BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 25 three Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, besides Edwin M. Stanton, who was nominated by President Grant and confirmed by the Senate, but died before taking his seat on the Bench. When it is remembered that Ohio became a State of the Union thirteen years after the Supreme Court of the United States was established, her relative share in the honors of that tribunal is the more remarkable. It certainly is a high compliment to the ability and character of her jurists. JOHN McLEAN was the first Ohio representative on the Bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, and he brought to the position great ability, broad learning and varied experience. He was a native of New Jersey, born in Morris county, March 1, 1785. He was really born into poverty. and the inhospitable conditions of his environment gave no promise of future greatness. His father, a poor, hard-working farmer, who was not anchored to any particular locality, changed his residence three times before the boy was a dozen years old. First, the family removed to Virginia, thence to Kentucky and thence to Ohio. Near the close of the century they settled, with some assurance of permanence, on the rich lands of Warren county, where John became familiar with toil and by the fire-light read such books as he could borrow. He was ambitious and resolute. his expanding mind refused to be satisfied with the rewards of the work of his hands. He craved better opportunities for mental growth than the frontier farm afforded and was permitted to leave the home of his parents in 1803, to seek his own fortune. Prior to that time he had the advantage of two years' study under a private tutor, paying his own expenses meanwhile by such work as he could find. At the age of eighteen he located in Cincinnati and found employment as copyist and writer in the office of the clerk of the court. He took up the study of the law meanwhile, improving all of his time in reading which was not employed at clerical work. His preceptor was Arthur St. Clair, son of the governor of Northwest Territory. He also availed himself of the Lyceum, in which he acquired the art of ready speaking and became strong in controversial discussion. His qualifications for practice were unusual for a young man of twenty-two, upon his admission to the Bar in 1807. His sholarship, obtained by the hardest, most patient work, was classical ; his mind was strong and flexible ; he was independent as to habits of thought and original as to method. His success was almost immediate and his growth rapid. Within five years he had gained a reputation at the Bar amongst the foremost practitioners of Ohio, and then his public career opened. He was elected to Congress as a Democrat in October, 1812, and re-elected in 1814. He had no opposition in the second race and enjoyed the unique compliment of receiving the vote of every elector in the district who voted on that day. For one so young he exercised great influence as a member of the House and served on the most important committees. He introduced and secured the passage of a bill providing for the payment of private citizens for property seized and appropriated to the public service. He had the courage to decline a candidacy for the United States Senate in 1815, when the election was reasonably assured. In 1816 he was 26 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. elected judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and served six years. In 1823 he was appointed commissioner of the land office by President Monroe, and discharged the duties with such efficiency and intelligence as to hold the position during the Whig administration of John Quincy Adams. Although a strong Democrat, he did not endorse the views of Andrew Jackson regarding public office as the " spoils" of partisan victors, and declined to accept at the hands of Jackson both the war and naval porfolios which were tendered him. In the same year, however, (1829) he was nominated for associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, and the nomination was promptly confirmed by the Senate. His service on the Supreme Bench continued until his death, December 4, 1861, and he exhibited admirable judicial qualities. Among the noteworthy opinions which he wrote was the one in which he dissented from the views expressed by Chief Justice Taney in the historic Dred Scott case. Judge McLean, always benevolent in disposition and charitable in views and action, had become a Free-soiler in 1848, and joined the Republican party upon its organization in 1856. He was a man of strong character, inflexible will, and therefore opinionated. When his opinion was formed and the judgment expressed, it was unalterable. It is proper to add, he was conscientious and thorough. He won the regard of all who came into contact with him by the very nobility of his presence, the benignant expression of his countenance and the graciousness of his manners. On the Bench he was the incarnation of dignity, wisdom and erudition. He left one son, Nathaniel C. McLean, a successful lawyer and colonel of the Seventy-fifth Ohio Regiment in the war of the Rebellion. NOAH HAYNES SWAYNE was one of the most distinguished jurists that Ohio has given to the nation. He was born in Culpepper county, Virginia, December 7, 1804, the youngest of five sons of Joshua Swayne, a prosperous and influential farmer, and a member of the Society of Friends. The family were Pennsylvanians, Francis Swayne, the earliest American progenitor, having come over with William Penn, and settled on a farm near Philadelphia, which is still in the possession of his descendants. Joshua Swayne died in 1808, having, some two years previously, removed to Jefferson county, Virginia, and his widow, a woman of remarkable vigor of mind and excellence of character, carefully conducted the training and education of her sons. After being kept at school in the neighborhood until he was thirteen years old, Noah was sent to the academy of Jacob Mendenhall, at Waterford, in Loudon county, then in high repute with the Society of Friends. Two years afterwards he was placed with Dr. George A. Thornton, a prominent physician at Alexandria, Virginia, who conducted the business of an apothecary in connection with his practice. It was intended that the studies begun here should be continued in a Philadelphia hospital, but the death of Dr. Thornton caused a change of plan, and fixed the mind of the student on the study of law as that of his choice. A collegiate education being regarded necessary in view of this change, he attended school at Alexandria, where he pursued his studies with great earnestness until thoroughly prepared for college, when his BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 27 guardian found himself without the funds to send the boy through a four years' course. Ambitious and undaunted, Noah decided to enter at once the law office of Scott & Brooks at Warrenton, finding there, as a fellow student, Henry S. Foote, afterward governor of and senator from Mississippi. Admitted to the Bar in 1823, the non-slaveholding example of his father corresponding with his own views on the subject, he resolved to remove immediately to Ohio. The entire journey, as was the fashion of those days, was travelled on horseback. After passing at Zanesville the year of preliminary residence, at that time required by law before an attorney from another State could engage in practice, he opened an office in 1825 at Coshocton. His success was sudden, and during the year he was elected prosecuting attorney for the county, and held the office until elected to the legislature in 1829. In 1830 he was appointed United States attorney for the district of Ohio, and removed to Columbus, where the United States Courts for the State were then held. He declined later the office of presiding Common Pleas judge for the circuit, an office to which two years later he was elected by the legislature. In 1832 he married at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, Miss Sarah Ann Wager of that place, and became by this marriage the owner of a number of slaves, who, by the joint act of himself and wife, were immediately manumitted. The years following until his elevation to the Supreme Bench, were devoted to his practice, and, after holding the office of district attorney nine years, he resigned. In 1837, with Alfred Kelly and Gustavus Swan as his associates, he was appointed by the legislature a commissioner to take charge of the State debt. Those commissioners faithfully applied themselves to their difficult task, and in three years restored the State credit and supplied the funds to complete the public works. Having in the most economical manner completed the work assigned, they resigned, after refusing to accept any compensation for their services. The controversy on the subject of the southern boundary of Michigan having occasioned much public excitement, Judge Swayne, with David T. Disney and William Allen, were sent by the governor of Ohio to Washington, and effected there a peaceful solution of the controversy. In 1840, Judge Swayne, Dr. William M. Awl and Dr. James Hoge were by the legislature appointed to ascertain and report the number of blind persons in the State, preparatory to erecting asylums for them. Their labors resulted in the establishment of the admirable asylum of Ohio for the blind, and also the asylums in Columbus for the deaf and dumb, and for lunatics and imbeciles. Noah Swayne was the confidant and assistant of Governor William Dennison and ably aided the governor in his preparation of levies of troops for the field. A complete change took place in the political opinion of Mr. Swayne in view of the war of secession, and he identified himself then and subsequently with the supporters of the Federal government. One of the law cases in which Judge Swayne achieved great celebrity was the trial of William Kissane and others in the United States Circuit Court, in 1853, for burning the steamboat Martha Washington to obtain the insurance. His opposing counsel in the case was Henry Stan bery, afterwards attorney-general of the United States. 