F 72 
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 Copy 1 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 SOOIA.L FESTI^A^L 
 
 OF 
 
 THE BAR 
 
 OP 
 
 WORCESTER COUNTY, 
 
 X^-A.SS-A.Oia:-CJSETTS, 
 
 FEB. 7, 1856 
 
 HON. EMORY WASHBURN 
 
 WORCESTER: 
 
 PRINTED BY HENRY J. ROWLAND, 
 246 Main Street. 
 
r /A, 
 
 SenrM tuUemowh 
 
Worcester, Feb. 22, 1856. 
 Hon. Emory Washburn, 
 
 Dear Sir : — As Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements for 
 the recent Festival of the Bar of the County of Worcester, and in pursuance 
 of a vote of the Bar, I am instructed to tender you " Their sincere thanks, 
 for your valuable, interesting, and eloquent Address, delivered on the oc- 
 casion, and to request a copy of the same for publication." 
 Very Respectfully Yours, 
 
 IRA M. BARTON. 
 
 Worcester, March 1, ISoG. 
 Dear Sir : — In complying with the request contained in your note of 
 the 2Sth ult., I am performing a pleasant duty, rather than following any 
 personal wish to give publicity to the address. 
 
 The memorials that a lawyer is ordinarily able to leave of his efforts at 
 the bar, are necessarily brief. The arena upon which his powers- are exer- 
 cised, is removed from public observation, and some of the noblest exertions 
 of the human intellect have been spent in determining questions of private 
 right, to be forgotten with the occasion that called them forth. If, therefore, 
 my brethren have furnished me an occasion to collect some memorials of 
 those who have heretofore filled places at the Bar, and are willing to give 
 them a more permanent form than the entertainment of a festive hour, I 
 do not feel that I have a right to decline the request. 
 I am, Very Respectfully, 
 
 Your Ob't Serv't, 
 
 EMORY WASHBURN. 
 Hon. IRA U. BARTON, Chairman, .j-c. 
 
A-DDRESS. 
 
 I am to speak this evening of the Law and iU proyress, 
 and of this Bar and its changes, during the last twenty-five 
 years. 
 
 Measured by the experience of a life, how large is the 
 space which that period occupies ! 
 
 Of all those who filled the places we occupy, twenty-five 
 years ago, how few are here to night, to share in the remi- 
 niscences which it is designed to awaken. And what a grave 
 has been opened and closed over bright hopes, generous as- 
 pirations, and stirring ambition, in the solemn experience of 
 these few brief years. 
 
 What a change have they wrought in the individual man ! 
 The stout frame has been bowed, the flowing locks have 
 been bleached and scattered, the beaming eye clouded and 
 dimmed, the gladsome spirits saddened, and the shadows of 
 coming evening grown fearfully long, as the lingerer stops 
 in his lonely walk, and looks around in vain for some once 
 familiar companion of his earlier days. 
 
 They found a young man full of hope, they have made 
 him an old man full of experience. 
 
 But if we contemplate this period in contrast with the 
 life of the Common Law, of whose history it forms a most 
 important chapter, it dwindles to the measure of a moment's 
 space. 
 
 The origin of that system is indeed so distant, that the 
 long vista of ages, through which, alone, the mind can re- 
 
gard it, blonds in its perspective, the hues of truth and 
 error, like the melting of the dim outline of the blue ocean 
 with the bluer sky, when we look out upon its waters, as 
 they sleep in the stillness of a summer's twilight. 
 
 I go back in my research, to the day when Rome was 
 gathering" up her giant limbs to die, and left the few and 
 scattered fragments of her imperial institutions, like the 
 relics of half legible inscriptions, and old imperishable stone 
 work, on which the eye of the antiquary reads the tale of 
 the five centuj'ies of Eoman power and glory in that island. 
 
 I trace the slow and silent growth of institutions, which 
 through another period of six hundred years, were springing 
 up. under the rule of a rude people, and I pause to admire 
 the sturdy independence, so nearly approaching to freedom, 
 of the Saxon, while I read the simple but wise ordinances 
 of Ina and Alfred, and listen to the counsels of their Wit- 
 tenagemot — the future Parliament of Great Britain, and 
 mark the tir.-it rough outline of that form of trial, which 
 has since protected so many against the power of the oppres- 
 sor, by the majesty of a Juror's oath. 
 
 And, as I contemplate this broad, deep-laid, rough foun- 
 dation of Saxon law, I see planted and rising upon it, that 
 stupendous fabric of Feudalism, which the Norman conquest 
 brought with it as the element of its power and its perpe- 
 tuity. The Baron's castle, in the midst of his broad domain, 
 is frownino; over the hut and cottao;e of his vassal and his 
 serf. The mitred Bishop keeps the conscience of the King, 
 and is stealing in upon the frank and manly doctrines of 
 tlie English law, with the subtle and artful inventions of 
 the church, wliilo tlie monarch is himself waging an unequal 
 contest ngainst the ascendency of the Pope on the one hand, 
 and a storm of domestic faction with his Barons on the other. 
 
 I see tlioso Barons gathering at Runnymede, and among 
 tlie menun'alde records of what tliose stern old warriors 
 1 bought anil did there, I read as a concession wrung from 
 royal fear, but treasured forever after in a nation's heart, 
 
the development of that great element of personal right 
 and private justice — " NuUi vendiinus nulli negabimus, aut 
 c?/^remMS, justitiam vel rectum." 
 
 And as we recall that scene in fancy, and the thought 
 flashes across the mind that some gifted spirit among those 
 men of iron nerve, may, with prophetic vision, have read 
 that memorable declaration, as we may now, engraved upon 
 the seal of a Court of Common Law, presiding over the 
 civil rights of a million of Freemen, with a wisdom and 
 learning of which the pages of Glanville and Bracton fur- 
 nish but barren rudiments, — in a land which even fancy had, 
 till that moment, never conceived, the whole comes back 
 upon the imagination, as a spectacle of moral grandeur, 
 compared with which the by-play of war sinks into insig- 
 nificance. 
 
 I trace, still onward, that course of events, which, infus- 
 ing new elements into the body of the law, changes not 
 only the relations of property, but the very ideas of social 
 duties and political rights. 
 
 The cunning shrewdness of the clergy has substituted 
 under the guise of " Uses " the superstitions of a vitiated 
 conscience, for the plain, homely precedents of feudal sim- 
 plicity, cheating alike the crown and the Lord of their 
 cherished prerogatives, and gathering into the granary of 
 the church the best fruits of the English soil, in spite of 
 charter and of statute. 
 
 There is something even dramatic in witnessing this strug- 
 gle, — sturdy, English doggedness triumphing over priestly 
 cunning. Parliament has met at Merton. The Bishops are 
 seeking to introduce their own canon law, and are ready, in 
 order to accomplish it, to minister to the passions and vices 
 of the impulsive Barons- But the appeal is vain. In terms 
 which could not be mistaken, and in words which will be 
 read with admiration in after days, they tell those ambitious 
 churchmen, **^nolumus leges Angliae mutare," and England 
 and her institutions are English still. 
 
I pass over another period of four hundred years — A long 
 and severe struggle has been going on, the anathema of the 
 Pope, and the thunder of the Vatican have lost their terror. 
 Interdict and Excommunication can no longer clothe a 
 people in sack-cloth. And the prestige of royalty itself 
 has ceased to dazzle the eye of a fickle multitude. A Ple- 
 bian Parliament has laid sacreligious hands upon the Lord's 
 anointed. 
 
 But Law has been, during all this time, silently gaining 
 strength and consistency in the kingdom, and the people are 
 beginning to learn that without rules to guide and check 
 their rulers, the rights of the citizen can never be secure. 
 
 And when, at last, that feeling of an Englishman's Loy- 
 alty, which had been cherished by the teachings of a thou- 
 sand years, triumphed over the party of freedom and fanat- 
 icism. Liberty was found asserting her claims in behalf of 
 private right, and personal security against power and pre- 
 scriptive wrong. At one blow. Chivalry and Knight service, 
 under whicli the tenant of every manor in England had 
 been groaning for six hundred years, were laid prostrate, 
 while that single engine of magic power, the Huheas Corpus 
 Avas placed within the reach of the humblest citizen, and at 
 its touch the bars and bolts of the deepest dungeon gave 
 way^ and the fetters of the oppressor fell broken from the 
 limbs of his victim. 
 
