USA > Indiana > Courts and lawyers of Indiana, Volume II > Part 4
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Indiana was placed in the Seventh circuit with Illinois and Wisconsin and the President on March 21, 1892, appointed William Allen Woods as the first judge of the new court for the district of Indiana. Judge Woods became a member of the Indiana Supreme court January 3, 1881; resigned May 8, 1883, to become United States District Judge for Indiana ; resigned March 21, 1892, to become Circuit judge of the United States for the Seventh circuit. A full discussion of Judge Woods is given in the chapter on the Indiana Supreme court.
At the present time this court has the following Judges of the Seventh Circuit court who are competent to sit as Judges of the Court of Appeals; William H. Seaman, Christian C. Kohlsaat, Julian W. Mack, Francis E. Baker, Evan A. Evans and Samuel Alschuler. Of these six judges, Francis E. Baker is the only one who has been appointed from Indiana. Judge Baker was a member of the Supreme court of Indiana from 1899 until his appointment in 1902 as judge of the Seventh District court of the United States. A sketch of his life is given in the chapter on the Supreme court of Indiana.
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COURT OF CLAIMS.
The United States Court of Claims was established by Congress with the act of February 24, 1855. Generally speak- ing, it is a court of special jurisdiction which handles all claims against the United States. It is a court of last resort, as far as the plaintiff is concerned, for all cases over which it is given exclusive jurisdiction with the exception of cases where the amount in controversy is more than three thousand dollars. The act establishing the court provided that the United States had the right to appeal from any adverse judg- ment (24 Stat. at L. 505, Sec. 15). The Court of Claims con- sists of a Chief Justice and four Judges appointed by the President. The Chief Justice receives a salary of six thousand five hundred dollars and each of the other judges an annual salary of six thousand dollars. The court holds one annual session at Washington, D. C., beginning on the first Monday in December and continuing until all business is disposed of.
CHAPTER XV. THE NEW BAR (1852-1916).
GOVERNORS.
Under the new Constitution, it can be said, as was said of the bar under the old Constitution, that the lawyers have taken a leading part in the administration of all public affairs. Since the year 1852 there have been elected seventeen Gov- ernors, and of these all but four-James D. Williams, Claude Matthews, James A. Mount and Winfield T. Durbin-have been lawyers of wide reputation and regular practice. The first three of these were farmers and the last a business man. From November 24, 1891, to January 9, 1893, Ira J. Chase, a minister of the gospel, was acting Governor, to fill out the unexpired term of Governor Alvin P. Hovey, who had died in office. He was a candidate for election in 1892, but was defeated by Claude Matthews. At the Democratic convention in 1852 there was no opposition to Governor Wright. He was a candidate for re-election and his biographical sketch has been given. As his running mate, a distinguished young law- yer of New Albany, Ashbel P. Willard, was nominated.
Governor Willard was born October 31, 1820, in Vernon county, New York. He graduated from Hamilton College in 1842. After practicing law two years at Marshall, Michigan, he went horseback to Texas and from there to Kentucky, teaching occasionally by the way. In 1845 he reached Indiana, finally locating in New Albany, where he formed a partner- ship with Randall Crawford. In 1850 he was elected to the Legislature, and two years later became lieutenant-governor, being elected Governor in 1856. He died on October 4, 1860. Many men still living remember his eloquence.
Upon the death of Governor Willard, Abram A. Hammond, who had been serving as lieutenant-governor since 1857, be- came acting Governor and served until January 14, 1861.
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Governor Hammond was born in Brattleboro, Vermont, in March, 1814. While still a boy he moved to Indiana, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1835. In the year 1850 he became a Common Pleas Judge at Indianapolis. He later went to California, but returned in 1854 and located in Terre Haute. He died in Colorado, August 27, 1874.
Governor Hammond was succeeded in office by one of the late representatives of the old school of practice, Henry Smith Lane, of Crawfordsville. It was understood in the campaign of 1860 that if the Republican ticket was successful in the state Lane was to be elected to the United States Senate, and Oliver P. Morton, who had been been elected lieutenant-gov- ernor, was to become the Governor. As a matter of fact, Lane was Governor of Indiana only two days, from January 14 to January 16, 1861, while Morton was in reality only Acting-Governor from 1861 to 1865.
