Part 12

It is a beautiful picture in Grecian story, that there was at least one spot, the small island of Delos, dedicated to the gods, and kept at all times sacred from War. No hostile foot ever pressed this kindly soil, and citizens of all countries met here, in common worship, beneath the ægis of inviolable Peace. So let us dedicate our beloved country; and may the blessed consecration be felt in all its parts, everywhere throughout its ample domain! The Temple of Honor shall be enclosed by the Temple of Concord, that it may never more be entered through any portal of War; the horn of Abundance shall overflow at its gates; the angel of Religion shall be the guide over its steps of flashing adamant; while within its happy courts, purged of Violence and Wrong, JUSTICE, returned to the earth from long exile in the skies, with equal scales for nations as for men, shall rear her serene and majestic front; and by her side, greatest of all, CHARITY, sublime in meekness, hoping all and enduring all, shall divinely temper every righteous decree, and with words of infinite cheer inspire to those deeds that cannot vanish away. And the future chief of the Republic, destined to uphold the glories of a new era, unspotted by human blood, shall be first in Peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen.

While seeking these fruitful glories for ourselves, let us strive for their extension to other lands. Let the bugles sound the _Truce of God_ to the whole world forever. Not to one people, but to every people, let the glad tidings go. The selfish boast of the Spartan women, that they never saw the smoke of an enemy's camp, must become the universal chorus of mankind, while the iron belt of War, now encompassing the globe, is exchanged for the golden cestus of Peace, clothing all with celestial beauty. History dwells with fondness on the reverent homage bestowed by massacring soldiers upon the spot occupied by the sepulchre of the Lord. Vain man! why confine regard to a few feet of sacred mould? The whole earth is the sepulchre of the Lord; nor can any righteous man profane any part thereof. Confessing this truth, let us now, on this Sabbath of the Nation, lay a new and living stone in the grand Temple of Universal Peace, whose dome shall be lofty as the firmament of heaven, broad and comprehensive as earth itself.

TRIBUTE OF FRIENDSHIP:

THE LATE JOSEPH STORY.

ARTICLE FROM THE BOSTON DAILY ADVERTISER, SEPTEMBER 16, 1845.

I have just returned from the funeral of this great and good man. Under that roof where I have so often seen him in health, buoyant with life, exuberant in kindness, happy in family and friends, I stood by his mortal remains sunk in eternal rest, and gazed upon those well-loved features from which even the icy touch of death had not effaced all the living beauty. The eye was quenched, and the glow of life extinguished; but the noble brow seemed still to shelter, as under a marble dome, the spirit that had fled. And is he dead, I asked myself,--whose face was never turned to me, except in affection,--who has filled the civilized world with his name, and drawn to his country the homage of foreign nations,--who was of activity and labor that knew no rest,--who was connected with so many circles by duties of such various kinds, by official ties, by sympathy, by friendship and love,--who, according to the beautiful expression of Wilberforce, "touched life at so many points,"--has he, indeed, passed away? Upon the small plate on the coffin was inscribed, JOSEPH STORY, _died September 10th, 1845, aged 66 years_. These few words might apply to the lowly citizen, as to the illustrious Judge. Thus is the coffin-plate a register of the equality of men.

At his well-known house we joined in religious worship. The Rev. Dr. Walker, present head of the University, in earnest prayer, commended his soul to God who gave it, and invoked upon family and friends a consecration of their afflictive bereavement. From this service we followed, in mournful procession, to the resting-place which he had selected for himself and his family, amidst the beautiful groves of Mount Auburn. As the procession filed into the cemetery I was moved by the sight of the numerous pupils of the Law School, with uncovered heads and countenances of sorrow, ranged on each side of the road within the gate, testifying by silent and unexpected homage their last reverence to their departed teacher. Around the grave, as he was laid in the embrace of the mother earth, were gathered all in our community most distinguished in law, learning, literature, station,--Judges of our Courts, Professors of the University, surviving classmates, and a thick cluster of friends. He was placed among the children taken from him in early life. _Of such is the kingdom of heaven_ were the words he had inscribed over their names on the simple marble which now commemorates alike the children and their father. Nor is there a child in heaven of more childlike innocence and purity than he, who, full of years and honors, has gone to mingle with these children.

There is another sentence, inscribed by him on this family stone, which speaks to us now with a voice of consolation. _Sorrow not as those without hope_ were the words which brought solace to him in his bereavements. From his bed beneath he seems to whisper thus among his mourning family and friends,--most especially to her, the chosen partner of his life, from whom so much of human comfort is apparently removed. He is indeed gone; but we shall see him once more forever. With this blessed trust, we may find happiness in dwelling upon his virtues and fame on earth, till the great consoler, Time, shall come with healing in his wings.

