The state's 1848 constitution initially set their pay at $1,500 per year, and a decade later, the amount had risen to $2,500. But between 1860 and 1865, the Civil War caused rampant inflation and the justices' salaries lost nearly half their value.

By 1867, $2,500 bought about as much as $1,450 had a decade earlier, according to www.measuringworth.com.

In 1859, Chief Justice Luther Dixon (1825-1891) arrived in Madison "easily worth $15,000" but a few years later had to borrow money just to make ends meet.

Madison banker Lucien Hanks (1838-1926) offered him a loan, whereupon Dixon replied, "Hanks, at one time I did think you were a good banker, but I have now concluded you are a damn-fool; because any man who would loan me $1,500 when I have nothing but my homestead is not competent to be in the business of banking."

What Dixon didn't know was that bank president Samuel Marshall (1820-1907) had agreed to personally guarantee his debts.

Justice Byron Paine (1827-1891), who in 1865 won the right of blacks to vote in Wisconsin, also had to borrow money. "It is a burning shame that the judges of the Supreme Court of this state are denied a living salary," he protested to Hanks. "Here am I having nothing but my salary and my little home on the shore of Lake Monona."

He died there, on the brink of poverty, a few years later.

-- Wisconsin Historical Society
www.wisconsinhistory.org

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