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The Court of Appeals of Maryland. The political avalanche which swept over the country that year destroyed the Whig party, and Richard J. Bowie was defeated for the first time in his political career. After the dissolution of the Whig party, he took no active part in politics until the Presidential election of 1860, when he earnestly supported Bell and Everett. He was opposed to all sectional agitation, and

declared himself un alterably in favor of the Union at a time when it required great moral courage to resist the wave of Secessionalism that was sweeping over the South from Maryland to Texas. He foretold the im pending Civil War, and urged the elec tion of Bell and Ev erett as the means of averting it. The result is history. As already men tioned, Mr. Bowie was elected to the Court of Appeals of Maryland, in Novem ber, 1861, and, in rec JAMES L. ognition of his judi cial learning, was ap pointed Chief Justice of Maryland. He pre sided over the highest court of the State dur ing the trying times of the Civil War. Those were the darkest days Maryland had known since she became an independent State. In many instances the civil courts were ignored, and martial law ruled. Citizens were arrested without warrant of law, and the Constitution of the United States was openly violated, but not a suspicion of injustice, or partiality, or partisanship was cast upon the Court of Appeals. During all those four years of war, of civil commo-

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tion and military usurpation, the purity of Maryland's highest court of law remained unsullied. In 1867 a new constitution was formed in Maryland, under which the Court of Ap peals was reorganized. A general state election took place in November, at which Judge Bowie was a candidate for re-election to the appellant bench. As none but Dem ocrats were elected to any office that year in Maryland, Richard J. Bowie suf fered his second and last defeat at the polls. At the next gen eral state election, held in November, 1 87 1, Judge Bowie was restored to the Court of Appeals, where he sat for ten years longer. In 1876, the Legislature of Maryland extend ed his time to 1882, as he would have reached the consti tutional limit of sev enty years before the next Legislature met RARTOL. in 1878, and, conse quently, would have been ineligible without a special act of the General Assembly. This graceful compli ment was paid to Judge Bowie by a Demo cratic Legislature, with only three dissent ing votes. Thus, the only Republican judge on the bench of the Court of Appeals was retained by a Legislature entirely op posed to him in politics. This was the crowning honor of a life crowded with honors. It was the highest tribute that could be paid to him as a judge, and the greatest honor that could be bestowed upon him as a man.