USA > Georgia > The bench and bar of Georgia: memoirs and sketches. With an appendix, containing a court roll from 1790-1857, etc., volume II > Part 11
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A very striking and interesting degree of professional talent was dis- played by our young brother who presented this view of his case,-an order of talent which, if he chooses, may insure him professional eminence, and, what is better, distinguished capacity for usefulness among his fellow- men. It cost us no small effort to disentangle what we conceive to be the true distinction in the case from the ingenious web of his plausible and earnest argument.
The reader can be at no loss, after this proof, to form a judg- ment respecting Robert P. Hall. That he was an extraordinary man must be admitted by all who were acquainted with him or ever heard him converse. His command of language was wonder- ful. He could talk with the utmost fluency and correctness, blend- ing poetic images with a severe process of reasoning for hours at a time, without hesitating for a single idea or word. He was accu- rately informed on all the political topics of the day, and never left a discussion without victory. His manner was courteous and pleasant at all times. Even his torturing irony and stern denun- ciations when provoked were marked by good breeding and ele- gant phraseology,-so that his adversary, when killed in argu- ment, had the satisfaction to know that a gentleman inflicted the wound. Mr. Hall was an intellectual gladiator of majestic power and skill. He never dodged a blow, and never failed to return a thrust which soon ended the combat.
In his social character he was all that relatives or friends could desire. On this subject the author dare not trust himself to enlarge. He loved Mr. Hall as a brother, and it is his happiness to know that the attachment was reciprocal. The closing scene must now be related.
Mr. Hall was physically a strong man. His frame could have endured any amount of labor, had not his constitution been im- paired by an attack of measles some five years before his death. This disease left his nervous system in a condition of great irrita- bility, producing frequent paroxysms of colic and a tendency of blood to the brain. His sufferings were often intense, but gene- rally yielded to the usual treatment.
At September Term, 1854, of the Superior Court of Macon county, he made his last speech. It was admired and praised by every person who heard it. He was gaining laurels on every hand;
* Groce vs. Rittenbury, 14 Ga. Rep. 235.
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practice was flowing in upon him, and the predictions of the public were flattering with regard to his future. All desired to see what destiny he could accomplish. Alas for the instability of human prospects and calculations ! In a few weeks this noble and gifted man was in his grave! After a short illness, he died at his resi- dence in the city of Macon, on the 4th December, 1854, in the twenty-ninth year of his age.
The community was stricken with grief : a son of genius had fallen ; a bright intellectual flame was extinguished ! The press announced the sad event in terms of the highest eulogy on the character of the deceased, of which the following is an example from the Georgia Telegraph :*-
Upon the same day, with the interval of a few brief hours, ROBERT P. HALL, Esq., surrendered his soul into the keeping of the Creator. A better, brighter, braver spirit never animated mortal frame. He was only twenty-nine when he was taken away,-only twenty-nine when he was called from the pleasant scenes of earth to the dark valley of the shadow of death. A noble oak uprooted by the blast-an expanding flower withered by the frost-a soaring eagle pierced by the archer in its mid-career-a young star quenched in its glory,-such are the gloomy images suggested by this mysterious dispensation of Almighty God. He was with us so short a time ago, so full of health and strength and spirit, so mighty in body, so noble in intellect, and giving withal such brilliant promise of future usefulness and fame, that we can hardly credit the gloomy truth that he has passed from among us and will be seen no more.
He was a native of South Carolina, but passed much the greater portion of his youth in the neighboring county of Crawford, where his father, an eminent physician, still resides. In the vulgar acceptation of the term, he was not an educated man; that is to say, he had never received a regular course of academic and collegiate instruction ; but in the true sense he certainly was. His stores of information were varied, exten- sive, and exact : he had naturally fine literary and scholastic tastes, which study had further cultivated and refined; the problems of science, the teachings of history, and the language of poetry were alike familiar to his mind; nor was it possible to know him without acknowledging the presence of a solid and stately intellect which was indebted for its supe- riority both to nature and to art. He was called to the bar in early manhood, and was passionately devoted to his profession and all that con- cerned its honor and advancement. He was only twenty-nine years of age when he died ; but he had asserted and vindicated his superiority at the bar, and had already begun to rank, in the estimation of his legal brethren, with the oldest and ablest members of the profession.
