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 Ifvlrtaij, gtXau 23rt, 1884. 
 
 
AT a preliminary meeting of the members of the 
 Bar, held in the City of New York, on the 
 14th of May, 1884, the following gentlemen were ap- 
 pointed a committee to make arrangements for a 
 future meeting to pay a tribute of respect to the 
 memory of Charles O'Conor : 
 
 Benjamin D. Silliman, William Fullerton, 
 
 Charles A. Peabody, A. J. Vanderpoel, 
 
 William D. Shipman, Clarence A. Seward, 
 
 Elihu Root. 
 
 Such committee thereupon issued the following notice: 
 
 The members of the Bar are requested to meet in 
 the General Term Room of the Supreme Court on 
 Friday, May 23d, at 2 o'clock p. m., to take such 
 action as may be proper in reference to the death of 
 
illccting of tl)c Bav. 
 
 AT a meeting held in pursuance of the foregoing 
 notice, in the General Term room of the Su- 
 preme Court, on Friday, May 23, 1884, ^t 2 o'clock 
 p. M., the following proceedings were had : 
 
 The meeting was called to order by Mr. William 
 FuLLERTON, who nominated as Chairman the Honor- 
 able William C. Ruger, Chief Judge of the Court of 
 Appeals. 
 
 The nomination was ratified, and the Hon. William 
 C. Ruger took the chair and said : 
 
 Gentlemen of the Bar : While the occasion that 
 calls us together to-day is surrounded by many melan- 
 choly associations, the spirit of this meeting need not 
 necessarily be affected thereby, for we have assembled 
 not to mourn, but to honor our deceased brother, and 
 to review a professional record which is filled with the 
 history of hard-fought contests and well-earned vic- 
 tories extending over a period of time unrivalled in 
 our annals for length of service and brilliancy of 
 professional achievement. 
 
 It would have been a cause of regret to me if I had 
 been denied the opportunity of meeting with my pro- 
 
fessional brethren and testifying, at least by my pres- 
 ence, to the high regard and esteem entertained for the 
 character and abiHty of the distinguished lawyer who 
 so recently died in his retirement on the shore of the 
 sea. Assemblages like the present derive their only 
 value from the intrinsic worth and merit of the indi- 
 vidual whose memory they are intended to honor, and 
 the propriety with which their lives may be presented 
 as examples for the imitation and instruction of the 
 living. 
 
 There is, therefore, eminent propriety in our action 
 in calling the attention of the public to the character of 
 O'Conor, for it was in all of its aspects justly worthy 
 of emulation by those who desire to excel in the pro- 
 fession which his services and labor did so much to 
 adorn. 
 
 It must be obvious to the most casual observer 
 that no one could have attained his acknowledged 
 standing in the profession, and maintained it for so 
 long a period of time, without the possession of great 
 natural abilities, trained to their highest development 
 by systematic labor and study. 
 
 For upward of half a century, with conscious 
 strength, in the estimation of the public, he maintained 
 a supremacy in the ranks of the legal profession that 
 was never seriously threatened by any of his con- 
 temporaries. 
 
 The lesson of his life is indisputably that which 
 teaches us the truth, which it is so hard for many to 
 learn and still harder to follow, that the acquisition ol 
 the highest honors of professional life are not to be 
 
gained by the inspiration of genius, or even the pos- 
 session of great intellectual power alone, but these 
 must be supplemented and reinforced by habits of 
 patient research and unremitting labor. 
 
 Surely, if any one could have safely dispensed with 
 the toil and drudgery of professional life, it would have 
 been one like O'Conor, who started in the race of life 
 equipped with the advantage of a lofty intellect, and a 
 mind which seemed intuitively to comprehend and 
 appreciate tlie subdest problems of legal science, 
 yet even he, left no labor unperformed which tended 
 to aid him in accomplishing the object of his pursuit. 
 
 But in the; presence of his professional brethren, 
 who knew him so well, and enjoyed long years of 
 professional and social intimacy with him, it would be 
 presumptuous in me to undertake to speak in detail of 
 his professional or personal characteristics. 
 
 I never enjoyed the personal acquaintance of Mr. 
 O'Conor, and knew him only from those casual op- 
 portunities of meetings afforded by professional life 
 and through his public reputation. 
 
 I remember now the first occasion upon which I 
 ever saw him. 
 
 He then represented this city as one of its dele- 
 gates in a State Convention held at Syracuse. 
 
 I have forgotten even the year in which it occurred, 
 but it was at a time long since past, when political 
 parties thought it an advantage to be represented in 
 the councils of the State by the services of men emi- 
 nent for their ability and character. 
 
 He was then selected to perform the duty of draft- 
 
8 
 
 ing and reading the resolutions wliich it is customary 
 to produce on such an occasion. 
 
 I recollect with great distinctness the wonderful 
 charm with which his striking presence and graceful 
 yet animated elocution invested that generally quite 
 uninteresting performance. But realizing that there 
 are among the audience many associates of our de- 
 ceased brother who can speak with more familiarity 
 of his virtues and character than a comparative 
 stranger, and who are competent to contribute to his 
 memory eulogiums rivaling in felicity of thought and 
 grace of expression even those which might have 
 been in his lifetime pronounced by him, I am ad- 
 monished by a sense of propriety not to delay your 
 anticipated opportunity of hearing them. 
 
 I therefore invite your attention to the prescribed 
 order of proceedings. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin H. Bristow nominated as Vice- 
 presidents of the meeting Judges Davis, C. P. Daly, 
 Sedgwick, Wallace, Brown, Benedict and Mc- 
 Adam ; Surrogate Rollins and Recorder Smythe, 
 who were thereupon elected. 
 
 Mr. James Thomson nominated as Secretaries of 
 the meeting Benjamin F. Dunning and Horace 
 Russell, and they were thereupon elected. 
 
 Mr. Clarence A. Seward then said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman : I am instructed by the Com- 
 
mittee to offer for the consideration of this meeting 
 the following preamble and resolutions : 
 
 The Bar of the Courts of the State of New York, 
 and of the United States Courts of this Circuit, called 
 together upon the occasion of the death of Charles 
 O'Conor, adopt these resolutions : 
 
 Resolved, That in the death of Charles O'Conor 
 we part with a member of our profession whom we 
 have been accustomed to esteem as almost the em- 
 bodiment of the qualities, mental and moral, which 
 should enter into and constitute the character of a 
 great jurist and advocate. 
 
 Resolved, That in his unequalled professional at- 
 tainments, and in his intellectual power, we discover 
 whatever is to be held in reverence in those depart- 
 ments of character by a profession appreciative of 
 learning and mental ability. 
 
 Resolved, That in his high moral qualities and 
 characteristics we feel a pride, which seems to us just, 
 in being able to point to him as an example in every 
 respect worthy of our emulation and of being com- 
 mended to aspirants for the highest places in our 
 profession, and in other elevated walks of life. 
 
 Resolved, That in his untiring industry and zeal, 
 prompted by a nice sense of duty in maintaining the 
 interests committed to his charge under all circum- 
 stances, he was distinguished not less than for his 
 
lO 
 
 great intellectual vigor, and wonderful fertility of re- 
 source in the emergencies of his professional life. 
 
 Resolved, That in reviewing his life, professional 
 and personal, and his qualities as a lawyer and a man, 
 we behold a character well worthy to be admired and 
 venerated by those who adopt as their standard of 
 excellence only the most eminent and approved 
 models, whether of the present or the past. 
 
 Resolved, That in his personal characteristics, such 
 as his love of justice, his exalted integrity, and im- 
 maculate purity of character, his fidelity to the de- 
 mands of friendship and affection, his sympathy with 
 want and suffering, and generous but unostentatious 
 contributions to their relief, and his tender ministra- 
 tions to the afflicted and those needing his aid, we 
 see traits of character havinof even hio-her claims to 
 our admiration than those magnanimous impulses of 
 chivalrous self-devotion for which his name has be- 
 come almost a synonym among us. 
 
