Section 39:  Judge James Campbell

Before these great events had taken place, a considerable chance had taken place in my business life. The Hon. John S. McColmont some months before the expiration of his judicial term, resigned his position as Judge of this Eighteenth District. There were a number of candidates for the position of whom I was one. When Gov. Curtin had been a candidate for the office to which he was afterwards elected, he wrote me if I would get him the delegates from this county he would give me anything in his power. He got our delegates and when McColmont resigned, I wrote to him as an old acquaintance, recalling his promise and asking him for the appointment of the Judgeship till the election that fall. To that letter I never received an answer, and Judge Schofield was appointed to fill the unexpired term. I don't know that I have ever seen Gov. Curtin since -- I know I never spoke to him.

At this time I had some popularity in Clarion, Jefferson and Forest Counties, but Judge Gordon, I knew, was a candidate and I made no attempt to interfere with him in Jefferson and but little in Forest, and he got the delegates from both these counties, though I think they were uninstructed in Forest. The convention met in Franklin. All the five counties were represented. After balloting two days, Wm. M. Stewart of Mercer was nominated, and I came home. I found a good many of our people were dissatisfied and was told that other counties were disposed to kick. In Jefferson quite a storm was raised and I got a letter signed by quite a number of both Republicans and Democrats stating that they were going to run me and all they asked was that I should keep my mouth shut, that they had circulate my tickets there and in Forest County and had sent packages to their soldiers in the service, and that if I went back on them I was politically dead and buried. Very soon after John M. Stevenson, a leading member of the bar in Mercer, came all the way over here in a buggy to see me and urged me very strongly to run. I told him I would not be a candidate against the nominee. The fact that some men were going to vote for me, I knew -- that it placed me in very embarrassing circumstances; I would vote for Mr. Stewart and I would ask no man to vote for me. If in the face of this statement I was voted for and elected, I would do the best I knew to serve the people of the district in an office that I had not solicited and for which I was not a candidate. I think I made a statement of this kind in writing which found its way into the papers. After this I declined to say anything or be interviewed. Some of my Republican friends wanted something more from me, but I declined and I stayed quietly in my office and really knew but little how the campaign was going.

I was approached by friends of Stewart and friends of my own. I felt myself in a delicate if not a false position and I remained obstinately silent. It turned out that the canvass pretty lively. The Democrats all turned for me as well as a pretty large number of Republicans.

The election came off in October, 1861, and I had a majority in Clarion County of about 1,800 without counting the soldiers' vote, some 800 in Jefferson County and a majority in both Venango and Forest. Stewart had about 1,100 in Mercer County and I was elected.

Some Republicans reflected on me for not peremptorily refusing to act and so publishing to the people of the district. I thought I did all that party allegiance required by refusing to be a candidate, soliciting no man to vote for me, and voting myself for Mr. Stewart which I did.

Judge Schofield held only one court for, as he told me, he would not be a candidate and seemed to take a friendly interest in my success. After being over the district he said he thought I was the choice of the voters and if I would simply remain quiet they would elect me.

In looking back to that time, I am conscious of a strong desire to get the office, but I am not conscious of any act or conduct inconsistent, unfair or dishonorable on my part to secure it.

As soon as I received the certificate of my election, I immediately shut down on the practice and turned over my business to Lamberton and Lawson. I had scarcely thought of the change it would make in my life. Financially it would be no advantage to me. The district consisting of five counties, I knew it would take me from home about half the time. My old clients and friends would be clients no longer and the intimate relations sustained with many of them would be suspended for ten years at least. And being the legal exponent of the law, I could not discuss legal questions with the bar or on the streets as formerly, as I might have to pass upon the same questions judicially and I found I was at another turning point in my life.

I don't recollect of entertaining any fears that I could not discharge the duties of the office respectably. I had been a lawyer for twenty-one years, was reasonably posted in the decisions and practice and was very confident that the purity of the judiciary would lose nothing in my hands. That I would make mistakes I had no doubt, but I intended that the judicial ermine should receive no stain while worn by me, and it never did.

In my term of ten years in passing on many perplexing questions, I can say with a clear conscience that I never delivered a charge or rule[d] a case that I did not honestly believe to be right and true at the time, though some cases I found on reflection and examination to be wrong, but I was never or rarely reversed where I had time and opportunity to investigate the case and I don't think I ever reversed more frequently than other judges and few in the State had as much to do or a wider range of questions to decide. But all I claim for myself is that I did the best I could.

At that time the Judicial year commenced the first of December, and on the first week of that month, 1861, I held my first week in Clarion. It was in the Presbyterian Church, the new courthouse not being then finished. The business was not important and I found no difficulty in running the court.

The next court I held was in January, 1862, in Mercer County -- 2 weeks, and the work was not only important but new. An old celebrated case of Fell vs. Gollop was for trial and it involved the original title to land west of the Allegheny River and the Conewango Creek. With these titles I was not familiar. The title by settlement was different from settlement rights east of the River and under a different Act of Assembly. Fortunately the parties were not ready and the case was continued. By the next court I was read up on the subject and felt easy, but on the criminal side of the first court I formed an indictment for murder against a man named Dennes Taylor and that was tried and it was a close case whether the jury would find murder in the first or second degree. They were out all night but in the morning brought in a verdict in the second degree, and Taylor was sentenced to the penitentiary for 12 years -- the full term.

The case was taken to the Supreme Court and reported in 8 Wight, page 131. This was a pretty good breaking in and on my way home I held a 2 weeks' court in Franklin.

