History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 10

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1538

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 10

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

ton and the time. There was no duel but the many added their belief that Mr. Cushing meant all his words implied.

Mr. Cushing at that early day, in 1836, if ever, had no sympathy with the Abolitionists, but he protested against the idea of suppressing or restricting Liberty that slavery might widen and deepen; and when Henry A. Wise, then representative from Virginia, discussing the admission of Arkansas, threatened to plant slavery in the heart of the Northern States, Mr. Cushing broke loose upon him in a burning torrent of words: " Introduce slavery into the heart of the North !"-here he hesitated and gazed scornfully into the face of Wise-" Vain idea ! invasion, pesti- lence, civil war may conspire to exterminate a people. This, in the long lapse of ages incalculable, is possi- ble to happen. You may raze to the earth the thronged cities, the industrious villages, the peaceful hamlets of the North. You may plant its soil with salt and consign it to everlasting desolation. You may trans- form its beautiful fields into a desert as bare as the blank face of Sahara. You may reach the realization of the infernal boast with which Attila, the Hun, marched his barbarous hosts into Italy. . . All this you may do, it is within the bounds of physical possibility, but, I solemnly assure every gentleman within the sound of my voice, I proclaim it to the country and the world, that you can not, and you shall not, introduce slavery into the North." Here he stood immovable from first to last. He believed in self- government and in local State government, as the basis of American freedom and constitutional liberty, and he would preserve the rights of the States and the liberties of the republic at the same time.

Mr. Cushing was in favor of extending the area of freedom, of enlarging the republic west to our natural boundary, the Pacific Ocean, and north and south as circumstances should require. Hence his plea for Ar- kansas, his defense of our rights in Oregon, and his readiness to annex Texas. And what he advocated he was ready to defend in the field if the occasion de- manded. Therefore, in the face of the severest oppo- sition to the Mexican War, in Massachusetts, he not only urged the measure in debate, but himself volun- teered, assisted to raise the regiment called for, and when the Legislature refused an appropriation of twenty thousand dollars to assist them to reach their destination, he advanced the funds from his own re- sources. He led the regiment as colonel and was ap- pointed a brigadier-general soon after landing in Mexico.

In the great struggle of John Quincy Adams for the right of petition-the heroic and the last contest of the venerable sage of Quincy-Mr. Cushing was his faithful friend and active coadjutor, and nniformly in congress was on the liberal and progressive side. Rob- ert C. Winthrop, on a recent occasion, referring to Mr. Cushing's congressional career, spoke of "his varied ability, vast acquirements, unwearied applica-

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

tion and his fame and skill as a writer and debater." " Nor will I forget," added he, " his very amiable traits of character, which prevented difference of opinion or of party, sundering the ties of social inter- course. Ile knew how to abandon a policy or quit a party without quarrelling with those he left behind." Thus we see him, a Democrat, in the most friendly relations with Charles Sumner, at Washington, spend- ing an evening of every week in discussing public af- fairs and inquiring what might be done for their com- mon country. Like relations held he with Secretary Seward, and with all the Republican presidents from Lincoln to Grant inclusive.

He retired from politics, after the Rebellion broke out, and spent most of his time at Washington, where every administration during his life had the benefit of his well-formed opinions; nor was there a single branch of the government that did not avail itself of his service. When not connected officially with them he was held in reserve for any emergency that might occur. Nothing personal or political prevented his serving his country. He was intensely loyal and pa- triotic ; never man more so; ready to sacrifice anything for the unity and perpetuity of the government. We recall his words in dismissing the national Democratic convention, over which he was called to preside at Charleston, S. C., when we stood ou the brink of the Rebellion : " I pray you, gentlemen, in returning to your constituents and the bosoms of your families, to take with you, as your guiding thought, the sentiment, the Constitution and the Union." Those were the waymarks and the guides of his life.

