USA > Arkansas > Biographical and pictorial history of Arkansas. Vol I > Part 8
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One day my partner, David J. Baldwin, was arguing some question in a bankruptcy case before Judge Johnson, who, be- coming impatient, asked him if he had any authority on the point. "Lots, sir," said Baldwin, "lots." "Bring them here to-morrow, then," said the judge, and in a great fume ad- journed the hearing, and went home, where he met his son Robert, and exploded. " What do you think, Robert," he cried, "that man Baldwin said to me to-day, when I asked him if he had any authorities on a pint ? 'Lots, sir, lots !' ' Lots ! To me, a judge of the district court of the United States, LOTS !'"
At another time, when he was holding court in the room over the old market-house, in the course of a discussion in some case, William C. Scott, who was district attorney, told Fred- crick W. Trapnall that he lied ; upon which Fred. knocked him down. He had no sooner picked himself up, than Judge
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Johnson fined him $25, informing him that when one gentlemar told another that he lied, he ought to expect to be knocked down.
In one case before him, on an indictment of an Indian for murder, the jury, there being really no evidence on which to conviet, came into court after a brief deliberation, and being asked if they had found a verdict, the foreman answered, "we have," and handed it to the clerk who read it out : "We, the jury, find the prisoner guilty of murder, as charged in the in- dictment." "And I grant a new trial," said the judge. " Enter the verdict, Mr. Clerk, and that the jury is discharged, and the court grants a new trial on its own motion."
In another case in which I defended an Indian, on an indiet- ment for murder, the case was given to the jury about noon, and I went away for an hour or so. When I returned, Scott, the district attorney, informed me that while I was gone the jury had sent word to the judge that they wished for some in- struction, and had been brought into court in the absence of the prisoner who had been sent back to jail ; and that the judge had then instructed the jury on some question of law, of no great importance. I said : " You had that done, did you ? Well, you and the judge have played the devil then," and he went away in a huff. By and by the jury marched in, and the prisoner being brought from the jail, they rendered a verdict of guilty. The next day the judge was restless and uneasy, and Scott came to me and said : "The judge has found out that he did wrong in having the jury brought in and instruct- ing them in your absence and that of the prisoner, and if you will move for a new trial he will grant it." I said : "I sup- posed that you and the judge would find that out, and now you can go on and hang the man. I shall not help you out of the scrape you have got into."
He came again and again, and said that the judge was very much troubled, and wished me to ask for a new trial, but I re- fused, and finally it was ordered without a motion.
In the winter of 1835-6 I went from Little Rock with Judge Johnson, Colonel Fowler and Judge Hall, to Crawford Old Court-House, on the Arkansas river, some twenty-five miles below Fort Smith, where Judge Johnson, then of the su- perior court of the territory, was to hold the circuit court.
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It was a terribly cold journey, so cold that when we left Fletcher's, on Point Remove creek, where there was a bridge then, after staying there all night, we were compelled to forego traveling, after getting through the bottom, and to remain at the first house until the next day. We crossed the river at the court-house on foot upon the ice, leaving our horses, get- ting over safely, though with difficulty, the ice consisting of rough fragments packed and frozen together. Archibald Yell, who crossed the same day with other lawyers from Fayetteville, . broke through, and but for a pole which he carried would have been drowned.
Nineteen of us, the judge being one, slept in one room over the improvised court-room, during the term. Here I saw Jesse Turner for the first time, who was then living and had an office there. While we were there the landlord, Hunger- ford (I think), became demented through jealousy, it was said, Judge Johnson, good, innocent man, being the object of his suspicions without knowing it.
On our way home we came, late in the evening of a very cold day, to Old Dwight in Pope county, and stopped there for the night. We gathered round the fire in the big fire- place, and were sitting there talking, when a citizen "mul- fathered" with whisky came in, got a chair, and sitting near the fire soon seemed to be dozing. But after a little, some one speaking to Judge Hall, who sat near the fellow, called him "judge," and the man opened his eyes and said to the judge : " You're the judge, are you. Then it's you that Hungerford went crazy about, 'cause you was too fond of his wife." "Sir," said Judge Hall, "I don't know what you mean. My name is Samuel S. Hall, sir." "Oh," said the man, "'t'aint you then. When I hearn it canvassed about they said 'twas Judge John- son." " Get out of here !" roared Judge Johnson, "get out of here ! I'll bet that story has got to Little Rock, and Matilda has heard it before now. Get out of here quick if you don't want to get killed !" The chap "lit out " in a hurry ; but the judge was evidently disturbed all the way home, fearing that the report had preceded him.