 As we come down from this eventful period, our pathway 
 grows luminous and clear in the light ot" Judicial learning. 
 
 The struggle between prerogative and the people, between 
 the crown and the priesthood, has passed and is passing 
 away, while the cumbrous frame work of antiquated iorms 
 is giving place, in the study of the jurist and the statesman, 
 to the vitalizing principles of social advancement and indi- 
 vidual right. Commerce and Trade are fixing more firmly 
 their marts in the growina: cities of the kino-dom, and thrift 
 is rewarding the enterprise of toiling industry. 
 
 The Common Law, in the mean time, has kept pace with 
 
the changes that are thus going on, and has expanded to 
 meet the unaccustomed wants of a community, no longer 
 confined to the culture of the soil. 
 
 Under the guidance of her great masters, her Holts, her 
 Blackstones and her Mansnelds, she has added to her prim- 
 itive elements, what she has gleaned from the systems of 
 continental Europe, and especially from the great store house 
 of Eoman Jurisprudei:ce, the elements of symmetry and 
 consistency which adapted to the condition of a commercial 
 people, the rugged relics of feudalism and the business of 
 arms and agriculture which still give character to her laws, 
 and form the basis of her constitution. 
 
 The heretofore rival systems of law and equity, have 
 learned how to blend and harmonize with each other, under 
 the administration of the Hardwickes and Camdens of the 
 time, till a system of Jurisprudence has grown up and be- 
 come incorporated into the constitution of the government, 
 surpassing that of Eome in the brightest days of her glory. 
 
 Fifty years more in the history of the English law, and 
 we find ourselves at the commencement of the period to 
 which I am limited in what I am to say this evening. Yet 
 brief as is this little space on the great chart of English 
 history, I am greatly misled or we shall find that more has 
 been accomplished in changing some departments of the 
 law, and in fitting and adapting the great body of its prin- 
 ciples to the practical wants of the community, than had 
 been efiected in either, if not all the antecedent periods of 
 which i have spoken. 
 
 Those periods had been either too dead for action, or too 
 full of struggle, as it were, for life itself, to allow the action 
 of great minds, such only as can work out great problems 
 of reform, in a field so uninviting as the details of admin- 
 istering private justice. The public mind was too much 
 engrossed to heed the absurdities and inconsistencies which 
 deformed the patch-work systems of local customs, ancient 
 usages, and statute expedients, which made up so much of 
 the existing body of her municipal institutions. 
 
The first and earliest of those periods can hardly he said 
 to helong to the historic age of the law. 
 
 The elements of society were being shaped into the form 
 and consistency of the state. But the extent to which the 
 masses had rights to be protected, or, that they should he 
 provided with remedies for private wrongs, beyond some- 
 thing like a domestic police, seems to have entered but 
 feebly into the spirit of its rulers or its laws. 
 
 In the next era, we see little more than a long, doubtful, 
 three-sided struggle between the Crown, the Barons, and 
 the Church, in whose alternate successes, the people came in 
 for a meagre share only of whatever was gained by either 
 side. A strong national feeling was growing up among 
 them, it is true, but it was, after all, a period of struggle 
 between masters, in which the people were chiefly passive 
 and their rights unheeded. 
 
 Nor was it till the spirit of inquiry which the Eeforma- 
 tion awakened, had infused life and energy into the torpid 
 action of the popular mind, that the great third estate — the 
 Commons of England — learned how to measure the power 
 they afterwards wielded. 
 
 It would be pleasant to pause in this rapid review, on 
 what was achieved for the cause of popular right during 
 the Commonwealth and at the Eestoration, and especially 
 in the so-called Eevolution of 1688, when the hallowed 
 sanctity of royal prerogative gave way before the storm of 
 popular indignation. It would be pleasant to trace how the 
 learning and independence of Coke, the profound sagacity of 
 Bacon, the mild virtues and uncompromising integrity of 
 Hale, and the varied labors of the patriotic, and upright 
 Somers, became inwrought into the science of the Common 
 law, while Courts and Juries were gaining that independ- 
 ence which was at last guarantied to the Judges of England, 
 by the act of William 3d. And it would be no less inter- 
 esting to trace how questions of personal rights, and rights 
 of property, at last, became the engrossing business of the 
 
9 
 
 courts, in place of what should be the limits of prerogative, 
 the jurisdiction of rival courts, or by what means the power 
 of a papal hierarchy should be disarmed of its terror. 
 
 It should be borne in mind that the commercial spirit of 
 the last century was engrafted upon the landed interests 
 of England, for the regulation and preservation of which 
 so much of the Common Law had come into existence. And 
 the facility with which these were blended into a common 
 system, and administered by the same courts, is but another 
 illustration of the wonderful adaptation of that Common 
 Law, to the wants and condition of a nation made up of 
 men in all the walks and employments of life. 
 
 When, therefore, the attention of the leading minds in 
 the kingdom had been withdrawn from the political excite- 
 ments, and the almost continuous wars in which the nation 
 had been ensas'ed for more than a generation, it is not sur- 
 prising that it should have been directed to the incongruous 
 materials of which the Common Law was composed, — the 
 customs and forms of the days of the Henrys and the Ed- 
 wards registered upon the same page with the broad cos- 
 mopolitan jurisprudence of an era of arts, and commerce, 
 and navigation. 
 
 Among these stand prominently the names of Eomilly 
 in the department of criminal jurisprudence, and of Brougham 
 in the various other departments of the law, as the reform- 
 ers of the present century. 
 
 Those who are familiar with the changes which have ac- 
 tually been accomplished in England during the last twenty- 
 five years, will be ready to accord to it the character of the 
 great age of English legal and judicial Reform. 
 
 Indeed, so rapid and important have those changes been, 
 that it was stated by a writer in Blackwood, that when, re- 
 cently, one of the leading lawyers at the Queen's Bench 
 proposed to republish Blackstone with corrections and addi- 
 tions that should adapt the work to the present state of the 
 law, it was found that, with the exception of the first vol- 
 
10 
 
 ume, the identity of the work would bo destroyed, and the 
 proposal was abandoned after the publication of a single 
 volume. 
 
 Neither good taste nor your patience would admit of my 
 dwelling upon these at large, and I can therefore name only 
 a few. Among these, Fines and Eecoveries, the long toler- 
 ated farce of feigned issues, fictitious parties and false rec- 
 ords in a ffrave court of Justice, are forever abolished. 
 Conveyances of land have been stripped of their useless 
 verbage, and rendered simple and intelligible. The mystic 
 subtilties of lineal and collateral warranties, no longer puz- 
 zle the brain of the lawyer. The forms of more than fifty 
 actions at the common law have been expunged. Volumes 
 devoted to points as nice as the line between the north and 
 northeast side of a hair, upon the interest of witnesses, 
 have been rendered pointless by opening the witness stand 
 to the very parties themselves. So far has this measure of 
 reform been carried, that the very bones of Fitzherbert, and 
 Saunders, and Booth, and Kastal must have stirred in their 
 graves as tlio sacreligious hand was laid upon one after an- 
 other of the beauties and romances of real actions, and special 
 pleading, — upon the" Quihm" and the "Post," the " Ayel/' 
 and the '^ Besayil," the '^ Traverse,^^ and the ^^ giving color " 
 and their places supplied with English terms and English 
 common sense. 
 
 Nor was this accomplished without many a sigh from the 
 living old school conservatives of the day. When at last it 
 was seriously proposed to abolish " contingent remainders," 
 — the very poetry of legal abstractions — one of this class 
 is said to have exclaimed " abolish contingent remainders ! 
 Why not repeal the law of gravitation '?" 
 
 The quaint rubbish that had gathered around the body 
 of the common law, in the progress of a thousand years, 
 like the sea weed and barnacles that ffrow and (dina* to the 
 bottom of a noble frigate, was scraped off by the hand of 
 reform, till courts and the popular mind have begun to sym- 
 
11 
 
 patliize with each other in the new revelation, that the ends 
 of justice had better be sought for, than its antiquated forms 
 and machinery preserved. 
 