After leaving Congress he at once entered upon the duties of minister to China, to which he had been ap- pointed by President Tyler to negotiate a treaty. This he did, going east to China and returning in the same direction, via Mexico, with the best treaty to that date ever made with that ancient people ; perfecting his work and circumnavigating the globe in fourteen months. The treaty was submitted to the Senate that had, on political grounds, three times rejected him as secretary of the treasury, and was so satisfactory as to be ratified without a dissenting voice

His next important service was as attorney-general under President Pierce, to which he was called from the Supreme Bench of Massachusetts, which occa- sioned one of his associate judges to pay him this com- pliment, " when he came to the bench we didn't know what we could do with him; and when he left, we didn't know how we could do without him." As At- torney-General, he perhaps appeared to the country at large, better than in any position he had before held ; and when he retired, carried with him a higher reputation for profound knowledge, than any of his predecessors. He was then at his maturity, in the fulness of physical and mental strength, and his labors were the most arduous and varied. It was not oncom- mon, for weeks in succession, for him to be in his of- fice from four o'clock in the morning till midnight,

and every conceivable question on our relations to matters at home and abroad, wsa submitted to him. His opinions fill three volumes, of the fifteen in the whole, to the date of his retirement ; and no less au- thority than William Beach Lawrence, in his edition of Wheaton, declares " they constitute in themselves a valuable body of international law." They show also his fidelity to the principles of the fathers of the republic.

In the short space allowed this sketch, we may not go into particulars. That he had the confidence of the country may be seen in this : President Lincoln appointed him a commissioner to adjust claims pend- ing between this country and Mexico, Spain and other peoples ; President Johnson made him a special envoy to the United States of Colombia ; President Grant appointed him minister to Spain, counsel for the United States to Geneva and would have made him chief justice of the Supreme Court, had not Mr. Cushing asked him to withdraw the nomination, not made at his solicitation, upon the dissent of a single Senator ; and at every point his action was endorsed by the country, the public press applauding.

He now retired to his home. Though still strong, but pressing hard upon four-score years, he could see that the end was near, and he heard the message: " What thou hast to do, do quickly." He obeyed, turned his attention to his private affairs and sought rest with personal friends, in the town and by the river he had loved so well, and where he had been loved. His mission was finished ; he had all the honors de- sired ; his fortune was ample; he had really nothing more to do, than to be himself, as he was to the end, and utter his last prayer for his country. He died January 2, 1879, and was gathered to his fathers. He sleeps on the western slope of the hill, where the rays of the setting sun longest linger on the marble that bears his name, and the name of her who was dearest of human kind to him. He had built the tomb for his wife, and in it prepared his own resting place-a place for one ; he determined at her decease, forty-five years before, there should be no more.

DANIEL P. KING, though never admitted to the bar, passed through a course of study in law and de- serves a place in this record. He was born in Dan- vers January 8, 1801, and was the son of Daniel and Phebe (Upton) King, of that town. He fitted for college at Phillips Academy and graduated at Harvard in 1823. In 1824 he married Sarah P., daughter of Hezekiah and Sally (Putnam) Flint, and finally set- tled down at Danvers as a farmer, following the occu- pation of his father before him. He was a Represen- tative to the Legislature from his native town iu 1835, Speaker of the House in 1840 and 1841, president of the Senate in 1843, and was chosen in the last year Representative to Congress, continuing in office until 1849. His natural gifts, cultivated by his collegiate and legal studies, specially fitted him for legislative duties, and more particularly for that class of them

xli

THE BENCH AND BAR.

which attaches to the responsible position of presiding officer. He died in Danvers July 25, 1850.

ELIAS HASKET DERBY was born in Salem Sep- tember 24, 1803, and graduated at Harvard in 1824. He studied law in the office of Daniel Webster, and appears on the official list of lawyers admitted to the bar to have been admitted at Salem in the year of his graduation from college. He settled in Boston, and by an increasing practice in railroad cases soon became identified with railroad interests, in the pro- motion of which he was far-seeing and bold. He was a prolific writer for newspapers and magazines, hav- ing in all his productions an eye to the advancement and prosperity of Boston. He was at one time pres- ident of the Old Colony Railroad, and died in Bos- ton, March 31, 18S0.

GEORGE LUNT, son of Abel and Phoebe Lunt, was born in Newburyport December 31, 1803, and graduated in Harvard in 1824. He was ad- mitted to the Essex bar in 1833, and until 1848 practiced law in Newburyport. In that year he removed to Boston, and in 1849, under the new Whig national administration, was appointed district attorney for Massachusetts, succeeding Rob- ert Rantoul. During the four or five years which pre- ceded the war he was one of the editors of the Boston Courier, and was earnest in his opposition to all the measures on the part of the North which tended to dissatisfy and estrange the South. His convictions were doubtless as sincere and pure as those who de- nounced him, but his love for an unbroken union min- gled with a timidity which shrunk from a test of its strength, made him appear at times what he was not, an advocate of slavery and its attendant evils.