28 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. Among other distinguished lawyers engaged in the case were Judge Walker and Messrs. Ewing, Pugh and Pendleton. In 1839 Judge Swayne formed a partnership with James L. Bates, of Columbus, which continued until 1852. In 1853 Llewellyn Haber, a relation of Judge Swayne, succeeded Mr. Bates in the partnership. This partnership was dissolved April 1, 1860. In May, 1859, Judge Swayne appeared as co-counsel with Mr. Belden, United States district attorney in the famous fugitive slave cases, being pitted against Attorney-General Wolcott. The Sixth Circuit of the Supreme Court of the United States, comprising at that time Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Illinois, was presided over by the venerable Judge McLean, between whom and Judge Swayne a warm personal friendship had existed for many years, and the wish the former had often expressed that he might be succeeded by Judge Swayne was well known to leading members of the Bar within the circuit. The appearance of Judge Swayne before the Supreme Court at Washington about this time probably induced members of that court to favor the appointment, and, on the unexpected death of Judge McLean, Judge Swayne was appointed by President Lincoln in February, 1862, a justice of the United States Supreme Court, and he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate with expressions of general approval. He held the position of associate justice until 1881, when he was obliged, on account of advanced age, to resign. He died in New York City on June 8, 1884, at the age of eighty. The degree of LL. D. was conferred on him by Yale, Dartmouth and Marietta colleges. Judge Swayne had nine children ; four sons—General Wager Swayne, Henry Foote Swayne, Noah and Frank Swayne; five daughters — Catherine, Rebecca, Virginia, Sallie and Mrs. Edward Parsons. The four daughters first named died in childhood and were buried in Green Lawn Cemetery, Columbus, Ohio. SALMON PORTLAND CHASE was appointed Chief Justice by President Lincoln in 1864, to succeed the venerable Justice Taney. Judge Chase stood a giant among men—physically, mentally, morally. He sprang from a union of English Puritans with Scotch Covenanters, and inherited the firmness and fortitude, the character and constancy which belonged to those sturdy religionists. He was born at Cornish, New Hampshire, January 13, 1808, eighth of the eleven children of Ithamer Chase and Janette Ralston. His father, a farmer of very moderate means, who died too early to have any part in his rearing or education, belonged to a family of much prominence and distinction. One brother, Dudley Chase, was a senator of the United States for New Hampshire ; another, Philander Chase, was a distinguished bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Salmon was a very industrious youth, working hard in season, during the day, and studying at times when boys more favored of fortune slept. He became the protege of his uncle Philander, whom he accompanied to the West, when that dignitary was appointed Bishop of the Diocese of Ohio. At Worthington he continued to work and at the same time continued his studies under safe and wise direction. When the uncle went to Cincinnati as president of the college Salmon went with him, entered the college and pursued its course of study one year. He then returned East, entered BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 29 the Junior class at Dartmouth, completed thecourse and was graduated in 1826. He paid his expenses by tutoring and work outside. On leaving college, when little more than eighteen years of age, he went to Washington, D. C., where be engaged for a while in teaching a classical school. This was not an unqualified success, except for the extremely fortunate circumstance of having for his pupils the sons of some very distinguished Americans, among whom were Henry Clay and William Wirt. The latter, famous both as an orator and a lawyer, conceived a fancy for young Chase and induced him to take up the study of law. For three years he studied under the direction of Mr: Wirt, and then, in 1829, located in Cincinnati for practice. During the first years his time was not fully occupied with law business and he wisely employed his leisure in compiling a new edition of the Ohio Statutes, including the territorial enactments. This work completed bore such evidence of painstaking, such discriminating 'judgment and thorough knowledge of legal principles, as to give the young lawyer a definite standing in the profession and attract to him desirable clients. The historical introduction to "Chase's Statutes" arrested attention by its accuracy of statement and pure literary style. Thenceforward he was a busy man and a successful lawyer. All of the powers of his great mind were concentrated and devoted to acquiring a deep and thorough knowledge of the principles of the law and to the application of those principles, as well as statutes, in the trial of causes. He won his way to the forefront by the time he was forty years of age. One or two cases tried in the early years of his practice contributed much to his fame, evidencing as they did his independence and his disposition to antagonize slavery, no less than his original views of the constitutional rights and limitations of the system. A slave woman known as Matilda, brought to Cincinnati by her master, refused to return to bondage and Salmon P. Chase, then a very young practitioner, conducted her suit for freedom. He contended that slavery, being naturally wrong and repugnant to the common law, could only be maintained by special enactment, and slaveholders had no right to retain possession or control of their slaves in a free State. He was also counsel of James G. Birney, abolitionist publisher, in the prosecution of a mob that destroyed his presses and type in Cincinnati. His convictions on the subject of slavery were deep and firm enough to influence his political action. He was a democrat in a broad sense and acted with the Democratic party during the early part of his political career; although he was a leader in every convention and popular movement to restrict slavery. In 1849, by a fusion of the Free-soilers and Democrats in the legislature, he was elected to the United States Senate, and soon became conspicuous as a member of that body for his powerful opposition to the compromise measures of 1850, which gave birth to the Fugitive Slave Law. He broke with the Democratic party in 1852, when the platform of its national convention endorsed that law and denounced any further discussion of slavery as a moral and political question. At the close of his term as senator, in 1855, he was elected governor of Ohio by the anti-administration voters of all parties, and was re-elected in 1857. In this office he displayed rare 30 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. executive ability. Foreseeing the issue of civil war, he organized the militia of the State and placed it on a war footing. His name was proposed in the Republican convention of 1860 as a candidate for President, and he received the votes of forty-nine delegates. He was appointed by his gubernatorial successor a member of the Peace Conference held in Washington at the instance of Virginia early in 1861. As one of the ablest and most eminent members of that body, he labored to induce the Southern leaders to trust Mr. Lincoln, and seek redress of their alleged grievances in the Union and under the Constitution. With deep feeling he urged them to halt and ponder the situation. In closing his appeal he said : " On the coming 4th of March Mr. Lincoln will be inaugurated, and take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States—of all the United States, and that oath will bind him to take care that the laws are faithfully executed throughout the United States. Will secession absolve him from that oath ? If the President does his duty, and secession or revolution result, what then ? Civil war. Let us not plunge madly into that unfathomable gulf." When Mr. Lincoln became President he nominated Mr. Chase for secretary of the treasury, and the Senate promptly confirmed the nomination. Mr. Chase accepted the position, impressed deeply and solemnly with a sense of the responsibility it imposed. The treasury was empty, and the credit of the government was much impaired by the vacillating policy of the last administration. Secretary Chase was, at the threshold of his career as head of the treasury department, confronted by problems not less momentous and perplexing, and certainly much more embarrassing, than those which engaged Alexander Hamilton seventy years earlier. He was obliged to devise and formulate a system of raising revenue on a stupendous scale unprecedented in the history of the country. He must calmly and patiently create a fiscal policy at a time when one-third of the States had formally withdrawn from the Union and menaced the government by rebellion. The credit of the Nation must be restored so that money could be borrowed at reasonable rates of interest, and the chief reliance for loans must be our own people. Theretofore Mr. Chase had not been prominent as a financier. No situation in his life had called into action talents distinctively financial ; but now he rose grandly to the occasion, and his genius created a system of finance sufficiently elastic to meet the exigencies and enormous requirements of the civil war and the moderate demands of a condition of peace. He entertained some doubt as to the constitutional power of the government to issue its treasury notes except as a war measure, and his doubt was shared by half the judges of the Supreme Court. A majority of that tribunal, however, after two justices had been added, settled the question by an affirmative decision. His greatest achievement for posterity was the substitution of National for State banks. Mr. Chase was ambitious. He desired the Presidency of the United States. Many of his intimate friends urged his candidacy in 1864, while a large majority of the party favored the renomination of Mr. Lincoln. In June, 1864, Mr. Chase resigned from the Cabinet, and in November of the same year