that he, the President Judge, was the spokesman of the Court.

For this, an attempt was made by the Attorney General to indict him, but the Supreme Court refused the motion, holding, however, that the associate had a right to address the jury.

A second attempt by Lucas to charge the Grand Jury, in which he was again stopped by Judge Addison, resulted in the impeachment proceedings.

Of these, Judge Agnew has said they "were the most flagitious ever urged on by vicious hate and obnoxious partisanship."

The following extracts from his charges to the various grand juries will indicate his mental attitude, and you can see how the Anti-Federalists would squirm under some of them. He liked neither the politics nor the amusements of the citizens of Pittsburgh.

At the sessions of June, 1796, he presented his views on the fairs of the period as follows:

*

"You have probably seen an advertisement in the Gazette and in printed hand-bills, of a fair to be held in this place at this time. * The only fair I have seen in this country is that which was held here last June, as now, during the Court. An unusual number of idle people were assembled, strolling through the streets from tavern to tavern, drinking, dancing, and exerting themselves to be noisy. From that specimen of a fair, I am disposed to think that a fair is another name for a nuisance, and I think it ought to be considered as such and the promoters of it as promoters of disturbance of the peace."

* * *

He was emphatic and insistent on "Liberty-poles" as being evidences of intention to overthrow the government. At a trial here in 1794 for a riot and conduct intended to insult the Commissioners who sought to procure an amicable adjustment of the Whiskey Insurrection, he said, "Pole raising was a notorious symptom of dissatisfaction, and the exhibition of this must have made an impression very unfavorable to the whole country, promoted violence in the people here and induced force on the part of the government."

* * *

In a charge to the Grand Jury at December Sessions,

1794, in which he discussed "the late insurrection," he again returns to "Liberty Poles." He says:

"One offense which I would recommend to your particular consideration is the raising of liberty-poles. What is the liberty these pole-raisers wanted? A liberty to be governed by no law; a liberty to destroy every man who differs from them in opinion, or whom they hated; a liberty to do what mischief they pleased."

Again, at the September Sessions 1795, discussing the evils of political clubs and associations, he continues:

"We had an unhappy instance of this in the late insurrection. A set of mush-room patriots whose voice had never before been heard nor influence felt, sprung up at once with nothing to recommend them, but ignorance, impudence and violence by working on the passions of the people, they acquired all the influence of virtue, wisdom and patriotism."

*

But it was in defence of the Alien and Sedition Acts and in denunciation of the French Revolution and French propaganda that he was most fiery: At December Sessions 1798, he said:

cre

* * *

"But is all our pity to be extended to strangers, and shall we extend no care to our wives and children. The French have threatened us with pillage, plunder and massathey have threatened us with a party among ourselves which will promote their views. Some of them, it is said, have told us that we dare not resent their injuries, for there are Frenchmen enough among us to burn our cities and cut our throats. And it seems we dare not remove these gentle lambs! Gracious Heavens! Are we an independent nation, and dare not do this?

*

*

May the God of Wisdom open our eyes to the excellence of our Constitution and the purity and wisdom of our administration. * * May He wean us from all partialities towards any foreign nation and preserve us from the machinations of a government ambitious, desperate, faithless and corrupt, which flatters only to deceive and carresses only to destroy!"

Equally well equipped for the law, and perhaps even a more able and brilliant barrister and scholar, was Addison's

great rival and enemy, Hugh Henry Brackenridge. He and his distinguished son Henry Marie Brackenridge, not only by their legal attainments and prestige, but by their literary labors, have a high place in the annals, not alone of Western Pennsylvania, but of the Nation.

The senior Brackenridge was born in Campbelton, Scotland, in 1784, and came to America with his parents as a child of five. The family was poor. By teaching school he saved enough to go to Princeton, where he became a tutor, and was graduated with the class of 1771. At the outbreak of the Revolution he was Master of an Academy in Maryland. He removed to Philadelphia, where he studied for the ministry, and evidently was licensed to preach, as he became a Chaplain in the Colonial Army. In 1778 he began the study of law with Samuel Chase, afterwards a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; was admitted to the Bar in Philadelphia; and in 1781 removed to Pittsburgh, and during the same year was admitted in Washington and Westmoreland counties. As already noted, he was admitted here in 1788, upon the organization of our first Court. He had much to do with procuring the erection of the new County of Allegheny,-having been elected to the Assembly in 1786 for that purpose. He evidently was the leader of the Bars of the various Courts in Western Pennsylvania at which he practiced from 1781 until his being commissioned as one of the justices of the Supreme Court of this state, December 18, 1799.