But, alas ! what avails this now ? Death has placed his seal on his eloquent lips, and all the wit, and learning, and pathos, and high-souled honor which marked him above ordinary men lie buried in the grave. Just as the path seemed open before him, death came between ; just as
* From the pen of Philemon Tracy, Esq., then Editor of the Telegraph.
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the fruits of his early labors seemed within his grasp, death withered the outstretched arm; just as wealth, honór, fame, seemed to bid him stay, death called him away from all. Like a noble ship which, full freighted for her voyage, with sails all set and pennants gaily streaming in the wind, suddenly founders and goes down, so has he gone down into the tomb, laden with innumerable precious hopes, in the pride and flower of his days. Of the hearts crushed by this dispensation, of the fair promise blighted and the cherished visions dispelled, it were vain to speak. He leaves a wife and two little ones to mourn their protector gone,-aged parents to mourn the main stay taken from their declining years,-brothers and sisters to mourn for the pride of their household vanished,-troops of friends to mourn for the bright intellect extinguished and the gallant heart which shall beat no more.
That this our tribute to his memory is faint and feeble we well know; but we can say no more. He was our companion and friend ; and our pen moves heavily along as it traces the characters which shall record his death.
The proceedings in the Supreme Court relative to the death of Mr. Hall are reported officially* as follows :-
TRIBUTE OF RESPECT TO R. P. HALL, ESQ.
SUPREME COURT OF GEORGIA, MACON, February Term, 1855.
The committee appointed on the occasion of the death of ROBERT P. HALL, Esq., a member of this bar, beg leave to submit through their chairman, Judge NISBET, the following report :-
Resolved, That Mr. HALL was known among us as a gentleman of educa- tion, with appreciating and cultivated taste in letters,-of genius, pos- sessing a brilliant imagination, a clear and quick perception of the beau- tiful, and originating, creative faculties in a degree which entitled him to rank as one of the best thinkers of the State.
2. That we esteem him as having been a profound lawyer. His pro- fessional reading, for one of his age,-being at his death but a young man,-was very general, and his learning so accurate and various as to enable him to compete, not unfrequently with success, with the ablest members of this bar. As a pleader he had but few equals. His tenacious memory, sound discriminating judgment, industry, zeal, and ardent, rapid, yet logical oratory, had placed him on a level with the first men of his age in the profession, and warrant the belief that, had he been spared, he would have reaped its richest rewards and attained its highest honors. He de- lighted in the law, and studied it not alone as the means of acquiring an income or as preparatory to political life, but as a science in itself pro- ductive of the purest intellectual gratification.
3. That he was not the less remarkable for his social qualities, being frank, genial, and communicative, kind and liberal in his feelings, a respectful son, an affectionate brother, and a tender husband and parent.
4. That we deplore, in his death, a professional brother withdrawn from the honorable competition and fellowship of the law,-a man of genius,
* 17 Georgia Reports, 237.
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stricken and prostrated when but beginning to ascend,-and a lawyer who seemed to be marked and sealed for distinction.
5. That when one who is our fellow is cut down by our side, in the pride of his intellect and the vigor of his manhood, by Him whose pur- poses are inscrutable and whose power is irresistible, remembering that we too are mortal, it becomes us to receive the warning, to be silent in awc, and with reverence to concede the sovereignty of God, and, in the light of that revelation which he has vouchsafed, to prepare in life for death.
6. That this court and bar, as a mark of respect to the memory of our deceased brother, will wear crape on the left arm for thirty days.
On motion of Mr. Poe, Ordered, That these resolutions be entered on the minutes of the court, and that the clerk do furnish a copy to the family of the deceased.
Judge LUMPKIN responded on behalf of the court as follows :-
During the nine years that I have been honored with a seat on this bench, how often has the attention of this court been arrested from its ordinary business to the contemplation of death ! Within that brief period many of the brightest legal lights of the State have been extinguished by the icy hand of Death !
