of that court was brought up for review the judges were to state
their reasons for giving it, but had no vote. This scheme was
adhered to with little modification until 1846. What made it
tolerable was that many of those elected Senators were naturally
lawyers, and that to be in the Senate soon became the ambition of
a lawyer with any desire to know how it would feel to be a judge.
Able and learned opinions were pronounced by such men in
exercising their judicial functions, and some of them in the New
York reports are still frequently the subject of reference as
clear and satisfactory statements of legal principles.

Connecticut, in 1784, when she instituted for the first time a
court of last resort, made it up of the Lieutenant Governor and
the twelve Assistants, and soon added to it the Governor himself.
A plan of this kind was likely to work in that State, as in New
York, better than it looked. Lawyers by this time had come to
fill most of the higher offices of state. Although the
Assistants were elected annually it was under a complicated
scheme of nomination, which, unless in case of a political
revolution, ensured re-election in every case. A majority of the
Assistants were always members of the bar. They were also
Federalists from the beginning of party divisions in the country.
Naturally, the Republicans found such a state of things
intolerable. All the power of government in Connecticut, said
one of those who were celebrating Jefferson's second election to
the Presidency in 1804, "together with a complete control of
elections, are in the hands of seven lawyers who have gained a
seat at the council board. These seven men virtually make and
repeal laws as they please, appoint all the Judges, plead before
those Judges, and constitute themselves a Supreme Court of Errors