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which it-was rendered, was not controlling authority for the State
Court on a question depending on the State law, and as to which
the National Court could not reverse or revise the judgment of
the highest Court of Kentucky, Chief Justice Boyle, as much as
he respected the tribunal which rendered it, and anxious as he un-
doubtedly was for harmony and uniformity, still clearly adhering
to his first opinion, firmly, but temperately and respectfully, re-
asserted and maintained it by affirming the coincident judgment
of the inferior court, even though Judge Logan, his only col-
league on the bench in that case, receded and yielded to the opin-
ion of the Supreme Court of the Union. And the decision, thus
given by Boyle alonqe, has never since been overruled.
  2d. Though Chief Justice Boyle had been inclined to thepopin-
ion that the Bank of the United States was unconstitutional, yet,
after the Supreme Court of the United States had decided unani-
mously that it was constitutional, he acquiesced and recognized
the authoritativeness of the opinion of the National Court on a
national question.
  3d. Nevertheless, although a majority of the Judges of the Su-
preme Court of the Union had decided, in a solitary case, that the
Kentucky statute of 1812, for securing to bona fide occupants a
prescribed rate of compensation for improvements before they
could be evicted by suit, was inconsistent with the compact be-
tween Virginia and Kentucky, and therefore unconstitutional-
Chief Justice Boyle, with the concurrence of his associates, main-
tained the validity of that protective enactment. And the doc-
trine thus settled by our State Court has never since been dis-
turbed.
  In this instance-being clearly of the opinion that the compact
guaranteed only the titles to land according to the laws of Vir-
ginia under which they had been acquired, and did not restrict, in
any manner, the authority of Kentucky over the remedies for
asserting them, and that the occupant law did not impair the ob-
ligation of contracts-our distinguished Chief Justice did not feel
bound or even permitted to surrender his own judgment to the
conflicting judgment of a mere majority of the Judges of the Su-
preme National Court in a single case and never reasserted by
all the Judges, or even by a majority. And, in thus acting, he
exhibited, in a becoming manner, his own firmness and purity,
whilst he did not manifest any unjustifiable obstinacy or want of
due respect for the opinions of a majority of the federal Judges
on a national question. Had Boyle's opinion been indefensible,
the fair presumption is that it would have been overruled: and
the fact that it has never been disturbed is evidence, almost con-
clusive, that it was right. And thus he and his colleagues, by their
firmness and intelligence, maintained the sovereign rights of their