From the grave of the Judge I walked a few short steps to that of his classmate and friend, the beloved Channing, who died less than three years ago, aged sixty-two. Thus these companions in early studies--each afterwards foremost in important duties, pursuing divergent paths, yet always drawn towards each other by the attractions of mutual friendship--again meet and lie down together in the same sweet earth, in the shadow of kindred trees, through which the same birds sing a perpetual requiem.

The afternoon was of unusual brilliancy, and the full-orbed sun gilded with mellow light the funereal stones through which I wound my way, as I sought the grave of another friend, the first colleague of the departed Judge in the duties of the Law School,--Professor Ashmun. After a life crowded with usefulness, he laid down the burden of disease which he had long borne, at the early age of thirty-three. I remember listening, in 1833, to the flowing discourse which Story pronounced, in the College Chapel, over the departed; nor can I forget his deep emotion, as we stood together at the foot of the grave, while the earth fell, dust to dust, upon the coffin of his friend.

Wandering through this silent city of the dead, I called to mind those words of Beaumont on the Tombs in Westminster Abbey:--

"Here's an acre sown indeed With the richest, royal'st seed That the earth did e'er suck in Since the first man died for sin; Here are sands, ignoble things Dropt from the ruined sides of kings."

A richer royalty is sown at Mount Auburn. The kings that slumber there were anointed by more than earthly hand.

Turning again to the newest grave, I found no one but the humble gardeners, smoothing the sod over the fresh earth. It was late in the afternoon, and the upper branches of the stately trees that wave over the sacred spot, after glistening for a while in the golden rays of the setting sun, were left in the gloom which had already settled on the grass beneath. Hurrying away, I reached the gate as the porter's curfew was tolling to forgetful musers like myself the warning to leave.

Moving away from the consecrated field, I thought of the pilgrims that would come from afar, through successions of generations, to look upon the last home of the great Jurist. From all parts of our own country, from all the lands where law is taught as a science, and where justice prevails, they will come to seek the grave of their master. Let us guard, then, this precious dust. Let us be happy, that, though his works and his example belong to the world, his remains are placed in our peculiar care. To us, also, who saw him face to face, in the performance of his various duties, and who sustain a loss so irreparable, is the melancholy pleasure of dwelling with household affection upon his surpassing excellences.

His death makes a chasm which I shrink from contemplating. He was the senior Judge of the highest Court of the country, an active Professor of Law, and a Fellow in the Corporation of Harvard University. He was in himself a whole triumvirate; and these three distinguished posts, now vacant, will be filled, in all probability, each by a distinct successor. It is, however, as the Jurist that he is to take his place in the history of the world, high in the same firmament where beam the mild glories of Tribonian, Cujas, Hale, and Mansfield. It was his fortune, unlike that of many cultivating the law with signal success on the European continent, to be called as a judge practically to administer and apply it in the business of life. It thus became to him not merely a science, whose depths and intricacies he explored in his closet, but a great and godlike instrument, to be employed in that grandest of earthly functions, the determination of justice among men. While the duties of the magistrate were thus illumined by the studies of the jurist, the latter were tempered to a finer edge by the experience of the bench.

In the attempt to estimate his character as a Jurist, he may be regarded in _three_ different aspects,--as Judge, Author, and Teacher of Jurisprudence, exercising in each a peculiar influence. His lot is rare who achieves fame in any single department of human action; rarer still is his who becomes foremost in many. The first impression is of astonishment, that a single mind, in a single life, should accomplish so much. Omitting the incalculable labors, of which there is no trace, except in the knowledge, happiness, and justice they helped to secure, the bare amount of his written and printed works is enormous beyond precedent in the annals of the Common Law. His written judgments on his circuit, and his various commentaries, occupy _twenty-seven_ volumes, while his judgments in the Supreme Court of the United States form an important part of no less than _thirty-four_ volumes more. The vast professional labors of Coke and Eldon, which seem to clothe the walls of our libraries, must yield to his in extent. He is the Lope de Vega, or the Walter Scott, of the Common Law.

We are struck next by the universality of his juridical attainments. It was said by Dryden of a great lawyer in English history,--Heneage Finch,--

"Our laws, that did a boundless ocean seem, Were coasted all and fathomed all by him."

But the boundless ocean of that age was a "closed sea," compared with that on which the adventurer embarks to-day. In Howell's Familiar Letters there is a saying of only a few short years before, that the books of the Common Law might all be carried in a wheelbarrow. To coast such an ocean were a less task than a moiety of his labors whom we now mourn. Called to administer all the different branches of law, kept separate in England, he showed a mastery of all. His was Universal Empire; and wherever he set his foot, in the various realms of jurisprudence, it was as a sovereign,--whether in the ancient and subtile learning of Real Law,--the Criminal Law,--the niceties of Special Pleading,--the more refined doctrines of Contracts,--the more rational system of Commercial and Maritime Law,--the peculiar and interesting principles and practice of Admiralty and Prize,--the immense range of Chancery,--the modern, but important, jurisdiction over Patents,--or that higher region, the great themes of Public and Constitutional Law. In each of these branches there are judgments by him which will not yield in value to those of any other judge in England or the United States, even though his studies and duties may have been directed to only one particular department.