 Resolved, That we request that these resolutions 
 be entered upon the records of the Courts of the State 
 and of the Circuit. 
 
 Mr. Seward also read the following letter from 
 Mr. John K. Porter : 
 
 Fifth Avenue Hotel, N. Y., 
 May 17, 1884. 
 
 My Dear Mr. Seivard : I regret that the infirm 
 condition of my health will not permit me to accept 
 
II 
 
 your kind invitation to say a few loving and brotherly 
 words of our deceased friend Charles O'Conor. 
 
 I owe a grateful tribute to his memory, and shall 
 not fail to pay it in another form when I regain my 
 strength. 
 
 The almost simultaneous deaths of Mr. O'Conor, 
 Mr. Benjamin and Judge Black, have left a blank in 
 Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence which may not be filled 
 for many generations. 
 
 If, with the observation and reading of nearly half 
 a century, I were called upon to name the three 
 greatest men of Irish lineage who have illumined the 
 annals of New York jurisprudence, I should have no 
 hesitation in naming Charles O'Conor, James T. 
 Brady and Thomas Addis Emmet, and in the order 
 in which I have named them. 
 
 If I were called upon to name the three greatest 
 
 lawyers this country has produced, I should have just 
 
 as little hesitation in claiming for our own imperial 
 
 State the highest honors, in the names of Ale.xander 
 
 Hamilton, Nicholas Hill and Charles O'Conor. They 
 
 are all dead, but behind them they have left lustrous 
 
 and immortal memories. 
 
 Yours most sincerely, 
 
 John K. Porter. 
 The. Honorable 
 
 Clarence A. Seward. 
 
 Mr. Charles A. Peabody then said : 
 Mr. President : I am compelled by the reticence 
 of gentlemen better able than I to give voice to the 
 
12 
 
 feelings which have brought us together on this occa- 
 sion, to break the silence which has followed the 
 reading of the resolutions. 
 
 It was my fortune, sir, to know Mr. O'Conor very 
 intimately for more than thirty years, and my admira- 
 tion of his character as a man and as a lawyer was 
 not diminished by increased familiarity, but grew and 
 strengthened with increasino- knowledgfe of him. He 
 was, sir, in the estimation of contemporaries, as you 
 have justly said in your introductory remarks, yirf/Z^ 
 princeps at this Bar, and better judges than I have as- 
 signed him much the same place at the Bar of the 
 United States. The completeness and efficiency of 
 his intellectual equipment for his profession were 
 never questioned, and just as little were the zeal and 
 energy with which he acquitted himself in response to 
 the calls of a long and varied professional life. He 
 was a most original man in matters large or small. 
 Nothing about him was the result of borrowing or 
 imitation. His character stood out in its own propor- 
 tions in all its parts — those less public and conspicu- 
 ous as well as those more so. In his professional 
 life, as well as in his personal character and bearing, 
 he was throughout life eminently himself — pure and 
 simple — the exponent or imitator of no one. It is 
 not common, sir, in the profession to which we be- 
 long, where so much of learning and acquisition is 
 required to supplement natural endowments, how- 
 ever abundantly possessed — in which training and 
 attainment enter so largely into the formation of 
 character ; it is not common, sir, to find in the ranks 
 
13 
 
 of such a profession men so wholly original, and in 
 whom so little of nature has been surrendered in ex- 
 change for art and attainment. Subjected to the same 
 influences of preparatory education and professional 
 training, we find ourselves imperceptibly pursuing the 
 course of thought, and unconsciously copying, at 
 least in the matter of manner, the professional de- 
 portment of those about us, and especially of those 
 whom we like or admire. Mr. O'Conor had nothing 
 of this in him. He adopted no person's peculiarities 
 of mind or manner. He did, however, by his own, it 
 was sometimes said, attract and fascinate others, and 
 became the object of imitation to men who adopted, 
 unconsciously to themselves, some of his peculiarities. 
 He was as original as a trained man in a trained 
 profession can well be. 
 
 For nearly half a century Mr. O'Conor was the 
 particular attraction of this Bar. The qualities of his 
 character on which his eminence was based were of 
 the most substantial kind. He was not a flowery 
 orator. He had not the power, by oratory, of 
 fascinating popular audiences, which other men among 
 his contemporaries possessed. He was not an Ogden 
 Hoffman or a Rufus Choate, but he had the power of 
 appealing to the understanding and judgment of 
 those whom he addressed, and of carrying conviction 
 to the intelligent mind to an extent that no one 
 among us has ever surpassed, and very few, if any, 
 have ever equalled. 
 
 The strength of Mr. O'Conor's character as a 
 lawyer was very marked. There was no department 
 
14 
 
 of learning in his profession in which he excelled 
 more than in. others. He was excellent in all, and in 
 a new sphere of professional occupation he imme- 
 diately became as distinguished as he was in 
 the spheres more frequented by him. During the 
 later years of his active life he was repeatedly en- 
 gaged in cases which must have presented questions 
 of almost entire novelty to his mind; but with his 
 power of persistent and rapid labor, he was equal to 
 every such occasion, and that not only to the manful 
 discharge of his duties, but equal as a master to 
 attracting the commendation of those who were capa- 
 ble of appreciating his efforts. 
 
 His couraoe, his fearlessness in attackine ob- 
 stacles, was remarkable ; nothing daunted or dis- 
 couraged him. I do not think he knew such a 
 feeling as fear or distrust of his case. He always 
 felt himself equal to the attainment of justice. He 
 never stated and never claimed what he thought 
 was not in truth and justice defensible. Per- 
 fectly conscientious in his positions at all times, he 
 never seemed to fear that there was the least danger 
 of truth and justice being permanently defeated, or 
 that he himself should shrink from any encounter to 
 which he was exposed in their behalf. This came 
 largely from a naturally brave and determined mind, 
 no doubt, but it came, perhaps, quite as much from 
 his all-sustaining faith in truth as he saw it. He was 
 remarkable for his fidelity to truth and his ever 
 abiding confidence in the fidelity of truth to him and 
 his cause. He never stated the position of his adver- 
 
i5 
 
 sary which he was going to attack, unfairly, or in a 
 way to detract from it or impair its strength. He 
 never sought to minimize the obstacle he had to en- 
 counter. On the contrary, sir, I have time and again 
 heard him state the position taken by his adversary 
 preparatory to his attack upon it, with more clearness 
 and force, and in a way to give it greater effect with 
 the court than his adversary himself had been able 
 to do. 
 
 Mr. O'Conor was gifted with another talent not 
 often dwelt upon in eulogy, but scarcely of secondary 
 importance to success. He was capable of great and 
 persistent labor. He believed and acted on the 
 maxim, " labor omnia vincit :" and it is hardly too 
 much to say that his life is a literal vindication of its 
 truth, for the obstacles he had to overcome mieht, 
 without a very broad departure from truth, be said to 
 have been " ^w«/^?." Occurring in most characters^ 
 aspiration would have been stifled and advancement 
 barred. His opportunities for general education were 
 very scanty. Indeed, he can scarcely be said to have 
 had any. He sought and attained his own education 
 in defiance of adverse circumstances, not by placing 
 himself under the tuition of teachers; this was beyond 
 his power, but by working it out and making it for 
 himself, wringing it per force from reluctant and 
 grudging adversity. His industry was unsurpassed ; 
 but his industry, without great intellectual powers and 
 ability to labor, and great determination and force of 
 will (which last was as abundant in him as any quality 
 of his character), and without his perfect self-reliance 
 
i6 
 
 and fearlessness of difficulties, would never have 
 brought him from his very humble position at and 
 before the time he entered the Bar, to the eminence 
 he achieved in subsequent years. 
 