Henry Smith Lane, whose sketch has already been given, was one of the most interesting men in Indiana history. He began life in the arms of poverty, and became reasonably wealthy. He was a backwoods pioneer and became one of the most cultured men in the country. He held almost every office worth holding except that of President, and he never courted an office. Easily outclassed among the senators of his time, yet he, more than any, was the confidential adviser of the President during the trying days of the Civil War. He understood the West, and in this respect was very much like Lincoln. Lane's successor was a very different man, although both were great in their respective positions as senator and Governor during the Civil War.
Governor Morton was born in Salisbury, Wayne county, Indiana, August 4, 1823. As an apprentice he learned the hatter's trade. He graduated from Miami University in 1843, read law with John S. Newman, and began practice at Cen- terville in 1847. He made an unsuccessful race for Governor in 1856, and was elected lieutenant-governor in 1860. In 1864 he was elected Governor, but before the expiration of his term he resigned, January 24, 1867, to accept a seat in the United States Senate, to which he had been elected by the Legislature, and served in the Senate continuously until his death, in Indianapolis, on November 1, 1877. Morton was a
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better statesman than lawyer, as the duties of Governor and senator demanded all of his time and attention from 1860 until his death, and during this long period of nearly twenty years he was either in the Governor's chair or filling a seat in the United States Senate.
Upon the resignation of Morton in 1867, Conrad Baker, of Evansville, became Governor. In 1868 he was elected to a full term, serving until 1873. Conrad Baker was born in Pennsylvania, February 12, 1817, and was educated at Penn- sylvania College, at Gettysburg. He read law with Thaddeus Stevens and Judge Daniel Smyser. From 1839 to 1841 he practiced law at Gettysburg, and in the latter year came to Indiana and located at Evansville, where he continued to follow his profession until he was elected lieutenant-governor in 1864. When Governor Morton resigned, January 23, 1867, to go to the United States Senate, Baker became acting Gov- ernor, and served as such until his election as Governor in the fall of 1868, after an exciting race against Thomas A. Hendricks, with a plurality of 961 votes. It is interesting to note that in later years Baker and Hendricks formed a law partnership, which continued until Hendricks became Vice- President of the United States, March 4, 1885.
Thomas A. Hendricks was not to be denied the governor- ship. Although twice defeated, his third race for Governor, in 1872, proved successful. A sketch of his life has already been given and it is sufficient to say that from that date until his death, November 25, 1885, while filling the office of Vice- President of the United States, he was one of the foremost figures in the country.
Hendricks was succeeded in 1877 by James D. Williams, who is known in Indiana as "Blue-Jeans" Williams, a sobri- quet which was attached to him during the campaign of 1876. Williams will go down in history as one of the most unique characters who has ever filled the Governor's chair. He was a farmer of Knox county and all of his life, with the excep- tion of about a year in Congress and the short period of his governorship, was spent on the farm where he was born. He was elected Governor, strange to say, over the best lawyer Indiana has ever produced and the only man who has ever been elected President of the United States from Indiana-Ben-
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jamin Harrison. Governor Williams assumed the office on January 8, 1877, and died November 20, 1880, before his term was to expire in January of the following year.
Col. Isaac P. Gray, who had been elected lieutenant-gov- ernor in 1876, filled out the unexpired term of Governor Williams. Gray was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, October 18, 1828. He had only a common school education, and received his legal training by reading law in the office of one of the lawyers of his native state. In 1855 he came with his parents to Union City, Indiana, where he lived until his death. After two years in the mercantile business, he turned to the law. He was colonel of the Fourth Cavalry in the Civil War. In 1884 he was elected Governor and served a full term.
At the regular election of 1880, Albert G. Porter, a lawyer of the Indianapolis bar, was elected Governor. He was a native of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, where he was born on April 20, 1824. He was educated at Hanover and DePauw,. read law, and in 1845 began practice at the Indianapolis bar. A great part of his time was devoted to politics. Besides the local offices held by Porter, he was Supreme court reporter from 1853 to 1857; congressman from 1859 to 1863; first comptroller of the treasury from 1878 to 1880; Governor from 1881 to 1885, and minister to Italy from 1889 to 1892. He died at Indianapolis, May 3, 1897.
In the election of 1888, the Indiana bar was particularly well represented. Its leading member, Benjamin Harrison, was a candidate for the presidency, and an ex-member of the Supreme court, Alvin P. Hovey, was a candidate for Governor. Both were successful.
Benjamin Harrison was born at North Bend, Ohio, August 20, 1833. He graduated from Miami University, and read law in Cincinnati. In March, 1854, he moved to Indianapolis, where he practiced law the remainder of his life. He served in the Civil War, rising to the rank of brigadier-general. He was reporter of the Supreme court from 1861 to 1863 and again from 1864 to 1868; United States senator, 1881-1887; President of the United States, 1889-1893; and he repre- sented Venezuela in the arbitration cases at Paris in 1900.