President Lincoln appointed him Chief Justice of the United States, Supreme Court. He BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 31 was an ideal Chief Justice, possessing in the highest degree the talents and attributes which enabled him to honor the position. He was a superb specimen of physical manhood ; his frame was large, his carriage erect and stately ; his head magnificent in its proportions and poise ; his features were regular and refined, and his air altogether distinguished. Few Americans have been permitted to round out a career of equal greatness and usefulness. Mr. Chase was married three times. His first wife died in 1835, after one year of married life ; his second lived six years, dying in 1845: his third also lived six years, dying in 1852. His brilliant daughter, for whom his attachment was singularly strong, presided with charming grace in his Washington home while he was Secretary and Chief Justice. Judge Chase was a man of the most refined taste and undoubted purity. He was at all times under perfect self-control. He died in 1873. MORRISON R. WAITE was appointed Chief Justice in January, 1874, to succeed Justice Chase. He was born in Lyme, Connecticut, November 29, 1816. His father, Henry Matson Waite, was also a native of Lyme, a graduate of Yale College, who practiced law in his native town with large success ; filling the offices successively of representative and senator in the State legislature ; receiving appointment in 1834 as judge of the Supreme Court of Errors, and later being elected Chief Justice by unanimous vote of the legislature, a position which he held until the age limit of seventy years was reached. Members of the Waite family generally were great men, and men of strong character and upright lives. The mother of Morrison R. Waite was a granddaughter of Colonel Samuel Selden, who commanded a Connecticut regiment in the Revolutionary army ; was made prisoner of war in September, 1776, and died the following month. Judge Waite was graduated from Yale in 1837, in a class comprising William M. Evarts, Edwards Pierrepont, Samuel J. Tilden, Benjamin Silliman, and others 'more or less distinguished. He took up the study of law in his father's office, but in 1838 came west and settled at Maumee, Ohio, where he renewed his studies in the office of Samuel M. Young. Ike was admitted to the Bar in 1839, and formed a partnership with his preceptor. The practice of that time involved travel on horseback to the different counties of the circuit and the management of all kinds of cases. In 1850 Mr. Waite removed to Toledo, opening a branch office for his firm, and six years later, upon the retirement of his associate from practice, his brother, Richard Waite, became a partner. This association was continued until his appointment as Chief Justice, when his son, E. T. Waite, became the junior partner of his brother. Mr. Waite continued in the practice and was very soon recognized throughout the State as one of the greatest lawyers at the Bar. He never was at any time a politician and yet always had deep convictions upon the important questions which separated parties. He was first a Whig and afterwards a Republican ; was elected representative in the State legislature in 1849 and served with special credit. He was a candidate for delegate to the Constitutional convention of 1850, but defeated simply on account of politics. Throughout the war he was the very earnest supporter of Mr. Lincoln's administration, 32 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. and was especially in sympathy with his policy of making the preservation of the Union, and not the abolition of slavery, the paramount issue of the war. He was chosen by the Republicans who represented that policy as a candidate for Congress in 1862, but was defeated. In 1863 he declined the position of judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, tendered by Governor Brough. Although his practice had been within the borders of Ohio almost entirely, his reputation as an able constitutional lawyer had become national ; so that in December, 1871, he was appointed by President Grant one of counsel representing the United States in the arbitration at Geneva, where the claim of the government against Great Britain for the depredations committed by the "Alabama " was submitted. Before that tribunal he demonstrated large capacity, entire familiarity with the case and a wide knowledge of international law. There was no more effective presentation of the government's case than the one made by Morrison R. Waite. When the award was finally settled by the board of arbitration he returned to Toledo and resumed his law practice. As evidence of his growth among the people of his own section of the State it is only necessary to mention the fact that he was elected without opposition, in 1873, to the convention called to revise the Constitution of the State, and when that convention assembled in Cincinnati he was chosen president. While serving as presiding officer he was nominated by President Grant for Chief Justice, although he had taken no steps to secure the position and was not aware that his name was seriously considered by the President. Members of the convention over which he presided were greatly pleased with the honor conferred upon him and a resolution was introduced expressing approbation of his nomination. This resolution he very promptly ruled out of order. It is a singular fact that Mr. Waite was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court only one year before his nomination as Chief Justice, and his admission was upon the motion of Caleb Cushing ; and Caleb Cushing's name had been sent' to the Senate as the successor of Chief Justice Chase, and then withdrawn by the President just before Waite's nomination. Mr. Waite assumed the duties of Chief Justice March 4, 1874, and continued to discharge them with marked ability until his death in 1888. He brought to the position a very large mental capacity, and powers of physical endurance almost unequalled. Naturally strong and well knit as to his organism, he had been trained in early life by hard work and had become thoroughly seasoned by the exercise and toil incident to his early practice. his life had always been free from vicious habits and he was therefore strong, symmetrical and perfect in the development of a powerful physique. His experiences in the rough and tumble contests of the forum had contributed to his qualification for the labor and the acumen necessary to the correct decision of important questions submitted to the highest court. He took up the work courageously, exhibiting always ability, industry and patience in the discharge of his duty. He possessed the dignity of character and of manner which commanded respect. Under his guidance the business of the court was transacted with harmony among the judges, and decisions were reached with as much facility as at any period of the court's history. He wrote many of the deci- BENCH AND BAR OP OHIO - 33 sions himself, and all of them passed the scrutiny of the critics and were accepted without complaint as the law of the land by all parties interested. Judge Waite had a very exalted estimate of the character and responsibilities of the office of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He regarded it so reverently as not to lend himself to any movement on the part of his friends to make him a candidate for President. He was not ambitious to be chief executive of the Nation, and as a matter of principle he declined with great positiveness to permit the use of his name in that connection. He averred it was dangerous to have a judge look beyond the judiciary in his personal ambition. In all that pertained to the duties of his office he was sincere, honest, painstaking and capable. His usefulness was the more conspicuous because he was satisfied with the honors conferred and was unselfish throughout his public life. Judge Waite was married September 21, 1840, with Amelia C., daughter of Samuel Selden Warner, of Lyme, Connecticut. Five children were born of this union, of whom Henry Selden died April 10, 1873, leaving a wife and two sons ; Christopher C., a railroad official of prominence, died in Columbus in 1896; and one died in infancy. The living are Edward T., lawyer, Toledo, and Mary F., of Washington, D. C. STANLEY MATTHEWS, for many years a leader of the Bar of Ohio and of the country, was born at Cincinnati, July 21, 1824. His father, Thomas J. Matthews, was a native of Leesburg, Virginia, and subsequently professor of mathematics in Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. He was by vocation a civil engineer, and as such ran the State line between Tennessee and Kentucky, and built the Lexington and Frankfort Railroad. The mother of Stanley was Isabella Brown, a daughter of Colonel William Brown, who came from Connecticut and settled at Columbia in Hamilton county, Ohio, in 1788. Stanley Matthews passed his boyhood in Kentucky, but in 1832 his father was made president of Woodward High School in Cincinnati, and the son entered that institution as a pupil and remained there continuously until 1839, when he entered the Junior class of Kenyon College at Gambier, Ohio, whence he graduated the following year, having displayed especial proficiency in the classics. In the following fall he entered upon the study of the law at Cincinnati. In 1842 he removed to Maury county in Tennessee, where for two years he was a teacher in the Union Seminary, near Spring Hill, conducted by the Rev. John Hudson. In February, 1843, he married Mary, a daughter of James Black, a resident of Maury county. He began the practice of the law at Columbia, and also edited there a weekly political paper called the Tennessee Democrat. In 1844 he returned to Cincinnati, and being admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1845, he formed a partnership with Judge Heys and Isaac C. Collins. He became prominent as assistant prosecuting attorney of the county, which appointment was secured for him by the president judge, William B. Caldwell. His reading of Dr. Gamaliel Bailey's anti-slavery daily newspaper, the Cincinnati Herald, led to his temporary