 At the age of nineteen, when a clerk in an office, 
 and having no other external aid to prestige than the 
 force of stern necessity, he was in the habit of trying 
 causes, often in justices' courts. He was constantly 
 employed to try such causes by lawyers many years his 
 seniors, and in the middle walks of life. He became 
 even then, while still a boy, attractive to attorneys 
 who had business with which they were not willing 
 to trust themselves on the trial in court. And so he 
 went on until his services came to be sought in every 
 case of the first magnitude in the State of New York, 
 the commercial emporium of the country, and I may 
 safely say in most cases of that kind throughout the 
 country. 
 
 He worked with great rapidity, but he was also 
 very laborious, a very great student. His nights, 
 throughout the active part of his life, were devoted in 
 large measure to toil in his library ; so much was this 
 the case in the earlier part of his professional life, that 
 about the age of thirty his general health became im- 
 paired, and his sight failed him. He lost the power 
 of using his eyes almost entirely, for a time. And, as 
 he told me, it had not before that time occurred to 
 him to attempt to save anything from his earnings. 
 He had been receiving a fair income, and intended 
 at a future day to make due provision for old age and 
 casualties. But at the time his sight failed he had 
 
17 
 
 not yet begun to lay aside or accumulate. He hail 
 to withdraw from practice and give his eyes rest for a 
 considerable time. I think he went to Europe then, 
 for the first time. On his return, finding himself 
 improved in general health and his power of vision 
 largely restored, he resumed his professional pursuits, 
 with the success of which we, sir, and the world 
 know. 
 
 His fertility of resource and power of adaptation 
 were very great. If facts changed in the course of a 
 trial, his mind saw the effect near and remote, direct 
 and incidental, as if by intuition, in a moment. Sur- 
 prise seemed no surprise to him. He summoned 
 everything from near and far to meet the new condi- 
 tion of things, and was as well prepared for it as for 
 the state of facts for which he had originally prepared 
 himself. 
 
 The generosity and magnanimity of his character 
 are properly referred to, and not overstated, in the 
 resolutions. His judgments and feelings respecting 
 his professional brethren, and the acquaintances of his 
 earlier and later life, were certainly in the later years 
 of his life most kindly and generous. In the contests 
 of his profession, like other men having the power, he 
 gave hard blows, undoubtedly, when he felt they were 
 required. He had an effective weapon, and, when 
 occasion demanded, he did not hesitate to use it 
 vigorously, whether in defense of his cause, or of his 
 own treatment of it^ if personally assailed. 
 
 Some of the anecdotes of his early life were sup- 
 posed to be indicative, more or less, of an inclination 
 
to sharpness, or severity of speech. 1 remember 
 telling him of such an anecdote imputed to him, on 
 one occasion — a playful piece of sarcasm respecting 
 a brother lawyer. After I had told him the story, he 
 said, with much emphasis : " I don't believe, Peabody, 
 that I ever said it. But whether I did or not, I ought 
 not to have said it, and don't you ever repeat it again 
 I beg of you." He disliked very much the reputation 
 of making severe or pointed remarks about persons, 
 and always assumed the defensive when such were 
 imputed to him in conversation. His playful remarks 
 were sometimes perverted and repeated as altered. 
 He was quite playful with friends when relaxed and at 
 ease, and not a few of his witticisims have gained 
 currency at the Bar, which will survive their author and 
 drift onward with his reputation in other respects, 
 altered (for the worse if at all) in the course of trans- 
 mission. 
 
 In the later years of his life, for fully twenty, he 
 was in bad health. About the time of the late war 
 he was in very bad health for some years. After 
 that he improved a little and did some business. 
 For the last ten years of his life he did very little. For 
 the last three or four years, as we are generally aware, 
 he resided out of the city and in a neighboring State, 
 where he did none at all. 
 
 I must allude to his forgetfulness of self. There 
 was no subject that was too laborious, none that re- 
 quired too much self-sacrifice for him to embark in and 
 expend his energies upon for a friend, as I have often 
 had occasion to know and am glad of this oppor- 
 
19 
 
 tunity to acknowledge, and there was no limit 
 to his expenditure of energy when once he had 
 embarked. I recollect his saying to me one day, 
 " I work on anything I attempt to do as hard as 
 I can for my life, as you know.'' He did work with 
 all the streno-th given to him whenever he attempted 
 to do anything. 
 
 His penetration, his power of discernment of 
 principles and their effects in application, was very 
 o-reat. He seemed to look deeper into a subject than 
 other men. He would take up a subject and present 
 a totally new consideration of it, other counsel having 
 already opened. He would lay it open to a lower 
 depth, showing its connections and bearings, remote 
 and near, direct or inferential, and all its various 
 features and ramifications, at a depth to which no 
 other man was likely to go, or if at all, only to follow 
 
 his lead. 
 
 He has gone, sir; he has finished a noble career 
 and left a noble memory. To paraphrase a single line 
 of the poet— his was a noble end by noble means at- 
 tained. To the attainment of that end he had one 
 support and stimulus which should not be over- 
 looked; he had at all times, what was of special in- 
 fluence in the earlier part of his career no doubt, the 
 consciousness of a most honorable birth and lineage 
 coupled with a veneration and love of parents, which 
 never forsook or ceased to animate him throughout 
 his long and eventful life. 
 
 As to his moral and social characteristics, there 
 was as much that was interesting in them as in his 
 
20 
 
 intellectual qualities. That part of the resolutions 
 which alludes to his benevolence — his charitable and 
 philanthropic character — is most just, although his 
 character in those respects may be less generally known. 
 It is not in this case as it is in many cases, a matter of 
 mere formal commendation. It is true, and it was 
 richly deserved. Instances of his philanthropy, of 
 his sympathy, were very frequent among us. He had 
 a habit of making them as little public as possible. 
 When I was a young man, I happened to learn of this : 
 a gentleman upon the bench of one of the courts of 
 this city had been unfortunate. He had lost his prop- 
 erty. His household furniture had fallen into the 
 hands of the sheriff and was about to be sold. Nothing- 
 could be done. It was shortly after the great panic of 
 1837. He had a wife whom Mr. O'Conor had known 
 slightly. The property had to be sold at auction. An 
 obscure man stood by and bought every article. This 
 man was known to some of the persons present as 
 unable to buy property of any amount. But the bill 
 was made out and paid. Shortly after that a deed of 
 trust was made. Mr. O'Conor's name did not appear 
 in the deed. But it was made, and by it the property 
 was settled upon the wife of the judge and upon her 
 posterity. Mr. O'Conor furnished the means, and 
 furnished the obscure man to avoid having his own 
 name known, But the judge discovered his bene- 
 factor. He called upon Mr. O'Conor to express his 
 gratitude. But Mr. O'Conor, with a sensitiveness 
 which was more marked in him than in any other man 
 I ever knew, the moment the judge began to talk 
 
21 
 
 pathetically and show emotion, was so far over- 
 come that he had to bring the interview to a close, 
 and begged his visitor to desist. The judge was 
 accordingly bowed out of the office, and Mr. O'Conor 
 relieved from a position in which he was from the 
 strength of his feelings unable to maintain his self- 
 control. 
 
 I was much with him at the time of the o-reat 
 affliction of his life ; when he was more com- 
 pletely overwhelmed with grief than any other man 
 I ever saw. He always resisted the exhibition of 
 emotions of the kind to the extent of his ability, and 
 in his efforts at repression acquired a seeming stern- 
 ness and almost severity of manner which to some 
 persons appeared to be evidence of a cold and un- 
 sympathetic nature ; his very weakness in that direc- 
 tion, betraying him in his efforts at self-control into an 
 appearance of the opposite extreme. 
 
