Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 05.pdf/456

 The Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia. At that day not one voice was raised, either within or without the Legislature, in Vir ginia in advocacy of slavery. It was thoroughly understood that cheap labor would ruin the State. Faulkner was the bold and manly advocate of freedom. But the slave-owning party had refused to accept a white basis of representation; and when a vote was reached, they succeeded in defeat ing any further inves tigation by a majority. _.

of eight. There is no doubt at all that the white people of Vir ginia, had they been allowed proper repre sentation, would have set the slaves free. A writer 1 in the " Rich mond Enquirer " of Feb. 4, 1832, reviewed the debates on this momentous question, and severely criticised the speeches favorable to freedom over the fateful nom deplume of Appomattox! Thus ended the struggle in side of the State for emancipation. The dreadful ques tion affected every DRURY A. white man in the Com monwealth. Slavery was unsuited to the genius of our institutions. It caused population in the black counties either to stand still or decrease. The Consti tution of 1851 extended the right of suffrage to every white citizen; but the slaveholding faction was still able so to arrange in that Constitution itself the basis of representation in the General Assembly as to preserve its majority in the government. It held on to its power, but allowed the sceptre to depart from Virginia. No man who disagreed with i B. W. Leigh.

421

it was ever allowed a place on the Supreme Bench. The military genius of the war first saw the light in that portion of the State which was free from slavery. When it was all over, Gen. U. S. Grant, then President of the United States, was serenaded at Staunton by the famous " Stonewall " Band. He raised his hat, and eloquently and laconically said, "The immortal Jack,, son!" In the year 1848 the number of cases on -the docket of the Supreme Court of Ap peals (then the court of last resort other than in criminal cases) had increased to such an extent that the average pendency of an appeal was seven years. An act was passed, March 31 of that year, establishing a special Court of Appeals at Richmond to remedy the evil. Under some circum¡ stances the decisions 1 of this special court _J are not regarded as authority, i & 2 PatHINTON. ton, Jr., and Heath's Reports cover its de cisions up to the year 1857. Its judges were Richard H. Field, Lucas P. Thompson, John B. Clopton, George H. Gilmer, and John W. Tyler. Judge John W. Nash sat for Judge Gilmer, on account of illness, during the year 1857. Horace B. Burnham, O. M. Dormán, and W. Willoughby formed what was called the Military Court of Appeals, from October, 1869, to January, 1870, when Virginia was Military District No. I, in the days of Recon struction, so-called. Their decisions (?) are to be found bound up with the decisions of the