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Elias Howe (search for this): chapter 23
dbury, Jackson's Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of the Treasury. It was at the same term in which S ward and Lincoln were admitted, and I believe I am now the oldest living practitioner in that court by date of commission. I was then in my 27th year, and among the youngest, if not the youngest, ever admitted to that court, for in the olden time only the elder members of the bar got to Washington to be admitted. But I had the fortune to have drawn the specification for the patent of Elias Howe, a native of Massachusetts, for his invention of the sewing machine. This brought me there to argue a motion in that court, but I did not do so as the case was settled. The first important case that I argued in the Supreme Court was in 1857. It was Sutter vs. the United States. Sutter had been fortunate enough to find gold in the raceway of his sawmill near Sacramento in 1849. The case involved the effect of the laws and action of the provincial governors of Mexico in granting title
William Smith (search for this): chapter 23
itor should be my friend, Mr. James Parton, the historian, who promised, if called upon, to undertake the work. But it has so happened that while writing this book I have been obliged to bow my head with sorrowing anguish beside his coffin. I began the practice of the law September 3, 1840, being between twenty-one and twenty-two years of age, illy prepared, I admit. I was not obliged, before entering the courts, to pass through the novitiate that delays most young men. My teacher, Win. Smith, Esq., had some cases in court which he placed in my charge, he never afterwards himself trying a case in court, to my knowledge, and this brought me early before courts and juries. During my studies I became enamored with the rules of pleading, and especially with the rules of criminal pleading which seemed to me almost an exact science, requiring accuracy of statement, clearness and earnestness of thought, and exactness in logic, for if the pleader tripped in any one part he failed in a
Attorney (search for this): chapter 23
building, and we went to trial. The fact that he took a key out of a door lock and ran away with it was proven beyond all question. While I was cross-examining a witness,--the man that lost the key,--an elderly member of our bar and friendly to me, said:-- Butler, why do you take such cases, when you know you are sure to be beaten? It's a custom I have, I said. When the witness stepped down the district attorney said to the court: The government rests its case here. I said: Mr. Attorney, you don't intend to ask for a verdict of the jury in a case like this, do you? I should like to know why not, said he. Well, I answered, I will tell the court. Larceny is the taking of personal property furtively and devoting it to one's own use. Here it is proven that the prisoner took a key out of a door and ran away with it. Now, if your Honor please, when a key is in its proper place in the door it cannot be stolen, because then it is real estate. When a man dies, his persona
Garfield (search for this): chapter 23
ate. It was further alleged that Milligan was not a soldier of the United States and was, therefore, within the jurisdiction of these military forces and amenable for his military offences to the action of the military commission. This was the first time that the action of a military commission had come directly before the Supreme Court. Every step in the proceedings was contested by the learned counsel who appeared for Milligan, the Hon. Jere S. Black, the Hon. David W. Field, and General Garfield, the latter of whom was brought into the case to give it some tinge of loyalty, and other counsel. The cause of the United States was sustained by the court in every point but one, and that was, as the Circuit Court of the United States was open in Indiana, that therefore, Milligan had a right to be tried before the circuit court, There was no allegation in the pleadings that the circuit court was open. But the court said that it would take judicial notice of that, and that in consequ
Lowell (search for this): chapter 23
tle mixed in your tenses this morning, Mr. Chief Justice. Not as to the last fact, said he. I said he was brusque in his manner, especially on the bench. One day shortly before my Charlestown case came up I was going down in the cars from Lowell to Boston, and at the request of a merchant friend of mine, whose watch dog had been poisoned, I was taking down my own to leave with him. My dog was an immense mastiff, with a black muzzle, very quiet but very powerful. The smoking-car was alwaut what they had done, no matter what was said or done by anyone; that I was their counsel, and if they wanted to speak to any person they could speak to me. In a day from that time I saw them. In the course of a few weeks they were brought to Lowell for trial, and pretty much all Malden came up to see the fire bugs dealt with. I moved for separate trials and got them. I had learned exactly all that the constable had told the boys. They had told me truly and the only danger was that the co