Judge Johnson was a good and safe judge, few of whose decisions, I think, have been overruled. He died after a long
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life of usefulness, without an enemy in the world, and his name ought never to be forgotten in Arkansas.
THOMAS J. LACY. BY GENERAL ALBERT PIKE.
The other territorial courts that I attended were held by Judge Thomas J. Lacy of the superior court, at Columbia, in Chicot county, and Helena, in Phillips county. The judge was a Ken- tuckian, a man of liberal education, not a remarkably well-read lawyer, but well imbued with the principles of equity, a good writer, gifted with a vivid imagination, eloquent, a courteous gentleman, and conversed well on many subjects. He was rather tall, of spare habit and delicate constitution, often afflicted with a painful ailment, apparently consumption, yet always cheerful and even gay, a very charming and lovable man, and a very honorable and just one, devoid of the sense of fear.
Townsend Dickinson was a fairly good lawyer, a native of New York, a shrewd, sharp man, no great scholar, but quick and apt to comprehend a case, to understand an argument, and to reach conclusions, which he expressed in opinions invariably concise. The chief justice, Ringo, had had his legal training as clerk of the circuit court in Clark county, had studied Chitty and traveled with it in his saddle-bags, it being currently known as the "bacon-ham Chitty," because of the stains contracted by its leathern covers by consociation with the slices of ham which its owner carried with him to solace his appetite withal on the road. He was a careful, narrow-minded, pains-taking judge, to whom special pleading was the most excellent part of the law, and he knew almost nothing of the law of the court of equity. Technicality was for him the life of the law, and he filled the reports with decisions which had no other merit than technicality.
Yet, on the whole, the members of the court worked pretty well together, the plodding habit and narrow legal vision of Ringo tempering and restraining the effervescence and élan of Lacy ; and the knowledge of the principles of law and equity of Lacy, and his broad and enlightened views neutralizing the literalism and stunted verbal interpretations of Ringo, and giv- ing breadth and fullness to the conclusions of Dickinson.
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When, in 1842, the directors of the Real Estate Bank made a deed of assignment to trustees, which I drafted, upon instruc- tions formulated by Carey A. Harris, the cashier, it created a great commotion ; and William Cummins, my former partner, who was a stockholder and debtor, with General Thomas T. Williamson and others in like condition, associating with them- selves Chester Ashley, engaged in a bitter warfare against the deed, bringing a suit in chancery to have it annulled. I was the attorney of the trustees ; and we first argued the case before the chancellor, John Joseph Clendenin, who (it is my recollection) held the deed valid. It then went into the supreme court, where it was argued at great length, upon all the authorities. The majority of the court, Judges Lacy and Dickinson, gave its opinion that the deed was valid. The chief justice dissented.
The decision caused great excitement and discussion, and created personal enmities. Judge Lacy was savagely denounced as corrupt. The opinion of the majority was hooted at by such lawyers as Williamson S. Oldham and Thomas B. Hanly, who had been elected members of the coming legislature. I was denounced without stint ; and every thing that could be done was done to prejudice the people of the State against the deed and against the majority of the court.
Preparations were made to impeach Judge Lacy, who looked calmly and impassively upon the storm that had been raised. When the legislature met, the matter of impeaching him was largely talked of, and the agitators thought that they were to have, and it seemed to every one that they would have, their own way.
But the next morning the scheme for impeachment collapsed, and the lawyers who had staked their professional reputations upon the issue, loudly pronouncing the deed null and void, met with signal and complete discomfiture. Without consult- ing any one, or even informing any one of my intention, I had in due time sent printed copies of the deed, and of the opinions of the majority and minority of the court, to the great Chancellor, JAMES KENT, of New York, and Judge STORY of the supreme court of the United States, author of the most approved and authoritative commentaries upon equity
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jurisprudence, requesting each of them to give his opinion in regard to the validity or invalidity of the deed of trust.
