the dominant party may have enhanced their judicial rep utations. From the earliest times party feel ing ran high in New Hampshire, and a man could renounce the Christian scheme of salva tion with far less per

sonal inconvenience than he could turn his back on his party and come out for the oppo sition. A sentiment so deeply held had its influence on the courts, and it was only natural that the party in the minority should regard every department of the Government with sus picion and sometimes with alarm. In later years this feeling has largely abated, but who can predict what might come of some tremen dous party excitement? But in the young years of this century the people were half JEREMIAH crazed with politics, and were always on the war-path. The yearly struggles between the Federalists and the Republicans were fierce and stubborn, resulting in alternating victories; but in 1813 the Federalists came out ahead, and their adherents called for ven geance. The Revolutionists on the banks of the Seine were not more impatient before the guillotine than were the hot-tempered politicians on the Merrimack in the presence of so many victims. They did not wait to address the judges out of office according to the mode pointed out by the Constitution, but deposed the whole judiciary system by

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creating another in its stead. At one swoop the Superior and the Inferior courts went out of existence. To justify these measures the leaders showed the gross imperfections and irregularities of the old courts, and claimed that while the process was severe, circum stances demanded it. This reasoning only roused the other party to redoubled exer tions under the battle-cry of Revenge, and the people were kept alive to partisan issues during many years following. At this juncture Judge Smith again became prominent. Since his retirement from the bench he had been Governor of the State, and he now (181 3) was ap pointed Chief-Justice of the Supreme Ju dicial Court, with Ar thur Livermore and Caleb Ellis as asso ciate justices. It was conceded that this was the ablest tri bunal that the State had ever known; but it was a political court, so the furious SMITH Republicans declared, and this party fool ishly denied its legal existence, and en couraged citizens to obstruct its functions. The old judges, Evans and Claggett, held to this absurd and violent view, and actu ally rode their circuits and endeavored to hold court as if such persons as Smith and his confreres never existed. The party newspapers sustained them in their mis guided course, and the politicians outside the bar nodded approval. The lawyers, however, were too wise and prudent to be carried away by the prevailing insanity, and to their conservative attitude the preserva