Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 07.pdf/266

Rh elected him judge of the Court of Common Pleas of a judicial circuit then consisting of the counties of Franklin, Madison, Clark, Champaign, Logan, Union, and Delaware. He was again elected by the Legislature in 1841.

In 1845 Judge Swan resigned his position of judge of the Common Pleas, and formed a partnership with Mr. John W. Andrews of Columbus, Ohio, which partnership continued with profit to both until 1854.

In October, 1854, Judge Swan was the candidate of the Republican party for the position of judge of the Supreme Court, and was elected by a large majority.

On the Supreme Court Bench Judge Swan fully sustained he high reputation already won by him, and it is safe to say that he held the esteem and confidence of the Bar, Bench, and the public in general to as great a degree as that which had ever been attained by any of the illustrious citizens who had preceded him on that bench. Some of the most exciting incidents of our country's history were enacted during the period when Judge Swan sat on the bench of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and truly may it be said of him that he never forgot the dignity of the high office which he held. At all times courteous, patient, impartial, firm, and wise. Always striving to rightly construe the law as it existed, never attempting to create law to suit existing conditions, as is too often the case with some courts. Indeed, it was his fearlessness in discharging his duty, as he saw it, and as all have since been made to see, that he was repudiated by his party friends, and refused a renomination to a place on the Supreme Court Bench. We refer to his decision on the "fugitive slave law," when he held "that the State could not interfere with the action of the courts of the United States within their well-established constitutional limits." Judge Swan himself regarded this as the greatest act of his life and the complete vindication afterwards accorded him proves that he was not alone a strong man, but that he was a far-seeing one as well.

But his failure to be renominated and reelected to a seat on the Supreme Court bench did not discourage him, as the work performed by him afterwards plainly shows: it was following this period that he wrote and published a treatise entitled, "A Treatise on the Law relating to the Powers and Duties of Justices of the Peace, etc." This work has gone through many editions, and is considered one of the most useful books ever published in Ohio. One of the last acts of his life was the preparation of a new edition of this work, working at it when hardly able to sit up. His publishers hastened the book through as rapidly as possible that he might see a copy before he died.