 In 1875, he was very sick, and was reported to be 
 dead throughout this country and in Europe. Obit- 
 uaries of him were published at length, especially in 
 Europe, where the error of the reported death was less 
 promptly corrected. A friend of mine read one in 
 Vienna, and wrote to me on the subject in the spirit 
 of condolence, knowing my relations with him. One 
 of the first things he did, after recovering sufficiently 
 to do anything, was to call to him his fondly-cherished 
 stepson, the only surviving descendant of his beloved 
 and much lamented wife, and ask him to make out a 
 check for a man whose misfortunes had reduced him 
 so low that Mr. O'Conor had bought and held a mort- 
 
gage on his house to enable him to retain and live in it 
 without payment of interest. He had held the mortgage 
 for years, and in addition to that had made him a semi- 
 annual allowance to enable him to live in his house. 
 Not thinking for a moment of the possibility that this 
 man, who was more than ninety years of age, would 
 outlive him, he had made no provision for that event 
 in his will. This he said had troubled him much in 
 his illness, and at the earliest moment of his recovery 
 he sent this check to the old gentleman, with an ex- 
 planation of the delay, and at the same time added a 
 codicil to his will providing for the mortgage and the 
 allowance in case of his own death occurring before 
 that of his beneficiary. 
 
 The last scene of his life, Mr. President, was one 
 of very great interest. When sick in 1875, he had no 
 desire to prolong life. He told me, when he began 
 to recover, that he had never at any time during his 
 illness wished to continue his life. That when he had 
 rallied for a moment into consciousness he had sunk 
 away with the hope that that might be the last. And 
 it was so in his last illness. He did not from the first 
 desire to have life protracted. He simply wished to 
 have pain assuaged, if possible. You may recollect, 
 sir, that the last words of the good old man heard by 
 mortals were — " My God." Shall we suppose, sir, 
 that he uttered those words in prayer ? Or shall we 
 suppose that at the moment he uttered them he had, 
 or fancied that he had, passed the bourne whence no 
 traveler returns, and was or thought he was already 
 in the presence of the great Author of his being. 
 
whom he thus addressed? Whichever interpreta- 
 tion is adopted, it is such an expression as a good 
 man may be expected and desire to have on his hps 
 at such a moment. 
 
 Mr. James C. Carter said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman: If any proof were needed of the 
 possession by Mr. O'Conor of the great quahties of 
 mind and heart ascribed to him by the resohitions 
 which have been read to us, it might be found in the 
 loud acclaim rising from all classes and conditions 
 of men which followed the announcement of his 
 death. Rarely, indeed, has any private profes- 
 sional life exacted such a tribute. He had never 
 filled any of the high places of patronage or power. 
 Listening senates had never hung upon his lips. 
 He had never initiated or led any great popular 
 movement. He had never courted popular applause. 
 He had habitually shunned, so far as he could, public 
 observation. His more than fifty years of active 
 labor had been devoted principally to the advocacy 
 of private causes in the forum ; but when the cur- 
 tain fell at the close of the last scene in the drama of 
 his life, the applause, solemn but universal, attested 
 the depth of the impression which that life had made. 
 It was a proof that there was in it something greater 
 than mere intellectual strength or forensic skill. It 
 was a tribute not more to the lawyer than to the 
 man. 
 
I could contribute^ Mr. Chairman, very little to 
 the interest of this occasion by giving details of Mr. 
 O'Conor's early career. What there is known of this 
 comes to us only from the traditions of the Bar, or 
 remains in the memories of those of his contempo- 
 raries who are still with us ; and even this, unless 
 preserved by some competent pen, will soon pass 
 away. We all know that his ambition made its own 
 way from obscure beginnings, not assisted, as is the 
 case with many, by powerful friends ; not heralded 
 and applauded beforehand, as is often the case, by an 
 admiring group of companions from school or college; 
 but that the recognition which his talents eventually 
 received was won from reluctant breasts on the arena 
 of actual strife. 
 
 When I came to the Bar, now something more 
 than thirty years ago, his ascending star had just 
 reached the zenith. A long series of minor achieve- 
 ments had been fitly crowned by his magnificent vic- 
 tory, won almost by his single arm, against an impos- 
 ing array of talents and power, in the great case of 
 Forrest vs. Forrest. The Bar of this city, speaking 
 by the lips of one of its proudest members, had 
 just bestowed upon him an unprecedented testimonial 
 of its admiration ; and he stood the admitted leader 
 among an array of names embracing those of Francis 
 B. Cutting, James T. Brady, Daniel Lord, Edward 
 Sandford, William Curtis Noyes, James W. Gerard, 
 and many others scarcely less distinguished ; while 
 he divided, at least, with Nicholas Hill the honors of 
 supremacy in the Court of Appeals. From that time 
 
25 
 
 until he chose to retire from the active pursuit of his 
 profession, his occupations and labors, in extent, 
 variety and importance, were prodigious. His opin- 
 ions upon difficult questions in the law, his advice in 
 important business affairs and in the conduct of litiga- 
 tions, were more sought for and more highly prized 
 than those of any other lawyer ; and to his labors in 
 these directions, and in the trial of a great number of 
 ordinary suits, he added the championship, on the one 
 side or the other, of nearly every great cause which 
 during that long period enlisted the leading spirits of 
 the Bar. 
 
 I think there is a disposition among us to 
 believe that the Bar in recent times has degenerated; 
 and that the great luminaries of former periods, both 
 in England and in this country, have not been matched 
 by the present generation of men. But, neverthe- 
 less, I believe it would be the deliberate judgment of 
 those who have enjoyed a close acquaintance with 
 Mr. O'Conor, and have frequently witnessed his 
 various powers in their full activity, and observed the 
 prodigious extent of his acquirements, that he was, all 
 things considered, the profoundest and best equipped 
 lawyer that has ever appeared at this Bar, and that he 
 would not suffer in a comparison with the great lawyers 
 of any nation, or any time. 
 
 In those powers and arts of persuasion which en- 
 gage the interest and carry the convictions of ordinary 
 men, and which exercise such a control over the jury 
 box, Mr. O'Conor often found his superiors; but the 
 verdicts won by him could rarely be overthrown, 
 
26 
 
 while those won against him could seldom be deemed 
 secure until the judgment had been ratified by the 
 Court of last resort. In all other departments of the 
 law his superiority was manifest. The whole realm 
 of the Common Law was as familiar to him as his 
 daily walks, and one might imagine, while observing 
 the precision with which he would insist on its arti- 
 ficial and technical rules, that his mind would be in- 
 capable of dealing with the contrasted system of Equity. 
 But, in truth, his superiority there was even more 
 manifest ; and if he had any preference in his studies, 
 I think it inclined him to the larger and more liberal 
 jurisprudence, with its high moral refinements, resting 
 more directly on the broad foundations of truth and 
 reason, and shaping and moulding its procedure and 
 relief to the end of working out justice in each partic- 
 ular case. 
 
 But notwithstanding his pre-eminent mastery of 
 substantive law, I think that if he was vain of 
 any of his accomplishments, it was of his skill in 
 the law of pleading and procedure. He could have 
 stepped into Westminster Hall and argued a special 
 demurrer with success against Sergeant Williams 
 himself, had they been contemporaries ; and I have 
 known him to be as much chagrined at some slight 
 omission or oversight in the preparation of papers for 
 some common motion as other men would have been 
 by the loss of a meritorious case. Certainly we have 
 never known any one at all comparable with him as a 
 draughtsman. His pleadings were beautiful examples 
 of art, and in his later years, when he had more 
 
27 
 
 leisure, to draw a bill in equity or an answer, was a 
 genuine delioht to him. 
 
 o & 
 
 If it were asked to what particular trait or faculty 
 his great pre-eminence was due, the answer would be 
 difficult. I think none could be specially assigned ; 
 but that it should rather be attributed to a rare and 
 fortunate union of many of the highest intellectual and 
 moral qualities. One might easily have inferred this 
 from a glance at the fine, shapely, magnificent de- 
 velopment of his head. It was, indeed, 
 
 ****<< Ambition's airy hall, 
 
 The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul.'' 
 