Ontside of the columns of newspapers, Mr. Lunt's publications were chiefly poetical, while the news- papers themselves contained many a poetical gem from his pen, which eventually found its way into a public collection. A volume of his poems was pub- lished in 1829, another in 1843, another in 1851 and still others in 1854 and 1855. The last few years of his life Mr. Lunt spent in comparative retirement in Scituate, and died in Boston May 16, 1885.

STEPHEN PALFREY WEBB, son of Captain Stephen and Sarah (Putnam) Webb was born in Salem March 20, 1804, and graduated at Harvard in 1824. He studied law with John Glen King, of Salem, and was admitted to the bar in 1826. He settled in practice in Salem, and was, before 1853, Senator, Representa- tive and mayor. In that year he went to San Fran- cisco, where he was also chosen mayor in 1854, and returned to Salem, again to be chosen mayor in 1860, '61 and '62. He was city clerk of Salem from 1863 to 1870, and finally removed to Brookline, where he died in 1879. He married, May 26, 1834, Hannah Hunt Beckford Robinson, daughter of Nathan and Eunice (Beckford) Robinson.

ROBERT RANTOUL, JR.,1 the son of Robert and

Joanna (Lovett) Rantoul, was born in Beverly, August 13, 1805. In his childhood he gave no doubtful promise of the traits of mind and character that were prominent in his maturer years. Happy in home in- fluences, and in thoseof his earliest school-life, he not only learned with wonderful facility, but manifested a power of thought and reasoning so unusual for his age, that there was never any purpose other than of securing for him the best means of education attain - able. He was fitted for college at Phillips Academy in Andover, and entered Harvard in 1822, graduating in 1826. His college life was one of untiring indus - try. Fourteen hours out of the twenty-four were, oftener than not, spent in study. He paid little at- tention to the college curriculum, easily reading Lat - in aud Greek at sight, and in meutal, moral and polit- ical science reciting from his own "inner conscious- ness," in words of which the professor could find no trace or analogue in the text-book. He devoted a great deal of time to the higher literature of conti- nental Europe. The French language he learned by reading it, and it early became as familiar to him as the English. In German, under the tuition of Dr. Follen, he belonged to the first class in Cambridge that ever studied that tongue. His chief aim was to become conversant with the political history and in- stitutions of the European nations, and with the his- tory and science of government and legislation. He was as intimately acquainted with Grotius and Puff- endorff, Machiavelli and Beccaria, Montesquieu and Jeremy Bentham, as the foremost of his classmates were with their required class-work. But, notwith- standing his incessaut labor, he was not indifferent to college society, though he took part in it mainly in behalf of the interests which he held in the highest re- gard, and with the view of raising the standard of general culture. "The Institute of 1770 " was formed by the union of three pre-existing societies, one of which, while surrendering the distinctive portion of its name, insisted on retaining the index of its birth-year. This new society was organized, virtually by him, for the sole purpose of literary and scientific work, and in its earlier years was among the most efficient educational forces in the university. Mr. Rautoul's high place in the esteem of his classmates was manifested in his election as class-poet, and, although in after years he wrote but little verse, he had already shown, and cer- tainly showed by that very poem, a talent which, with adequate cultivation, might have given him no incon- spicuous place among American poets. Mr. Rantoul, on leaving college, entered the law-office of John Pickering, and at a later period that of Leverett Sal- tonstall.

