The contest opened as soon as the chairman of the judiciary committee reported in favour of a vice chancellor, from whom appeals should be taken to the chancellor; and of a superior court of common pleas, having practically the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, which should form a part of the Court for the Correction of Errors. This meant the continuation of the old judges. Immediately, Erastus Root offered a substitute, abolishing the existing courts, and creating a new Supreme Court, with a corps of _nisi prius_ district judges. Root's plan also provided for the transfer of the equitable powers of the Court of Chancery to the courts of common law. This was the extreme view. Although the convention, or at least a majority of it, might wish to get rid of the old Supreme Court judges, it was plainly unwilling to let go the Court of Chancery. So it rejected the Root substitute by a vote of seventy-three to thirty-six, and the report of the judiciary committee by seventy-nine ayes to thirty-three noes. But the attack thus daringly begun by Root, was steadily maintained. Martin Van Buren, who figured as a sort of peacemaker, proposed the retention of the Chancery and Supreme Courts, and the creation of circuit judges. This proposition went to a special committee, which presented two reports--one for the preservation of the Court of Chancery and the Supreme Court, the other for the creation of a Court of Chancery, a Supreme Court, and courts of common pleas. It was plain that the second of these was Root's former substitute, with the Court of Chancery continued, and, in support of it, he now arraigned the political conduct of the judges with a severity that was speedily rebuked. Root was radical or nothing. He hated Spencer, he despised Van Ness, and he disliked James Kent and Jonas Platt; and with an exuberance of apparent anger he demanded the abolition of their courts and the creation of others in no wise different.