 When we consider what has been accomplished in England, 
 since 1828, when Lord Brougham made his first great speech 
 upon the necessity of legal reform, we shall find that it has 
 not been limited to matters of form and detail alone. It 
 has pervaded, the spirit of English Jurisprudence, embracing 
 alike the interests of commerce and the arts, while it has 
 moulded and fitted these to the prescriptive rights of birth, 
 and the I'ents and. burdens of the tenantry of the soil. 
 
 It is a green and vigorous life springing out of and sus- 
 tained by the firm old buttresses which were reared by Titan 
 hands away back in the obscurity of ages. 
 
 Around the walls of that old Abby — old almost as the 
 Common Law itself — within whose aisles, the portrait statue 
 of Lord Mansfield holds an honored place among monu- 
 ments of kings and nobles, of statesmen and poets, and 
 heroes, the green and glossy ivy has twined itself into a 
 shroud of living verdure. But there is a principle in its 
 very growth that endangers the stout old fabric to whicli it 
 clings. The fibres and tendrils of its roots seai-cli out every 
 softening and decaying particlej every crack and scale in 
 the stone work of which it is composed, and with almost 
 magic power loosen and eat out the very walls themselves, 
 so silently, yet so irresistibly, that new materials are con- 
 stantly being supplied to preserve it from a slow but certain 
 decay. 
 
 Such is the care and skill, the wisdom and foresight, which 
 are perpetually demanded in an age of change, and a vig- 
 orous parasitacal growth to preserve that venerable fabric 
 of the Common Law, in which are found so many noble 
 monuments of past ages, and such rich treasures of consti- 
 tutional liberty and personal right. 
 
 It is a matter of state, and even national pride, that 
 while the mother country is striving to adapt her laws, in 
 
12 
 
 respect to personal rights, and her forms of attaining private 
 justice, to the wants of her citizens, she has, perhaps un- 
 consciously, copied so largely from the simple laws and cus- 
 toms of these, her off-shoot republics. 
 
 When, therefore, we turn to the records of our own com- 
 monwealth, during the same period to which I am limited, 
 we may indulge something like a feeling of gratified self- 
 love to see how little occasion there has been for anything 
 like a radical reform here. 
 
 That we have seen changes it is true, but profound as is 
 presumed to be the wisdom of our legislatures, it may, in 
 the end, be discovered that even leo;islative change is not 
 always improvement or reform. 
 
 And, if ] might look abroad for illustration, I might ven- 
 ture to doubt the successful working of a system which 
 makes the popular voice the criterion of judicial fitness for 
 oflice. 
 
 It will be long, I fear, before we shall see a Kent, or a 
 Livingston, or a Spencer, rising out of that bubbling cauldron 
 whose ingredients are to be supplied from time to time by 
 the popular passions of Whigs or Eepublicans, of Hard 
 shells and Soft shells, of Know nothings and Know some- 
 things, as they one after the other snatch at the spoils that 
 feed their patriotism. 
 
 Bat witliout anticipating what are to be the fruits of re- 
 form here, let me pay at least this tribute to the present 
 and the past. 
 
 For many years the business associations of my life have 
 been with the courts of Massachusetts, That feeling of 
 respect, almost of awe, with which I first looked upon the 
 venerable men who then graced these seats of justice, has 
 hardly lost the freshness of association by familiarity. 
 
 Of the changes that have taken place in the incumbents 
 of the highest of these, it may not be delicate for me to 
 speak individually on this occasion. But while I speak of 
 the past, in paying a humble, but just tribute to the courts 
 
13 
 
 of our own coin mon wealth, I might extend ray reinarks to 
 otlier courts, state as well as national, whose presence and 
 learninc; I have been permitted to witness. 
 
 The feelings of veneration with wliich an American Law- 
 yer first enters the courts of Westminster Hall, are partly 
 traditionary, and partly the result of the associations and 
 circumstances by which ho finds himself sniTounded, 
 
 Those who have read, and who has not? the sketch of 
 Warren Hastings, by Maccauly, will at once recall his magni- 
 ficent description of the scene of the trial of his impeachment. 
 
 That glorious old Hall, built by William Eufus, the scene 
 of so many of the great events in English History, two 
 hundred and seventy feet in length, and ninety in height, 
 without a column or pillar, or any thing to break the eftect 
 of its imposing gothic proportions, serves as a vestibule to 
 the respective apartments, in which these courts are held. 
 
 But for the mind, already excited by the recollection of 
 events connected with the history of the hall, throuo-h 
 which he has just passed, there is nothing to awaken an 
 emotion in the style or magnitude or decorations of the 
 pent up quarters into which these courts are crowded. 
 
 He is, however, any thing but to be envied, who can stand 
 in the conscious presence where Coke, and Hale, and Mans- 
 field, and Ellenboro have sat in judgment, and Dunnino', 
 and Wedderburn, and Erskine, and Follet have pleaded, 
 without feeling awed by the very genius of the place. 
 
 Pardon the seeming egotism, if I say, it was the first 
 object I sought in that vast metropolis, and the spot to 
 which I directed my daily walk, with feelings like those of 
 a pilgrim at the shrine of his devotion. 
 
 I looked upon that array of Judges in their robes of office, 
 and I heard them addressed as "Your Lordships" by titled 
 Barristers, and Crown officers among the leadino- men in 
 Parliament, with a profound respect that was not all as- 
 sumed. I saw members of these courts j^residing over trials 
 at Nisi Prius, in causes which enlisted some of the first tal- 
 R 
 
14 
 
 ent in the laud. And I felt more than I could utter, as I 
 stood within those precincts, where the associatious of the 
 past mingled with the emotions which novelty and the im- 
 posing dignity of the scene could not fail to awaken. 
 
 But when I came to analyze this spectacle, to lay aside 
 for a moment the adventitious decorations and historic asso- 
 ciations — to regard only the men of whom the bench was 
 composed, grave, learned and reverend as they were, and to 
 listen to their occasional remarks, and their more elaborate 
 opinions, it seemed to me, that for true dignity, high judi- 
 cial bearing, quick apprehension, patient attention, and seem- 
 ing impartiality, we need not go to Westminster Hall for 
 better models than we may find at home. 
 
 Without undertaking to compare the present condition of 
 the Bar of Massachusetts, with what it once was, it is safe 
 to affirm that a system of educational training, of prac- 
 tice and of professional intercourse and deportment, which 
 reared and fitted the men who have honored these seats of 
 . Justice, should be approached with some distrust, at least, by 
 him who should seek to revolutionize or reform it. 
 
 And yet, the attempt to do this has been ruthlessly made 
 more than once, within the recollection of some of us, and a 
 radical change has been thereby wrought in the constitution 
 and preparation for the Bar, Instead of the period of three 
 or five years novitiate, which was once required before enter- 
 ing the outer courts of the sanctuary of the profession, and 
 tarrying in that middle ground, between hope and fruition, 
 for two years, and yet another two years before donning the 
 robes, and title, and privileges of a " Counsellor," he now 
 starts " from the rough," and in two short years, by the 
 polishing process of what goes by the name of an " exami- 
 nation," comes out the fit companion and associate of the 
 very sages of the law. 
 
 And what must strike the uninitiated as something like 
 a solecism, the more books there are to read, the less is the 
 time necessary for the task. The more the relations of 
 
15 
 
 business and society become multiplied and complicated, the 
 more quickly are they mastered, and the higher the de- 
 mands for scholarship, learning and mental discipline in 
 the profession, the less the occasion to acquire either, before 
 entering it, and claiming its honors and its rewards. 
 
 We witness as the fruits of one branch of this reform, 
 the scattered and uncared for county libraries of which the 
 excise, cheerfully contributed by the older members of the 
 bar, had laid a creditable foundation. But I leave the 
 memory of such a reformer to the blessings of him, who, 
 after seeking in vain in the place where it should be, the 
 volume, always the missing one, which he most needs, plods 
 back to his office and recalls the cause of his disappointment 
 and his fruitless search. 
 
 And yet, there have been changes during this period in 
 some of the details of our legal system, which many were 
 disposed to regard as veritable reforms. All of us have 
 read of the beauties and charms of special pleading, which 
 drew forth from my Lord Coke, among others, such high 
 and frequent eulogiums. With him, words were, literally, 
 things, and " placitum a placendo," — to plead well and to 
 please well, were, in his mind, an obvious synonym. 
 
