Chapter XLVI: A Bar Meeting Still in Session

APPOINTMENT OF A COMMITTEE TO FORMULATE RULES FOR COURT PROCEDURE-- SOME MEMBERS AGREE TO VOTE DOWN THE MOTION TO ADJOURN--THE MOTION REJECTED THREE TIMES--INDIGNATION OF THE PRESIDENT.

A Bar meeting recalled by the mention of Mr. Ingersoll would be worth while if it could only be described as it actually occurred.

At the opening of the December term of the Circuit Court in Woodford in the year of grace 'fifty-nine, John Clark, Esq., announced that a meeting of the Bar would be held at the courthouse at "early candle-lighting" on that very evening, for the purpose of formulating rules to be presented to the Court for its government during the term.

At the appointed hour, the lawyers, "home and foreign," being promptly in attendance and the court-room crowded, an organization was duly effected by the election of Colonel Shope, an able and dignified barrister of the old school, as President. As undisputed spokesman of the occasion, Mr. Clark, at once moved the appointment of a committee of five to prepare the aforementioned rules. The motion prevailing, _nem. con.,_ in accordance with the time-honored usage, the mover of the resolution was duly appointed Chairman, with Ingersoll, Shaw, Ewing, and the chronicler of these important events as his coadjutors. Upon the retirement of the committee, the rules already prepared by Clark were read and promptly approved, and that gentleman instructed to present them to the Bar meeting --then in patient waiting.

As the recognized parliamentarian of the occasion--with the proposed rules in safe keeping--was in the van, upon the return to the court-room Ingersoll quietly proposed to his three untitled associates that, after the adoption of the resolutions, we should _vote down Clark's motion to adjourn_ and thereby remain all night in session. In approved form, and with a dignity that would have done no discredit to a high-church bishop, the rules were read off by the Chairman and agreed to without a dissenting voice.

After a brief silence, Mr. Clark arose and said: "Mr. President, if there is no further business before this meeting, I move we do now adjourn." The motion was duly seconded by Welcome P. Brown, who had been Probate Judge of McLean County far back in the thirties, and postmaster of the struggling village of Bloomington when Jackson was President. President Shope promptly arose and in the blandest possible terms submitted: "Gentlemen of the Bar, all who are in favor of the motion to adjourn will please say, Aye." Clark, Brown, and a half-a-dozen others at once voted, "Aye." "Those opposed to the motion to adjourn will please say, No," was the alternative then submitted by the impartial presiding officer. Ingersoll, his confederates, and a sufficient contingent won over quietly voted, "No." "The motion is lost," observed the President, resuming his seat. "What is the further pleasure of the meeting?" The silence of the grave for a time prevailed. Ingersoll and his followers deporting themselves with a solemnity well befitting an occasion for prayer. Again arising, the chairman of the committee--in a voice less rotund than before--said: "Well, Mr. President, if there is no _further_ business before this meeting, I move we do now adjourn." Duly seconded, the motion was again put, Clark and half a dozen others voting as before. "Those opposed," remarked the President-- in tones perceptibly less conciliatory than an hour earlier--"will say, No." The scarcely audible, but none the less effective "no" prevailed, the leader meanwhile giving no sign and apparently rapt as if unravelling the mysteries beyond the veil.

A silence that could be felt now in very truth fell upon the meeting in the old courthouse assembled. Even the bystanders seemed impressed that something far out of the ordinary was happening.

Receiving little in the way of encouragement, the Chairman of the late committee, as he dubiously looked around upon the forms of the silent majority--each of whom sat apparently buried in thought that touched the very depths,--again and for the last time addressed the presiding officer:

"Mr. President, I move _that we adjourn."_

Conclusions being again tried in wonted parliamentary form between the opposing forces, with like result as before, the venerable president,--by way of prelude first giving full vent to an exclamation nowhere to be found in the Methodist "book of discipline,"--at once indignantly vacated the chair, and literally shook the dust of the court-room from his feet. The others "stood not upon the order of their going," and although fifty years have come and gone, that identical Bar meeting in the old courthouse at Metamora _is still in session,_--never having been officially adjourned even to this day.