This association was organized December 2, 1880, and a constitution and by-laws adopted. The following officers were elected and have served continuously to the present time. Col. J. C. McCloud, President; George W. Wilson, Vice President; Sylvester W. Durflinger, Treasurer; D. C. Badger, Secretary; John F. Locke, P. C. Smith and Bruce P. Jones, Executive Committee. The association meets annually, also at the call of the President or Executive Committee; and all members of the Madison County bar, in good standing, are eligible to membership.
The senior members of the bar of Madison County, have, many of them, made up their records; those left are still to follow, and the juniors are to assume their places at the bar and on the bench; to them will soon be committed these great, responsible trusts. The perpetuity of our free institutions is committed to the guardianship and keeping of the bar and judiciary of our free country, for the history of the world teaches, and all free governments illustrate this truth—treat the subject lightly as you will—that to the profession of the law civil government is indebted for all the safeguards and intrenchments with which the liberties of the people are protected; that legislation is shaped, constitutions enlarged, amended and adopted by the enlightened administration of the statesmen in all free governments, educated for the bar, and, ascending by the inherent force of their disciplined professional life, they become the directors of the destinies of States and nations. Military chieftains may spring into power; tyrants may for the hour dazzle, with the glamour of military parade and the pomp of war, an oppressed and frenzied nation; but they turn as the cannonade dies away, to the statesmanship of the country, and call to the legislative halls for final debate the arbitraments of the liberties of the people.
From the days of King John to the present hour, the bench and the bar have furnished the great majority of the statesmen who have erected the bulwarks of constitutional law, and extorted from tyrants the Magna Chartas which have secured to the oppressed the guarantees of free institutions. Imbued with the historical traditions of their predecessors, tracing the higher paths they have trod, and emulating their good example, it should become more and more the resolute purpose of the Madison County bar to so walk in the light of their professional teachings that when they are called to follow them to that upper court, and file their judgment-roll of the great trial of life with that Supreme Judge from whose bar there is no appeal,
"Thou go not like the quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon; but sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach the grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."