 But to a layman who has never mastered this refined 
 system of the keenest logic, I fear it would be useless, if I 
 were able, to describe its beauty and its symmetry, or to show 
 the use of pleas, and rejoinders, and surrejoinders, and re- 
 butters, and traverses, and demurrers, which the skillful 
 players in the legal game of chess, play out like pawns on 
 the chess board, before they bring forward the pieces by 
 which they are eventually to win. 
 
 When I think of the power of old associations, and re- 
 member that our meeting is not limited to those of our 
 own number, I know not how far it is safe to confess the 
 part which this Bar took in the blow that struck down that 
 ancient system. A report prepared by their direction, upon 
 the subject, is still extant, which found its way into the 
 
1(3 
 
 newspapers of the clay, and was nearly coincident with the 
 act of the legislature of 183G, wliich declared that "in 
 every civil action hereafter to be tried — all matters of law 
 or fact in defence of such action, may be given in evidence 
 under the general issue, and no other plea in bar shall be 
 pleaded." 
 
 But whatever were the motives for such a reform, whether 
 because its advocates knew too much or too little, to stand 
 by a system which had engaged the keenest minds and 
 sharpest intellects at the English Bar, it had, at least, the 
 apology of being designed to simplify and render intelligi- 
 ble the proceedings of our courts, and to do something to 
 save, if possible, a sacrifice of justice to the mysteries of 
 technicality. 
 
 But it is true, that even after this, the language of law 
 papers was not reduced to the homely vernacular of the 
 nursery or the work shop, and a man was, sometimes, shocked 
 to learn that he had been guilty of " trover and conversion " 
 in claiming property that he owned, or to sec some hasty 
 expression of contempt for a blackguard, spread out into a 
 volume by colloquia and innuendos, and exaggerated exple- 
 tives, under the verbiage of which, the charge itself, like 
 FalstafF in the buck basket, was well nigh smothered by 
 the foul and oflPensive coverino-s beneath which it was brouo'ht 
 into court. 
 
 But, after all, these were harmless excrescences upon a 
 system which had become venerable by age, and respectable 
 by the ends at which it aimed, and the results which it or- 
 dinarily attained. And when, therefore, it was proposed to 
 efface old lines, and simplify what in the nature of things 
 must be more or less complex, by merely giving it a new 
 name, there were those who innocently doubted whether 
 there was much of progress in such a reform. 
 
 There are those who, even now, can no more readily dis- 
 cern the subject of a suitor's complaint, because he is told 
 it is a " tort," than if it had been spoken of as " Trespass," 
 
17 
 
 or "Case," in tlie brief, terse, customary language in wliicli, 
 until lately, the Plaintiff told tlie tale of the wrongs for 
 which he sought redress. 
 
 One of the prominent events in the legal history of Mas- 
 sachusetts during the period of which I am speaking, Avas 
 the revision of her statutes. 
 
 The arduous and responsible duty of rendering a mass 
 of intricate and often conflicting legislation, simple and in- 
 telligible, was confided to a commission whose character and 
 capacity were a guaranty that the work should be faithfully 
 and ably dene. 
 
 But thoroughly, and as w^as fondly believed, completely, 
 as tliis revision was accomplished, the love of change, and 
 spirit of innovation, prompted by the new and growing- 
 wants of a community with such varied interests, had swelled 
 to a volume of near a thousand pages^, and demanded a new 
 revision, even while one of the former commissions yet sur- 
 vived. That work is in able hands,''' and if it shall be accom- 
 plished as successfully as the one which it is to supersede, 
 posterity will owe a debt of gratitude to their labors, like 
 that wdiich it has paid to the memory of those who preceded 
 them in that important field. 
 
 The last of that number has just gone down to an hon- 
 ored grave in a ripe old age, bearing with him the veneration 
 and respect of an entire community. 
 
 The place upon the bench has long since been filled which 
 he graced and honored in the vigor of his manhood, and 
 the world will go on as if he had never taken a prominent 
 part in its affairs. But in giving an outline of the legal 
 and judicial history of Massachusetts for the last quarter of 
 a century, the record would be incomplete that did not pre- 
 sent, prominently, among those whose character and labors 
 as jurists have distinguished it, the name of Charles 
 Jackson. 
 
 '■■' The commission consists of lion. Judge Parker, of the Dane Law School, 
 lion. Mr. lUchmond of Adanas, and Hon. Judge Richardt-uu, of Lowell. 
 
18 
 
 The truest annals, perhaps, of the progress of the law are 
 to be found in the reported decisions of our courts. 
 
 So far as our own Commonwealth is concerned, though 
 one of the earliest to make provision for their publication, 
 the work is of a comparatively recent date. 
 
 The earliest volume of our reports contains the decisions 
 of the year 1804:. Sixty-two more volumes have been pub- 
 lished since that time, thirty-five of which have been given 
 to the public, within the period of which I am speaking, 
 and materials for other volumes are nearly or quite ready 
 for the press. 
 
 Of the extent, variety and accuracy of the learning they 
 contain, the vast amount of labor and untiring industry 
 they evince, and of the research and scope of thought neces- 
 sary to their production, I need not, even if I had time, 
 speak at large before such an audience. 
 
 If the legislation of a state furnishes one of the best 
 means of studying its political history, the reported decisions 
 of its courts serve as, perhaps, a scarcely less accurate crite- 
 rion of the slow, impalpable, yet certain progress which its 
 unwritten law is making, to keep pace with the sentiments, 
 and wants, and character of its people. Principles which at 
 one period are little more than hinted at, or shadowed forth 
 with hesitation by its judges, become, in time, elementary in 
 their character, and their soundness no one presumes to 
 question. 
 
 These may not partake of the fluctuation of public sen- 
 timent, but I greatly mistake, or we shall perceive as we 
 glance at the contents of these successive volumes, that 
 there are classes of topics prevalent at one time, which 
 nearly subside at otliers, and that great issues which engage 
 the public attention at one period, are scarcely heard of at 
 another. 
 
 That these currents in the popular mind should influence, 
 often unconsciously, the judicial mind of the state, is but 
 saying what so many believe, that those who are to act as 
 
19 
 
 interpreters of the law, should take part in the actual ad- 
 ministration of it. Shut up the wisest man in a cloister, 
 and surround him only with the records of the past, and 
 let no whisper of what is passing in the great Avorld around 
 him, reach his ear, and though you make him as learned 
 and impartial as Justice herself, you make him at best but 
 a monk in ermine. 
 
 It has seemed to me that there was something like a 
 public pulse in the law, which accurate observers, situated 
 as our courts are, often feel without knowing how its move- 
 ments reach their consciousness, and if it acts upon courts 
 in modifying old dogmas, or infusing new elements of life 
 into the body of our jurisprudence, it is, in its turn, acted 
 upon by the direction it receives from the calm judgment, 
 the trained sagacity, and authoritative opinions of their 
 Judges. 
 
 In view, therefore, of what we have read of the changes 
 through which our law is passing, while many a rough, uo-ly 
 excrescence has been removed, that marred its symmetry and 
 beauty, we find new blood infused into its system, and new 
 vigor vitalizing its action. 
 
 There are one or two legislative reforms, which I ought 
 not to pass over in silence. 
 
 Much as I idolize the stability and consistency of popular 
 favor, I am obliged to confess, in regard to one of these re- 
 forms, that from early prejudice, or other infirmity of judg- 
 ment, I have at times supposed that the Judges of our Su- 
 preme Courts, taken collectively, were better able to deter- 
 mine the constitutionality of a law, than a man drawn for 
 the first time from the farm, or the shop, to serve on the 
 panel of a Common Pleas Jury. 
 
 But as our law makers of 1855 thought otherwise, I am 
 bound to yield this traditionary impression to their superior 
 wisdom, and set it down to the progress of the last quarter 
 of a century, unless the example of one branch of the pres- 
 ent legislature should tend to restore some of the old fash- 
 ioned notions of our fathers. 
 
20 
 
 As we cast our eyes along* the liistory of our race, it is 
 refresliiiig to see tlie part which chivalry has taken in im- 
 proving the social and moral condition. of mankind. 
 
