1867 and after 181

logic out of contact with realities. His study had
the effect of eliminating possible personal tend-
encies and predilections, of course, and Judge
Alvey's opinions always yielded place to the law,
and let the decisions fall as they might. Judge
McSherry, who worked six years on the court with
Judge Alvey, and had that close knowledge of the
cases as argued which always gives an advantage
in estimating the work of a judge, thought Judge
Alvey was one of the three best chief judges of ten
which Judge McSherry described.² Some of
Judge Alvey's opinions came to the notice of
President Cleveland when the latter was a practic-
ing lawyer, and when President, he had Dr. Frank
T. Shaw, a Congressman from Maryland from
1885 to 1889, bring Judge Alvey to the White
House; and after the interview the President told
Dr. Shaw that he intended to appoint Judge Alvey
to the Supreme Court of the United States. When
the next vacancy on the court occurred, however,
the President found that the senior Senator from
Maryland would prevent confirmation in the Sen-
ate, and the appointment was therefore withheld.
Some orders Judge Alvey had passed in litigation
respecting the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Com-
pany, in which the Senator was deeply interested,
had angered the Senator. This is the incident as
told by Dr. Shaw. The President later, in 1893,
appointed Judge Alvey Chief Justice of the Dis-
trict of Columbia Court of Appeals, and in 1895
appointed him a member of the commission to
settle the boundary line between Venezuela and
British Guiana.

2. Report Md. State Bar Asso., 1904, 133.