How rich the trophies gathered to the tomb the past year ! DOUGHERTY, CHARLTON, JACKSON, TOWNS, HARRALSON, HALL, and GOULD are sleep- ing their last earthly sleep! What a brilliant constellation to disappear from the professional firmament !
How frail and fugitive is human life ! Pulvis et umbra sumus was the classic commentary of Horace : "what shadows we are !" the graceful trans- lation of Burke. Ten thousand instruments of destruction are always near to do their fatal work ! Life is a fountain fed by a thousand streams, that perishes if one be dried ! It is a silver cord twisted with a thousand threads, that parts asunder if one be broken ! It is much more strange that we escape so long than that we die so soon !
How early did death enter this newly-formed world ! How ceaseless his ravages ever since ! One hundred and forty generations have already been swept away ! All that tread the globe are but a handful to the tribes that slumber in its bosom !
In the natural course of events, the thought may well have been indulged that the respective places of the deceased and myself would have been changed, and that he might at some future time have been called upon to perform a kindred office for one so much his senior in years. But Providence has seen fit to order it otherwise. Whom the gods love they take early to themselves. Abel expected, no doubt, to bury Adam and Eve. How little did these first fond parents anticipate the melancholy duty of interring their murdered son !
It is a relief to the aged, bowed down under the weight of threescore years and ten, to pass into the quiet slumber and tranquillity of the grave. Death is comparatively of but little consequence even to the middle aged, who are far on their way to their final repose, who have little to hope or expect from the future, and who are already beginning to realize that they are rapidly approaching the period when they can say of most of the things of this world, "I have no pleasure in them." Such would not be very reluctant to throw down the burden of life and rest with those who feel not its wintry storms. But to see the young man, just springing upon the arena, buoyant as the courser as he enters upon
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the track, cut off in the midst of his days, at the moment when we begin to anticipate the full blaze of the noon by the bright coruscations of the rising sun,-well might such a spectacle suffuse with sympathetic tears the cheek of the Son of God.
When the news of the death of England's great octogenarian Duke reached this country, we looked upon it as a natural consummation ; and it was not his death, but his life, that rose before our eyes in all its great- ness. But how different the sensation when the hope of the House of Orleans was prematurely struck down and the destiny of France changed for all after-time ! We thought of the youthful hero of Antwerp and Algeria, the popular idol of his country, and felt sad that such a brilliant future was thus untimely cut off.
I will not undertake to portray the distinguished talents and virtues of our departed friend. This bar knew him well, and its sympathies have mingled with the tears and sorrows that embalm his memory. The elo- quent tribute just delivered is heartily concurred in by the court. We can bear our testimony to the justice of the eulogium which has just been pronounced upon the social, moral, and professional qualities of the deceased. They will long be cherished with grateful satisfaction by us all. He never discussed a case that he did not give "aid and comfort" to the court. And it is that that gives to the court, in paying a tribute of affectionate respect to his memory, "a precious seeming to the eye." He was truly and emphatically, in this sense, entitled to the epithet of amicus cura.
ROBERT P. HALL had a mind capable of the highest reaches of legal reasoning ; and he left nothing unexplored belonging to the subject which he discussed. He never skimmed, swallow-like, over the surface of the science, but delighted in tracing legal principles to their fountain-head. And the very difficulty of the task served but to provoke his ambition.
His manner was luminous, earnest, and impressive, illuminating what was dark and obscure, as with a flash of lightning. He would pass from labyrinth to labyrinth with a mind free from confusion and with the most unwearied energy. His logic was conceived with a cogency that bore itself onward in one continual stream of resistless argumentation. In freedom, and fulness, and fluency, his discourse resembled the Alpine stream :- " Wave followed wave, nor spent its force in vain." His memory was as capacious and retentive as his judgment was sound. Like his surviving brother, it seemed impossible for him to forget any thing he had ever read.
I have often sat, with all the solicitude of an elder brother, and seen him contending with the best talents of the bar; and, no matter what the odds might be in age and experience, I never entertained the least appre- hension that he would be crushed in the struggle. He was one of those men whom the whole bar and bench of Georgia could not put down. And his assailants, instead of chronicling their attacks with the laconic veni, vidi, vici, were fortunate indeed if they were not compelled to write veni, vidi, victus fui.