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Harrison died at Indianapolis, March 13, 1901. As a lawyer, in its broad and best sense, he was considered second to no one in America.
Governor Hovey, who was Governor from 1889 until his death, November 23, 1891, has already been sketched as a member of the Supreme court. He is the only one of that bench who has ever been Governor. Following the death of General Hovey, the Governor's office was administered for nearly fourteen years by men without legal training, the long- est gap in the "reign of lawyers" since the office was estab- lished.
In January, 1905, Governor J. Frank Hanly took up the burden again for the legal profession, and since that time there has been no break in the succession. Governor Hanly was a lawyer from Lafayette at the time of his election, and it was in the law he built the foundation of his present repu- tation. His biography is given elsewhere.
Governor Hanly was succeeded in 1909 by Thomas R. Mar- shall, of the Whitley county bar, where Joseph Adair, W. F. McNagny, I. B. McDonald and Judge Walter Olds had for- merly practiced. Marshall was born at North Manchester, Indiana, March 14, 1854, of Virginia lineage. He graduated from Wabash College in 1873. He read law with Judge Wal- ter Olds, of the Supreme court, and was admitted to the bar in 1875. Marshall located at Columbia City, where he prac- ticed law until he became Governor. He was associated most of the time with W. F. McNagny and P. H. Clungston. In 1912 he was elected Vice-President of the United States, the last of the Indiana quartet of Vice-Presidents, and was re- nominated on June 16, 1916, to make the race with President Wilson.
In 1913 Samuel M. Ralston, of the Boone county bar, be- came Governor. For many years he had been widely known both as a lawyer and a public man. He was born in Tusca- rawas county, Ohio, December 1, 1857, of Virginia extraction. The family located in Owen county, Indiana, in 1865. Gov- ernor Ralston is a graduate of Central Normal College. In 1884 he began reading law in the office of Robinson & Fowler, at Spencer, and was admitted to the bar January 1, 1886. He
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began practice at Lebanon, where he lived until he became Governor. Governor Ralston devoted himself assiduously to the practice of his profession from the time he was admitted to the bar until he became Governor in 1913, although he has been frequently importuned to make the race for public offices of one kind or another.
A large majority of the Governors who have served since 1852 have returned to the active practice of the law. A few, like Morton, Lane, Hendricks and Wright, spent their re- maining years in public service. All of them were lawyers of first-rate ability, and had achieved a solid reputation in their profession before becoming Governor. All measured up to the high demands of the positions they occupied and acquitted themselves honorably.
LIEUTENANT-GOVERNORS.
A large number of lawyers served as lieutenant-governors, although, as a whole, they had less ability than the lawyers who served as Governors. Among the most noted of the law- yers who have been lieutenant-governors (not mentioning Willard, Hammond, Morton, Baker and Gray, who were also Governors) may be named the following: Will Cumback, a lawyer from the Decatur county bar, born in Franklin county, March 24, 1829, educated at Miami University and the Cin- cinnati Law School, a Republican and scholar of wide reputa- tion ; Robert S. Robertson, of the Fort Wayne bar, elsewhere noticed; Newton W. Gilbert, later in Congress, and now a prac- ticing lawyer in the Philippines; Frank J. Hall, of the Rush. county bar, born February 16, 1844, a graduate of Indiana University in 1869, and a Democrat; and William P. O'Neill, a graduate of Notre Dame, and a lawyer of Mishawaka.
UNITED STATES SENATORS.
As a rule, lawyers delight most to serve in the great delib- eration bodies, the Legislature and Congress. To be a con- gressman or a United States senator is the most attractive service to the lawyer. For this their whole life, as well as their professional training, fits them. Accustomed to study- ing social questions of immediate significance; engaged at
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all times in the application of the law to social conditions, they are, as a rule, better prepared to discuss and enact legis- lation than any other class of citizens. The sanctum and the forum are part and parcel of their daily lives, so that they are able to unite the practical and the theoretical better than any others, if they live up to the best of their opportunities. In Lincoln, the lawyer, there is found the vision of Emerson or Whitman, united with the practical ability that character- izes the military or business man. Nor, as a rule, is it neces- sary for the lawyer to go up on a mountaintop in order to get a vision of the promised land. He never loses sight of the actual flesh and blood individual man, that, in the aggre- gate, constitutes society. It is thus no accident that the law- yer takes such a prominent part in the making of laws.
