Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 09.pdf/200

The Supreme Court of Wisconsin. 1841, he was prosecuting attorney for the county of Cook, in which Chicago is. In 1842, he removed to Racine, a pros perous lake town in southeastern Wisconsin. While here he was elected a delegate from Racine County to the first constitutional convention. His great ability was soon rec ognized in the deliberations. He was the chairman of the committee on banks and

banking, and made an able report designed to prohibit banks of issue, and withhold from corporations the exercise of any bank ing powers. This called forth a lively debate, and with some alteration his view was finally adopted by the first convention. Ryan also vigorously opposed an elective judiciary, and was for permanence in the terms of judges. He was the second mem ber of the committee on judiciary and also a member of the committee on educa tion. The constitu EDWARD tion proposed by that convention was rejected by the people at the polls, largely because of opposition to its strict anti-bank provisions; and he was not returned to the second convention. He gained great prominence in several murder trials, then considered the greatest field for display of legal ability; but the effort that lifted him into something more than a State reputation was his eloquent argument in the Hubbell impeachment, of which mention is made in earlier pages. He was not on the winning side, but his argument was read with admiration for years

after, not alone for the denunciation of the accused, but for the lofty ideal of judicial purity it held up. It placed Ryan's fame far above the ordinary levels, and it was common to speak of him as "the Burke of Wisconsin." For several years he was city attorney of Milwaukee. He was on one side or the other in the greatest trials in the history of the State. In the fugitive slave law cases, he fought with all his legal ability and all his in tensity of political conviction, for in everything he was intense. He was counsel for Bashford in the cele brated case of the disputed governor ship, and though a political friend and supporter of Barstow, the Democratic claimant, he took strong grounds against the counting of illegal votes. The contention of Barstow was that the question of his right to the office of gov G. RYAN. ernor had been con clusively settled by the State board of canvassers, and that the Supreme Court could not interfere with a co-ordinate department and go behind the certificate of election. This position Matt. H. Carpenter and the other counsel for Barstow mantained with great ingenuity. They also insisted that the court had no jurisdiction of quo warranta in a disputed gubernatorial election; but Ryan tore their arguments in pieces. One passage in his argument is so pertinent to present times that it may here be quoted : — "In this world there have never been but