 He had a peerless memory, and a power of con- 
 centrating his attention upon a given subject, to the 
 exclusion of every other, to such a degree that he 
 seemed at times to live only in the enforced trains of 
 thought which passed through his mind obedient to 
 his will ; and he had a masterly power of analysis. 
 But even these imperial faculties would have been in- 
 adequate to accomplish the results which he achieved, 
 had they not been aroused, animated — inflamed — by 
 an all-absorbing love of his work — a love of truth and 
 excellence for their own sake, which in him amounted 
 to a passion. It was this which made him the man of 
 genius he was — which converted all his labors into 
 play — enabled him to dispense with all pastimes and 
 recreations ; sleep alone seemed necessary to rein- 
 force his activities, and was almost the only inter- 
 ruption to his labors. 
 
28 
 
 I have had some opportunities for observing his 
 methods of study, and they are worthy of notice. He 
 did not, I imagine, start out in his professional career 
 with any very great provision either in the way of 
 general knowledge or mental training. He began the 
 practice of the law with the trial of small causes at an 
 age when most young men are still engaged in pre- 
 paratory studies. As in the case of a great Roman 
 lawyer, " the forum was his school, and practice was 
 his teacher." But it did not take a mind like his lona 
 to discover the true mode of equipping himself for his 
 work. I presume that his method in his mature 
 years had been pursued by him from the beginning. 
 His custom was not to give his time to general legal 
 studies, with the view of gaining a general acquaint- 
 ance with such branches of the law as mieht be less 
 familiar to him, but to convert his ordinary occupations 
 into a means of acquiring a deep and precise knowl- 
 edge of special subjects. If he was called upon to deal 
 with any unfamiliar question, he did not stop with that 
 superficial knowledge which might be sufficient for 
 his immediate purpose. Once engaged in the study, 
 he would not halt until every corner of the subject 
 had been explored. He knew that every statute, and 
 every doctrine of the unwritten law^ had its reasons — 
 had a philosophy, and also a history, and he would 
 thoroughly fathom the one and explore the other ; he 
 would go back to the original statute, or the original 
 decision, trace the successive changes by legislation 
 on the one hand and by adjudication on the other, 
 store the results in his capacious and retentive memory, 
 
29 
 
 and set them down in writing for future reference and 
 use. It was this profound study of the separate topics 
 of the law — each successive acquisition illustrating, 
 enlargrinof, and becominsJ blended with the others — 
 which gave to his knowledge its extraordinary full- 
 ness and precision. 
 
 Impressive and powerful in his oral efforts, he yet 
 appeared, as I think, at his best in his written or 
 printed briefs. Upon the composition of these he 
 lavished all the resources of his skill and acquirements. 
 He had much imaginative power, and had gained a 
 familiar acquaintance with the best things in literature, 
 especially in philosophy, history and old English 
 poetry. He had acquired, or created, an English 
 style of marvelous purity and precision, and when 
 his briefs finally left his hands they were indeed 
 masterpieces. They were not swollen with redund- 
 ant learning, but exhibited the choice results of 
 blended thought and learning^all arranged with 
 infinite art, with resistless logic, and redolent with a 
 fine breath of philosophy, satire, wit and eloquence. 
 As he appeared in these compositions he might be 
 described almost without exaggeration in the lines 
 once applied to Lord Bacon — 
 
 * * * " deep, comprehensive, clear, 
 Exact and elegant ; in one rich soul 
 Plato, the Stagyrite, and Tully joined." 
 
 His unpremeditated oral arguments were always 
 interesting. He was a perfect adept in the whole law 
 of evidence and Nisi Prius, and would upon the in- 
 
^o 
 
 stant, when occasion called, in the progress of a trial, 
 display a precision and range of knowledge which 
 easily eclipsed that of other men. 
 
 He was a born champion. He liked to have an 
 important case brought to him in the first instance, 
 and to work out beforehand the lines of prosecution 
 or defense, as a general would lay out his campaign. 
 He would first possess himself of a thorough and ac- 
 curate knowledge of the facts, down even to minute 
 details, determine the principles of law which would 
 eventually control the fortunes of the controversy, the 
 legal methods by which such principles were to be 
 asserted, the precise points both of law and fact upon 
 which the principal contest would arise, take into ac- 
 count the witnesses likely to be summoned, consider 
 what adversaries he was likely to meet, and the line 
 of action they would probably adopt, frame all the 
 pleadings himself and make special studies of par- 
 ticular features of the controversy. His inclination 
 was to seek as little assistance as possible from others. 
 He preferred to do everything for himself; and thus 
 working, when the day of trial came and he stepped 
 to the front of battle, proud, confident, defiant, he was 
 the beau ideal of a forensic champion ; clad in com- 
 plete steel, impregnable against every assault, every 
 position guarded, and ready to take instant advantage 
 of any slip made by his adversary. 
 
 I must say a word concerning his personal charac- 
 ter and bearing. I suppose it to be true that he has 
 left in the minds of many the impression that he was 
 a harsh, severe and unamiable man. But this I be- 
 
31 
 
 lieve to be, while not wholly without foundation in his 
 behavior at times, altogether unjust as a general ami 
 final estimate. More than any other man whom I 
 have ever known, he exhibited in his professional life 
 a demeanor altogether different from that which 
 marked his private and personal life. Indeed, he 
 seemed to live almost two separate lives. As a 
 lawyer, he regarded himself one of the priests in 
 the temple of justice, charged with an official function 
 and an official responsibility. This was to represent 
 a cause — a side — to devote himself to it, and to live 
 wholly in it. He regarded it not only as permitted to 
 him, but enjoined upon him, to employ in behalf of 
 his clients every legitimate art ; but he had reflected 
 often and deeply upon professional ethics, and had 
 distinctly drawn the line beyond which truth and 
 honor commanded him not to step. Anything in the 
 nature of affirmative misrepresentation, or dishonest 
 trick, was an abomination to him. Reserve and 
 secrecy were lawful weapons with him, and he felt 
 bound to make the most of them. It was a common 
 observation with him to his associates, that we are not 
 permitted to mislead, but we have the right to keep 
 our own counsels. Hence, in his professional life, in 
 his office, or in the courts where he was most fre- 
 quently met, he was wont to surround himself with a 
 forbidding and mysterious air, and appeared severe, 
 austere — repellant. Many took this as a manifesta- 
 tion of his real character, whereas, in truth, it was but 
 one of the instrumentalities of his art, by which he 
 often bewildered and confounded his adversaries. At 
 
32 
 
 the same time, in the circle of his friends, in liis, or 
 their homes, he was like the gentlest of men, warm, 
 friendly, generous, magnanimous. He was a most 
 liberal giver, lavish to a fault of his money, and lavish 
 also of what was more precious to him, his time and 
 his thoughts. It was often difficult to retain him, 
 such was the pressure of the undertakings which at all 
 times rested upon him, and he would accept no re- 
 tainer unless he felt able to devote his best services ; 
 but in such cases, and especially with his old and less 
 fortunate professional friends, he would willingly 
 listen to statements of their cases, and pour out from 
 the storehouse of his acquisitions anything which 
 might afford aid or assistance ; would often put in 
 writing for a friend, in exquisite style, what he called 
 his 'impressions," but which more resembled finished 
 arguments, and resolutely refuse any fee. That the 
 sterner and harsher features of his external behavior, 
 to which I have alluded, were really a part only of his 
 professional and official character, so to speak, is well 
 illustrated by the fact, to which all who have known 
 him in recent years will willingly bear witness, that as 
 he gradually withdrew from professional activity, it 
 became very difficult to engage him in a cause where 
 there was even a distant chance that he might en- 
 counter adversely any old friend, or even the children 
 of old friends. At the same time the gentler and 
 softer parts of his nature resumed their natural ascend- 
 ancy ; and I have heard since his death some of 
 those who made up the little circle which gathered 
 around him in his retirement in Nantucket, and who 
 
33 
 
 had never known him in the active part of his life, 
 express with enthusiasm and with tears what a de- 
 lightful example they had found him to be of an inter- 
 esting, instructive, gentle, lovable old man ; and also 
 declare that they found it impossible to imagine that 
 he could ever have appeared in any harsh or forbid- 
 ding aspect. 
 