Their opinions were received in time, Chancellor Kent charging $50 for his, and Judge Story nothing. I had these opinions printed, and copies of them were laid, that morning, on the desk of each member of the general assembly. They sustained the deed at all points.
No rout of a force flushed with anticipation of victory was ever more complete. The majority of the court was vindicated, the opinion of the minority consigned to merited contempt, and the trusts of the deed were carried out.
After he ceased to be a member of the supreme court, Judge Lacy removed to New Orleans, and engaged there in the prac- tice of the law, where, after a little while, he died.
He made his mark upon the jurisprudence of Arkansas, and few, if any, of his decisions have ever been overruled. They were generally founded upon the immutable principles that do not change with the changing times and seasons, and have, therefore, stood well the test of time.
He was a man to be loved with all one's heart, and worthy to be remembered by the people of the State. I retained his warm friendship until the end of his life. He licensed me to practice law in 1835, when I had read but a part of Blackstone, saying that I could not, as an ignorant doctor might, become the cause of the death of any one. He encouraged me in my struggles to rise at the bar, aided mne in my studies and was glad when I achieved success, and I have always honored and revered his memory.
Honesté factis, veritas sufficit
EDWARD CROSS.
BY GENERAL ALBERT PIKE.
Of Edward Cross, as lawyer and judge, I cannot speak. I . never met him at the bar, and only once saw him on the bench. I never heard him make a speech. I was not very well ac- quainted with him, and never had the means of judging of the extent of his acquirements or the resources of his intellect. But he was a very worthy and most upright man ; a very
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noble and most honorable gentleman, somewhat stiff and formal, but neither haughty nor vain.
He was a judge of the territorial superior court, member of the lower house of congress, and surveyor-general, and in all these places acquitted himself well, and in all the relations of life was above reproach. He has lately died at a ripe old age and he is entitled to a high place among the worthies of Ar- kansas.
DAVID WALKER. BY GENERAL ALBERT PIKE.
David Walker, of Washington county, was a practicing law- yer, the foremost in all the north-western part of the territory when I came to the bar, and for some years before. I knew him long and well, for I saw him often in the western courts. He was an excellently equipped lawyer, well grounded in the principles of legal science, a man of logical intellect, of keen perceptions, of mental energy and force, an impressive and forcible speaker, and an antagonist to cope with when at the bar was no easy matter for any one. I have seen greater men and better lawyers, but no one who could more efficiently use all his resources of intellect and knowledge.
He was eminently faithful to his clients, and gave to every case all his energies. No client of his ever suffered loss or injury from his want of diligence or preparation, where there was time for preparation. He never procrastinated or was dilatory or neglectful, or a consulter of his own ease and com- fort. And he always thought, also, with Lord Bacon, that "every man is a debtor to his profession," and he sought always to magnify the profession and to help gain for it the respect of the people.
In politics Judge Walker was a whig, who had convictions, as he had in the law, and was always true to them. He was not eloquent, otherwise than with the eloquence of earnest- ness, sincerity and force of argument ; and these made him a fluent and impressive speaker. He was the candidate of our old whig party, at different times, for the offices of governor, repre- sentative in congress and presidential elector, always the candi- date of a minority (for the State, like the territory, was always irretrievably democratic), and of course always defeated ; but
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he never took the certainty of defeat into consideration, to per- mit it to lessen his zeal or energy in the exposition and advo- cacy of his political principles.
I must leave it to others to speak of him as a judge of the supreme court, for I am not familiar with his decisions, either as military judge, or as a judge of the supreme court of the State. After the war ended, I never saw him, not feeling equal, when I was for the first time long after 1865, in the State, to the fatigue of the journey from Van Buren to Fay- etteville, to visit him. Our intercourse after the war was only by letter. In one of his letters he told me that he had been for some time occupied in committing to writing, for publication after his death, his reminiscences of men and things in the early days of Arkansas, the manuscript having already assumed quite large proportions; and he repeated some things of which he had spoken. But I think that the manu- script has not been found, although it is hardly to be believed that he destroyed it.
WILLIAM CUMMINS.
