77/6' Supreme Court of Wisconsin. ing to in this case?" asked the magistrate a little surprised. "The truth, your honor; it is not to be consaved that we'd ask ye to be swearing to a lie." "Mr. Nagle, ye are thriflin' with the dagnity of the coort, sir," said the offended mag istrate. "I'm humbly cravin' pardon, thin," replied the lawyer in mock humility; " I was una ware that the coort was so damnably imprignated with a sinse of its dagnity." Young Crawford, a man of most exem plary habits for that region of wild life, where was plenty of money and little of civilization, soon became prominent. He distinguished himself in several important trials, and his fame spread throughout the mining region. He had the bearing of a high-spirited, cul tured gentleman, and a manner which, while somewhat imperious and masterful, was fasci nating, and he soon became popular. He was an able politician, and a graceful and elo quent speaker. He had no little dramatic power, and, in his earlier days, would bear a part in a play with great adaptation. The theatrical troupes in those days thronged to New Diggings, sure of good houses and ap preciative audiences. Crawford sometimes took a part, and when Jo. Jefferson was there in his youth, the young lawyer gave him ad vice as to his acting and how to reform it. After a few months, he was invited by Francis J. Dunn, then the lawyer of largest practice in that section of the State, to join him in partnership at Mineral Point. This firm built up a large business, and Craw ford's fame extended, no less as a lawyer than as a prominent advocate of the principles of Democracy. Upon the re-organization of the Supreme Court in 1852, he was selected as the candi date to represent the western portion of the State, and was elected, the vote in his own section being especially large. The law cre ating the court provided that the terms should expire at different times, and fixed
one term for two, one for four, and one for six years. Judge Crawford drew by lot the short term. He sat upon the court in the trial of the fugitive-slave-law cases. In those he dissented on some points from the views of his associates. He believed that Congress had the power to legislate upon the subject of fugitives from justice; that the fugitiveslave law was an exercise of that power; that the question had been virtually settled by the Supreme Court of the United States, and was stare decisis, and he filed opinions setting forth his views. These opinions and his views on this ques tion cost him his place. In 1855, when a judicial election was to be held to choose his successor, the rising tide of anti-fugitiveslave-law feeling could brook no such views as he had advanced. Orsamus Cole was selected by the Republicans to run against him. Crawford's defeat was a surprise and a disappointment to him. He did not accu rately measure the force and earnestness of the anti-slavery feeling, and erroneously at tributed his defeat to the Know-Nothing movement then having its short-lived run in the United States. He felt deeply outraged that he should be selected as " one of its earliest victims," and wrote that he should soon, " with their envenomed arrows sticking in his sides, show himself among the public who had proscribed him." On the expiration of his term, he left the bench and resumed practice at Mineral Point. He then went to Madison, in 1858, hoping to build up a practice in the Supreme Court; but political ambition, personal friendship and the attraction of a clientage soon re called him to Mineral Point, his own strong seat. In 1856, he was the Democratic candidate for Congress, in the Western or third dis trict, but was defeated by Cadvvallader C. Washburn, one of the distinguished Washburn family. In 1859, he was the candidate of the same party for attorney-general, but the young Republican party was too strong
