ul reforms. Arphaxed
Loomis possessed unusual abilities as a public speaker, and, during a
brief career in the Assembly, had become known as an advocate of legal
reform. He was afterward, in April, 1847, appointed a commissioner on
practice and pleadings for the purpose of providing a uniform course
of proceedings in all cases; and, to him, perhaps, more than to any
one else, is due the credit of establishing one form of action for the
protection of private rights and the redress of private wrongs. Worden
had been a merchant, who, losing his entire possessions by failure,
began the study of law at the age of thirty-four and quickly took a
prominent place among the lawyers of the State. Ambrose L. Jordan,
although somewhat younger than Benjamin F. Butler, Thomas Oakley,
Henry R. Storrs, and other former leaders of the bar, was their
successful opponent, and had gained the distinction of winning the
first breach of promise suit in which a woman figured as defendant.
Patterson had rare and exquisite gifts which made him many friends and
kept him for half a century prominent in political affairs. Though of
undoubted intellectual power, clear-sighted, and positive, he rarely
answered other men's arguments, and never with warmth or heat. But he
had, however, read and mastered the law, and his voice was helpful in
conferring upon the people a system which broke the yoke of the former
colonial subordination.

The majority report of the judiciary committee provided for a new
court of last resort, to be called the Court of Appeals, which was to
consist of eight members, four of whom were to be elected from the
State at large for a term of eight years, and four to be chosen from
the justices of the Supreme Court. A new Supreme Court of thirty-two
members, having general and original jurisdiction in law and equity,
was established in place of the old Supreme Court and Court of
Chancery, the State being divided into eight districts, in each of
which four judges were to be elected. In addition to these great
courts, inferior local tribunals of civil and criminal jurisdiction
were provided for cities. The report thus favoured three radical
changes. Judges became elective, courts of law and equity were united,
and county courts were abolished. The inclusion of senators in the old
Court of Errors--which existed from the foundation of the State--had
made the elective system somewhat familiar to the people, to whom it
had proved more sat