Oh, it was a treat to see him wrestle in the forensic fight! Instead of skirmishing on the enemy's outposts, he did not hesitate for a moment to plunge at once into the " imminent deadly breach ;" and, if he lost his case,-and what lawyer is not doomed occasionally to the pain of disap- pointment ?- he never failed to sustain and advance his reputation.
ROBERT P. HALL is another living refutation of the absurd idea that
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it is impossible for a man to be a fine scholar and a thorough lawyer. Who that has ever lived surpassed Lord Mansfield in jurisprudence ? and how few equalled him in general literature ! Are not the Commentaries of Sir William Blackstone the rich repository of the laws of England? and are they not at the same time models of pure English composition ? Lord Stowell excelled almost all of his cotemporaries in the law; and yet he was the familiar friend and literary executor of Dr. Samuel Johnson. Away with such ridiculous prejudice ! Sir James McIntosh, Sir Samuel Romilly, Story, Wirt, Pinckney, Legare, and a long list of the brightest names in Britain and this country, give the lie to this opinion, originating in the grossest ignorance, and too often fostered by sheer envy.
But our friend has passed from among us, and he will be seen no more until " the last day." At the early age of twenty-nine, when all were looking to him with great fondness of expectation, this gifted attorney, destined unquestionably to be one of the first men of the age, having already vindicated successfully his claim to equality with the ablest of his cotemporaries, is summoned away just as wealth, and honor, and fame were inviting his outstretched arm to seize the proffered prize of his high calling. The noble Arctic, with all her sails unfurled and her pennant gaily streaming in the breeze, has gone down to an unfathomable eternity, laden with happy hopes and precious promises.
The ways of Providence are inscrutable and past finding out. We must walk by faith and not by sight. His vacant office-his vacant seat in this temple of justice-preach eloquently to us that we too are born to die. Day unto day utters this sad truth, and night unto night repeats the solemn warning. Let this thought subdue our earthly passions and stamp with insignificance all our strifes and contentions.
To be left the widow and orphans of such a husband and father, who can contemplate, much less calculate, the loss ? Let his aged parents and surviving brothers and sisters not weep and refuse to be comforted because the pride of their eyes and of their house is no more, but rejoice rather that he has lived and still lives in the bright record which he has left behind him,-in the reports of this court, in the high regard of his professional brethren, in the love of the community where he dwelt, and in the memory of his social and domestic virtues.
Let the resolutions be entered on the minutes of the court.
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XIX. JOHN HOUSTOUN.
PROBABLY there is no one living able to supply from personal knowledge materials for the biography of the first judge of the Superior Court of Georgia after the State Government was organized pursuant to the Federal Constitution. The name of JOHN HOUSTOUN is entitled to the highest respect; for he was indeed a man of strong abilities, of the purest patriotism, and of the most determined courage. A very brief notice of him is extracted from a work* lately published, and with it must end all inquiry into his career or merits. There is no other field to glean. That memoir of a single page is, however, full of meaning,-of trustworthy qualifications :-
JOHN HOUSTOUN, a son of Sir Patrick Houstoun, was among the earliest and most zealous advocates of the Colonies. At a crisis so momentous, it was fortunate for Georgia that there were men like Mr. Houstoun willing and able to serve her. On the 15th of July, 1775, he was appointed one of the Representatives of the Province to the Congress in Philadelphia; and the same honor was conferred upon him the 2d of February, 1776. His name would have appeared on the Declaration of American Independence, had he not been called from Congress to counteract the influence of the Rev. Mr. Zubley, a delegate from Georgia, who had suddenly left Phila- delphia for the purpose of using his efforts at home against the Declara- tion. On the 8th of May, 1777, Mr. Houstoun was appointed a member of the Executive Council, and on the 8th of January, 1778, was elected Governor of Georgia. The invasion of East Florida had long been a favorite object of Mr. Houstoun; and soon after his elevation to the Executive chair he expressed to Major-General Robert Howe, then in command of the Southern department, his willingness to co-operate with him in this expedition. The force thought necessary for the expedition being raised, General Howe, accompanied by Governor Houstoun, pro- ceeded against East Florida. Arrived at the St. Mary's River, numerous obstacles prevented further progress, and a council of war was called to decide whether a retreat would not be proper; and it was determined, under present circumstances, a retreat was not only expedient, but abso- lutely necessary. Governor Houstoun was a man of high spirit, and was unwilling to relinquish the command of the Georgia militia to General Howe; and this misunderstanding between the Governor and the general was probably one of the principal causes which led to the failure of the
* White's Historical Collections, p. 209.