His judgments are remarkable for exhaustive treatment. The Common Law, as every student knows to his cost, is found only in innumerable "sand-grains" of authority. In his learned expositions not one of these is overlooked, while all are combined with care, and the golden cord of reason is woven across the ample tissue. There is in them, besides, a clearness which flings over the subject a perfect day,--a severe logic, which, by its closeness and precision, makes us feel the truth of the saying of Leibnitz, that nothing approaches so near the certainty of geometry as the reasoning of the law,--a careful attention to the discussions at the bar, that nothing should be lost,--with a copious and persuasive eloquence investing the whole. Many of his judgments will be landmarks in the law: I know of no single judge who has set up so many. I think it may be said, without fear of question, that the Reports show a larger number of judicial opinions from Story, which posterity will not willingly let die, than from any other judge in the history of English or American law.

There is much of his character as a Judge which cannot be preserved, except in the faithful memory of those whose happiness it was to enjoy his judicial presence. I refer particularly to his mode of conducting business. Even the passing stranger bore witness to his suavity of manner on the bench, while all practitioners in the courts where he presided so long attest the marvellous quickness with which he seized habitually the points of a case, often anticipating the slower movements of counsel, and leaping, or, I might almost say, flying, to the proper conclusion. Napoleon's perception, at the head of an army, was not more rapid. Nor can I forget the scrupulous care with which he assigned reasons for every portion of his opinions, showing that it was not _he_ who spoke with the voice of authority, but the _law_, whose organ he was.

In the history of the English bench there are but two names with combined eminence as Judge and Author,--Coke and Hale,--unless, indeed, the "Ordinances in Chancery," from the Verulamian pen, should entitle Lord Bacon to this distinction, and the judgments of Lord Brougham should vindicate the same for him. Blackstone's character as judge is lost in the fame of the Commentaries. To Story belongs this double glory. Early in life he compiled an important professional work; but it was only at a comparatively recent period, after his mind had been disciplined by the labors of the bench, that he prepared those elaborate Commentaries which have made his name a familiar word in foreign countries. They who knew him best observed the lively interest which he took in this extension of his renown. And most justly; for the voice of distant foreign nations comes as from a living posterity. His works have been reviewed with praise in the journals of England, Scotland, Ireland, France, and Germany. They are cited as authorities in all the Courts of Westminster Hall; and one of the ablest and most learned jurists of the age, whose honorable career at the bar has opened to him the peerage,--Lord Campbell,--in the course of debate in the House of Lords, accorded to their author an exalted place, saying that he "had a greater reputation as a legal writer than any author England could boast since the days of Blackstone."[117]

[117] Hansard, LXVIII. 667.

To complete this hasty survey, I should allude to his excellences as a Teacher of law, that other relation which he sustained to jurisprudence. The numerous pupils reared at his feet, and now scattered throughout the country, diffusing, in their different circles, the light obtained at Cambridge, as they hear that their beloved master has fallen, will each feel that he has lost a friend. He had the faculty, rare as it is exquisite, of interesting the young, and winning their affections. I have often seen him surrounded by a group of youths,--the ancient Romans might have aptly called it a _corona_,--all intent upon his earnest conversation, and freely interrogating him on matters of interest. In his lectures, and other forms of instruction, he was prodigal of explanation and illustration; his manner, according to the classical image of Zeno, was like the open palm, never like the clenched fist. His learning was always overflowing, as from the horn of abundance. He was earnest and unrelaxing in effort, patient and gentle, while he listened with inspiring attention to all that the pupil said. Like Chaucer's Clerk,

"And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche."

Above all, he was a living example of love for the law,--supposed by many to be unlovely and repulsive,--which seemed to grow warmer under the snows of accumulating winters; and such an example could not fail, with magnetic power, to touch the hearts of the young. Nor should I forget the lofty standard of professional morals which he inculcated, filling his discourse with the charm of goodness. Under such auspices, and those of his learned associate, Professor Greenleaf, large classes of students, larger than any other in America, or in England, were annually gathered in Cambridge. The Law School became the glory of the University.

He was proud of his character as Professor. In his earlier works he is called on the title-page "Dane Professor of Law." It was only on the suggestion of the English publisher that he was induced to append the other title, "One of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States." He looked forward with peculiar satisfaction to the time which seemed at hand, when he should lay down the honors and cares of the bench, and devote himself singly to the duties of his chair.