abandonment of the law, and in November, 1846, he became the editor of that paper and so continued for over a year, until the suspension of its publication. His political position by that time was 34 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. of such prominence that he was elected clerk of the Ohio House of Representatives for the session of 1848-9, at which Salmon P. Chase was elected United States senator. In 1850 he resumed the practice of the law, and in 1851, after the adoption of the new State Constitution, he was elected one of the three judges of the Court of Common Pleas of Hamilton county. He resigned his position January 1, 1853, and formed a partnership with Vachel Worthington, his former law preceptor, under the firm name of Worthington & Matthews. In 1855 he was elected to the Ohio Senate and served his term. In 1858 he was appointed United States attorney for the Southern District of Ohio by President Buchanan. Shortly after the inauguration of President Lincoln he resigned his office, and in June, 1861, was commissioned lieutenant colonel of the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. The colonel of the regiment was W. S. Rosecrans, and the major Rutherford B. Hayes. He. served in the West Virginia campaign until October, when he became colonel of the Fifty-first Ohio, and served under General D. C. Buell in the operations of the Army of the Cumberland in Kentucky and Tennessee. He was provost marshal of Nashville until July, 1862, when he was put in command of a brigade. In May, 1863, he was elected judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati, having for his associates Bellamy Storer and George Hoadly. He resigned this office in July, 1865, and at once took a leading position at the Bar. Although previous to the war Judge Matthews had been a Democrat, his affiliations subsequently to that time had been Republican. In 1872 he was temporary chairman of the Liberal Republican Convention, but refused to support Mr. Greeley, its nominee. In 1876 he was the Republican candidate for Congress, but was defeated by General Henry B. Banning, after a very close vote. In the celebrated contest before the electoral commission Judge Matthews appeared for Rutherford B. Hayes, and his arguments before that tribunal were the admiration of the Bar of the country. Subsequently, when John Sherman resigned his seat in the Senate to accept the treasury portfolio, Stanley Matthews was selected to serve out his unexpired term, being succeeded in 1879 by George H. Pendleton. Upon the retirement of Justice Swayne from the Supreme Bench, President Hayes, and subsequently President Garfield, nominated Stanley Matthews for the vacant position. He was confirmed and received his commission May 12, 1881, and served on the Supreme Bench until the time of his death, March 22, 1889. Shortly after Mr. Justice Matthews removed to Washington he lost his wife. Two sons, one of whom, Mortimer, is a member of the Cincinnati Bar, and three daughters survive this union. In June, 1887, Mr. Justice Matthews was married in Washington to a highly cultured woman. Mr. Justice Matthews stood in the very first rank of Ohio lawyers. His learning was prodigious and his mind was trained to a thorough grasp of every phase of the law. Readiness, accuracy and force distinguished him as a debater and advocate. A man of fine physical „presence, great personal dignity and an eminently judicial temperament, he represented the highest type of lawyer and judge. BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 35 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT. In pursuance of an Act of the Congress of the United States of America, begun and held at the city of Washington in the District of Columbia, on Monday the sixth day of December, in the year of our Lord 1802, entitled " An Act to provide for the due execution of the laws of the United States within the State of Ohio," the Honorable Charles Willing Byrd produced a commission from Thomas Jefferson, Esq., President of the United States of America, bearing date the third day of March, 1803, appointing him judge of the District Court of the United States in and for the Ohio District, together with a certificate of his having had the oath prescribed by an Act of Congress to regulate the time and manner of administering certain oaths, and also the oath of a judge of the District Court of the United States for the District of Ohio administered to him by Edward Tiffin, Esq., governor of the State of Ohio. And thereupon a court of the United States for the District of Ohio was held at the court house in the town of Chillicothe on Monday the sixth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and three,. and of American Independence the twenty-seventh. The said Charles Willing Byrd served as judge until August 11, 1828, when he died. And thereupon William Creighton, Jr., was appointed. The latter assumed his duties November 1, 1828, and held court until December 31st of the same year. His appointment failed for want of confirmation by the Senate and thereupon a vacancy occurred, which was not filled until March. Mr. Creighton had served as secretary of the State of Ohio, having been elected by the General Assembly in 1803. JOHN W. CAMPBELL was nominated by President Jackson March 7, 1829, and unanimously confirmed by the Senate. He entered upon the discharge of his judicial duties at once and served until his death on the 24th of September, 1833. Judge Campbell was a Virginian by birth and Scotch-Irish by descent and parentage. Near the beginning of the seventeenth century his Scotch ancestors emigrated from Argyleshire and settled near Londonderry in the North of Ireland. In 1740, members of the family first settled in Augusta county, Virginia, where he was born February 23, 1782. His education was carefully supervised by private tutors, two of whom were Presbyterian clergymen. He studied law under the instruction of his uncle, Thomas Wilson, at Morgantown, Virginia, was admitted to the Bar of Ohio in 1808, and began practice at West Union, Adams county. The family had removed into the territory in 1798. By his engaging manners and estimable character, his knowledge of the law and careful attention to business, he was enabled to rise rapidly in his profession. He served as prosecuting attorney for the counties of Adams and Highland, was a member of the legislature, and in 1812 was a candidate for Congress. He was defeated the first time, but was elected in 1816, and re-elected four times, by a vote that was practically unanimous. He 36 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO discharged the duties of Congressman faithfully and honestly for ten years, and was ever mindful of the obligation to his constituents arising from the representative character of the office. He was a supporter of Jackson's theory of the supremacy of the national law, and was the opponent of protective tariff. On retiring from Congress he settled on a farm in Brown county in 1827, and was the Democratic candidate for governor in 1828. His canvass was in all respects creditable to him, although it did not end in his election. Defeat at the polls was followed a few months later by his appointment to the office of judge of the United States Court for the District of Ohio. Judge Campbell was a severe student and a man of exemplary habits. He neglected no duty, and found much time' by rising at a very early hour in the morning for writing on various topics of popular concern, and for literary study. He was a believer in Christianity and observed its precepts in his daily life. When the scourge of cholera visited Columbus-- in 1833 no hands were found more willing to relieve- want, and no voice brought more solace and cheer to stricken households than the hands and the voice of Judge Campbell. He literally wore his life out' in saving others or administering to their relief. Anxiety and exposure and the strain of overwork so reduced his vitality that he was unable to resist the acute attack, which terminated in his death at Delaware Springs, September 24, 1833. Judge Campbell had a clear intellect and a cultivated mind. He discerned points and principles of law and expressed his views with precision. His practical, saving common sense was. his unerring monitor. BENJAMIN TAPPAN was appointed September 24, 1833, by President Jackson to succeed Judge Campbell and held court for three days—December 23, 24 and 25, 1833— but the Senate refused to confirm him and thereupon a vacancy ensued which was not filled for more than six months. Judge Tappan, a native of Northampton, Massachusetts, had come to Ohio Territory in 1799 at the age of twenty-six and entered upon the practice of law at Steuben ville. As a boy he had been apprenticed to a copper-plate engraver in Boston and learned the trade before taking up the study of law. His father was a gold and silversmith by trade and his mother was Sarah Homes, a grandniece of Benjamin Franklin. He belonged to a family of considerable distinction in commercial affairs, church work and philanthropy. 