The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1858-09-10
BEDFORD PA. FRIDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER TO- 1858.

this IS done with the ease and skill which oeto-
+ ken he hand of master.
As jurist, Judge Gibson was ardently
attached TO the principles of the common law.
His love of them beams in his writings aifrc-
lion will beam in the human countenance. He
mol only looked on them with The admiration
of an artist, as symmetrical and beautiful parts
of Egreat fabric but be regarded them as the
best rampant which the common sense Of man
kind has yet thrown up against the desPotisal
Of the king or the judge, Of the purse or the
sword. We shall see her eafler that the last
thing he ever wrote for publication, was
declaration of his mistaken loyalty to the doc
trines of the common law. A pat of the Ian
! guage which he applied TO Judge Kennedy,
might as Justly have been uttered of himself;
for like Byron in many Of his characters, he
was probably describing himself without seeing
that the world would recognizes the portraits
s:He cluny to the common law as a child 10 lis
nurse, and how much he drew from it may be
seen in Ills opinioHs, which, by their elaborate
minueness, remind us Of the overluIness Of
Coke" The Chief Justice was also an admrer
Of our Pennsylvania system Of law, 10 whica
the substantial principles Of equity applied
under the forms Of the common law. The
wonder is that in any case they should haye
been separated. To appoint one judge 10 exc
cute the law, aud another TO do equity, seems
like creating one nan all head. and another all
heart. TO execute The law upon suitor's per-
son or property, and 10 allow him in the mean
time TO apply to Court Of Equity for relief, or
to turn him out of the latter because his case has
no equity 10 il, with the assurance that he will
have no difficulty in recovering IN a court of
law, in other words, to permit two different
rules OF legal duy or the same subject, 10 pless
on the same nan, a; the same time, state
Of things which the mass Of mankind viii new
. er understand, If each individual man shoul
rival the patriarchs in the term OF natural life
( From the day when Lord Erskine uttered his
quiet humor on The subject down to the pnbica-
( ton Of Bleak House, the severest Sarcasms on
this state of things have been flung in 10 the
faces Of lawyers, without the possibility .af turn
ing the point OF one of them. The PeunSyl va
MIA system OF law is among the few that have
been measura5ly free from the reproacbcs
which The learned and the unl-arned have lh1s
conspirrd to hurl at the whole science. Il is
natural that the mind Of man like Judge Glib
son, who had done So much to advance this
sys;em,- and who had witnessed the strides
which the legal word seemed making towards
ii, should feel some prl- IN prrp-taaling tt
With this spirit. it is consistent, that when our
legislature adopted certain equity remedies,
and provided for separate equity proceedings,
he should endeayorlo 10 carry them fairly into
practice. An opposite course, il he could have
pursued it, would have caused disquirt and
disaster Besides this, whatever he might have
thought, he was n3t man 10 sci himself up "a
gainsl what sremrd 10 bt useful reform lie had
ssen defects which some OF these remedirs ser-
med 10 supply, aud he applied them in the very
spirit in which The profession and the legisIa-
ture had called them toto being. 50 successful
Is was this done, that with all his attachment
to the common law, it has not been uniryquent
to hear from those MOST devoted to the equity
system, the admission that he would have made
better chancel or than he was Judge II is
, pprtlaent TO remark here that he had no undue
fondness for the civil law. His mind was too
IiJeTal--for the mind of scholar is always
liberal in its appreciation of Irarning-not 10
, admire the beauty, wisdom and simplicity oi
many parts Of that system, and lis adaptation TO
to The state of society in which il has grown up:
but it must be admitted that he ever and anon
cast suspicious glance on the efforts of Judge
Story, and the writers Of that school, to iniuse
lis principles into our cherished common law.
He could not have denied that many of the
branches of our laws have been enriched in this
mode, but he was alive 10 the danger of push
= ing such improvements too far. | need refer
D the reader only to the opinion delivered in
0 Ly vs. Richards, 9 S. & r. 322. and 10 Lo-
s gan VS.. Mason, 6 w. & S. 8, in proof Of the ex-
stence of these views in the mind Of their author
e In summing up the personal character o.
!, Judge Gibson, | do not mean to represent hin
i as fautless, for then be had been more than hG-
1 man. Doubtless he bad his defects; whatevc
: they may have been, do not propose to discuss
t them. To do SO, would be to initiate the con
! duct OF some visitor TO a gallery of art, whc
h should employ himself in tracing rough image
Il in the dust of the floor, and not in contempla
e ling the beautiful conceptions of genius on al
y sides around him and above him. speak rath
! er of what Judge Gibson was, than of what h
g was not. His case has been removed Il