G. A. Somerby (search for this): chapter 23
stood at the head of the East India trade, took the suit in great dudgeon. He said he did not want any country lawyer — meaning me — to control the method of fitting out ships for the East India trade; that it was as good as it could be; that everything for their comfort and convenience was given to the crew, and that the case should be fought as far as he could go. He employed a lawyer, afterwards Engraved from a life-size bust in General Butler's library. most famous as an advocate, G. A. Somerby, Esq., and also the Hon. Rufus Choate, who was the first advocate of New England if not of the United States. I had with me a young gentleman who did not practise much in the courts in the trial of cases,--a relative of the plaintiff and quite capable. As I had been notified, every possible defence was to be taken. In the first place they were to claim that the ship was entirely properly fitted out as regards provisions; second, that there was no place in which the ship could stop to
Malden (search for this): chapter 23
to him, because any confession obtained by an officer by an inducement cannot be heard in a court of justice. Mr. District Attorney, you had better call your next witness. The court sustained my point. The attorney hadn't any next witness, and that boy went free, and there was no other testimony against the other two boys, and they all went home that evening, and so did the rest of the inhabitants of Malden. But that night they hanged the poor lawyer in effigy. I am glad to say that Malden I was not in my district then, so that it didn't alter the votes. The next time I was a candidate, and afterwards when I was running for office, Malden was largely on my side. I am certain the three boys voted for me every time, whatever the constable may have done. So that it will be seen that a lawyer's life is not free from thorns, and that sharp points of law even in favor of the greatest criminals are not to be despised or disregarded. I think I ought to set out here the facts o
David D. Porter (search for this): chapter 23
kes it the duty of the Secretary of the Navy, upon the capture of property, to see that it is brought before a prize court within three months, or the captor may bring suit in prize in any court after that time. The whole value of the property captured amounted to nearly two million dollars. Farragut was by far too busy fighting during the war to go around with a marking pot,--as Porter did, stencil-marking bales of cotton on shore in the Red River campaign: Captured by the U. S. Navy. D. D. Porter, --and, there being no district court in New Orleans, this property captured by Farragut could not by him be brought before a prize court there. After the close of the war, nothing having been done, Vice-Admiral Theodorus Bailey, second in command, called upon me and asked me to get the vessels and other property captured by himself and Farragut condemned as prizes. Accordingly, I filed libels in prize against the property in the supreme court of the district. The Secretary of the Na
John C. Breckinridge (search for this): chapter 23
to have so much of such details written by myself:-- General Butler has the power, possessed by but few men, of attending to several important mental operations at the same time. An incident will show you my meaning:-- In a trial of quite an important matter, in the year 1860, I was counsel on the same side with General Butler. It was a busy season of the year for lawyers like him, who always had an overflowing docket. The trial began just after his return from the nomination of Breckinridge. He was to make a report of his doings to his constituents at Lowell. The meeting was called to be held at night. Dissatisfaction existed in the party, and the General must, therefore, speak with care and consideration. He determined to write what he was to say. But the court began early and sat late. He took his seat in court, and while the adverse party examined their witnesses in chief, he wrote out his speech, apparently absorbed therein. But he cross-examined each witness at gr
Story (search for this): chapter 23
ge number of private cases arising under that law. I therefore gave it most painstaking and exhaustive study, devoting to it all the time I had and what I could rob from sleep, in order to prepare myself in this branch of professional work. This was noised about in the profession, and I was applied to at once by some of my seniors at the bar, and I also had some cases of my own under that law. Thus it came about that in 1842 I tried the first two bankrupt cases to a jury. One was before Judge Story in the Circuit Court in the District of Massachusetts, and the other before Judge Harvey in the Circuit Court of New Hampshire. I won them both, and I believe this was the first instance where a lawyer two years at the bar tried cases of such importance to a jury in the Circuit Court of the United States. I trust I may not appear boastful in making this narrative, because I had nothing to boast of save a devotion to my profession. I do not believe in genius carrying a man along in the
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