'He served as member of the legislature of Ohio and was presiding judge of the Court of Common Pleas for seven years, and senator of the United States four years. He was a good lawyer, somewhat droll in manner, but master of a quick wit and keen sense of humor. He became a Free-soiler, lived to the age of four score and died at Steubenville in 1857. HUMPHREY H. LEAVITT succeeded Tappan, entering upon the discharge of his judicial duties July 24, 1834. He was born at Suffield, Connecticut, June 18, 1796, and came to Ohio with his parents in 1800, settling at Steubenville after a short stop at Cadiz. After admission to the Bar he served a term as prosecuting attorney, was elected representative and senator in the State legislature, served in Congress from 1830 to 1834 and at the close of his. BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 37 second term was appointed to the district judgeship. He served thirty-seven years on the Bench of this court and retired by virtue of the constitutional provision regarding the age limit. He was.a clear-headed lawyer and a high-minded judge ; conscientious in the discharge of a public or a private duty and painstaking to discover his duty with respect to any question presented for investigation or decision. He was exceedingly well versed in laws relating to patents, and some of his decisions in cases of that class have been accepted as the highest authority. He was a firm supporter of the government during the Rebellion, and held that incendiary speech, calculated to excite sedition, at such a time, was not to be justified or tolerated as a right of " free speech." On February 10, 1855, the State was divided into the " Northern District" and the " Southern District " of Ohio, Judge Wilson receiving appointment for the Northern District. From that time until his retirement Judge Leavitt presided in the Southern District. He was a Presbyterian arid served as commissioner in the General Assembly of the church eleven times. HIRAM V. WILSON, the first judge appointed for the United States Court in the Northern District of Ohio, was nominated by President Pierce in March, 1855, soon after the Act of Congress dividing the State became a law by the signature of •the President. Judge Wilson had gone to Washington at the instance of the Cleveland Bar to labor for the passage of the bill, and his appointment to the judgeship was acceptable to members of the profession acquainted with his abilities and characteristics as a lawyer. He was a native of Madison county, New York, born in April, 1808; was graduated from Hamilton College in 1832 ; read law under the instruction of Honorable Jared Wilson of Canandaigua, New York, and Francis Scott Key of Washington, D. C., author of "The Star Spangled Banner." He was energetic, studious and self-reliant, maintaining himself while pursuing his studies by teaching school. Upon coming west in 1833 he stopped in Painesville for a short time, but soon settled in Cleveland, where he formed a partnership with the late Henry B. Payne, a former classmate in college. Both were very poor at the time, with barely the necessaries of life; but they were persistent, plucky, hopeful. In 1844 Edward Wade was received into the firm, changing the name to Payne, Wilson & Wade. Upon the retirement of Mr. Payne in 1846, Reuben Hitchcock succeeded him in the firm of Hitchcock, Wilson & Wade. In 1850 Mr. Hitchcock retired and James Wade was admitted to the firm, which became Wilson, Wade & Wade, and so continued until Judge Wilson's appointment to the Bench. Up to that time he was a lawyer, devoted wholly to the practice, with ever increasing success and ever growing reputation. He had, it is true, prior to his elevation to the Bench, engaged actively in partisan politics, and was the Democratic candidate for Congress in 1852. It was a three-cornered contest—Whig, Democrat and Free-soiler—and his law partner, Edward Wade, was elected as the Free-soil candidate. Upon his elevation to the Bench Judge Wilson abandoned the field of partisan politics forever. He held it was the duty of a judge to keep his mind free from the possibility of bias or prejudice which might be fostered by the too active 38 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. support of a party. He was a pure and upright judge: measuring up to the Baconian standard of impartiality. He became exceedingly proficient in admiralty law as applicable to the great chain of lakes and inland navigation generally. Perhaps his opinions set forth at length in deciding important cases of this character are the clearest expositions of the law to be found in the books. Certainly none exhibited a deeper research and none have been more generally accepted as authoritative. The prominent citizens of Oberlin, indicted for the rescue of a fugitive slave from his captors in violation of the Fugitive Slave Law, were tried in his court, and it is said he calmly and dispassionately charged the jury, without a manifestation of partisan zeal or a disposition to be influenced by the demonstration in favor of the prisoners. He was a War Democrat, judicially, holding that any attempt to subvert the government was treasonable ; but the right of peaceful assembly and free speech should not be abridged or denied. Judge Wilson was naturally and always courteous, extolling the virtue of urbanity by his own example. His veneration for the profession was profound, and both at the Bar and on the Bench he sought to honor it. He died of consumption November 11, 1866. CHARLES T. SHERMAN, of Cleveland, son of Judge Charles R. Sherman of the Supreme Court of Ohio, was appointed March 2, 1867, to succeed Judge Wilson, and served until 1873, when he resigned. Martin Welker was thereupon appointed and served until January 16, 1890. AUGUST J. RICKS, appointed to succeed Judge Welker on the day of the latter's retirement, is a native of Ohio. He was born at Massillon, February 10, 1843, son of Charles Ricks and Regina Marguerite LaPierre. His paternal lineage is German and his father lived in the fatherland (Prussia) until he arrived at man's estate. His grandfather, a man of large wealth, was engaged in the carrying trade when Napoleon's army confiscated his horses and wagons, together with all movable property, in 1813, leaving him poor. Judge Ricks attended the public and high schools of Massillon, and matriculated at Kenyon College in 1861. The martial spirit led him from the college to the army in 1862, with a lieutenant's commission. On account of his youth and inexperience he declined the captaincy of his company, which was tendered. He served during the war, in the campaign of East Tennessee under General Burnside; on the staff of General Milo S. Hascall in the Atlanta campaign ; on the staff of General J. D. Cox, with the rank of captain, in North Carolina in 1865. On returning home he took up the study of law in Mansfield, but in a few months went south and resumed his studies in the office of Judge Baxter at Knoxville, Tennessee, until 1870, when Mr. Ricks became editor and proprietor of the Knoxville Chronicle, a daily newspaper, of which he retained possession five years. In 1875 he settled in Massillon, forming a law partner. ship with Judge Anson Pease. Three years later he was appointed clerk of the United States Court for the Northern District of Ohio, and while clerk acted as master in chancery by appointment of Judge Welker. Numerous cases, especially relating to railroads, were referred to him as master, in which his opinions, when reviewed, were almost uniformly sustained by the Supreme BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 39 Court. On account of his general ability as a lawyer and his fine powers of analysis and capacity for ascertaining the equities in a case, and his unimpeachable integrity, he was appointed district judge by President Harrison. Judge Ricks has performed his judicial duties with efficiency, except at such times as the state of his health rendered rest or a change of climate indispensable. He spent the winter of 1896-7 in California with some benefit. Judge Ricks is a broad-minded man of unusual mental force and capacity for reasoning. For several years he delivered lectures in the course at Kenyon College on Common Law and Code Pleading. That institution has conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL. D. He possesses the, elements of personal popularity and is much esteemed by his friends in and outside of the Bar. PHILIP B. SWING was appointed for the Southern District March 13, 1871, and served until his death October 30, 1882. WILLIAM WHITE was appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate to succeed Judge Swing, but owing to illness did not qualify and the vacancy was not filled until after his death in March, 1883, when Judge Sage was appointed. GEORGE R. SAGE was born at Erie, Pennsylvania, August 24, 1828, the eldest son of Rev. O. N. and Elizabeth (Berry) Sage—the former a native of Vermont, and the latter of New York. His father, who died in 1884, was a retired Baptist minister. His paternal ancestors came originally from Wales and settled in Connecticut about 1657. The ancestors of his mother, Elizabeth Berry, came over in the "Sarah Jane Fortune," the first vessel after the Mayflower. His grandfather on his Mother's side, Samuel Berry, a man of liberal education, was the first schoolmaster of Fredonia, New York. The family removed from Erie to Ohio in 1835, and in 1843 to Covington, Kentucky. They remained there until 1849, when they returned to Ohio, locating in Cincinnati, where they have since resided. Judge Sage was educated at Granville College, now Dennison University, Granville, Ohio, where he graduated in 1849. Before entering college he learned the printer's trade, and during his vacations throughout his college course employed his time in setting type in 'various printing offices. The year following his graduation he taught mathematics in the academy at Lebanon, Ohio, at the same time studying law: Returning to Cincinnati in 1850, he continued his legal studies under the supervision of Honorable Alphonso Taft, father of Judge William H. Taft of the United States Circuit Court. In the fall of 1850 he entered the Cincinnati Law School, where he was a classmate of the late Oliver P. Morton of Indiana. He was admitted to practice at Frankfort, Kentucky, in June, 1852, and on the same day argued his first case in the Court of Appeals of Kentucky. The case involved the control of the property of the Western Theological Institute, of Covington, Kentucky, then worth $400,000, and turned upon questions of constitutional law. Charles K. Morehead and M. M. Benton were the leading counsel with him, and Attorney-General Harlan, father of Justice Harlan of the Supreme Court of the United States, and Senator Morehead of Covington, the opposing counsel. Judge Sage received $500, his first fee, for his argument in that case. 40 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. He was then twenty-four years of age. In November, 1852, he was admitted to practice at Cincinnati, and in February, 1854, became a member of the law firm of King, Anderson & Sage. In 1857 he entered into partnership with Honorable Thomas Corwin, whose daughter, Eva A., he married in 1855. In 1858 the firm removed from Cincinnati to Lebanon, Ohio, where they were engaged in practice until Governor Corwin's death in December, 1865, Governor Corwin, however, being absent from Lebanon most of the time. Judge Sage returned to Cincinnati January 1. 