Studies in American History 
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passage of an ex post facto law or the enactment of any 
measure which would impair the obligation of contracts, and 
the Kentucky constitution carried the same provisions. Bar- 
ring much technical and metaphysical reasoning on subjects 
like perfect and imperfect obligations, differences between 
moral and legal duty, and the connection between legal 
right and legal remedy, the decisions simply meant 
that the circuit courts were upheld in pronouncing 
null and void the replevin acts of the Kentucky leg- 
islature which impaired contracts in so far as they were 
retroactive.^^^ The opinions were scholarly and have been held 
as models of their kind. Boyle’s opinion particularly has been 
praised as a ‘'polished metaphysical essay”.^^® The decision of 
Judge Mills, who finally became convinced of the unconstitu- 
tionality of the replevin laws, seems to be the most practical 
one for reference in the ordinary administration of law. The 
original reports of the cases and the briefs and arguments 
filed by counsel were destroyed by fire in the capitol building. 
George M. Bibb, in a scholarly petition showing remarkable 
research, filed a petition for a rehearing in both cases on a 
technicality, but was overruled.^^® This in ordinary times 
would have ended the cases and settled the matter. But 
times then were far from ordinary in Kentucky. 
When the legislature met in the fall of 1823 it afforded the 
first formal chance for an expression on recent federal and 
state court decisions. Loud protests at once went up against 
the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Green vs. Biddle. 
That decision, said this legislature, was ruinous to the good 
people of Kentucky and “subversive of their dearest and most 
valuable political rights”.^^® In the same breath, anger at the 
local courts led to a set of pointed, angry resolutions drawn 
up by John Rowan and passed December 10 in the lower 
house which gave fully its views on the recent decisions of the 
Kentucky court of appeals. The resolutions were preceded, 
Robertson says, “by a long, bombastic denunciatory and ad 
captandum preamble”.^^^ They declared that the decisions in 
In 4 Littell, Kentucky Reports, 1824, pp. 34-46, is found Judge Boyle’s decision 
in the case of Blair vs. Williams ; on pp. 46-87 are found the decisions of Judges 
Owsley and Mills on the case of Lapsley vs. Brashear ; see also Collins, Histwy of 
Kentucky, I, 495, 496, for an analysis of the appellate court’s decision by Judge George 
Robertson. 
Brown, op. cit., 23. 
4 Littell, 87-116, gives Bibb’s petition. 
Niles’ Register, XXV, 275. 
Robertson, Scrap Book, 50. 
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