 Fortunately, the spirit is not dead, and most fortunately, 
 it still delights in tilting its lance in the cause of the op- 
 pressed of the fairer, I hardly dare say, weaker sex. 
 
 And that, too, has been at work even in the field of legal 
 reform. 
 
 We all remember what a cry, as of captive maidens, and 
 enslaved matrons, went up from convention after convention 
 a few years since. 
 
 It could not fail to arouse the spirit of chivalry, sometimes 
 dormant, but never dead. 
 
 It was found tliat tlie a^e had ijot in advance of such old 
 times, as " I'cmes covert," " 3Iarital rights," and the like. 
 So far as the sexes were concerned, " Duties " became a 
 noun of masculine gender alone. Yv^hile " Mights " put on 
 the feminine garb, or at least, the " bloomer" part of it, to 
 be seen and read of all men. 
 
 And nobly and effectually was the work accomplished. It 
 has relieved young men from temptation, and many a poor 
 lawyer who might have sold himself for a certain price, pay- 
 able in lands and stocks, v/ill be put upon his guard in mak- 
 ing heart investments hereafter. 
 
 It may be no serious obstacle in the way of love and ro- 
 mance, but when he remembers that all that a woman hath, 
 at the time of her marriage, remains " her sole and separate 
 property," " not subject to the disposal of her husband," 
 and what is better, not " liable for his debts," he may, like 
 a class of modern politicians, be led to calculate the " value 
 of the union." 
 
 But the chief glory of this chivalrous measure consists in 
 the singleness into which marital rights have resolved them- 
 selves. 
 
 That old fashioned community of interests, a community 
 of pursuits, which made it a kind of pleasant copartnership 
 
21 
 
 to earn together a little competency, for what even now is 
 common property — their children — has become absolute by 
 law. 
 
 Now the married woman, happily relieved from any occa- 
 sion of being another's help meet, "may carry on," in the lan- 
 guage of the Statute, " any trade or business, and perform 
 any labors or services, on her own soU account," and her earn- 
 ings shall be " her sole and separate property."* 
 
 This is the last chapter in the history of legal reform. 
 What is to be the next, I must leave for my successor to 
 record. • 
 
 But, if in its progress, we are to listen upon the Sabbath 
 to the devotions of some St. Agnes, or, upon a week day, to 
 the learning and eloquence of a Portia at the Bar, or a No- 
 vella of Bologna in the Law Lecture Hoom, or see sickness 
 robbed of half its pain and most of its terror, by the dulcet 
 tones and delicate little doses with which beauty shall battle 
 with disease, those who may stand, at the end of another 
 quarter of a century, where we do now, may, as they look 
 back upon our unfortunate condition, borrow the measure of 
 one of England's poets, if they do not his language, when 
 they exclaim, as they doubtless then will, 
 
 Law's thorny field was but a tangled wild, 
 
 Till woman tilled it, wlien it bloomed and smiled. 
 
 When I turn to the recollections of the last twenty-five 
 years which are awakened by the history of our own Bar, and 
 our own County, while there is much over which to rejoice, 
 there is not a little over which an old man may almost be 
 justified in dropping a tear. 
 
 Shall I speak of the social changes in the habits and in- 
 tercourse of the Bar, which have grown up within that period? 
 
 I know I am entering upon perilous ground. To doubt 
 that we live in an age of progress, to hint that railroads 
 and telegraphs are not of unmingled and unmeasured good 
 
 » Stat. 1855, c. 301. 
 
22 
 
 to man, or to dare to think, much more to say, that the pres- 
 ent does not outstrip the past in every thing that goes to 
 make up life, will sound, I am aware, like the very key note 
 of " Fogyism " itself. 
 
 But there are a few, sorry am I they are so few ; who can 
 go back with me to our courts, our *' court weeks," and our 
 Bar gatherings, before the period of which I am speaking. 
 
 What a contrast with the present ! "Court week" was then 
 literally what it was called, instead of reaching in one con- 
 tinued session, as now, from the earliest harvest home, round 
 to the latest planting season, and the forty-one days of term 
 time of the C. C. Pleas in 1831, grown to one hundred and 
 forty-two in 1854. And those who came to court, did so to 
 some good purpose. It was for the business and relaxation 
 of a week, instead of whisking in upon a rail in the morn- 
 ing, to look at the list on the clerk's desk, like the numbers 
 in the managers' report of an old fashioned lottery drawing, 
 and to guess how many weeks it will be before he must go 
 through the same interesting process again, and then home 
 by the next train before nightfall. 
 
 Oh the " dies fasti !" when, within the charmed circle of 
 the Bar, greetings were exchanged, groups were gathered, 
 and dignity unbent. But it was the evenings, those " nodes 
 amhrosiance " of court weeks, alas ! with those who enlivened 
 them, now only among the things that are passed — that told 
 the strongest upon the life of the lawyer of that day. 
 
 Could the parlors of the two or three boarding houses 
 where they congregated, repeat the wit, and re-echo the 
 laugh, and tell of the jokes and humor in which even grave 
 judges sometimes shared, after the duties of the day were 
 over, we might, as they did, gather up a store of pleasant 
 memories to serve as bright new coinage, for the small change 
 of social life and convivial intercourse. 
 
 And why should I speak, unless it is to sigh over them, of 
 those other social gatherings, where the Muse oft times sat 
 down with us at the festive board, and the best of fellows, 
 
23 
 
 the best of lawyers, and some of them, afterwards, the best 
 of judges, poured forth the best of poems and the best of 
 "jokes into the ears of the best and kindliest of critics? 
 
 Those days are indeed gone by — " Qualis eram nou sum." 
 And though I would not go back to the days of the old stage 
 coaches, and the one horse wagon, as the means of reaching 
 justice, or throw a scruple's weight in the way of Temper- 
 ance, I have sometimes tliought it could do no harm if we 
 should, sometimes, come together as if we were really social 
 beings, and indulge, if no further, in listening to the tra- 
 ditions of days when at the firesides of Mrs. Blake and Miss 
 Stearns, and around Stockwell's well spread table, there was 
 sparkling of wit and the outgushing of warm hearts and 
 cheerful spirits. 
 
 Pardon this local allusion, and set it down to the garrulity 
 of a busy memory teeming with the little incidents of which 
 so much of humble life is made up. 
 
 As I recal the history of the last twenty-five years of this 
 County, I cannot forbear alluding to the condition of our 
 County buildings. 
 
 The ugly old stone prison that stood hard by here, has 
 disappeared. The inadequate accommodations furnished by 
 the court house then and still standing, for the rapidly in- 
 creasing business and population of the County, have been 
 amply supplied by the structure in which we are assembled. 
 It is alike a monument to the taste, the forecast, and the in- 
 dependence of a Board, who, though dependent upon a popu- 
 lar vote for their election, did not hesitate to obey the call 
 of duty. 
 
 They acted for the County as it was, as it is, and, may we 
 not hope, as it will he, for a century to come, the prosperous, 
 thriving, independent, united community, which no true son 
 of hers ever blushed to call his home, or failed to feel that 
 her fame and her honor were a part of his own best her- 
 itage. 
 
24 
 
 As we revert, again, to the record of our Courts, we find 
 at the commencement of the period to which I am limited, 
 four Judges upon the Boncli of the Supreme Court.* 
 
 One only of that number — " serus in coelum redeat" — now 
 remains at his post of duty. Two sleep among the lionored 
 dead. Putnam, the able commercial lawyer and upriglit 
 judge, the courteous gentleman, and the companion of ever 
 ready and kindly sympathies, after a retirement from the 
 bench of several years, was the first to pass away. 
 
 The last year has witnessed the departure of the other^f 
 so long and so worthily associated with the first. 
 
 A few months since, I found him, of an evening, sitting 
 in his study, and with an eye undimmed by age, reading 
 Plato, to ascertain, as he said, vv^hat advances had been made 
 in modern times in the science of morals and politics, and 
 how mucli the world was indebted for its present condition, 
 to the revelations of the Christian Religion. And as I 
 thought of him as the profound lawyer to whose eye even 
 the subtlest pages of the blacic letter folio were luminous 
 and clear, and sat and listened to his cheerful, earnest con- 
 versation, in which the simple dignity of profound thought, 
 was mingled with the pleasant recollections of the past, 
 and the hopeful anticipations of the future, I could not but 
 envy the man who had brought, out of the conflicts of so 
 long a life, so rich a treasure of duties, consciously performed, 
 of esteem and affection so worthily won, and of reputation 
 for purity and uprightness of heart, and singleness of pur- 
 pose, so universally accorded to him as a judge, which gave 
 grace and dignity to his profound learning and impartial 
 judgment. 
 