 A great Roman writer wishing to embalm for 
 posterity the memory of one of his countrymen, was 
 content with ascribing to him three principal qualities: 
 good faith, an independent spirit, constancy in friend- 
 ship ; which he declared to be '' prcscipua lunnani 
 animi (J(3««,"— the prime virtues of the human charac- 
 ter. All these, in their fullness, Mr. O'Conor pos- 
 sessed. Who ever knew him to disregard the 
 smallest obligation of good faith ? Who of us have 
 ever known a character more self-poised or self- 
 reliant? Who has ever known him to be insensible 
 to gratitude, or to betray, or even to forget, a friend ? 
 It was these qualities which made up in him a char- 
 acter of genuine and rare nobility, the impression of 
 which will remain long after the generation which 
 knew him shall have passed away. 
 
 I remember the glowing praise once bestowed by 
 a distinguished English divine upon a great luminary 
 of the English Bar, I mean Sir James Scarlett, and, 
 with very little modification, it may be applied to our 
 departed leader : 
 
 He was the greatest lawyer of his time. He 
 never carried his soul to the public treasury and said, 
 '■ What will you give me for this?" He never sold 
 
34 
 
 the warm feelings and honorable motives of his youth 
 and manhood for an annual sum of money and an 
 office. He never took a price for public liberty and 
 public happiness. He never touched the political 
 Aceldama, and sio-ned the devil's bond for cursinor 
 to-morrow what he has blessed to-da)'. Through a 
 long career he cast honor upon his honorable profes- 
 sion, and sought dignity, not from the ermine or the 
 mace, but from a straight path and a spotless life. 
 
 Mr. Frederic R. Coudert said : 
 
 I might well hesitate to address this assemblage 
 after the glowing tribute paid by so competent a judge 
 and so warm a friend as my brother Carter, to the 
 memory of our deceased associate. But I am here to 
 say one single word — adding nothing of oratory and 
 little of fact — giving you no new materials upon 
 which to form your judgment or with which to 
 increase your respect, but simply because I am proud 
 to respond to the call made upon me, and to bring my 
 small tribute of affectionate veneration to our brother. 
 
 You have said, sir, and the thought struck me 
 with great force, that although this is an occasion 
 when we are united to pay a tribute of respect to a 
 dead brother, yet it is not an occasion of gloom. 
 Although that remark may seem at first sight to con- 
 tain two inconsistent propositions — for it is always an 
 occasion of sad and sober thought when we realize 
 that the form we have known so long will never 
 

 again be seen in the flesh, yet there is so much to 
 rejoice over, so much to be proud of, in the lustre 
 thrown upon our profession by the life and the 
 death of Mr. O'Conor that, as you have truly said, 
 this is not an occasion of gloom. Above the tomb 
 of this dead lawyer no broken shaft is raised to 
 tell of blasted aspirations — of youth blighted in 
 its promise ; but rather the testimony of a full, 
 great, glorious and well-rounded life ; the history of 
 a man who had done his duty from the beginning to the 
 end, and who received death as a gfentle and lovine 
 friend that took the burden from his weary shoulders 
 and consecrated his fame forever. 
 
 I cannot on this occasion divest myself of tlie 
 thought, and it impressed me particularly while listen- 
 ing to my eloquent brother, that if Mr. O'Conor could 
 have found any fault with that beautiful and most 
 touching address, and if he could have expressed any 
 wish to those who were to follow, he would have said 
 — " No more — no more of my titles to fame. Say 
 rather a word that will make me endeared to my 
 brothers. I would rather have a tear upon my grave 
 than all the peals of triumph that the most glorious 
 record could give me." 
 
 Mr. O'Conor died at that spot which he had chosen 
 for himself and which protracted his life, you may say, 
 for half a score of years. And the reflection came 
 to me, and I think it will strike you all as an apposite 
 one, that the chosen spot was much like one of those 
 fabled islands in a lovely lake of his ancestral land, 
 where death was never allowed to enter. Those who 
 
36 
 
 were fortunate enough to reach its shores found the 
 certainty of unending Hfe. Multitudes hurried thither 
 fleeing from the pursuing and dreaded phantom. . They 
 rejoiced exceedingly when they touched that en- 
 chanted island where death had no dominion. But 
 after a while the tedium of life became too stron"- — the 
 weight of accumulating time and care was too heavy, 
 and they left that land to find some other shore where 
 the kind and beneficent hand of death could be felt. 
 So it was with Mr. O'Conor. He found health in his 
 island home. He found what in the case of other men 
 we might call rest — if you can associate rest with Mr. 
 O'Conor, except in the grave. But at last the accu- 
 mulating burden of threescore years and ten — and 
 ten more — proved too great. Physical infirmities that 
 touched him all over, except in the citadel of his mind, 
 were too heavy, and he held out his arms and wel- 
 comed death as the friend that was to lighten his toils 
 forever and give him what he could not find here. 
 
 Mr. O'Conor's life, as detailed by my eloquent 
 friend who has just spoken, is known to all of us, and 
 better known now that we have heard that striking 
 commentary from his lips. Yet it seems to me that 
 the most endearing aspect of that life is beyond the 
 reach of mere eulogy of his powers as a lawyer. That 
 he was a great lawyer, and the greatest lawyer ; that 
 through all obstacles and at every sacrifice, except 
 the sacrifice of his self-respect, he gained his eminence, 
 none need now be told ; but, above all this, Mr. 
 O'Conor would have desired us to remember and to 
 perpetuate some of those little traits which would em- 
 
37 
 
 balm his memory in fragrant roses in the hearts of 
 his brethren. Probably a more generous, a more 
 kindly man never lived at this Bar, nor a man 
 who strueeled throuoh more difficulty to reach 
 eminence. I remember the expression of Mr. 
 O'Conor himself, when speaking of the most brilliant, 
 the most beloved, the most magnetic and the greatest 
 of our brethren of this generation — Mr. Brady — 
 speaking of his struggles in life, he said ; '' He was 
 born in unfashionable surroundings ; he was sprung 
 from an unfashionable race ; he belonged to an un- 
 fashionable faith, and yet with all these disadvantages 
 to darken his prospects and to delay his advancement, 
 to what eminence did he attain ?" and to what emi- 
 nence did Mr. O'Conor attain, to whom the same 
 words would apply, whose early surroundings were 
 similarly unpromising ? One of Mr. O'Conor's 
 favorite students told me some years ago an anecdote 
 which I would like to narrate here simply as one of 
 those sample stories that may depict the man. On 
 one occasion, a boy, poor, friendless and unprotected, 
 rasreed and in distress, called to see Mr. O'Conor, and 
 asked to have his name sent in. It was ludicrous as 
 well as pathetic. Mr. O'Conor's time was too valua- 
 ble for him to speak to bootblacks. But he received 
 him, and the clerks in the outer office could hear him 
 scold the litde man, who went away apparendy 
 baffled and disheartened. A few moments after, Mr. 
 O'Conor himself went out. Some of the young men 
 in the office followed him, and they saw him walk up 
 to Chatham street, where boys of that class congre- 
 
gatedj and he singled out this boy who had been in 
 his office a few minutes before, and he took him into 
 a clothing store. A few moments later, the little 
 Arab, transfigured and transformed into a human 
 being, left the shop, and they saw Mr. O'Conor giving 
 him money besides. If this was meant as an atone- 
 ment for his impatience, it was a royal atonement. 
 But it was rather a manifestation of his true nature — 
 the other scene was a simulacrum — a false pretense. 
 For there were false pretenses in Mr. O'Conor; and all 
 who knew him know that he was a man full of false 
 pretenses of that kind. His natural emotions of love 
 he kept down. His promptness to help distress he 
 concealed. His readiness for sympathy was too great 
 and too sacred to be shown to his brethren or to 
 strangers. But, perhaps, when he was laying down 
 his burden, the scene in Chatham street with this 
 little helpless boy before him was a sweeter memory 
 than his triumph in the Forrest case, or in any other 
 case, and will stand him in better stead. 
 
