76 
Indiana University 
they would, acquiesced willingly to a stay of two years or 
yielded to a general air of compulsory confidence which the 
replevin laws attempted to force.“® 
In the August term of 1821, in the Bourbon County circuit 
court, one Williams was given judgment against one Blair 
for $ 219 , 671/2 plus costs of the suit. Blair, by the stop-collec- 
tion law, replevied the debt for two years. In the November 
term of court of the same year, Williams moved the quashing 
of the replevin bond and the awarding of an execution to col- 
lect the debt. Judge James Clark, before whom the case was 
argued, reserved his opinion on the matter until May 13, 1822. 
After considerable hesitancy and a full appreciation of the 
importance and far-reaching effect of his decision, he declared 
the replevin law of December 25, 1820, regulating indorse- 
ments on executions and deferred payments, null and void. 
He cited Section 108 of Article I of the United States Consti- 
tution, which forbade the passing of an ex post facto law or a 
law impairing the obligation of contracts, and showed that 
Section 18 of Article X of the Kentucky constitution was in 
agreement. He therefore predicated his decision on both con- 
stitutions. He then defined a legal contract and said that 
each party acquired reciprocal right to what was promised 
the other, and a law to release one party without the consent 
of the other relative to the payment of a sum of money, in 
whole or in part, or changing the date of payment, impaired 
the obligation of a contract. The replevin law in question 
stayed collection of this debt and denied justice to the creditor 
for two years unless he agreed to accept certain state bank 
notes instead of coin as payment. He argued that the court 
was well within its right to declare an act of the legislature 
null and void and therefore so pronounced the stay laws. 
Only the replevin law directly in question was decided in 
Judge Clark’s court, but he indicated what might happen to 
other relief laws if they came up for judicial review.“^ This 
decision seemed to imply that the Bank of the Commonwealth 
act was also unconstitutional."^^ While the constitutionality of 
this bank law is somewhat related to this subject, it is not 
Brown, op. cit., 23. 
Shaler, Kentucky a Pioneer Conimomvealth, 179. 
The full decision may he found in a pamphlet of Judge James Clark on “The 
Constitutionality of the So-called Endorsement Law, the Proceedings of the General 
Assembly of Kentucky against the Judge, and his Defense”, Durrett, MSS., University 
of Chicago. The Clark decision in full may also be found in Niles' Register, XXIII, 
Supplement, 153-155. 