 Within the period spoken of, nine others have been called 
 to fill places upon that Bench, one only of whom has gone 
 to his reward.| And long may it be ere delicacy towards 
 
 " Vid Appendix, A. 
 ■j" Judge Wilde died June 22, 1855, Vid Appendix, A. 
 I Judge Hubbard died Dec. 24, 1847, at the age of 62. 
 
25 
 
 the living, shall no longer restrain the utterance of what 
 feeling might, otherwise, dictate. 
 
 Of the four judges'-' of tfie then Court of Common Pleas, 
 three have gone to join the generation that preceded them. 
 Chief Justice Ward was known to us only hy the reputation 
 for learning and integrity which he had acquired in other 
 parts of the Commonwealth.! 
 
 Judge Strong was one of our own number. J *A few of us 
 remember him before he had been elevated to that place, 
 when he lionorably filled a seat in Congress, and was called 
 thence to a vacancy upon the Bench. 
 
 With a good legal mind, and respectable attainments in 
 his profession, he brought much experience in the practical 
 affairs of life, to the business of the Court, and did much 
 to elevate and sustain its character. He won tlie confidence 
 of all, by liis uprightness as a judge, and the diligence and 
 fidelity with which ho performed his duties. He retired 
 from the Bench while his powers were unbroken, but found 
 the evening of his days clouded by infirmity and disease, 
 with which he struggled without complaint, and bore up 
 against them with the dignity and cheerfulness of a good 
 man. 
 
 The last of the three has passed away from the shades of 
 of retirement, within which he had lived for many years, 
 within the last few months.^ 
 
 Though wanting many of the qualities of a perfect judge, 
 
 ' Vid Appendix, B. 
 
 t Ch. J. AVard held the office from 1821 till 1841; He died Oct. 7, 18i7, at 
 the age of 84. 
 
 I Judge Strong was a native of Amherst, and the son of Hon. Simeon 
 Strong, .Judge of the Supreme Court. He was graduated at Williams College 
 in 1798. He was admitted to the bar in 1803, and commenced business in 
 Athol, and after remaining there about three years removed to Westminster. 
 From 1812 to 1814 he was a member of the Senate, and again in 1844. In 
 1818 he was appointed Judge of C. C. Pleas, and retained the office till 1813. 
 He removed to Leominster after his appointment to the Bench, and resided 
 there till his death in 1850, at the age of 70. 
 
 § Hon. Judge Cummings, who died March 30, IS'iB, aged G9. 
 
26 
 
 there never was a more upright and honest man, or a more 
 sincere lover of truth and justice, than he. What he lacked 
 was due to his temperament alone. Every one felt that his 
 instincts were all right, and that his judgment was guided 
 by an honest purpose and high attainments in learning. 
 
 Never suspecting fraud in his own guileless nature, no one 
 could he a more uncompromising foe to trick or chicanery 
 when once detected. The sod does not rest on a kinder 
 heart than that which once animated the manly form of 
 Judge CUMMINGS. 
 
 Of the otliers who have been members of this Court with- 
 in our period, I have not time to speak, though three of 
 their number liave been added to the starred names that are 
 so rapidly swelling the catalogue of the eminent men that 
 have departed from our midst.* And the last mail brings 
 the sad intelligence of another vacant seat and another 
 stricken household. Sudden, fearfully sudden, has been the 
 blow that has stricken down one whom we had fondly hoped 
 to meet here this evening, and turned our joy into sadness. 
 Greater and more brilliant men may have fallen, but a 
 truer heart, a more upright judge, or a man of more hon" 
 orable feelings or guileless life, is not left to commemorate or 
 record the virtues of the dead. 
 
 The Court has, from various causes, been prolific in names. 
 Twenty- two different Judges have held seats upon that Bench 
 within the last twenty-five years. One of these causes? 
 happily is, in part at least, removed. 
 
 As I contemplate the fact, that more than a thousand 
 million of dollars of the wealth of the citizens of this 
 commonwealth, owes no little of its security and value to a 
 wise and impartial administration of her laws, I think, 
 with anything but feelings of pride, of that penny-wise 
 
 «Ch. J. Wells died June 23, 18oi, aged 63. Judge Ward died May 29, 
 1848, aged 39. Judge Colby died Feb. 22, 18.33, aged 44. He was Dist. 
 Atty. of the Soutlieru District after his resignation of the place of Judge. 
 Judge Byington had accepted our invitation and was expecting to be present 
 on the occasion of this address, when he was sudilenly stricken down by 
 •disease. 
 
27 
 
 policy wliicli lias, at times, ground down her judges to rates 
 of compensation below what some of her private corpora- 
 tions pay for looking after the running of their rail cars, or 
 the speed of their spinning jennies. 
 
 The Attorney and Solicitor General of twenty-five years 
 ago," have passed away. Eminent in their dfiy, they were 
 long in office, and formed a connecting link between the 
 class of lawyers who entered the Bar soon after the revolu- 
 tion, and our own times. Belonging to no particular local- 
 ity, their history, their services, and their reputation, are 
 rather the property of the whole Commonwealth, than the 
 subjects of extended notice while treating of a single County. 
 
 Of the Judges of Probate, four have held office within 
 our prescribed period. f With the presence of three of that 
 number we are favored this evening, including him who 
 presides over its proceedings. 
 
 The other| long stood as a kind of connecting link between 
 the modern bar and the ante-revolutionary days, many of v.'hose 
 actors he had personally known. 
 
 After having held the place of County Attorney, he 
 presided for more than an entire generation, with great 
 approbation, over the duties of a Court which requires 
 learning, patience, diligence, and a ready sympathy, and in 
 1840, at the ripe age of eighty-two, nearly sixty years from 
 his admission to the bar, his name, like an old familiar 
 land-mark, ceased to hold its accustomed place at the head 
 of the lawyers of the then town of Worcester. 
 
 Four, during that period, have held the place of District 
 or County Attorney, and another has recently been added 
 to the list.§ Of these, including the last, four belonged to 
 the Bar of this County. 
 
 Of one of these it may not be improper for one who 
 
 '■Hon. Perez Morton, Attorney General and lion. Daniel DaYis, Solicitor 
 General. ^Ir. Morton was Attorney General from ISIO to 1S32. He died 
 Oct. 14, 1837, at the age of 87, in Dorchester. 
 
 fVid Appendix, C. | .Judge Paine. § Vid Appendix, D. 
 
28 
 
 learn eil by experience to appreciate his efforts in that office, 
 to say that it was sometimes difficult for an antagonist to 
 determine whether he was the most effectually suhdued by 
 his adroitness or his courtesy. 
 
 Another, though in brief possession of the office, I am 
 unwilling to pass over in silence, though he was scarcely 
 known beyond the limits of tliis Bar/-' 
 
 He came into the profession mature in years, and strong 
 in native powers, but already the doomed victim of disease. 
 He struggled with manly resolution and unshrinking forti- 
 tude, against a malady that would have crushed the hopes 
 and spirits of an inferior nature, and won for himself, as a 
 public officer, an approbation and respect which harmonized 
 with the esteem in which he was held as a companion and 
 a friend. 
 
 His fate was but a new illustration of the bright mark 
 at which death loves to aim his fatal shaft. 
 
 Passing from this office to that of the principal Clerk of 
 the Courts, we find that four have been incumbents of the 
 place.f Here, too, I may not properly speak of but one of 
 that number. 
 
 But in recalling the name of Kendall, the modest worth, 
 the amiable virtues, the scholarly tastes, and the unblem- 
 ished purity which characterised his life, at once rise before 
 the mind. 
 
 He had been a well read lawyer, though little fitted, by 
 taste, for the rougher passages of the profession. 
 
 In Congress he belonged to a school of politicians — God 
 grant it may not become quite obsolete — who, if they spoke, 
 said what they meant, and voted for the right because it 
 was the right. 
 