He was admitted to the bar in 1829, and established himself for a time in Salem, where his principal bus- iness was as junior counsel for the Knapps in the celebrated White murder trial, in which he collected and prepared the evidence for the defense. In 1831 he removed to South Reading, and in 1833 to Glou-

1 By Dr. A. P. Peabody.

xlii

IIISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

cester, which town he represented in four successive Legislatures. In 1835 he was appointed on a com- mittee for revising the statutes of Massachusetts, and in the three following years he served and performed very efficient service on the Judiciary Committee. He first distinguished himself in the Legislature by his opposition to the charter of a "ten million bank," at a time when paper money, often of difficult and doubtful currency, flooded the country, and shortly before the suspension of specie payment by the New England banks. His action was with the Democratic party ; but it was universally admitted that it was his able argument (which might stand now as an inde- pendent treatise on the philosophy of finance), that won over a sufficient number of the Whig majority in the House, though it was regarded as a party measure, to defeat the scheme. There was hardly an important subject before the House on which he remained silent ; and his speeches were not harangues, but thorough ar- guments, based ou facts, statistics and principles, and requiring, in order to answer them, if not an ability equal to his own, at least an amount of diligent study aud careful elaboration which few legislators were, or ever are, willing to bestow.

The subject of capital punishment, commended to him by his father's lifelong interest in it, was among those which he early and often urged on the attention of the Legislature. As chairman of committees he made three reports in as many successive years in favor of the abolition of the death-penalty, besides as many carefully prepared speeches, and not a few shorter ones in the progress of debate. He after- ward wrote "Letters on the Death-Penalty," ad- dressed to the Governor and Legislature of Massa- chusetts, which were repriuted by order of the Legis- lature of New York. He also embraced every avail- able opportunity for delivering lectures and addresses on this subject. His writings upon it probably con- tain all that has been or can be said in opposition to capital punishment, and they have been largely quoted wherever the question has been discussed on either side of the Atlantic.

In 1839 Mr. Rantoul opened an office in Boston, having his home in Beverly. In 1843 he was ap- pointed Collector of the port of Boston and Charles- town, and in the following year United States Attor- ney for the District of Massachusetts, which latter office he resigned in 1849.

During the period of his legal practice in Boston he had the management of a singularly large number of cases of prime importance, both for clients of his own and in behalf of the government, and in several instances he not only gained his cause against the strongest possible array of opposing counsel, but won their hearty applause; and when he lost a case he seldom failed to have the verdict of an intelligent publie for what he had made to appear the better side. One of his most remarkable cases was that of Sims, the fugitive slave, whose defeuce he was called

to undertake without an hour's previous notice, yet in whose behalf he made an argument to which, as we read the report of it to-day, it seems as if nothing could have been added, whether on the score of con- stitutional law or of natural right. A large propor- tion of the cases in which he appeared as an advocate were, like this last-named, such as he espoused with his whole heart, equally from feeling and from prin- ciple, so that he identified himself fully and entirely with the person or eause under trial.

Mr. Rantoul, at the outset of his public life, at- tached himself to the Democratic party from sincere conviction, and with full knowledge that this was not the way to obtain place or office, or even the recog- nition of ability or merit, in Massachusetts. But he never bore any part, nor felt any sympathy, with the pro-slavery sentiment, in which, for many years, the two great political parties had vied with each other in that sordid sycophancy to the South which cul- minated in the Fugitive-Slave Law. The passage of this law roused intense indignation in Massachusetts, and led to the building up of the Free-Soil party, with which the leaders of the Democracy were free to form a coalition, while loyalty to Mr. Webster re- strained the opposing party from giving unanimity of expression to the feeling which, beyond a questior, was universal throughout the State. Mr. Rantoul had several times before been nominated for Congress and had received a very large minority of votes. In 1851 he was elected by the Massachusetts Legislature, in which the Free-Soil party held the balance of power, to fill out Mr. Webster's unexpired term in the United States Senate, on his becoming Secretary of State, and in the same year he was chosen as a mem- ber of the House of Representatives for the Essex South District.

During the brief period of his Senatorship there was no occasion which called upon him for more than a few short speeches, on matters of no permanent im- portance. But in the House he at once took a prom- inent part in debate, not wholly in connection with the slavery issue, but on other subjects of national in- terest. On the occasions on which he addressed the House he showed himself armed at all points, whether for defence or for assault, and was probably the man above all others, whom the abettors of such wrongs as had assumed to their view the aspect of right most dreaded to encounter.

His vast learning, his tenacious memory and his prompt command of its resources, made him a most formidable opponent, while the same qualities fitted him for the efficient advocacy of measures conducive to the national progress and well-being.