 I do not know, sir, what more I can say on this 
 subject. I can give you no reminiscences that will 
 make you think of him more kindly or more admir- 
 ingly ; and yet I know that there is much to be said 
 of his generosity and his unselfishness. One single 
 topic, I think, was omitted by my learned and accom- 
 plished brother, and that was the estimate in which 
 Mr. O'Conor held his fellow-lawyers. I have heard 
 him speak of those who had been with him in the 
 arena for forty years, the living and the dead, and 
 never did I hear one single unkind syllable from his 
 
39 
 
 lips concerning them. I know that his language, as 
 a rule, was eulogistic of their talent and character. I 
 know that if they had weaknesses, he thrust them 
 aside in forming his estimate, and that he was ready 
 and apt to place them upon a pedestal for our admira- 
 tion. Of such men, especially of Francis B. Cutting, 
 he spoke with delight and with peculiar love, and if I 
 may deflect from the regular order of these exercises, 
 when I speak of Mr. Cutting, will my brethren par- 
 don me if at the same time, I say one kind and 
 loving word of a gentleman who was in Mr. Cutting's 
 office many years, who helped to prepare the briefs 
 in some of the causes in which those two Titans met 
 and fought their battles, and who died on precisely 
 the same day as Mr. O'Conor, I mean our brother 
 McDaniel, a genial, honest, truthful gentleman. 
 
 There is one thing more, and it is the last I shall 
 allude to. The subject is almost too sacred and too 
 delicate to touch ; that is the deep religious convic- 
 tions of Mr. O'Conor. It is true, as he said of his 
 brilliant brother, he belonged to an unfashionable 
 faith ; but that faith he kept from the cradle to the 
 grave. It was a help to him in the temptations of 
 life. It was a comfort to him in the approaching 
 agony of dissolution. He had gone twice, to use his 
 own language, through the valley of the shadow of 
 death. He was not anxious to be brought back. He 
 had lived a faithful life. He had never thought it 
 necessary to affirm his intellectual superiority by 
 denying the common truths of the faith to which he 
 belonged, nor did he think that he was less a man 
 
40 
 
 because he was a Christian. And at the last moments, 
 surrounded by the consolations of that venerable 
 church of which he was a devoted son, happy to leave, 
 happy to go, even from the happy surroundings with 
 friends and kindred and independent age— with all 
 these about him — smilingly welcoming death, he left 
 behind him the record of a beautiful and blameless 
 life. 
 
 Mr. William M. Evarts said : 
 
 Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Judiciary, and 
 Brethren of the Bar: No one could desire more than 
 myself to participate in every due form of honor and 
 of praise to our deceased brother, Mr. O'Conor, and 
 when the Committee thought that I might add some- 
 thing to what should be said by the speakers who 
 were to precede me, I felt that many, perhaps all, ot 
 the topics would be adequately and completely occu- 
 pied, and that I certainly could not expect to improve, 
 and at my best could only hope to repeat them. But 
 yet I find that one of those advantages which are so 
 readily accorded by our brethren and are never re- 
 fused, advancing years, has enabled me to speak, per- 
 haps, with personal knowledge of a larger proportion 
 of the span of his great professional career than those 
 who have preceded me. 
 
 I came, sir, to this city from the law school in 1839, 
 and had the great advantage of being received into 
 the office of the eminent and excellent lawyer who 
 
41 
 
 then stood at the head of professional employments 
 in tliis city — I mean Mr. Lord. Two very distin- 
 guished lawyers, older than he, Mr. Griffin and Mr. 
 George Wood, both filled active employments and 
 had lost none of the prestige and the power that be- 
 longed to them for many years. There were two 
 other lawyers who were fully recognized as promising 
 to become the leaders at our Bar, and supplant, in due 
 course, all the great lawyers who occupied the arena. 
 These two lawyers were of the same age, and com- 
 batants arainst one another, in all of the causes that 
 belonged to their age in the profession. I mean Mr. 
 Cutting and Mr. O'Conor. And I know that no pang 
 ever touched the heart of Mr. O'Conor more closely 
 or more tenderly than the earlier departure of this 
 great lawyer, his friend and his opponent. Gentle- 
 men who were present when Mr. O'Conor gave utter- 
 ance to the full outpouring of his heart on that com- 
 memorative occasion remember how he said, and how 
 sincerely he was believed when he said : ''If that 
 process spoken of in the medical profession by which 
 the life of one man could be saved by the transfusion 
 into his veins of the blood of another, at the cost of 
 that other's life, could have saved Cutting, I would 
 have made the sacrifice for him." Admitted to the 
 Bar myself in 1841, these two leaders, who were at 
 that time interesting the attention of their seniors and 
 greatly engaging the observation of the younger and 
 growing members of the profession, stood at the age 
 of thirty-seven years, and, thus, you will perceive, that 
 though the earlier period of Mr. O'Conor's life had 
 
42 
 
 passed before I could observe or know of him, I do 
 include from that date of his assured eminence in our 
 profession — which never changed except to grow and 
 advance step by step in his Hfe — a personal witness 
 of his employments and the multitude and dignity of 
 his occupations, down to the end. 
 
 How I came to be personally acquainted with Mr. 
 O'Conor, I scarcely recall. Probably, it was without 
 any formal introduction and by some kind notice on 
 his part, in some litigation in which I had appeared as 
 an antagonist, or as a subordinate. From that time 
 on until his death our associations were in great part 
 professional. The occasions on which we met socially, 
 from his somewhat reserved habits in the matter of 
 society and social entertainments, and from my being 
 so much younger, were comparatively infrequent. 
 But I may say that whenever we had occasion to meet 
 as opponents, or, which was more rarely, as associates, 
 in the great litigations in which he was constantly em- 
 ployed, there was in every respect kind acceptance on 
 his part of the respect and regard which I always felt 
 and exhibited towards him. I cannot detail the mul- 
 titude of his engagements that attracted attention and 
 that will make the record of his professional career. 
 I cannot occupy even much attention with the con- 
 siderable number of "reat cases in which I had the 
 fortune to be emj^loyed, in opposition to him, and 
 more rarely in association with him. But I think I 
 can say with your entire concurrence, that no cause 
 which he represented suffered, in its defense or in its 
 prosecution, in any of the qualities, mental, moral or 
 
43 
 
 personal, tliat should be at the service of clients, that 
 should be at the service of the administration of jus- 
 tice, and the maintenance of the law. Whenever he 
 carried the day triumphantly he carried it by open 
 and by manly strength, skill and courage, and when- 
 ever he was overborne in tlie contest — not often, to 
 be sure, by personal triumph, but by the law and the 
 decision — he was always ready and frank and gene- 
 rous in admitting that the strength and the skill of his 
 opponents had gained the victory. 
 
 Mr. O'Conor, as a man, by the very constitution of 
 his nature, formed very confident, very definite and 
 very deep opinions on all the matters that make up 
 our intercourse at the Bar and in the community. He 
 had opinions well marked of his friends and of those 
 who were not his friends. He had very definite esti- 
 mates and measures of the comparative power, learning, 
 sincerity and value of his legal brethren. But I think 
 I can say, in confirmation of what those who spoke 
 before me have said, that he never took pleas- 
 ure in giving expression to disparaging views or to 
 severe condemnation, and that he was always ready to 
 make up, for his condemnation of a particular charac- 
 teristic that he could not approve, by assigning prom- 
 inence to other traits that were meritorious. 
 
