ns, than the well-meaning
citizens withdrew from its ranks; and, though regulator companies still
patrolled the country, and, for a time, assumed as much authority as
ever, they were not supported by the solid approbation of those who
alone could give them lasting strength. They did many outrageous things
for which they were never punished, and for some years, the shield which
the good citizen had raised above his head for protection and defence,
threatened to fall upon and crush him. But the western people are not
the first who have been temporarily enslaved by their liberators,
though, unlike many another race, they waited patiently for the changes
of years, and time brought them a remedy.

As the government waxed stronger, and public opinion assumed a
direction, the regulators, like their predecessors, the rangers, found
their "occupation gone," and gradually faded out from the land.
Proclamations were issued--legislatures met--laws were enacted, and
officers appointed to execute them; and though forcing a legal system
upon a people who had so long been "a law unto themselves," was a slow
and difficult process, it was powerfully assisted by the very disorders
consequent upon their attempts at self-government. They had burnt their
hands by seizing the hot iron-rod of irregular authority, and were,
therefore, better inclined to surrender the baton to those who could
handle it. Like Frankenstein, they had created a power which they could
not immediately control: the regulators, from being their servants, had
come to be their masters: and they willingly admitted any authority
which promised deliverance. They had risen in wrath, and chastised, with
no hesitating hand, the violators of their peace; but the reaction had
taken place, and they were now content to be governed by whatsoever
ruler Providence might send them.

The state governments were established, then, without difficulty, and
the officers of the new law pervaded every settlement. The character
which I have selected as the best representative of this period, is one
of these new officers--_the early justice of the peace_.

So far as history or tradition informs us, there was never yet a country
in which appointments to office were invariably made with reference only
to qualification, and though the west is an exception to more than one
general rule, in this respect we must set it down in the common
category. The lawyer-period had not yet arrived; and, prob