1866, and soon secured a large and lucrative practice in important cases. In 1867 the law firm of Sage & Hinkle was formed, which continued up to Judge Sage's appointment to his present position by President Arthur, March 21, 1883. Prior to accepting this exalted position, Judge Sage held but one public office, that of prosecuting attorney of Warren county, Ohio, which he filled for six years. He had been repeatedly urged to become a candidate for Congress in the Warren district, but always declined. Judge White, who was appointed to succeed United States District Judge Swing, died in March, 1883, without having qualified as judge. Judge Sage was by President Arthur appointed his successor as United States District Judge for Southern Ohio, and took his seat on the Bench April 7, 1883, the anniversary of the battle of Shiloh. What was known as the iron-clad oath was administered to him by United States District Judge Hammond of Memphis, Tennessee, who was then holding court at Cincinnati under designation, and who at that battle fought on the rebel side. The affirmation of the oath is that the affiant had never voluntarily borne arms against the United States since he had been a citizen thereof, that he had not voluntarily given aid, countenance or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto, nor sought or expected or attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever under any authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States, and that he had not yielded a voluntary support to any pretended government, authority, power or Constitution within the United States hostile orinimical thereto. Judge Hammond, when he was qualified under his appointment by President Hayes, took the special oath provided for those who had participated in the Rebellion. When Lord Coleridge. visited Cincinnati, in making a tour, of the United States, the fact that the local Federal judge had been sworn in by a Federal judge who was an ex-Confederate, and that the latter had administered the iron-clad oath, was stated to him, and his comment was, that such a thing could not have occurred under any government on the face of the earth, except the government of the United States. While at the Bar, Judge Sage was employed in a very large number of important cases and was counsel in the only three cases wherein the trial proceedings were reported throughout in the daily press. Two of these, the case of the Irish Filibusters and the Bible case, were of national interest. Shortly before his appointment, Governor Foster tendered him a position on the Supreme Bench of Ohio, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Judge Longworth, but he declined the offer. He has two children, a daughter Caroline, the wife of Captain J. M. Burns, U. S. A., and BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 41 one son Corwin, who is connected with the C. C. C. & St. L. Railroad, at Cincinnati. Judge Sage is a close student and an untiring worker he is quick to grasp the controlling points in the case before him and limits counsel and witnesses to the questions involved, thereby dispatching the business of his court with great rapidity. He was, while at the Bar, noted for his remarkably effective cross examination of witnesses; on the Bench the same intuitive knowledge of human motives and emotions makes him especially strong as a nisi prius judge. Availing himself of the practice of the Federal courts, he charges the jury with great thoroughness, both as to the law and the facts, and his statements of controverted points are marvelously simple and fair. His decisions are written in a literary style at once incisive, polished and pure. As expositions of law they campare favorably with those of any judge in the Federal judiciary. He combines culture that comes from many years' study in all fields of knowledge, arid the maturity of intellect that is gained by long experience at Bench and Bar and by contact with men of prominence of several generations past, with a fund of anecdote and information that is within the reach of few living men. REPORTERS OF THE SUPREME COURT. BY E. O. RANDALL. The court reportorial system took its origin in England, and can be traced back to the Norman Conquest, from which it continued, in a more or less irregular and indifferent form, till the days of Elizabeth's illustrious reign, when Plowden's published reports (1550-1580) raised the office of court reporter to high legal dignity and great literary luster. Plowden was followed by the distinguished Coke, whose reports are among his most pretentious and valued legal work, and drew forth from his great rival Francis Bacon this tribute : To give every man his due, had it not been for Sir Edward Coke's Reports, the law, by this time, had been almost like a ship without ballast ; for that the cases of modern experience are fled from those that are adjudged and ruled in former times." Subsequent to the adoption of the first Constitution of Ohio (November, 1802) the first enactment organizing the judicial courts of the State was passed April 15, 1803. (Vol. 1. O. L., 35.) This original act was amended from time to time until February 23, 1816, when, for the first time in the State legislation, recognition was made of the necessity, on the part of the Supreme Court, for putting in permanent form and properly preserving its opinions accompanying its decisions. That law was as follows: " * * * * It shall be the duty of the court to reduce the reasons of their judgment to writing and cause the same to be filed with the other papers of such cause, and if it should happen that the judges of said court should differ in opinion, then the dissenting judge shall also reduce the reasons of his opinion to writing, and the same shall be filed as aforesaid." (14 0. L., 310.) The provisions of this act were doubtless complied with, but the reports filed by the court are no longer extant. They were probably relegated to the garret of the clerk's office, where they made unequal struggles " 'gainst the tooth of time, and razure of oblivion." January 20, 1823, the legislature amended the last act and provided : "Section 6. That the said judges shall appoint a reporter, who shall report all decisions made at said sessions in Columbus, and such other important decisions as he may be directed by said judges to report, and cause the same to be published as soon as may conveniently be done after such session." (21 0. L., 9.) After the adoption of the new Constitution (1851) the General Assembly enacted—Section 8, Chapter 32 (S. & C., 379): " The Supreme Court shall appoint a reporter, whose term of office shall continue three years ; whose duty it shall be to attend the sessions of said court, and to report under the - 42 - BENCH AND BAR OHIO - 43 directions of the court its decisions. together with such other decisions as the court may direct him to report, and to cause the same to be published as soon as may be conveniently done. Provided, that no arguments of counsel shall be published with said reports other than a brief containing a reference to the points made and authorities cited, and relied on by such counsel, unless specially directed by the court," etc. (50 O. L., 68.) April 14, 1854, (52 O. L., 41) an act was passed " regulating the publications of the Ohio Reports," and providing that in lieu of the salary heretofore accorded the reporter. he should have the right of personally publishing the court reports, and be entitled to the emoluments to be derived therefrom. April 11, 1865, (62 O. L., 119) the General Assembly further amended the last previous act, establishing further requirements as to manner and method of the publication of the reports of the reporter. April 23, 1872, (69 O. L., 99) the legislature repealed the previous acts established a definite annual salary for the reporter, and placed the letting of the contract for the publication of the reports in the hands of the Secretary of State, who was to direct their distribution and sale. This act was further amended as to distribution and publication, May 1, 1871 (68 O. L., 109). February 2, 1893, (90 O. L., 21) further provision was made as.. to the appointment of the reporter ; his bond ; salary and term of service. May 21, 1894, (91 O. L., 419) the General Assembly by enactment took the publication of the reports out of the office of the Secretary of State and placed the letting of the contract in the charge of the reporter, and provided that the publisher should have the control of the distribution and sale of the reports at a stipulated maximum price. The reporter has no pecuniary interest in the publication. That vests entirely with the publisher. The same General Assembly, May 19, (91 O. L., 341) still further provided for the compensation of the reporter because of the additional labor of publishing in the reports, as decreed by rule of the court, not only the opinions, but the memoranda of the unreported cases. Under the present legislation, therefore, the reporter is appointed by the judges of the court for a term not to exceed three years, at a stipulated salary, with contingent fees regulated by the number of decisions handed down by the court. The reports are published as a private enterprise by the publisher, upon a contract made with the reporter, form and style of the volume and retail price to the public being determined by statute. Since the creation of the office fourteen different appointees, including the present incumbent, have discharged the duties of reporter for the court. Among them were lawyers whose names have taken high rank, not only in the legal, profession of the State, but of the country. Brief sketches of these reporters herewith follow in the order of their appointment. CHARLES HAMMOND, born September 19, 1779, near Baltimore, Maryland. His parents, George and Elizabeth (Wells) Hammond were well to do farmers and people of culture, and personally assisted in the early instruction of their son, who, as a