 Mr. O'Conor is often spoken of as having enjoyed 
 no early advantages for a career in our profession. 
 The son of an Irishman expatriated for his patriotism, 
 himself at home a gentleman and a man of good es- 
 tate, and overpowered by some disastrous reverse of 
 fortune, Mr. O'Conor, as a boy, was subjected to the 
 
44 
 
 harshest experience of poverty. Well, let us admit 
 that the child's privations and the child's griefs were 
 hard to bear. But never let us forget, in the expe- 
 rience of our profession and of its triumphs, most 
 worthy of being commemorated, the truth that the 
 discipline of poverty and of necessity is the one best 
 assurance for the making of a great lawyer and the 
 gaining of the great fame and the great enjoyments 
 accompanying success at the Bar. Looking around 
 our own Bar ; looking at the faces of the dead that 
 we have known ; running through the list of the 
 British Bar and of our whole country, we must all feci 
 as a general and principal truth, that a young man of 
 the best natural talents and of the best aptitudes of 
 skill, of eloquence, of grace and charm, born in him, if 
 when he leaves the lawyer's office, or the college, or 
 the law school, with even enough wealth to keep him 
 out of want, he starts just so far at a disadvantage 
 in the race with others, not thus situated. Mr. O'Conor, 
 endowed by nature with these prodigious gifts of in- 
 tellect, of insight, of discussion, of manifestation, of 
 oratory, and with the added power of industry, that 
 if it was not born in him, was burnt into him by ten 
 years of poverty and struggle at our Bar, had every- 
 thing in his favor to make a great lawyer. Does 
 this disparage his success ? Does it make it any the 
 less his own .'' 
 
 Now, in the earlier years of Mr. O'Conor's life, 
 amid his struggles attending the first steps in which 
 he was making his way to distinction, it is said that 
 there was a good deal of sharpness, not to say bitter- 
 
45 
 
 ness, in the speech of the young lawyer at that time, 
 when emokiments and ease and wealth did not fall in 
 the way of our profession so much as now. It must 
 be remembered that when Mr. O'Conor was admitted 
 to the Bar there were only 166,000 people in this city 
 of ours, and only between three and four thousand 
 people in Brooklyn, and Mr. O'Conor has had the 
 singular fortune of growing up in his professional life 
 with the progress of the city — then thought to be 
 great, but become so vastly greater — without draw- 
 back and without any limitation ; greater in the mag- 
 nitude of professional employments and in the pres- 
 ence of wealth and of clients than is proportionate 
 even to the magnificent progress of the population. 
 We have seen, therefore, Mr. O'Conor growing up 
 from the young lawyer of twenty to the great lawyer 
 of fifty, of sixty, of seventy, and of eighty years, and 
 at the same time this city growing up from a small 
 comm.unity into this great union of two great cities of 
 two millions of people, second almost to London in 
 the magnitude of civic population. 
 
 Now, Mr. O'Conor, filling out fourscore years of 
 age, attracts attention to the notable fact that three- 
 score years out of that eighty years was the period of 
 his career as a lawyer, and that throughout all that 
 sixty years he could scarcely be said to have diverged 
 to any of the other provinces of public distinction or 
 of public service. Whether or not, Mr. Chief Justice, 
 when Mr. O'Conor had reached the fullness of his 
 power, of his fame, of his success, there had then 
 opened to him, as might have been anticipated, all 
 
46 
 
 the honors of judicial or professional and of political 
 distinction, he would have chosen to accept them, we 
 never can know. When the great change took place 
 in i860, by the transfer of the political power of this 
 country to other hands than those which had seemed 
 to have a hereditary and traditional possession of the 
 Government, Mr. O Conor was fifty-six years of age, 
 then in great fame, and unquestionably, we must sup- 
 pose, that, if the party he adhered to had then been 
 in power, he might well have had open to him great 
 professional places, the most prominent judicial pre- 
 ferment and distinction, and political employment. 
 Up to that time he had marked out his own undeviat- 
 ing professional path, and he withheld himself from 
 much participation in politics, though once or twice a 
 candidate, I believe, for the suffrage of popular favor. 
 But his own feelings, with reference to the changed 
 condition of affairs, were of aversion to, and distrust 
 of, the new political authorities that were put in 
 charge of the National Government, and in pursuance 
 of this fidelity to himself and his views, he discarded 
 from his scheme of life the whole subject of political 
 or judicial preferment. 
 
 Mr. O'Conor was pre-eminently a man without 
 vanity. He was, if we may use a coarser phrase, a 
 man absolutely hostile to every form of humbug. In 
 tlie profession, out of the profession, in life, among 
 friends, in society at large, in all public views, he 
 never tolerated for a moment, he never admitted as 
 an element of his praise and approval of others, this 
 
47 
 
 taint of humbug, wlienever it adhered to the character, 
 or showed itself in the conduct. 
 
 Mr. O'Conor, as a lawyer, starting with the disad- 
 vantage of narrow circumstances, against which he 
 had to strive, and enjoying at no time of his life the 
 advantages of much education, was, in my judgment 
 and to my perception, the most accomplished lawyer, 
 in the learning of the profession, of our Bar. Indeed, 
 I cannot be mistaken in saying that he was entitled 
 to pre-eminence in this province of learning among his 
 contemporaries in this country, and among the most 
 learned of the lawyers of any country, under our 
 system of jurisprudence. He used this learning 
 never as an element or an opportunity of display or 
 parade, but only as it was incorporated into the 
 power of his strong arm and his will, and as his 
 championship called for the exercise of what belonged 
 to him as a lawyer. 
 
 As Mr. O'Conor went on in advanced years, there 
 were many things that occurred under his eye, in the 
 progress of things in this great nation of ours, that he 
 could not look upon in the same light or with the 
 same hopes that others, differently situated or differ- 
 ently trained, regarded them. I not infrequently had 
 an opportunity, introduced, I think, always by him- 
 self, of a good deal of conversation about speculative 
 or general politics, not of a party nature, and he was 
 always acute and always courageous and always con- 
 fident in his opinions, showing the same traits that 
 upon the exact and more importunate occasions of 
 professional contest he was called upon to exhibit. 
 
48 
 
 Whether, remembering Mr, O'Conor's acuteness and 
 energy, and his resdessness in regard to being urfem- 
 ployed, we may suppose that, in his retirement, he 
 has prepared and left for us anything that will be use- 
 ful to us in our own profession, or in the larger 
 subject of the welfare and the future of our country, 
 I am not informed. But let us hope, now that his 
 life has gone out still brilliant at the last expiration, it 
 may be found that he has left for the instruction and 
 welfare of those who survive him, and of those who 
 are to come after us, something that shall add per- 
 manently to the honest, clear-sighted and fearless 
 criticism upon American affairs that he was ca- 
 pable of 
 
 And now, Mr. Chairman, we have gone far be- 
 yond our hours. We have not come here to bury 
 Mr. O'Conor. We have attended with reverent 
 brows at his obsequies, which the church of the old 
 faith has observed with the solemn consolations and 
 honors which it bestows upon its devoted adherents. 
 We are not here to praise him. He is praised by his 
 own life, and that is known to all. But we have come 
 to make up in some definite and permanent shape a 
 due tribute to his worth, a statement of the feeling 
 and the faith and the love that we felt for him and 
 now offer to his memory. But we come here for still 
 another reason. We come in recognition of the truth 
 that it is in the career of great lawyers, in their power 
 in their life, that we as a profession make our im- 
 pression on the time in which we live. Mr. O'Conor 
 well believed that in the free institutions developed in 
 
49 
 
 our day, in Europe and here, the stress must finally 
 come upon a well-equipped, courageous and upright 
 judiciary, and an intrepid and independent Bar. Let 
 us understand that whatever we, as individuals, may 
 owe to our clients, to our families, to our associates, 
 we owe to the law and the administration of justice, 
 the final, the principal, the constant duty ; and if we 
 are remembered well hereafter, it will be mainly for 
 our fidelity to this paramount obligation. 
 
 The resolutions were, thereupon, unanimously 
 adopted. 
 
•i« 
 
 In PrmoFg of 
 
 Q\&v\n 6'Oonop. 
 
 ^