Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/322

312 long looked-for decision, Mr. Lincoln likened these things unto "the cautious patting and petting of a spirited horse preparatory to mounting him when it is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall." Then in his inimitable style he says: "We can not absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the result of preconcert, but when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places, and by different workmen Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance, and when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few not omitting even scaffolding or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in in such a case, we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck."

Personally, I have felt that the criticism was unjust to the distinguished chief justice, whose purity of character and whose uprightness and integrity as an individual and as a jurist was beyond reproach, as it leaves the impress that he had prejudged the cause. Such a thing was not to be thought of and surely was not intended by the criticism, but the elucidation was at once so felicitous and apropos as to lead to the utter rout and vanquish ment of Stephen and Franklin and James.

Coming back to our own State judiciary, it is not to be denied that at times there has been cause for pertinent criticism, but these have been rare, and from the earliest organization it has merited and received the respect, good