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expedition. In 1784, he was again Governor of Georgia. In 1787, in conjunction with John Habersham and Lachlan McIntosh, he was appointed a commissioner by the General Assembly, on the part and behalf of the State of Georgia, for settling disputes respecting boundary with the State of South Carolina; but he differed in opinion from the other commissioners, and protested against their proceedings. His protest may be found on page 666 in Marbury and Crawford's Digest. Mr. Houstoun was by profession a lawyer, comparable to any of his day. He died at White Bluff, near Savannah, July 20, 1796.
There is one omission in the above sketch which the author is enabled to supply, and that is the appointment, in 1792, of Mr. HOUSTOUN as Judge of the Superior Courts of the Eastern Dis- trict. As his was the first commission to administer the laws under the new Government, a copy is inserted in this memoir as a specimen of the particularity of form at the close of the Colonial era. But an example of English proceedings will be first given, in reference to Chief-Justice Grover, his Majesty's "trusty and well-beloved," of whom the following documents testify :-
George the Second, by the grace of God of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, and so forth;
To our trusty and well-beloved William Grover, Esquire,-greeting :
We having taken into our royal consideration the loyalty, integrity, and ability of you, the said William Grover, We have, therefore, of our own special grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion, thought fit to constitute and appoint, and by these presents do constitute and appoint, you, the said William Grover, our Chief-Justice of and in our Province of Georgia : To have, hold, exercise, and enjoy the said office during our pleasure and your residence within our said Province, together with all and singular the rights, salaries, allowances, fees, profits, privileges, and emoluments thereto belonging or appertaining, with full power and authority to hold the Superior Courts of Judicature at such places and times as the same may and ought to be held within our said Province.
In testimony whereof, we have caused these our letters to be made patent under the seal of our said Province.
Witness our trusty and well-beloved Henry Ellis, Esquire, our Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of our said Pro- vince, in the Council-Chamber at Savannah, the thirteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine, and in the thirty-second year of our reign.
By his Majesty's warrant under his royal sign-manual and privy-seal, dated at St. James's, the twenty-seventh day of November, 1758. (Seal of ye Coly.) HENRY ELLIS.
This authority is well expressed, and is grave and dignified, as becomes the magistrate. But it seems the judicial conduct of Chief-Justice Grover did not give satisfaction; and the next we hear of him he is thus referred to by the mandate of his Majesty's VOL. II .- 7
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Council, stripping him of all his official rank within four years from the date of his letters-patent :-
GEORGIA. - By his Excellency James Wright, Esquire, Captain- General and Governor-in-Chief in and over his Majesty's said Province of Georgia;
To William Grover, Esquire, and all others whom it may concern :
Whereas, on a due and impartial inquiry into the conduct and behavior of you, the said William Grover, as Chief-Justice of the Province afore- said, his Majesty's Council have declared, That it appeared to them, and they are unanimous and clear in the opinion, that your conduct and be- havior as Chief-Justice has been and is dishonorable, partial, arbitrary, illegal, indecent, and not consistent with the character, duty, and dignity of that office, and were also unanimous in opinion that you are unworthy of, and not fit to be continued in, the office of Chief-Justice of this Province, and that it would be for the honor and service of his Majesty and of this Province that you should be suspended until his Majesty's pleasure be known thereon :
Therefore, by virtue of the power and authority vested in me by his most sacred Majesty, I have thought fit to suspend and remove you, the said William Grover, from the office of Chief-Justice aforesaid; and do hereby accordingly suspend and remove you from the same and from all power and authority whatsoever relative thereto from henceforth until his Majesty's royal will and pleasure shall be signified.
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