monstrous. "Georgia," he said, "hung Graves and Tassel over the
writ of error of this same Supreme Court. God bless Georgia for
that valiant and beneficent example."[Footnote: _Ex parte_
Bushnell, 9 Ohio State Reports, 150.] It was, he continued, "a
sectional court composed of sectional men, judging sectional
questions upon sectional influences."[Footnote: _Ibid._,
161.]

Of the five judges, three held that the constitutionality of the
Fugitive Slave law was settled conclusively by repeated decisions
of the Supreme Court of the United States, and that the State
courts could not release the prisoner. Chief Justice Swan gave
the leading opinion. Its positions were thoroughly distasteful
to the people of Ohio. He knew they would be. His term, which
was one of five years, expired in the following February, and the
vacancy was to be filled at the State election in October. On
the day before the judgment was announced he told his wife that
this would be fatal to his re-election. "If the law makes it
your duty to give such an opinion," said she, "do it, whatever
happens." He gave it, and what they anticipated occurred. The
convention of his party declined to renominate him. He resigned
his office immediately after the election and retired to private
life at an age and under circumstances which made it
impracticable for him to re-enter the bar with success, but with
the consolation of knowing that he had acted right.

Chief Justice Day of Iowa, one of the ablest men who ever sat on
her Supreme bench, in the same way lost a re-election by writing
an opinion of the court, which announced a doctrine that was
legal but unpopular.[Footnote: Koehler _v._ Hill, 60 Iowa