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An Address by
John W. Davis MILESTONES are useful for three main purposes. They tell the wayfarer how far he has travelled; with the help of a timepiece they give his rate of speed; and on a measured road they tell him how much farther he must go to reach his destination. Without pressing the analogy too far, it may be said that anniversaries serve similar ends. They too record the past, measure the present and sometimes predict the future. Judge Lehman has sketched for us the origin and history of the Supreme Court of New York, whose birth and mature age we are here to commemorate. You will not expect me to review the history of two hundred and fifty years in order to fill in any details which he has been compelled to omit. I once heard an orator who had passed his hundredth birthday begin an after-dinner speech by alluding to the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492. I remember the shiver of apprehension that went through the audience as they realized the span of years he might be tempted to review, and I remember also the sigh of grateful relief when their fears proved to be unfounded. I shall take warning from the incident. On the sixth day of May, 1691, as Judge Lehman has told you, the second Assembly of the Province of New York passed an Act establishing Courts of Judicature "for the ease and benefit of each respective city, town and county within this Province." Among these was a "Supreame Court of Judicature" having jurisdiction in all "Pleas, Civill Criminall, and Mixt, as fully and amply to all Intents and purposes whatsoever, as the Courts of Kings Bench, Common Pleas & Exchequer within their Majestyes Kingdom of England, have, or ought to have. . ." The pedigree and parentage of the court were thus written large and plain on the face of the Act itself. It was to be an English court, established for Englishmen in the New World. And from this time forward justice was to be administered in the Colony under English forms. Notwithstanding the breadth of the jurisdiction bestowed upon the Court, the clientele it was to serve was by modern comparison truly insignificant. The settled portion of the Province of New York then consisted of New York City, with a population of some four thousand souls; Long Island and "other small islands;" Zopus (Esopus); Albany and the limits thereof—some ten thousand white persons in all. There were Dutchmen among them who had helped Peter Stuyvesant set up his Courts of Burghers and Schepens and Schouts to administer Roman-Dutch law. There were Frenchmen born under the civil law of France who had sought refuge in the Colony after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. And there were a still larger number of Englishmen who had lived under the Courts of Assize and Oyer and Terminer set up by former Royal Governors. Yet whatever the threads of these earlier fabrics that might be left in the later weaving, henceforth the denizens of the Colony were to form one people living under a common English law. The times were not such as might have been expected to turn men's minds to the establishment of methods for the peaceful settlement of disputes. It was barely two years since the "Glorious Revolution" had set William and Mary on the English throne, and less than one since the Battle of the Boyne had ended the effort of James to overturn them. The "War of the League of Augsburg" was in full progress, and England and Holland were putting forth their strength to hold in check the efforts of Louis XIV to make himself master of Europe. The echoes of this struggle were sounding in the forests of North America and reverberating along the Mohawk and the Hudson. For instance, it was in only the previous year that Frontenac had led his French and Indian troops into the Colony and had wiped out with fire and sword the settlement at Schenectady. Things were by no means serene inside the Colony itself. England was still fumbling badly with the problem of colonial administration, in which science she was later to become the world's greatest expert. Quarrels between the incompetent Royal Governors and the people to whom they were sent were almost constant. Governor Sloughter, by whom was summoned the particular Assembly with which we are concerned, has been described as a "profligate, needy and narrow-minded adventurer." His predecessor, Governor Nicholson, so vacillated between James and William that the famous Jacob Leisler made himself master of the Province in King William's name. The arrest of Leisler upon the coming of Governor Sloughter, his subsequent trial, conviction and execution—a judicial murder as some thought—had torn the Colony asunder. The Colonists were thenceforth divided into two bitter and hostile factions of Leislerians and anti-Leislerians, who long struggled with each other for mastery. Governor Fletcher, who followed Sloughter, had some reason for describing New Yorkers as "divided, contentious and impoverished." Nevertheless it was such men—Dutch, French and English—who in such a time set up their, and our, Supreme Court of Judicature; and who thereupon passed an Act declaring anew "what are the rights and privileges of their Majesties subjects inhabiting within the Province of New York." The royal veto that promptly followed did nothing to quench their spirit. Indeed, it was this spirit that moved Governor Fletcher to declare with indignation: "There are none of you but which are big with the privileges of Englishmen and Magna Carta"—words which seem to us today far more those of praise than of blame. They were the same men who dared a few years later to remind the spendthrift Governor Cornbury that "Liberty is too valuable a thing to be easily parted with." There is no room for uncertainty as to the ideals that were foremost in the minds of these provincial statesmen. Consider who they were and how they came to be here. Every man among them, or his immediate parents, had left a familiar life and surroundings for an unknown shore. They had deliberately chosen to exchange ancient certainties for fortunes wholly new and wholly unpredictable. Only inborn courage could make so wild a plunge. Not a soul among them hoped, or had the slightest reason to hope, that on his arrival he could throw himself on the efforts of other men for his support. None came with the expectation of going on relief. Each with bold self-reliance looked to the strength of his own right arm to supply his wants and to win the personal independence that he sought. Two things, and two things only, he asked to help him on his way. His heart was fired by two great and inseparable aspirations, the twin ideals of Liberty and Justice. Liberty as a way of life, and Justice as its protector. [Davis continued next page] |
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 The Historical Society of the Courts of the State of New York | |
