Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1921-01-13

with the history of the earliest Maine
lawyers and judges. especially in the
Federal Courts, 1 shall be content"
A CENTURY OF THE SUPREME
JUDICIAL COURT OF MAINE.
BY Chief Justice Leslie c. Cornish.
Mr.. President. Members of the Maine
State Bar Association, Ladies and
Gentlemen:
The Anglo Saxon is the natural
lover and defender of ordered free
dom. Wherever he goes. law and
order go. wherever he settles, they
arc established.
You may remember the advice that
kipling makes the Norman Baron
give his son in A. D. 100, on his de-
parture for England to rule the broad
acres that William had given him for
his share of the conquest of the
Saxons at Hastings:
The Saxon is not like lis Normans.
His manners are not so polite.
But he never means anything serious
till! he TALKS about justice anu
right.
When he stands like an OK in the fur
row with his sullen set eyes on
your own.
And grumhles this isn't fair dealings:
my son. leave the Saxon alone.
The seekers for the earliest visible
Foundation OF American government
and of the administration of law IN
the new world, must go back three
hundred years to the eleventh of No
vember, 1920, and to the cabin of the
Mayflower III the harhor of Province
,hn
rude table, was that historic group
which had sailed up out of the in
finite" framing n covenant with one
another and with their God. TO unite
in Il civil body polite, for the better
ordering, preservation and further
ance of the purposes that mac
brought them across the ocean anc
for the enactment of such Just anc
equal laws, ordinances and constitu
tions as might be thought meet and
convenient for the general good OF
the Colony" plcdging thereto all duo
submission and obedience. and atfix-
ing their signatures.
Not only was the act itself signifi-
cant but almost equally SO was the
hour of its performance. Not a
white foot had as yet pressed the
sands of Cape Cod when this solemn
and momentous document was given
birth. To use the language of Brad
ford this compact was made by
them before they came ashore" Tho
Pilgrim historian evidently deemed
that incidental fact worth rec ording
and so it was, because not one ster
was taken toward occupation and
settlement until the orderly basis OF
that settlement was agreed upon. II
was the first declaration of the
genius of our American institutions
made by n band of less than half a
hundred ocean-weary but courageous
hearts. voiced later by the Body OF
Liberties of 1892. and later still by
the Constitution of the United States
and of the several states as they
successfully came into being.
One other fact in this connection
must not be overlooked. Time has
thrown n universal halo around the
voyagcrs on the Mayfiower, but hui
man nature was much the same in
1920 as in 1920. and Bradford tells us
that the necessity Of this compact
was "occasioned partly by the dis
Contented and mutinous speeches
that some of the strangers amongst
them had let fall from them in the
ship. that when they came ashore
they would use their libertie."
Discomfort and mutiny came in
the Mayflower along with the noble
and vision seeing spirit of the true
Pilgrims, the tares with the wheat
hD 1<,
which Were conceived and estab-
lished even before they came
ashore" in self constituted and or
derby civil government. and liberty
under the law. afford the sole pro-
lection and remedy today. But law
and order are inconceivable without
the establishment and maintenance
of courts and hence we find as the
natural sequence of the Mayf1ower
Compact. the maintenance of tri-
bunals in one form or another for the
administration of justice all down
through the three centuries that have
recently closed.
We refer to this. not because the
territory of the State of Maine was
embraced within the jurisdiction of
the Plymouth Colony but because
that colony furnished a background
for all New England government, and
because when later the Province OF
Maine was amalgamated with the
colonies of Massachusetts, we came
into an inheritance that we are re-
luctant to surrender.
Let us take q most cursory glance
at the courts held within the terri
tory we call Maine during the two
centuries prior to our Statehood
Broadly speaking. that era may be
divided into three distinct periods:
First. the early colonial period from
1920 to 1877, during which the
Province OF Maine had no govern
mental connection with Massachu-
sets.
Second, The Provincial period
from 1917 to 1880, during which
Maine was a Province of Massachu-
sets.
Third, The District period, from
1880 when the Massachusetts consti-
tuition was adopted. to 1920, during
which we We're a part Of the mother
Commonwealth and known in law as
the Eastern District.
The first period saw the establish
ment of the Commissioners Court at
Saco on March u, 1886. composed of
q deputy commissioner and six as
sociates, under the Gorges Patent.
which covered the territory from the
Piscataqua TO the kennebec River.
Not one of these commissioners was
q 1aI -, fI,r