ad
As made their frolic wild, not mad.'

"Thus endowed and so associated, he became a leading and a popular
people's lawyer, from the Ohio River to our northern lake.

"In 1823 he was elected by the legislature to the bench of the
Supreme Court of Ohio, and perhaps the only man in the state who
doubted his ability for this high position was himself. He told
the writer of these lines when speaking on the subject of his
appointment, that he assumed its duties with great personal diffidence
and apprehension. He feared that he lacked the ripe experience of
years necessary to hear and determine cases of magnitude in a court
of the last resort. His official associates were Calvin Pease,
Jacob Burnet, and Peter Hitchcock, and these are names of renown
in the judicial history of Ohio.

"Judge Sherman upon the bench fully realized the large expectations
of his professional friends and the public.

"His written opinions, published in 'Hammond's Reports of the
Supreme Court,' demonstrate a mind of the choicest legal capabilities.
They are clear, compact, yet comprehensive, intuitive, logical,
complete, and conclusive, and are respected by the bar and courts
in this and other states as judicial _dicta_ of the highest authority.
He won upon the bench, as he did at the bar, the affection and
confidence of his associates. They esteemed him for his gentle
and genial nature, for the brilliant flashes of his mind and the
solid strength of his judgment; above all, for the stainless
integrity of his character, as a judge and as a man.

"Under the provisions of our old constitution, the Supreme Court
was required to hold an annual term or sitting in each county of
the state, two of the judges officiating. In every court-room in
Ohio where Judge Sherman presided he made friends. His official
robes were worn by him as the customary habiliments of the man.
He was never distant, haughty, morose, austere, or overbearing on
the bench. It was not in his nature to be so anywhere, and it was
therefore always a personal pleasure to practice in his courts.
The younger members of the profession idolized him in every part
of the state; for them and their early efforts he systematically
sympathized, and he uniformly bestowed upon them the most gracious
compliment that any judge upon the bench can render to the oldest
practitioner at the bar--he gave them his interested and undivided
attention.

"He had entered upon the sixth year of hi