The Supreme Court of Vermont. Court, and all civil causes to the county court with a right of appeal to the Supreme Court. Israel Smith, a younger brother of Noah, graduated at Yale College in 1781. Two years afterwards he became a resident of Rupert, and was admitted to the Bar in this State. He represented that town in the Assembly for several years and in the Con vention of 1791, which acted upon the ques tion of joining the Union. He was one of the commissioners named to settle the contro versy with New York, and was the youngest member of that body. Upon the admission of the State, he was chosen to represent the Southwestern District in Vermont, and was re-elected in 1793 and again in 1795. At the first elections, there was but little division among the people politically, but during his last term in Congress he voted against making appropriations to carry Jay's Treaty with Great Britain into effect, and became identified with the rising Repub lican party. This displeased a majority of his constituents, and he failed of a re-election in the spring of 1797; and in the following October, the politics of the State having changed, he was elected Chief Judge of the Supreme Court. At the next election, the Legislature was controlled by Federalists, and at the " Vergennes Slaughter House," so termed, he was not re-elected. This must have been the sole cause of his removal, for the historian Thompson wrote that " He was a man of uncorrupted integrity and vir tue, was dropped on account of his attach ment to the Republican party, and another chosen Chief Judge in his stead." And Dr. Williams, who was familiar with the history of that day, in speaking of the same event, says, "The Chief Judge was a man of con fessedly pure morals, undeviating justice and uncorrupted integrity, and had dis charged the duties of his office without the suspicion of corruption. He was an admirer of the principles on which the French revo lution had been founded, and carried repub
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lican sentiments to their full extent, but was unblamed and uncensured in every part of his private and judicial conduct." His brother Noah, an intense Federalist, was at that time added to the Bench as third member of the Court. In 180 1, when the Republicans had con trol of the Legislature, he was again elected Chief Judge, but declined and was again sent to Congress, and at the close of his term in 1803, was elected United States senator. He faithfully executed all trusts reposed in him and acquired an honorable reputation for himself and State. He was on terms of intimacy with Presi dent Jefferson, and so favorably regarded by him, that it was reported and confidently expected by his friends, as announced in the press, that he was to have a place in Jeffer son's Cabinet, as Attorney General. In 1807, he resigned the senatorship and accepted the office of Governor. He called the attention of the Legislature to the crimi nal jurisprudence of the State, and it was upon his suggestion that the old system of punishment was abolished and the present penitentiary system adopted, and the con struction of the State prison secured. It is said that the anticipated cost of the prison was regarded as a great burden, and because of the Governor's connection with the mat ter, the popular Isaac Tichenor, who had been Governor ten years prior to that time, was again elected. After his election as Governor, his health began to decline, and during the two suc ceeding years, his physical constitution be came much impaired and his mental powers could not withstand the wasting of their tenement, and he died at Rutland in the fifty-second year of his age. He early took rank as one of the distin guished lawyers of that day. He was called "The handsome Judge"; was of great can dor and integrity, and at his death " all united in deploring the loss of a dignified statesman and much esteemed man."
