Both Legislature and judges dispensed justice informally, according to the require ments of individual cases. The Legislature, especially, acted with such informality and gave relief in such various forms that it is perhaps wrong to call its procedure a system. But after the separation of the two houses in 1699, their action, both legislative and judicial, was much more formal, although original jurisdiction of causes was exercised by the Legislature even until the adoption of the Constitution in 1818.
About the middle of the eighteenth century there was a great change in legal practice. A new generation of advocates, educated for their work, elevated the law into a science and its practice into a profession. Consequent upon this new development, and in sympathy with the other changes of that form ative period, radical changes were made in the court system in 1784.
The exercise of legislative and judicial powers by the same individual was declared to be inconsistent. The Lieutenant-Governor and Council, or upper house, were constituted a Supreme Court of Errors, the dernier ressort in all matters of law or equity brought by way of error from a judgment or decree of the Superior Court. The Governor was after wards added, and made presiding judge. It was also required that the reasons of the judges, upon questions of law, in both the Supreme and Superior Courts, should be reduced to writing and filed for record. The jurisdiction of the Superior Court was left unchanged.
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THOMAS S. WILLIAMS.
The Council, which retained the powers of a Supreme Court until 1807, contained many distinguished judges and statesmen. The presiding judges (ex officio) were Samuel Huntington, Oliver Wolcott, and Jonathan Trumbull (2d). Among their associates were William Edmond, Oliver Ellsworth, Chauncey and Elizur Goodrich, Matthew Griswold, James and William Hillhouse, Stephen T. Hosmer, Benjamin Huntington, Jonathan Ingersoll, Richard Law, Stephen M. Mitchell, William Pitkin, Tapping Reeve, Jesse Root, Roger Sherman, Nathaniel Smith, David Daggett, and Zephaniah Swift. During the fierce political war between the Federalists and Jeffersonians, the Council was a stronghold of Federalism The method by which its members were selected tended naturally to continue the same men in office, and so materially aided the Federalists in maintaining their power. It was therefore the object of many bitter attacks. It was pointed out that its members as legislators made the laws and appointed the judges, and as lawyers sought the construction and application of those same laws before those very judges, and often before their own body as an appellate court.
The objection, touching vital points, was almost a prediction of approaching changes. In 1803 the appearance of members of the Council at its bar was prohibited. David