At this time the oil business was developing very rapidly and with it a great deal of litigation. Leaseholds and contests about oil property became very frequent and bills in equity were resorted to and were more appropriate in much of the litigation growing out of the oil business. Before that equity practice was not general in our courts, and I found it necessary to post myself on that practice. In the course of the four or five years I held the courts in Venango County, I had a great many bills before me.

The case of Funk vs. Halderman was said to involve some three hundred thousand dollars. It was also in the Supreme Court and is reported in Third P. F. Smith 229. The bill came before me for an injunction which was granted, and before the case came on for final argument Mercer and Venango Counties had been cut off into a new district and the final argument was made before Judge Gordon who had been appointed to that district, and his decision reversed my decree on the preliminary injunction. The Supreme Court however sustained my decree. The statement that $9,000,000.00 were involved is probably an exaggeration of the reporter. On page 241, Justice Woodward, as a reason for giving the case more than ordinary attention, says "two learned judges in the court below passed upon the questions arising out of this maze of conveyancing and came to exactly opposite conclusions." I may have had the advantage of Judge Gordon, for after hearing the argument I bundled up the papers and brought them home and did not deliver my written opinion till the next court, at which time the decree of 28th April, 1864, was made.

During the great oil excitement in Venango County from 1863 to 1865, the criminal calendar became greatly burdened and we frequently held night sessions to get the jail cleared out. I recollect one week in that county three homicide cases were tried. It required active work to clear the docket in all the time I could give to that county and I frequently gave them an extra week on my way to Mercer.

I think I held as many as 32 or 33 weeks' court in a year and my traveling was all done in the stage or private conveyance. I sometimes went by rail from Franklin to Greenville and then by hack to Mercer, and I thought my mileage was pretty dearly earned money.

The first four years I was kept pretty busy and I think held no court outside of my district only one week in Meadville for Judge Deneckson. The county seat of Forest was then at Marienville, but generally two courts in the year was all that were needed. The last five years of my term I held one court for Judge McGuffin at Newcastle, Lawrence County, and I held court for Judge Buffington a good many weeks, and I think as many as four or five weeks in Indiana. I had a high regard for the old gentleman and with age he became feeble and it was a tax on his strength to hold the courts in his district and I was always willing to help him. He was one of the poorest men I ever knew and had most exalted views of the dignity and responsibility of the office -- not only on the bench but in everyday life. To him it was a sacred trust to be guarded with the utmost care.

Up to the time when Venango and Mercer were erected into a new district, I found my time as fully occupied as at any time in the practice, but the labor was different. The lawyer has constant anxiety and work in hunting up and securing the evidence for the trial of his case. On the bench I had no concern with this, but just to take the evidence as produced in the trial. My previous training had taught me to concentrate my whole attention to the case while on trial and I found no difficulty as I took notes of testimony in revolving the case through my mind as the facts were developed, and unless the case was very long and complicated, when the evidence was all in I easily retained it and ordinarily wrote my charge while the counsel were arguing the case. I was under the impression that courts were sometimes annoyed by the points put by counsel on the law, but I found it otherwise, and it was frequently an easy way of stating my views of the law to the jury.

The mental process of the judge is to balance himself carefully on the law and evidence brought out on the trial; that of the lawyer is to work with all his vigor on one side and do all he can to weaken the other.

Justice Thompson of the Supreme Court, in a conversation just after I was elected, said it was a good plan for a judge on the trial of a cause to fix firmly in his mind that he don't care a snap which side whips or is defeated, and there is a good deal in it for the court is bound to protect the rights of the meanest scamp in the country exactly as it is those of the most respectable citizen.

As I became familiar with the duties of the office I liked the practice and position and thought I had some aptitude for trying cases and administering the law correctly -- or at least sufficient conceit to make me enjoy the office. The criminal side of the court, particularly small offenses and misdemeanors, gave me little trouble and I rarely took notes and relied on memory to charge the jury; but in higher crimes I usually took notes and charged the jury from written testimony. The common pleas judge has not the same chance of being right on every legal question that comes before him that the Supreme Court has. The judge of the lower court has to carry the whole case with him on the trial and while taking down the notes of evidence and revolving the case he is sometimes suddenly confronted with difficult and nice questions of evidence and often without much argument or authorities quoted or time for reflection, is required to decide, while the same question in the Supreme Court is fortified by authority, printed argument and time to give it full consideration. With the same opportunities and aids the court below would in most cases arrive at correct conclusions.

I recollect two cases tried before me in Armstrong -- Sheaffer vs. Eakman and Bower vs. Cravener, in which I was reversed on points of evidence suddenly sprung in the trial, and they were long and complicated cases. A number of the cases in Armstrong County were old cases in which Judge Buffington had been counsel. In some of them the cause of action extended back for almost a hundred years. In fact I cleared the docket of many old cases that had cumbered the records for years.

But there are close questions, and sometimes the best judges in the State, after careful study and examination, have been reversed, and I was no exception, but I recollect of but few reverses where I had time and opportunity of full examination.

One other thing I did. As soon as I was elected I made up my mind to drop out of politics entirely, and I never attended a political meeting while I remained on the bench and rarely took part in discussion on that subject even in private. Being away from home so much and out of business with the people of the county, I soon lost the intimate acquaintance of many of my old friends, and it soon became apparent to me that I ought not to be specially intimate with anyone, especially if he had litigation or business in court, and I could not permit an old client, however friendly, to talk to me about any business that might come before me on the bench. In this way without feeling the least bit puffed up with the dignity of the office, I gradually lost my acquaintance through the county and my social intercourse became generally limited to my neighbors and the members of the bar.