I have merely glanced at him in his three several relations to jurisprudence. Great in each, it is on this unprecedented combination that his peculiar fame will be reared, as upon an immortal tripod. In what I have written, I do not think I am biased by partialities of private friendship. I have endeavored to regard him as posterity will regard him, as all must regard him now who fully know him in his works. Imagine for one moment the irreparable loss, if all that he has done were blotted out forever. As I think of the incalculable facilities afforded by his labors, I cannot but say with Racine, when speaking of Descartes, "_Nous courons; mais, sans lui, nous ne marcherions pas._" Besides, it is he who has inspired in many foreign bosoms, reluctant to perceive good in our country, a sincere homage to the American name. He has turned the stream refluent upon the ancient fountains of Westminster Hall, and, stranger still, has forced the waters above their sources, up the unaccustomed heights of countries alien to the Common Law. It is he also who has directed, from the copious well-springs of Roman Law, and from the fresher currents of modern Continental Law, a pure and grateful stream to enrich and fertilize our domestic jurisprudence. In his judgments, his books, and his teachings, he drew always from other systems to illustrate the Common Law.

The mind naturally seeks to compare him with eminent jurists, servants of Themis, who share with him the wide spaces of fame. In genius for the law, in the exceeding usefulness of his career, in the blended character of Judge and Author, he cannot yield to our time-honored master, Lord Coke; in suavity of manner, and in silver-tongued eloquence, he may compare with Lord Mansfield, while in depth, accuracy, and variety of juridical learning he surpassed him far; if he yields to Lord Stowell in elegance of diction, he exceeds even his excellence in curious exploration of the foundations of that jurisdiction which they administered in common, and in the development of those great principles of public law whose just determination helps to preserve the peace of nations; and even in the peculiar field illustrated by the long career of Eldon, we find him a familiar worker, with Eldon's profusion of learning, and without the perplexity of his doubts. There are many who regard the judicial character of the late Chief Justice Marshall as unapproachable. I revere his name, and have read his judgments, which seem like "pure reason," with admiration and gratitude; but I cannot disguise that even these noble memorials must yield in juridical character, learning, acuteness, fervor, variety of topics, as they are far inferior in amount, to those of our friend. There is still spared to us a renowned judge, at this moment the unquestioned living head of American jurisprudence, with no rival near the throne,--Chancellor Kent,--whose judgments and works always inspired the warmest eulogy of the departed, and whose character as a jurist furnishes the fittest parallel to his own in the annals of our law.

It seems idle to weave further these vain comparisons, particularly to invoke the living. But busy fancy revives the past, and persons and scenes renew themselves in my memory. I call to mind the recent Chancellor of England, the model of a clear, grave, learned, and conscientious magistrate,--Lord Cottenham. I see again the ornaments of Westminster Hall, on the bench and at the bar, where sits Denman, in manner, conduct, and character "every inch" the judge,--where pleaded the consummate lawyer, Follett, whose voice is now hushed in the grave; their judgments, their arguments, their conversation I cannot forget; but thinking of these, I feel new pride in the great Magistrate, the just Judge, the consummate Lawyer whom we lament.

It has been my fortune to know the chief jurists of our time, in the classical countries of jurisprudence, France and Germany. I remember well the pointed and effective style of Dupin, in one of his masterly arguments before the highest court of France; I recall the pleasant converse of Pardessus--to whom commercial and maritime law is under a larger debt, perhaps, than to any other mind--while he descanted on his favorite theme; I wander in fancy to the gentle presence of him with flowing silver locks who was so dear to Germany,--Thibaut, the expounder of Roman law, and the earnest and successful advocate of a just scheme for the reduction of the unwritten law to the certainty of a written text; from Heidelberg I pass to Berlin, where I listen to the grave lecture and mingle in the social circle of Savigny, so stately in person and peculiar in countenance, whom all the continent of Europe delights to honor; but my heart and my judgment, untravelled, fondly turn with new love and admiration to my Cambridge teacher and friend. Jurisprudence has many arrows in her quiver, but where is one to compare with that which is now spent in the earth?

The fame of the Jurist is enhanced by various attainments superinduced upon learning in the law. His "Miscellaneous Writings" show a thoughtful mind, imbued with elegant literature, warm with kindly sentiments, commanding a style of rich and varied eloquence. Many passages from these have become commonplaces of our schools. In early life he yielded to the fascinations of the poetic muse; and here the great lawyer may find companionship with Selden, who is introduced by Suckling into the "Session of the Poets" as "hard by the chair,"--with Blackstone, whose "Farewell to his Muse" shows his fondness for poetic pastures, even while his eye was directed to the heights of the law,--and also with Mansfield, whom Pope has lamented in familiar words,

"How sweet an Ovid Murray! was our boast."

I have now before me, in his own handwriting, some verses written by him in 1833, entitled, "Advice to a Young Lawyer." As they cannot fail to be read with interest, I introduce them here.