BY GENERAL ALBERT PIKE.
Robert Crittenden, Chester Ashley, William Cummins, Absalom Fowler and Daniel Ringo were the foremost mem- bers of the bar at Little Rock in 1833. William Cummins, a man of middle stature, neither thin nor corpulent, quick, wiry, energetic, was a Kentuckian, a man of good presence and good manners, with a face expressive of intellect, firmness and decis- ion. He was a good lawyer and forcible speaker, a zealous whig politician, and a brave, honorable, trustworthy man, then some. forty-five years of age. He married Francine (only daughter of the princely old Frenchman Frederick Notrebe), who bore him but one child, a daughter.
Mr. Notrebe himself was a man who ought not to be for- gotten, for he was a very noble and generous man. I often dined at his houses at the Post of Arkansas, and on his planta- tion below that place, on the river, where I met his wife's father and mother, Mr. and Madame Encime. His grand- daughter, Mary Cummins, married Edward Morton, a Massa- chusetts man, and is well remembered at Little Rock, in con-
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nection with the harsh and unmanly treatment which she and her little children suffered at the hands of General Reynolds during the Federal occupancy of the city. They were my nearest neighbors, and I knew her and her children well, and a few years ago saw her and her daughter and grand-children at St. Louis. Thus I have known six generations of the family. Among the pleasantest days of my life were those passed by me at the old post, with Mr. Notrebe, dear old Ter- rence Farrelly, Ben Desha, James H. Lucas, Doctor Bushrod W. Lee and Doctor Mckay. What men there were in Arkansas in those days!
William Cummins offered me a partnership in the law in 1835, when I was a lawyer only in namne, because I owned and was editing the Arkansas Advocate, and might, through it, aid him in attaining the political honors that he coveted; and the partnership proved a pleasant and profitable one.
He was an amiable gentleman, and yet a good hater of his political enemies,- as, indeed, most of us were in those days. Ile was not quarrelsome either, but always ready and never shunning collision with any one. His combativeness was once oddly exemplified, in a matter in which he had no personal interest. I had written some articles over the signature of " Casca," in the Advocate, of which I was then the publisher, which if I had been older and wiser I should not have written, and while they were being published I stopped one morning to speak to Colonel Sevier, who was sitting on the door-step of one of the rooms of Ashley's brick row. After we had spoken together a moment or two, he said : "Look here, Pike, if that man Casca who is writing for your paper gets much more severe, I shall have to ask you for his name.". He said it jocosely, and I replied : " All right, colonel, when you call for the name of the author you'll get it," and with a laugh went on my way.
I told this to Mr. Cummins, and his eyes snapped, as in his sometimes shrill voice he cried with eager excitement : "Tell him I wrote them ! Tell him I wrote them." Ile would gladly have fought Sevier in that quarrel, " at the drop of a hat," as used to be said in Arkansas. But the authorship of the letters was never imputed to kim. Sevier and most others sup-
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posed that Judge James W. Bates was the writer. If he had been elected a representative in congress, he would have served the State well, for he had ability, readiness, resources at his command of intellect and knowledge and political sagacity. Withal he was an honorable, upright and generous man.
How little chance a whig had of political preferment in Ar- kansas may be judged of by this that follows, which was vouched for to me about 1844 for a true story.
Randolph was a northern county, in which there were some five hundred voters, twenty-five or thirty of whom, only, were whigs ; of course this handful of men never put up a candidate, but about that year two democrats opposed each other for a seat in the legislature. They were neighbors,- that is, they lived not more than twenty miles from each other,- and they made a firm agreement that neither should tell any tale of the other, injurious to him, except when they were together. But it soon happened that one of them heard that in a speech made at a meeting in some precinct, when he was not present, the other had told the people that he had on one occasion come upon his competitor in the woods, just as he was cutting off the ears of a hog that he had shot, which hog, he said, was in his, the reciter's, mark, and belonged to him. When they met soon after, the aggrieved candidate lost no time in calling him to account for his breach of contract. "Didn't you and I agree," he said, "that one of us shouldn't tell any tales on the other, if he weren't thar to answer for his-self ?"
"Yes, we did so."