 He had doubtless been a greater man, and more eminent 
 in his profession, had he felt the goadings of poverty, or 
 
 - B. F. Newton. 
 ■j-Hon. Abijah Bigelow, Hon. Jos. G. Kendall, Charles W. Hartshorn and 
 Jo3. Mason, Esquires. 
 
29 
 
 the calls upon a liasbaud, or a father's instincts for exertion. 
 But the world has little to foroivc when it comes to take 
 the account of his life, and sees the preponderance of the 
 good he accomplished. 
 
 Four have successively had in charge the executive duties 
 of the County, in the office of Sheriff,''' and though two only 
 of these were originally of the Bar, their connection with 
 the Courts calls for a passing notice. 
 
 One only of these can be alluded to on this occasion. Of 
 sound judgment, great practical knowledge, unbending in- 
 tegrity, and with a heart kind as that of a woman, he knew 
 nothing like fear, and went right on, wherever the path of 
 duty led. He knew neither friend nor foe, in his judgment 
 of what was just, and when, to accomplish some party ar- 
 rangement, it became necessary to sacrifice a model officer, 
 lie retired with dignity to private life, where he needed no 
 extrinsic influence to command respect, and there and thus 
 he died. 
 
 To speak of the Bar individually, would obviously exceed 
 the limits of my time or your indulgence. 
 
 T find upon the List of Counsellors in 1830, the names 
 of fifty-six, of Attorneys at the Supreme Court, sixteen, and of 
 Attorneys at the C. C. Pleas the names of fourteen, mak- 
 ing eighty-six in the whole. These were scattered in une- 
 qual numbers through thirty-five of the then fifty-four towns 
 in the County. 
 
 Of that number, forty-five have died. Eighteen who are 
 now living, have left the County, others have retired from 
 professional life, till ten only now remain in practice at the 
 Bar. 
 
 Within the period mentioned, from one hundred and forty 
 to one hundred and fifty have been, at different times, or 
 now are, members of the Bar, in addition to the eighty-six 
 first mentioned. About ninety-five of these still remain 
 connected with the profession in the County. Sixteen of the 
 
 *• Vid Appendix, E. 
 
30 
 
 towns ill which lawyers were settled in 1830, no longer etijoy 
 the lio-ht of such luminaries of their own. Death, or an ex- 
 hausted treasury, has driven them from the former scenes of 
 their struggles. 
 
 These few statistics show the rapid changes that are con- 
 stantly taking place in the condition of our Bar. A profes- 
 sional life is proverbially brief, and a young aspirant for its 
 honors, has hardly got through wishing Providence to pro- 
 vide for the seniors that stand between him and success, be- 
 fore he finds himself equally a subject of the prayers of his 
 juniors, who crowd and jostle him in his course, before he 
 has hardly had time to measure his own speed. 
 
 For this, or some other reason, the prizes that are won, 
 are few compared with the whole number that enter the 
 arena to compete for them. 
 
 When we read of the receipts of some of the eminent 
 English Barristers, or of some of the Bar of our own country, 
 we make a false estimate of the true amount of success that 
 is achieved by the profession at large. 
 
 Forced by the position in which they are placed, to assume 
 the externals of competency, the public at large are little 
 aware how often this gives a false impression as to profes- 
 sional success. 
 
 I am not disposed to complain, nor do I believe our own 
 Bar has not been, when compared with others, reasonably 
 successful and prosperous. But the statistics of the Probate 
 office tell rather a sad tale. 
 
 Of the estates of forty-five of the lawyers of the County 
 living in 1830, nine had no inventories returned, though 
 these embraced some who had been tlie most successful. 
 Twelve were either never settled at all, or settled in some 
 other jurisdiction. Twenty had inventories or accounts ren- 
 dered, only one of wdiich exceeded fifty thousand dollars, and 
 a very small portion only, if any, of that was the fruits of 
 professional labor. Nine who had property, amounted to 
 less than five thousand dollars each, and four of them aver- 
 
31 
 
 aged loss than seventy-six dollars each, while six of the es- 
 tates were insolvent, as shown by the record, and there is 
 good reason to know that of the twelve estates not settled 
 here, at least seven were insolvent, making more than one 
 in four of the whole forty-five estates, that were altogether 
 insolvent. 
 
 It is certainly with very little pleasure that I refer to 
 these results^ and it is with far more grateful feelings, that 
 I turn to what the Bar of Worcester County has achieved 
 in the way of i-eputation. 
 
 I will not, however, in so doing, refer to the suggestions 
 of my own partial judgment, hut appeal to the recorded 
 opinions of others, in the fact, that of those who are or have 
 been living within the period of which I am speaking, three 
 have held the place of Chief Magistrate, three that of Judge 
 of the Supreme Court, and that a place upon that Bench was 
 tendered to two others of the number.* Four have been 
 Judges of the C. C. Pleas. One for many years a Senator, 
 and ten have been members of the House of Kepresentatives 
 in Congress, and one has been a Foreign Minister of the 
 United States.f 
 
 Happy should I be, to speak in detail of most of those 
 who once filled these places. As I run my eye along the cat- 
 alogue of their names, their forms rise in fancy before me, 
 and they seem to stand among us again, each in his own 
 marked and well remembered traits of person and character. 
 
 The Hastings — father and' sons. — The first, without the 
 graces of oratory, was for many years a formidable antago- 
 nist before a Jury, and before the Court exerted an influence 
 by his very respectable acquirements as a lawyer, and his 
 ability as a reasoner. 
 
 The eldest of the sons was perhaps a better lawyer. He 
 possessed much ready wit, was a man of honorable and agree- 
 able qualities, and died in the midst of his usefulness and 
 
 "Hon. John Davis, and Hon. Charles Allen. 
 
 jHon. George Folsom, Minister at the Hague, from '49 to '63. 
 
32 
 
 public honors, ere age had saddened life ^ith its bitter ex- 
 periences. 
 
 Tufts — the man whom his friends knew better than the 
 world did, and saw struggling, under the stimulus of an 
 honorable ambition, to gain for himself a rank in his pro- 
 fession, while lurking disease was wasting the powers of his 
 body, and consigning him to an early grave. 
 
 He lived long enough to enjoy a share of the public hon- 
 ors of the day, and won the public confidence, as he had 
 done the esteem and affection of his associates. 
 
 James — then of Barre, venerable in years, courteous in 
 his bearing, modest and reserved in his temperament, pass- 
 ing through a long life without spot or blemish upon his 
 modest fame. 
 
 Goodwin — whose antiquarian and scholarly taste was but 
 partially reconciled to the drudgery of the profession he had 
 adopted. 
 
 Foster — the high souled, pure hearted scholar and gentle- 
 man, whose chief fault was an undue self-distrust of powers 
 of a high order, and unfortunately for the full develop- 
 ment of which, he was above that necessity which is the 
 stern school-master of so many in that profession, which he 
 early abandoned. 
 
 Brooks — who for many years held a leading rank among 
 the lawyers of this and a neighboring county, with a mind 
 of great acuteness, well stored with legal principles, and 
 whose earnestness and fidelity in the cause of his client, was 
 acknowledged by all who witnessed his efforts before the 
 Jury or the Court. 
 
 Taft — who, though bred to the profession, was able to 
 indulge a taste for rural pleasures and pursuits, and escape 
 the drudgery of the law, but was always a genial om pa n- 
 ion at the bar, and was often honored by the expression of 
 public confidence, by being called to offices of trust and 
 honor. 
 
 Nor would I pass over in silence the name of Stbbbins. 
 
He made no mark in his profession hj his eloquence or learn- 
 ing, but he honored it by his incorruptible integrity, and 
 though he laid aside its duties for a more congenial employ- 
 ment, he retained through life that high estimation of a true 
 lawyer's character, which he had illustrated during the few 
 years he was connected with it. 
 
 And there are names which start up spontaneously, at the 
 very mention of a social hour. 
 
 Lincoln — the lawyer, profound and learned for his years, 
 the diligent student with his ever ready fancy, and playful 
 wit, the genial companion and the man of taste and letters. 
 If he ever did injustice to himself, he never was false to his 
 faith, or disloyal to his friendship. 
 