Of the eighteen senators who have been elected to repre- sent Indiana in the United States Senate since 1852, all but two have been lawyers by profession and have been actively engaged in the practice. One of these exceptions, Dr. Graham Fitch, filled out an unexpired term. Upon the death of Sen- ator Shively, March 14, 1916, it became the duty of Governor Ralston to fill the vacancy thus created. On March 20, 1916, the Governor appointed Thomas Taggart to serve until the November, 1916, election should elect his successor. The Democratic state convention in April, 1916, nominated Sen- ator Taggart as the candidate of the party to fill out the un- expired term of Senator Shively. The Republicans nominated James E. Watson as their candidate for the unexpired term of Senator Shively.
Of the fifteen lawyers who have served in the Senate, sev- eral have enjoyed nation-wide distinction of a professional character. Such men as Turpie, Hendricks, Morton, Pratt, McDonald, Voorhees, Harrison, Fairbanks, Beveridge and Kern can truly be called national figures.
John Pettit, Henry S. Lane, David Turpie, Thomas A. Hendricks and Oliver P. Morton have already been mentioned.
Daniel Darwin Pratt, who served in the Senate from 1869 to 1875, was from the Cass county bar, a companion of Daniel P. Baldwin, Horace P. Biddle, William Z. Stuart, Williamson Wright and Quincy A. Myers, to name only a few of the mem- bers of that distinguished bar. He was born in Palermo,
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Maine, October 26, 1813; graduated from Hamilton College in 1831; came to Indianapolis in 1832; read law in Indianapolis, and in 1836 located in Logansport, where he practiced until his death, June 17, 1877.
Joseph E. McDonald, who served in the Senate from 1875 to 1881, has already been noticed under the old bar as con- gressman.
Daniel Wolsey Voorhees, who served in the House of Rep- resentatives from 1861 to February 23, 1866, and from 1869 to 1873, and in the Senate from 1877 to 1897, came from the Fountain county bar, where he met in his early days Hanne- gan, Wright, McGaughey and Howard. He was a native of Butler county, Ohio, born September 26, 1827. He came with his parents to Fountain county when he was two months old. He graduated at Asbury (now Depauw) University, class of 1849; read law with Land and Wilson of Crawfordsville, and located at Covington, forming a part- nership with Edward Hannegan. He soon made a reputation as a criminal lawyer. His volumes of published speeches show the character of the man and his knowledge of the law. His long career in Congress has been mentioned. He died in Washington, D. C., April 9, 1897.
Benjamin Harrison served in the Senate from 1881 to 1887, when he was succeeded by David Turpie, who came from the White county bar, its most widely known representative. He was a native of Hamilton county, Ohio, born July 8, 1829; reared in Carroll county, Indiana; graduated from Kenyon College in 1848; read law with Daniel D. Pratt at Logans- port, and in 1849 located at Monticello to begin practice. He was in public life almost constantly from 1854 until his death in Indianapolis, April 21, 1909. In 1854 he was elected Com- mon Pleas Judge, and two years later became Circuit Judge. He was one of the three compilers of the Revision of the Laws of Indiana in 1881.
Charles Warren Fairbanks, one of Indiana's four Vice- Presidents, was United States senator from 1897 to 1905. He resigned March 4, 1905, to become Vice-President. A sketch of Senator Fairbanks may be found in Volume III. His place was taken by James A. Hemenway, of the Warrick county bar, where in court. he met the DeBrulers, Hatfields,
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Chappell, Gilchrist, Posey and their contemporaries of the First Congressional district. Hemenway was born in Boon- ville, March 8, 1860, where he read law and was admitted to the bar in 1885. He served in Congress from 1895 to 1905, when he passed to the Senate to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Charles W. Fairbanks. Since 1909 he has been practicing law in Boonville.
Senator Turpie was succeeded in 1899 by Albert J. Bever- idge, of the Indianapolis bar. He was born in Ohio, October 6, 1862; graduated at DePauw in 1885; read law with Jo- seph E. McDonald in Indianapolis, where he has since prac- ticed, with the exception of the years he spent in the Senate, from 1899 to 1911.
Beveridge was succeeded in 1911 by John Worth Kern, also of the Indianapolis bar. He was born December 20, 1849, in Howard county, Indiana; graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1869, and soon opened an office in Kokomo, where he practiced until 1888, when he located in Indianapolis. He has been practicing in Indianapolis since that time, except when in the public service. He is now a candidate on the Democratic ticket for re-election.