boy, became accomplished as a classical student, retaining his 44 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. familiarity with Greek and Latin throughout his life. The family removed from Maryland to Virginia in 1785, locating at Wellsburg, Brooke county, where, in 1800, Charles entered the law office of Phillip Doddridge, one of the most distinguished lawyers of Virginia. Charles was admitted to the Bar at the General Court, sitting at Marietta, Ohio, in 1803. In the same year he was married to Sarah Tillingharst, and settled in Wheeling, Virginia. In 1810 he moved to St. Clairsville, Belmont county, Ohio. Previous to the admission of Ohio as a State, violent attacks were made upon the life and character of the territorial governor. St. Clair, because of his pronounced views as a Federalist and advocacy of a strong government, and the alleged assumption of extreme authority. Mr. Hammond, then in Wheeling, wrote a series. of letters to the Scioto Gazette, published at Chillicothe, Ohio, defending the governor with great spirit and talent. Those letters made Mr. Hammond famous as a vigorous thinker, polished writer and intrepid advocate. In 1812 he began, at St. Clairsville, the publication of the Ohio Federalist, which he continued till 1818. This made him the leader of the Federal party in the West. In 1813 he was elected, from Belmont county, to the Ohio State Senate, serving in the 12th and 13th general assemblies. In 1816 he was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives, and served in the 15th, 16th, 17th and 19th general assemblies till 1822. During this time he made a revision of the laws of Ohio, and was the author of many leading acts, especially those regulating the course of descents, distribution of personal estates, chancery proceedings, etc. In 1822 he removed to Cincinnati, which was thereafter his home. In 1821 he was made the first appointee to the office of reporter of the Supreme Court, which office he held till his death in Cincinnati, April 3, 1840. He edited the first nine volumes of the Ohio Reports, and they are monuments to his legal lore and literary acquirements. During all these years he was busy with his law practice, which often called him to Washington, and the pursuit of his profession as a journalist, in which he became equally distinguished. He was the author of the political essays signed " Hampden" in the National Intelligencer (1820), upon the Constitution, which letters were highly complimented by President Jefferson. In 1823 he became an editorial writer on the Cincinnati Gazette, and his pen was the chief power in that organ till the great destroyer hushed his voice. As a lawyer and editor he was equally prominent, and his influence in the public measures and political movements of his time was second to none of the great leaders in the West. As a constitutional lawyer he had no superior in the State and but few, if any, equals in the country. Mr. Hammond possessed natural talent of the very highest order, and he has been not improperly regarded as the Alexander Hamilton of the West. In 1819 arose the celebrated case of the State Auditor of Ohio against the United States Bank (9 Wheaton 738). Henry Clay represented the Government and Charles Hammond the State of Ohio. It was argued in the United States Supreme Court in February, 1824, and was a battle of legal giants. Mr. Hammond's reputation was already great, but this case placed him in the highest rank, although the decision of the Supreme Court BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 45 was against him. His argument was a masterpiece, admirable in temper, perfect in logical construction, comprehensive in its grasp of principles, original, and as a specimen of English composition will challenge comparison with anything emanating from the most eminent of the legal profession. Mr. Hammond's review of the opinion of Chief Justice Marshall in this case, says high authority, " was perhaps never excelled by even the great constitutional lawyer of Boston." Mr. Hammond's last argument before the United States Circuit Court at Columbus (1838) was declared by Justice McLean, presiding on the Bench, to be one of the most happy and successful efforts of a great and powerful mind he had ever heard. Toward the close of his administration, President Adams tendered Henry Clay a position on the United States Supreme Bench. Mr. Clay declined, and the appointment was tendered Mr. Hammond, but he refused to accept the high honor. Mr. Hammond enjoyed the friendship and intimacy and often full confidence of the leading men of his time—Jefferson, Adams, Clay, Crawford, Marshall, Webster, Jackson, Birney, Harrison ; and others in letters and public utterances acknowledged their appreciation of his noble character and transcendent talents. Lieutenant Governor Greene, of Rhode Island, relates that in a conversation with Chief Justice Marshall, the latter." spoke of Mr. Hammond's remarkable acuteness and accuracy of mind, and referred with emphatic admiration to his argument before the Supreme Court in the bank case. He said that he had ,met no judicial record of equal intellectual power since Lord Hard wick's time." Mr. Hammond's opposition to slavery and its influence on the government was firm, consistent and powerful. Probably no public writer did more to form a just and reasonable anti-slavery sentiment. He induced the Ohio Legislature, in 1820; to adopt his views and to declare that the existence of slavery had ever been deemed a great moral and political evil, that its tendency was to impair our national character and naturally affect our national happiness. (18 0. L., .147.) Mr. Hammond's writings are unsurpassed for clearness, completeness, brevity and beauty. In elegance and simplicity they compare favorably with the best of the English essayists. " For over forty years," writes one who knew him well, " Charles Hammond was one of the Republic's ablest, most unselfish and most faithful sons, and a witness to the spirit and principles of government as established by the fathers." PHINEHAS BACON WILCOX, born September 26, 1798, at Westfield, Connecticut. The only son of Seth Wilcox and Molly Bacon. Both parents were descendants of Saxon ancestry, the first emigrants in the family to this country settling in the Massachusetts colony about the year 1675. Phinehas during his early boyhood lived and worked upon his father's farm, obtaining such education as his meager opportunities afforded. At the age of sixteen he attended the academy at Cheshire, Connecticut, and the academy at Middlebury, Vermont. At these excellent preparatory schools he was fitted for Yale College, from which he was graduated at the age of twenty-three. Shortly after graduation he married Sarah D. Andrews of Wallingford, Connecticut, and the new couple started, on their bridal trip, to the then far 46 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. distant wilderness of the " Ohio country;" finally locating in the new town of Columbus, on the " Waters of the Scioto," where his father owned land, and where they arrived in the fall of 1821. Columbus never ceased to be his home. He immediately began the study of law in the office of Judge Orris Parish, and was admitted to the Bar in 1824, and at once commenced the practice.of his profession, his legal forum then being the old red brick court house in Franklinton. His natural ability, studious habits, superior education and unswerving integrity at once raised him to the front rank of his contemporary practitioners. He rapidly acquired a large practice in Franklin, Madison and Delaware counties. He soon became prominent as a "land lawyer," having mastered all the intricacies of the Virginia Military Land titles, that perpetual source of litigation in those days. He was also distinguished as a chancery lawyer, which practice he preferred. .He was a master of common law pleadings, being familiar with all the subtleties of the old English special pleas, and a constant student of English common law. In 1833 he published a work on " Ohio Forms and Practice," which became at once standard authority on those subjects. He published an enlarged and revised edition in 1848. This book was the standard on law and equity practice and pleading, both in the State and the United States courts, until the adoption of the code of civil procedure in 1853, and was in universal use by judges, lawyers and clerks in this and other States under the old practice. In 1849, when the matter of a new Constitution and code was contemplated, he published a pamphlet entitled " Tracts on Law Reform," with a view of molding public opinion against the proposed changes in our law system. His motto was, " We know already the worst of what is—we know not the worst of what may be." Like many lawyers of the old school, he could not abide the new code ; but, upon its adoption, adjusted himself to the new order of things, and in 1862 published his " Practical Forms Under the Code of Civil Procedure." He was elected prosecuting attorney for Franklin county for the years 1834- to 18:36. He was reporter of the Supreme Court of Ohio for the year 1840, reporting the tenth volume of the Ohio Reports, and his copious and scholarly notes to some of the cases therein give indisputable evidence of his wide knowledge of the law, general scholarship and remarkable accuracy and terseness of statement. So high did he stand in the confidence of the court, that it not infrequently happened that after deciding some difficult question, the court in handing its opinion to the reporter would say, " We have decided so and so in this case, and depend upon you to give the reasons." His note upon assurances of title, in the case of Foote vs. Bennet, 10 Ohio, 317, has been considered one of the ablest and clearest expositions of that abstruse subject, at that time not well understood by even good lawyers, and it received a high encomium from Chancellor Kent. Mr. Wilcox was United States commissioner for the district of Ohio for many years, but he resigned this office in 1858 rather than be made the instrument of remanding a fugitive slave to bondage. For though he had nothing to do with politics as such, he was a