 Baldwin — whose sad and early fate was the only thing 
 that ever brought pain in the associations which his name 
 awakens. Wedded to a profession for which he had no sym- 
 pathy, his happiest day was when he bade it adieu for a po- 
 sition far more congenial to his taste. 
 
 His like we shall never look upon again. His better qual- 
 ities were hest known to those who knew him best, since that 
 never-failing flow of humor and good feeling which he al- 
 ways displayed, almost obscured, at times, the varied learn- 
 ing which he really possessed. 
 
 But long ere this, another familiar form must have arisen 
 in fancy before your vision.'- For forty years he filled a place 
 at the Bar, and saw one generation after another pass away 
 in its rapid changes. His was a store of abstract legal prin- 
 ciples, gathered by years of patient diligence in study, and 
 his processes of reasoning, formed upon the models of the 
 school men, made him a formidable antagonist, where indus- 
 try in preparation, and the application of keen logic, could 
 be brought to the encounter. 
 
 We miss him in our daily walks, we miss him at our so- 
 cial gatherings, and the last of his old associates will have 
 passed aw^ay before the image of his striking figure shall 
 
 t Samuel M. Burnside, Esq, 
 
34 
 
 cease, as fancy peoples the scene, to come and linger around 
 a spot with whose duties so much of his long life was con- 
 nected. 
 
 One other who had held the place of County Attorney, and 
 at the commencement of the period of which I am speaking, 
 was filling the responsible post of Secretary of the Common- 
 wealth, since that time, came back to enjoy a few years of 
 retirement, and then to follow where so many of his com- 
 panions and associates had gone before him/-'-' 
 
 The field of literature was always more congenial to his 
 taste, than the agitations and excitements of the profession, 
 and neither his health nor his taste allowed of his again en- 
 gaging in these, after giving up public life, and few of those 
 who now fill these seats, know from personal observation, 
 how to measure his talents- or his worth. 
 
 But I am admonished that if ever anything like a sketch 
 of the members of this Bar, who, within the last twenty-five 
 years, have laid off" the harness of life's toils and duties, is 
 to be given to the public, the present occasion is altogether 
 too brief to admit of its being done here. 
 
 And yet I should fail to meet your demands, or those of 
 my own feelings, if I passed over in silence the memory of 
 one who so long honored and adorned this Bar.f 
 
 This was not however, the only sphere in which he achieved 
 distinguished success. His fame was a national one. But 
 I leave for others to do that justice to his character as a 
 statesman, which, too often, comes only when the jealousies 
 and rivalries of party have been buried in the grave. 
 
 Of his characteristics in his professional career, I could 
 dwell upon what a connection in business, and a long person- 
 al association, impressed upon my mind. 
 
 If he was not what may be called a technical lawyer, 
 learned in the books, he had that sound judgment, clear ap- 
 
 •■'Hon. Edward D. Bangs was Secretary of State from 182-t to 1836. He 
 died April 2, 1838. He was a son of Judge Bangs, of the C. C. P. 
 t Hon. John Davis. 
 
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35 
 
 prehension, and almost infallible common sense, that enabled 
 him to detect and apply the principle wliich was to guide in 
 the decision of a question, however intricate, and to trace 
 analogies and perceive distinctions, often subtle, the want of 
 which so often misleads the most learned lawyer. 
 
 And having settled in the elaboration of his own mind, 
 what the law, in any case submitted to him, should be, he 
 was generally able, by diligent research, to bring to the 
 support of his own conclusion, authority to sustain the posi- 
 tion he sought to maintain. 
 
 I do not believe any court ever listened to an argument 
 from him, without being enlightened, if not convinced. It 
 was not the flippant citation of cases from digests, but the 
 clear, simple statement of sound philosophy, mingled with a 
 respectable and creditable amount of learning, judiciously 
 and aptly applied. 
 
 Such a mind would liave been invaluable upon the Bench, 
 but a well founded apprehension of a want of physical 
 ability to sustain its burdens, deterred him from entertain- 
 ing a proposition to accept the place. 
 
 Of his efforts before a Jury, I hardly need to speak, where 
 they have been so often witnessed. 
 
 There was an earnestness, an apparent candor and sin- 
 cerity in his manner, a clearness of statement, a singleness 
 of purpose, that never sacrificed the success of a cause to 
 the graces or display of oratory, and, withal, a complete 
 command of all the bearings of his case, that enabled him 
 to carry it forward with a poAver wliich no opposing counsel 
 ever failed to appreciate and respect, if he did not fear. 
 
 As a wise counsellor, an agreeable and entertaining com- 
 panion, whose conversation always instructed, and whose 
 playful kindness always delighted, no man ever went through 
 the tangled wilderness of political and professional life, and 
 left more for friendship to remember, and less to forget, 
 than he, whose almost speaking countenance, in marble, 
 greets us in our solitary walks in yonder cemetery. 
 
36 
 
 I have spoken of the past, hut what am I to say of the 
 future of this Bar and their profession. 
 
 Of those whose names now swell its numhers, how few 
 will he left at the end of another quarter of a century, to 
 recal those of us who take part in the festivities of this 
 evening. 
 
 As I contemplate the past, and address myself to those 
 who are hereafter to occupy this Bench and fill these seats, 
 I cannot better express the deep sensibility which the thought 
 awakens, than borrowing the language of that. comprehen- 
 sive prayer, " Sicut patribus, sic vobis." 
 
 We have seen enough of change in our own day, to read 
 change and progress in the shadowy history of the future. 
 
 In the growing and multiplying relations of business and 
 social life, new questions of interest and moment will, doubt- 
 less, arise, in the determination of which the same process 
 of keen analysis, broad speculation, and far-reaching fore- 
 sight, must be brought into exercise, by which the questions 
 of this and a former generation have been mastered, and 
 the imperishable fabric of the common law built up. 
 
 To prepare men for a work like this, requires an education 
 and a training which can only be acquired in the school of 
 the Bar 
 
 Little does the world, at large, know of the part which 
 an able and educated Bar plays in the business of self-gov- 
 ernment, in a free state. 
 
 It is not merely in giving form and direction to tlie leg- 
 islation of such a state, but what affects more nearly the 
 enjoyment of personal protection, and the security of per- 
 sonal rights, it puts the power of the law within the reach 
 of every citizen. 
 
 There is a spirit of power and injustice warring upon 
 unprotected weakness, now, as much as in the days of chiv- 
 alry of old, though it may not manifest itself by such open 
 deeds of oppression. 
 
 The arena, moreover, in which battle is to bo made for 
 
87 
 
 the right, is no longer the listed field, but the Hfill of Jus- 
 tice, Avhere, though the champion be not indeed mailed in 
 armor, as true faith, as fearless courage, and as devoted 
 fidelity are demanded, as ever signalized a liichard or a 
 Bayard. 
 
 And say what men may of tlie |>rofession, th.ere is in that 
 assurance which every body feels in liaving the arm of a 
 fearless advocate to rest upon, that which half disarms op- 
 pression of its power, and gives to the feeblest the strength 
 of a trained and disciplined champion. 
 
 In the facility, however, wi h which men now force their 
 way into the profession, there is no little danger that there 
 may be found those whose character may gradually undermine 
 this public confidence in professional faith and honor. 
 
 In view of contingences like these, I can hardly exagger- 
 ate the importance of cultivating in the profession that 
 feeling of self-respect, which shall preserve it from grovelling 
 motives and unworthy condtict. The science they profess 
 is a noble one, and its investigation and pursuit demand the 
 highest powers of well trained and honorable minds. 
 
 But I have already taxed your indulgence too severely, 
 to dwell any longer upon the inseparable connection there 
 is between the character of a people's laws and the growth, 
 happiness and prosperity of a nation, and I hasten to close 
 this imperfect presentation of our subject, in the language 
 of another. 
 
 " At what time Law commenced, we inquire not — whether 
 its origin was in any respect supernatural or not, is of no 
 moment at present, but certainly it was when human pas- 
 sions were seen tearing the weak and defenceless, when in- 
 dividual greed, individual lust, individual hate, and most 
 cruel and perilous of all, individual revenge, ranged like 
 beasts of the forest amid a Hock, that Law unbared her 
 beautiful brow, and bade tliem all cower beneath the eye of 
 reason." 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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