CONGRESSMEN.
In the Lower House of Congress the influence of the legal profession is also noticeably preponderant. Since 1853 thirty- one Congresses have met. To these Indiana has elected three hundred and eighty-one regular representatives, and of this number an overwhelming proportion have been lawyers. No less than sixty-eight terms have been filled by lawyers who have served on the Circuit bench of the state.
The delegation of 1856, which represented Indiana in the thirty-third Congress, was composed of eleven men, all but two of whom were lawyers. Cyrus L. Dunham, of the Third; James H. Lane, of the Fourth; Samuel W. Parker, of the Fifth; Thomas A. Hendricks, of the Sixth; Daniel Mace, of the Eighth, and E. M. Chamberlain, of the Tenth, belonged to the old bar and have been noticed. The new lawyer was William H. English, of the Second, who came from the Scott
(28)
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county bar, his ancestral home being at Lexington, where he was born on August 27, 1822. He graduated from Hanover College, read law, and was admitted to the bar in 1846. He served in Congress from 1853 to 1861. His later life was spent almost exclusively in public service, so that he prac- tically gave up actual practice. He died at Indianapolis, Feb- ruary 7, 1896.
From the Ninth district, Norman Eddy, a lawyer of South Bend, took the place of Doctor Fitch, of Logansport. He was a native of Scipio, New York, where he was born on December 10, 1810. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1835; practiced medicine in Mishawaka, In- diana, until 1847; opened a law office in South Bend the same year, but gave most of his time to public service. He served in Congress only one term, 1853 to 1855. He was colonel of the Forty-eighth Indiana Regiment during the Civil War. He died at Indianapolis, January 28, 1872, while serving as secre- tary of state.
Ebenezer M. Chamberlain, a former judge of the Elkhart Circuit court, and later a lawyer at the Goshen bar, repre- sented the Tenth district in place of Samuel Brenton. He was noticed as one of the old Circuit Judges.
In the thirty-fourth Congress (1855-1857) only a few old faces appear, a fact due to the Kansas-Nebraska bill excite- ment. George Grundy Dunn took the seat of Cyrus L. Dun- ham, both lawyers. Will Cumback, a young Republican lawyer of Greensburg, displaced James H. Lane, of Law- renceburg.
Lucien Barbour, a Republican attorney from Indianapolis, defeated Thomas A. Hendricks. Barbour was born in Canton, Connecticut, March 4, 1811; graduated from Amherst in 1837, and shortly afterward began the practice of law in Indian- apolis. He was held in high esteem as a lawyer and had helped codify the laws in 1852. He died in Canton, Connecticut, July 19, 1880:
Schuyler Colfax, a newspaper editor of South Bend, de- feated Norman Eddy in the Ninth Congressional district in 1854. Colfax served in Congress continuously from March 4, 1855, until March 4, 1869, when he resigned to become Vice- President of the United States. He had been elected with
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General Grant in the fall of 1868, but continued to serve as congressman untli he was sworn in as Vice-President. He died on January 13, 1885.
Samuel Brenton, a preacher, took the place of Judge Chamberlain in the Tenth, and John U. Pettit, of Wabash, succeeded Andrew J. Harlan in the Eleventh. A sketch of Pettit appears in Volume III.
It will be noticed that the lawyers lost three seats in the thirty-fourth Congress on account of the Kansas-Ne- braska bill.
The delegation of 1857 was hardly up to the earlier stand- ard, although such lawyers as Judge James Lockhart (who died in office) and Judge William E. Niblack came up from the First district; William H. English, from the Second; Judge James Hughes, of Bloomington, from the Third; the veteran, David Kilgore, of Delaware county, from the Fifth, and James Wilson, of Crawfordsville, the old law partner of Henry S. Lane, from the Eighth. Of the new lawyer mem- bers, Judge Niblack has been previously noticed. James M. Gregg came up from the Hendricks county bar, where Chris- tian Nave had been a leader for so many years. Gregg was a native of Patrick county, Virginia, born June 26, 1806. He practiced in Danville, Indiana, for about twenty years, and died there, June 16, 1869. James Wilson, who succeeded Daniel Mace in the Eighth, was born in Indiana, April 9, 1822. He graduated from Wabash College in 1842, and began prac- tice at Crawfordsville in 1845. He served in the Mexican War, and was in Congress from 1857 to 1861. He served as minister to Venezuela from 1866 until his death there, Au- gust 8, 1867.
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