y
rebuked. Root was radical or nothing. He hated Spencer, he despised
Van Ness, and he disliked James Kent and Jonas Platt; and with an
exuberance of apparent anger he demanded the abolition of their courts
and the creation of others in no wise different.

In replying to Root, Van Buren again discovered his kindliness of
heart. The only question, he said, was whether the convention would
insert an article in the Constitution for the sole purpose of vacating
the offices of the present chancellor, and Supreme Court judges, and
thus apply a rule which had not yet been applied in a single instance.
There could be no public reason for the measure and personal feeling
should not control. Referring to William W. Van Ness, he declared that
he could with truth say that, throughout his whole life, he had been
assailed by him with hostility--political, professional and
personal--hostility which had been keen, active, and unyielding. "But,
sir, am I on that account to indulge my individual resentment in the
prostration of my private and political adversary? If I could be
capable of such conduct I should forever despise myself." In
conclusion, he expressed the hope that the convention would not ruin
its character and credit by proceeding to such extremities. Van Buren
struck hard, and for the time had routed the judges' opponents by a
vote of sixty-four to forty-four. But if the delegates hesitated to
back Root, they did not propose to follow Van Buren, and they crushed
the first report under the unexpected vote of eighty-six to
twenty-five.

The convention had now been in session over two months, and this most
troublesome question seemed no nearer settlement than on the opening
day. As in the suffrage debate, there were three factions--one
determined to get rid of Chancellor Kent and the five Supreme Court
judges; another, less numerous, desirous of continuing them all in
office, and a third, probably composed of a majority of the
convention, who wished to save the chancellor and lose the others.
Finally, on the first day of November, ten days before adjournment, a
proposition appeared to create a Supreme Court to consist of a chief
justice and two justices, and to divide the State into not less than
four or more than eight districts, as the Legislature should decide,
in each of which a district judge should be appointed, with the tenure
and powers of Supreme Court judges. It was also provided that such
equity powers should be v