Constitutional Rights of Policy-Holders. indeed I possess any, in support of either gentleman. Although no .consideration could induce me to be secretary of state while there was a President whose political system I believed to be at variance with my own, yet this cannot be so well known to others, and it might be suspected that a de sire to be well with the successful candidate had in some degree governed my conduct." It was wnile on a visit home, during the Revolutionary war, that he met the girl who afterwards became his wife, and, as some one has said, " to the amazement of all, and perhaps to her own, from that time his de votion to her knew no variableness, neither shadow of turning." She was then a re served, bashful girl of fourteen. She was Mary Willis Ambler, a daughter of Colonel
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Jaquelin Ambler, the beloved treasurer of Virginia, and a descendant of the celebrated Huguenot Jaquelins. The family was so noted for its piety that the saying went in those days: "As pious as an Ambler." His marriage was one of the three events of his life which he deemed worthy of com memoration in the simple inscription which, two days before his death, he wrote to be placed on his tombstone. As one of the last acts of his adminis tration, Adams appointed John Marshall chief justice of the United States, but re quested him to act as secretary of state dur ing the remainder of his term. The same year Princeton College conferred the degree of LL.D. on him.
CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF POLICY-HOLDERS. By a Member of the Const1tut1onal Convent1on. RECENT insurance litigation in the State of New York has called attention to the fact that under the statutory law, as en forced by the courts, the holders of policies in domestic insurance corporations are with out remedy in equity (perhaps in law) for any breach of contract, no matter how fla grant. It is pertinent, therefore, to inquire, what are the constitutional rights of policy holders? If the constitution does not pro tect them, then they are at the mercy of the corporations, or of the attorney-general, who is, erroneously, supposed to have the right to interfere. This doctrine' of the law of the State of New York, that a private cor poration may be protected against actions by parties in interest byjudicial construction and statutory enactment is of comparatively recent growth, and while the lower courts have made efforts to get back to first prin ciples in the administration of the law, the
court of appeals seems determined to fasten this doctrine upon the jurisprudence of the State, and as every one is supposed to know the law, it is important that persons entering into insurance contracts should know the limitations under which the contracting parties act, that they may govern themselves accordingly. The germ of this new theory of corporate exemption is found in the case of Uhlman v. New York Life Insurance Company (109 N. Y., 421), which, while within the reasonable rules of equity, in so far as that particular case was concerned, makes the suggestion that if the right of a tontine policy-holder to an accounting be conceded, it " would place the company in the power of unscrupulous parties to take advantage of it for the purpose of endeavor ing to levy contribution from it which it might pay in order to secure freedom to it self from troublesome, expensive, unneces
