rbarism they came to displace, yet in all essentials
of character true representatives of their masterful race. They were
mainly of English or Scotch-Irish stock; and no other breeds of white
men have ever shown such capacity as these two for dealing with inferior
races and new countries. Their virtues were courage, energy, alertness,
inventiveness, generosity, honesty, truth-speaking; their commonest
faults were violence, combativeness, lax ways in business, intemperance,
narrowness of mind. They hated foreigners and Indians, and were ready to
fight any one who behaved like an enemy or a critic; they held in honor
women, their country, and brave men. Shut off from the greater world to
the eastward, and having few pleasures such as most Americans may now
enjoy, they filled their leisure hours with such sports as hunting,
horse-racing, drinking bouts, fights, and lawsuits. The law, indeed,
they held in great reverence; that race mark they had in common with all
other societies made up of Englishmen and Americans of English descent.
But they were even fonder of fighting than of the law, and the
particular laws which were at once hardest to enforce and most in need
of enforcement were those very simple laws which set forth the principle
that private wrongs must be righted in the courts, which stand for the
peace of the State, and not by the "wild justice" of revenge.

The difficult and dangerous work of keeping order and of enforcing
business obligations fell largely to the "solicitor;" and one need not
wonder that there was no great scramble for the office, so that a very
young man, with no experience at the bar and little knowledge of law,
got the appointment. His duties were simple enough, but he had no
reason to complain of being left in idleness. The court records of the
period show a picturesque assortment of assaults, street-fights,
pistollings, gougings, and the like. Men who took such methods to adjust
their differences were not apt to show any great respect to a prosecutor
aged twenty-one. The majesty of the law had need of a vigorous rather
than a learned representative; and the representative had need of other
weapons than those supplied by the law books if he meant to make his
authority respected and yet keep a whole skin on his body. If he proved
weak and timid, he was sure to be despised; if determined and
relentless, he was sure to make enemies; if incautious and unwary, he
would probably get himself shot. I