The Supreme Court of Wisconsin. popularity, it used to be the fashion for lawyers in his court to make comments in his presence that he might well have dealt with severely. Matt. Carpenter could flippantly refer to " meeting Shylock on the bench," but he paid no heed. As a judge he was as self-contained and self-re liant as the mountain. With a temper never known to be ruffled, and with no trace of cynicism, he wielded the power of his great office, satisfying himself that he was right and heeding neither the praise or blame of others. And it remains to be said that when our people and bar — a little in clined to become unruly — had become ac customed to the federal jurisdiction, their respect for Judge Miller was heightened by the very sttirdiness and independence which their clamors and censure could not dis turb. The early respect for the rights of squat ters in possession may have lingered in his later judicial work, for we find Mr. Ryan, afterwards the eminent Chief Justice, saying in eulogy of Judge Miller, " His notion of the rights of property was very high; un duly so, I think. They betrayed him into a leaning toward all prima facie creditors; and so his court was called a ' plaintiff's court.' But the same bias led him in ac tions of ejectment, to lean towards persons in possession under color of title. And thus in real actions his court bec'ame a de fendant's court." In one place in Wisconsin Judge Miller was long held in aversion. That was the village of Monroe, a smart county seat in the southern tier of counties. At the break ing out of the Rebellion the people of this village were full of loyal zeal, which as sumed a high-pressure stage. They sent liberal quotas to the war and subscribed freely for local aid to soldiers' families. But they went further and organized a vigilance committee to require every one to take the oath of allegiance. A sturdy Illinois man came into the village and expressed himself
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quite freely as to their high-handed methods and refused to take the oath of allegiance which their strict rules required. He was at once ridden on a rail, and that in no deli cate manner. He sued the leading citizens of the village, who had been a part of the vigilance committee, for damages, and brought his action in Judge Miller's court. The leading citizens pleaded their patriotic purposes in vain. A verdict of $5,000 was given against them, and they found them selves designated by the Judge as mere riot ers. These men went to their graves with a feeling that Judge Miller was but little bet ter than a rebel, though he treated their case with perfect judicial fairness. But as they had not taken part in the actual mal treatment of the defendant, they never could see how it was that the jury mulcted them, or how the judge could permit it. One of the luckless defendants was wont to com plain that a judge who would fine a man for riding a Copperhead on a rail could not "understand the impulses of patriotism." To return now to the story of the judiciary. The Supreme Court of the Territory sat at Madison after its first term, the seat of gov ernment having been transferred thither, and held annual sessions until the dissolu tion of the court upon the admission of the State into the Union. The greater portion of the work of the judges consisted in the sittings in the counties in their respective districts. The decisions of the territorial supreme court were not reported in full until 1872. Mr. Burnett, the first reporter, published the decisions for the years 1839 to 1843 in one small volume of 220 pages. All the decisions in which written opinions were filed are contained in a few pages more than the first volume of " Pinney's Wis consin Reports." A large part of the deci sions turned on mere questions of practice, which at the time was in an unsettled state. In attending the district courts the judges and lawyers rode horseback from their resi dences to the places of the sittings. When