" What did you go and break it fur, then ? Didn't you get up down thar at Hominy Precinct, and tell the crowd that you caught me in the woods three years ago a-cuttin the ears off o' one o' your hogs ?"
" Yes, I did : what of it?"
" What of it ! Durn your 'ornary hide of you, 'twas a low- down mean trick !"
"It was true, weren't it ?"
" Well, yes, it wer, but you'd no business tellin it when I weren't thar to contradict it. Look a-here, now, you just tell that story on me agin any whar, if you dar, and durn my skin if I don't tell 'em your'e a whig."
---- --------
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In what esteem as a lawyer William Cummins was held, may be somewhat judged of by an incident related to me by John B. Floyd, at a much later day secretary of war of the United States, who was, about 1836, and for three or four years afterward, planter in Phillips county, and practiced at the bar there.
"One day not long ago," he said, " a chap from the country wanted to employ me in a little case, and after telling me at great length what he called 'the rights on't,' asked me what I would charge him to 'tend' to it. 'Twenty dollars,' I said. ' Twen-ty dol-lars !' he exclaimed, 'twen-ty dol-lars ! why, I kin git Ee-squire Cummins for that.' Complimentary, wasn't it ?"
JAMES W. BATES.
BY GENERAL ALBERT PIKE.
Judge James Woodson Bates, of Crawford county, had been judge of the superior court some years before I became an Arkansian. He was a brother of Edward Bates, of Missouri, afterward attorney-general of the United States. I do not suppose that he ever practiced at the bar in Arkansas. He was a generous and kindly man, of brilliant genius, said to have been pronounced, in his younger days, by a distinguished Vir- ginian, to have been the finest essayist in the State of his birth, Virginia. He was of middle height and size, his features irregular, but his eyes bright and piercing, his forehead fine, his face indicative of large and quick intellect. I do not know what his legal acquirements were, but he was reputed to have been a good judge. It was said that he was no orator ; but he was a polished, keen, brilliant writer, sarcastic as Junius, com- paring with other writers in Arkansas as a swordsman, skillful in the use of the rapier, compare with the heavy, sabre-wield- ing cavalryman. His mind was richly stored with knowl- edge. He was a whig, too, and had no mercy for his political adversaries. Otherwise than with his pen occasionally, he took no part in politics, though I did once see him preside over a meeting at Van Buren, when words and angry replies passed between him and Wharton Rector, whom most men dreaded, but of whom Judge Bates was not in the least afraid, answering him with sharp and bitter words.
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He lived with Major Moore, his father-in-law, some twenty- five miles below Van Buren, and rarely went away from home, being given to study, and caring little for the outer world, a thoughtful, silent man, a recluse, but no misanthrope; for he was a man of a very noble nature.
I met him once just as he rode into Van Buren, and in answer to a question as to his health, he said, " I am well, but in an ill-humor. I have been afflicted this morning by a fool. I left home alone, and wished for no companion, but was over- taken by one, a farmer in the neighborhood, who found it in his heart to bestow all his dullness upon me, babbling incessantly all the way for twenty miles. There are men, sir, who are so idiotic that they cannot be made by any hints to understand that sometimes a man who thinks at all, which most men do not, wishes to commune with himself, and not to be talked to at all."
ARCHIBALD YELL.
BY GENERAL ALBERT PIKE.
I never met Archibald Yell but once in a court-room, and cannot speak of him as a lawyer. I did not know that he was a mason until four or five years ago, when I learned that he had been grand master of masons of Tennessee, for I was not made a mason until he had been dead nearly three years. I knew him as governor and as representative in congress, and I served under him in Mexico.
He was a lawyer in the days of the territory, and was in attendance as such at the court held by Judge Benjamin John- son at Crawford Old Court House, in the winter of 1835-6.
He was killed in battle at Buena Vista, on the 22d of Feb- ruary, 1847, a little more than forty years ago, and yet I remember him well, and all his looks and ways, as if I had seen him only yesterday. As a democrat I disliked him ; in the service in Mexico we had disputes, but the dislike and the dis- putes have for forty years seemed to me like dreams. What follies most of our piques and resentments, our contentions and wranglings, seem to have been, when we look back upon them, and cheerfully admit that those whom we disliked and felt enmity toward were good and upright men !
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