FRAXgOIS XAVIER MARTIN gether into the jury room, each contending the argument he had listened to was con clusive; and they finally agreed on a ver dict in the best manner they could."1 Out of this babel of tongues and laws it was the task of Martin more than of any other man to construct an intelligent and intelligible jurisprudence, a task for which he was admirably fitted by his wide and varied experience and knowledge, his habits of patient, laborious study, his calm mind, sanity, and clarity of vision, wise respect for tradition and precedent, and thorough honesty of character. He began almost at once, for the first time in the province, to compile reports of the cases decided, and published them himself for many years, so that in Martin's " Reports of the Superior Court of the Territory of Orleans" (2 volumes, 1809 to 1812) and of the " Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana " (18 volumes, 1813 to 1830) the legal profession of the state at last had before it a definite and admirable body of decided cases as a basis. He pre pared and published also a digest of the laws of the state, a further step in the effort to give definite form to that jurisprudence in whose actual making he was to have so large a share. With the transformation of the territory of Orleans into the state of Louisiana the territorial judge was without a court, but not for long. Almost immediately he was appointed attorney-general for the state, and held that office until 1815, being ap pointed in February of that year a justice on the Supreme Bench. It was the troublous time after Jackson's great victory, when that hot-headed commander was having a fierce quarrel with the French residents of New Orleans, whom he unwarrantably sus pected and harshly accused of sentiments treasonable to the United States. Louallier, one of those so suspected, published an ill-timed and very fervent defense of himself and criticism of the General. Jackson had 1 " History of La.," edition 1882, p. 344.
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him arrested by military force, the city being under martial law, and proposed to have him tried by a military court. Louallier retained counsel on the spot, a Mr. Morel being beside him when he was arrested, and Morel at once made application for habeas corpus. In Martin's own words: "Application was made to one of the mem bers of the Supreme Court, Martin, who was being prevented (sic) by the imperfection of his sight to be otherwise useful, had en rolled himself in one of the companies of veterans, organized for the maintenance of order in the city." l But Judge Martin's imperfection of sight, which, by the way, had made him a laughing stock in a brief career as a volunteer in the Revolution thirty years before, was merely physical; he saw that this was no case for him : " Morel was . . . informed that the judge did not con ceive he could interfere, especially as it was alleged the prisoner was arrested and con fined for trial before a court martial, under the authority of the United States." We need not pursue the episode farther, except to add that Judge Hall, of the United States District Court, not being so clear on the rights of the military authorities, did issue the writ of habeas corpus, and was in conse quence himself given a taste of Old Hick ory's wrath. I mention this little incident, which was for forty years a stock subject with stump speakers who upheld Hall or eulogized Jackson as the case might be, because I have no doubt it was in the mind of Judge Bullard when in his address upon the life and services of Judge Martin he devotes nearly four pages to an exposition and analysis of Martin's first opinion as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Louisiana. The circumstances of the case that called for this first opinion were that "Martial law had been proclaimed by the general in command, and by an act of the legislature passed on the 18th of December (1814) all "History of La.," p. 394.