But his career was cut short at the moment when he was winning the highest distinction, and when es- pecially the friends of freedom were depending on his already well-proved strength as their champion. He was preparing a speech on the fisheries, a subject which he doubtless understood better than any other

Eng ªby A .. Fautchic

Phó

Metropolitan Publislung & Engraving Co New York Biack Photo.

xlv

THE BENCH AND BAR.

prejudices, strong in thought and strong in language, and, above all, strong in his integrity."

Nothing need be added to show what manner of judge and lawyer and man Otis Phillips Lord was be- lieved by his contemporaries to be.

GEORGE MINOT, son of Judge Stephen Minot, of Haverhill, was born in that town January 5, 1817. He graduated at Harvard in 1836, and studied law with Rufus Choate, preparatory to his admission to the Suffolk bar in 1839. He is best known for the " Digest of the Decisions of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts," which he published in 1844, and to which he added a supplement in 1852. He died at Reading, Mass., April 16, 1858.

ROBERT WORMSTED TREVETT was born in 1789, and graduated at Harvard in 1808. He studied law and settled in Lynn in 1813, where he died January 13, 1842.

STEPHEN BRADSHAW IVES was born in Salem March 9, 1827, and was the son of Stephen B. Ives, of that city. He received his early education in the public schools and graduated at Harvard in 1848. After leaving college he taught school one season in Newbury, and afterwards had charge as principal of one of the Salem grammar schools. He studied law in the office of Northend & Choate, in Salem, and was admitted to the bar at Salem at the March term of the Court of Common Pleas in 1851. For a year or two he was clerk of the Salem Police Court, and in 1853 began active practice. By his eminent qualifications for his chosen profession, guided and spurred by an unusual enthusiasm in its pursuit, he early secured a large business and won an enviable reputation. He died at Salem February 8, 1884, and on the next day a meeting of the Bar Association of Essex County was held in the court-house, in Salem, and a commit- tee consisting of William D. Northend, George F. Choate, A. A. Abbott, Daniel Saunders and Charles P. Thompson was appointed to prepare resolutions of respect to be presented to the court.

In the Supreme Judicial Court, sitting at Salem on the 24th of the following April, a worthy memorial was read by Alfred A. Abbott, who was followed in appropriate remarks by Mr. Northend, Mr. Thomp- son, Mr. Saunders, Charles A. Benjamin and Leverett S. Tuckerman.

Chief Justice Morton, presiding, accepted the me- morial in behalf of the court and added his testimony to the high character, indomitable energy and pro- fessional skill of Mr. Ives. The whole bar acknowl- edged the truth of Mr. Abbott's statement that for " thirty years he pursued a career which has had few parallels in the history of the Essex Bar."

ALFRED A. ABBOTT, son of Amos Abbott, was born in Andover May 30, 1820. He was educated at Phil- lips Andover Academy and entered Yale College in 1837. At the end of his junior year he left Yale and entered Union College, from which he graduated in 1841. In 1843 he graduated also from the Dane Law

School at Cambridge. His law studies were finished in the office of Joshua Holyoke Ward, and he was admitted to the har in 1844. He commenced practice in that part of Danvers which is now Peahody, and made that his residence until his death, October 27, 1884. He represented the town of Danvers in the Legislature in 1850-52, and the county of Essex in the Senate in 1853. In the latter year he was a mem- ber of the Constitutional Convention, and was ap- pointed district attorney for the Eastern District. He held office as attorney until 1869. In 1870 he was appointed, upon the death of Mr. Huntington, clerk of the courts, and in the same year he was chosen for Mr. Huntington's unexpired term. He continued in office until his death, having been twice re-elected.

In a memorial read by William D. Northend, pres- ident of the Essex Bar Association in the Superior Court at Salem, December 8, 1884, Mr. Northend said : " Mr. Ahbott was something more than a law- yer or clerk of the courts ; he was a man of broad culture and large knowledge and experience outside his profession. He read the best books and was a thorongh student of English literature. His occa- sional public addresses were models of excellence. His style was elegant and graceful and his language most felicitous. He had a very sympathetic nature, his delivery was forcible and impressive and as au orator he had no equal in the county since the days of Rufus Choate. If he had sought distinction in the general practice of his profession, there was no place at the bar or on the bench to which he conld not have justly aspired ; or if he had cherished polit- ical ambition, he had the qualities which would have insured him a high position and reputation as a states- mau."

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 10

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1 Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1538

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1538