He was engaged in most of the cases reported in "Addison." The prominence of the various lawyers of that period may be guaged by the following summary of their cases as found in Addison's single volume of Reports:

Brackenridge, 56; Ross, 39; Young (Westmoreland Co.), 33; Woods, 32; Bradford, 6; Steele Semple, 6; and Galbraith, Deputy Attorney General (principally connected with his office), 11. Carson, admitted here with Brackenridge, had but three.

Brackenridge's career was not only a distinguished, but a stormy one. He was considered radical and against the excise tax; and it is claimed by some writers that if he did not support the insurgents, was not active in opposing them. It is said that Hamilton had marked him for arrest, but he

was saved by James Ross, his rival at the Bar. He was the leader of the advanced Republicans, whom their enemies then styled "Jacobins." The tenets and extravagances of the French Revolution were supported by these radicals. As a result, the Gazette, a Federalist journal, took pleasure in referring to Brackenridge as "Citizen Brackenridge," and when a little later this "Stormy Petrel" of the Bar set up an organ of his own, called the Tree of Liberty, the conservative Gazette forthwith dubbed him "Jacobin printer of the Tree of Sedition, Blasphemy and Slander."

These ardent Republicans met in John Marie's tavern, and no doubt regularly drank damnation both loud and deep to the hated Federalists. It is said that one of Brackenridge's Fourth of July orations was so appealing to the French sympathizers of the time that they printed and circulated it with that of one of the leading French revolutionists.

Brackenridge was a patron of learning, and his name appears with that of James Ross, in 1787, as one of the incorporators of the Pittsburgh Academy.

He supported the candidacy of Chief Justice McKean for the governorship, as against his co-incorporator, James Ross, and the day following Governor McKean's taking the office he nominated Brackenridge to the place upon the Supreme Bench, which he held until his death in 1816, aged 68. He had some years before removed from Pittsburgh to Carlisle, where he died.

Loyd, in "Early Courts of Pennsylvania," says of him: "At the Bar, Brackenridge was rated for his shrewdness, wit and eloquence. *** On the bench, he did not display the same power as at the Bar; his opinions were racy, but not profound, and failed to do justice to his real learning; an untiring student, his dislike of convention led him at times into a show of flippancy."

He hated Judge Yeates, one of his brethren, and rarely agreed with him. His antipathy likely began with Yeates' visit to Western Pennsylvania as a Commissioner to placate the "insurgents," and when he and his fellow commissioners were more than once threatened with violence including an application of tar and feathers by the "disgruntled" fellow

citizens and, perhaps, supporters of Hugh Henry Brackenridge.

Judge Brackenridge was a prolific writer, and, among other volumes from his pen was "Law Miscellanies." In this, in an article considering the obloquy under which the Supreme Court was then resting, he gives as reasons: (1) The affinity of three of the judges in which each deferred to his brother and did not care to hurt any one's feelings by dissenting; (2) The aristocratic tendency of the three, who were of distinguished and wealthy connections, and, therefore, disposed to look at things through class spectacles, and, finally (3) The spirit of the times in which people spoke of Courts in the language of Jack Cade.

There was an attempt to impeach three of the Judges, but Brackenridge, though not included, insisted upon being treated like the others. Loyd says of this: "This offer to stand impeachment with his colleagues was the most courageous act in the public career of the most eccentric genius that ever sat on our Supreme bench."

Before leaving Judge Brackenridge, we may note that his friend, John B. C. Lucas, the obstinate Associate Judge who finally triumphed over Judge Addison, was, in 1805, appointed to the United States Court for the new territory of Louisiana.

James Ross' name, his personality and activities are more firmly imbedded in our local history than are those of his two great contemporaries already mentioned. He seems to have been more practical, not a philosopher, a dreamer or a literary man, and, therefore, perhaps fitted into the intensely practical life of this community better than either Addison or Brackenridge.

He was born in York County, this state, in 1762, and was fourteen when the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed. He died here in 1847, and, therefore, lived to within thirteen years of the Civil War-and saw the beginning of the modern era of Pittsburgh and of the Bar which was personally known to men who are yet living.

Our Courthouse and City-County Building are upon the land that Ross once owned, and Ross Street and Ross Township perpetuate his name.

His education was obtained under the Rev. Dr. McMil