staunch Whig, with a leaning toward the old BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 47 Federal doctrines, and afterwards a decided Republican. Upon the breaking out Of the Rebellion in 1861, he was much disturbed as to the ultimate result , upon our institutions, Never doubting that the North would conquer, he believed that the greatest perils would then arise, having little faith in the loyalty of the South to our Federal government thereafter. After a long investigation on the subject, from Magna Charta down, he settled upon certain principles which he embodied in a brief, and sent, in 1862, to his friend Edwin Stanton, then secretary of war. It was a remarkable, pathetic document. Mr. Wilcox was famous as a student and a scholar, conspicuous for his culture in 'history and literature, and especially the classics, his knowledge of which he kept through life. His law library was very large and varied, and the reports of the English cases were his delight and pastime. For many years it was the only library of any consequence in the West, and was constantly resorted to, both by lawyers and judges, whom he was always ready to assist. The library at his residence was often the scene of interesting and learned discussions, intermitted with rare wit and humor, when Ewing, Stanbery, Hunter, Goddard, Lane, Swayne and others of his " brothers" met there. Mr. Wilcox was a man of deep and sincere religious convictions, maintaining through life the principles instilled into his mind by a most excellent and sensible mother, who trained him in the strict views of the Puritans of New England. It was once said of Mr. Wilcox by Judge Bennet, that he lived upon Coke and the Bible. A distinguished legal friend in Cincinnati, upon hearing of Mr. Wilcox's profession of religion, wrote him : "So you have become a Christian? I had thought that a business man could find something better to do. Let me have your reasons." To this Mr. Wilcox replied by writing an essay, afterwards published by the American Tract Society, and styled " A Few Thoughts," wherein he set forth, in simple and forcible language, the cardinal truths of the gospel, and the reasons for the faith they inspired. Mr. Wilcox's character was once well summed up by one who knew him, as follows: " He was a man of high character and personal integrity, of great benevolence and charity, a. fine type of a conscientious Christian lawyer, attending with great diligence and fidelity to the cases of his clients, when, in his opinion, they had a just cause, but discouraging litigation, for the mere sake of litigation or procrastination, and utterly refusing to lend himself or his great legal attainments to any unjust cause, however large the fees or tempting the glory." Mr. Wilcox died on March 25, 1863, at Columbus, Ohio. The late General James A. Wilcox was his son, and Anna Maria, wife of Robert Ellis, his only daughter. EDWIN M. STANTON, LL. D., was born at Steubenville, Ohio, December 19, 1814. He was of Quaker descent, and his ancestors, who were members of the Society of Friends, emigrated from Rhode Island to North Carolina about 1750. His grandmother, Abigail Macy, was a descendant of Thomas Macy, the first settler of Nantucket, whose flight as a result of giving shelter to a pursued Quaker was made the subject of a fine poem by John G. Whittier (" The Exiles"). His father, David Stanton, and mother, Lucy Norman, 48 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. moved from Virginia to Steubenville a few years before the birth of Edwin. Here David Stanton, the father, was a physician. At the age of thirteen Edwin, obliged to contribute to his own support, became a clerk in the bookstore of James Turnbull, where he remained some two or three years, studying during his leisure hours as best he could, and in 1831 he entered Kenyon College, completing the course through the Junior year, when necessity compelled him to seek employment, and he went to Columbus and sought a clerkship in a bookstore, but returned in a few months to Steubenville and began the study of the law with his guardian, David L. Collier. He was admitted to the Bar in 1835 and opened an office and began practice in Cadiz, Harrison county. He at once exhibited every qualification of a successful lawyer, and, shortly after commencing the practice he was elected prosecuting attorney of Harrison county. At the close of his term of office he removed to Steubenville, resuming practice at that place. In 1842 he was appointed reporter of the Supreme Court of the State. He prepared and published the reports of cases argued and determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio for the years 1841 and 1844 inclusive, being volumes 11, 12 and 13,' Ohio Reports. In 1847 he removed to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, forming a partnership with Honorable Charles Shaler, but also kept an office in Steubenville for nine. years thereafter., His first Steubenville partner was Judge Benjamin Tappan,. who edited and published a volume of the " Cases decided in the Courts of Common Pleas in the Fifth Circuit of the State of Ohio ; commencing with the May Term, 1816." Mr. Stanton's second Steubenville partner was Colonel George W. McCook, Supreme Court reporter in 1852. In 1856 he removed to Washington, D. C. During his residence in Pittsburgh he acquired a. large practice and won an inter-state reputation as a scholarly, talented and energetic lawyer. This experience and reputation, carried with him to Washington City, at once gave him great prominence among the foremost practitioners at the National capital. Mr. Stanton took part in many of the leading cases before the United States Supreme Court, often acting as counsel for the government in important land and intricate patent cases. He was associate counsel (1859) in the famous trial of Daniel E. Sickles for the murder of Philip Barton Key. Mr. Stanton had been a Democrat from his early days and had at this time become a prominent figure in the counsels of his party.. In December, 1860, James Buchanan appointed him attorney-general of the United States. Upon taking the oath of office he said to a friend, " I have taken the oath to support the Constitution of my country; that oath I intend to keep both in letter and spirit." Ably did he keep his pledge amid the-ensuing treasons and perils that threatened the Union. In November, 1860, believing that the menacing language of the Southern press, immediately following the election of President Lincoln, betokened secession and the design to destroy the Federal government, Mr. Stanton boldly and vigorously advised. President Buchanan to incorporate into his last message to Congress the doctrine that the Federal government had the power and that it was its duty to coerce the seceding States. In the cabinet Mr. Sta.nton constantly and BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 49 earnestly advocated swift and decisive action, denouncing the dangerous and disloyal temporizing spirit manifested by the other members, but, except himself and one other, Buchanan's cabinet was composed of men who favored secession, while Buchanan himself was too timid and irresolute to assert in any manner doctrines offensive to: his official family. Mr. Stanton retired from the Cabinet with the close of Mr. Buchanan's administration and resumed the practice of his profession. In January, 1862, it having become evident to President Lincoln that Simon Cameron should be assigned to some other position than that of secretary of 'war, the President, notwithstanding the most resolute opposition of Montgomery Blair, appointed Mr. Stanton secretary of war. Here he was in a position where his genius and almost boundless energy had full play. He immediately engaged in a thorough examination of the number and position of the United States forces, and submitted to the senate military committee the result of his prompt and exhaustive labor and researches. He proposed to bring together and consolidate the more than one hundred and fifty regiments of Union troops dispersed throughout the northern, eastern and western States. Congress accepted and carried out his plans. It is unnecessary, and indeed the space of this sketch would not permit a full or just account of the services to his country through this period of Edwin M. Stanton, our nation's greatest secretary of war. The events through which he passed and of which he was one of the most important and influential directors are matters of complete record and common knowledge. Mr. Stanton's efforts were indefatigable ; he used little time for rest, never seemed weary, and many of the greatest movements in that tremendous struggle were made under his personal dictation. To his untiring energy, keen intellect and profound sagacity, is due in no small degree the result of that conflict. He enjoyed the most cordial personal friendship of President Lincoln to the time of the latter's assassination in 1865. Upon Andrew Johnson's accession to the Presidency, Mr. Stanton was requested to continue in charge of the war department. He differed with the resident, however, wit regard to the reconstruction acts and other important questions in the policy of the. Executive. Mr. Stanton supported the position of the Republican party, which had a majority in Congress. Matters at length reached such a pass that on the 5th of August, 1867, Mr. Johnson requested his resignation on the ground of "public considerations of a high character," to which Mr. Stanton replied that "public considerations of a high character which alone had induced him to remain at the head of this department constrained him not to resign before the next meeting of Congress." He could not be removed under the tenure of office act, but on August 12th the President issued an order for his suspension, and he obeyed it under protest, General Grant being appointed secretary of war ad interim,. The Senate refused to sustain the President in the removal of Mr. Stanton, and on January 13, 1868 , reinstated him in office. Mr. Johnson renewed the conflict by appointing General Lorenzo secretary of war ad interim, but Mr. Stanton held the fort and refused to vacate, staying