USA > Maine > Biographical encyclopedia of Maine of the nineteenth century > Part 22
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Into public political life Ether Shepley threw himself in the year 1819. Separation from Massachusetts was the general topic of eager discussion, and one that deeply inter- ested him. In that year he was elected to represent Saco in the General Court, and was also chosen a member of the convention that drafted the constitution of Maine. In Feb- ruary, 1821, he was appointed U. S. Attorney for the District of Maine, succeed- ing Judge William P. Preble in that office. For the next twelve years he continued to discharge his Federal duties with great promptitude and faithfulness, serving through the four closing years of Mr. Monroe's Administration, the whole of Mr. Adams's, and the first four years of General Jackson's.
Mr. Shepley was elected to the Senate of the United States in 1833, as successor to John Holmes, and proved to be one of the ablest representatives that Maine has ever had in the highest legislative body of the nation. Great partisan excitement and bitterness were prevalent. Henry Clay had been rejected as candidate for the Presidency in the previous year. General Jackson was the tenant of the White House. The Democrats carried everything before them, except in the Senate. There foiled ambition crippled its power. The National Republicans, or Whigs, were allied with the followers of Calhoun. The Democratic leaders were, as a whole, unequal in debate to the Whigs. The advent of an eloquent and able speaker like Mr. Shepley was hailed as an event of unusual promise. Hope received fulfilment. "In the new Senator," writes the Hon. Israel Washburn, Jr.,
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LL.D., "they found a Democrat of the strictest sect, a man who believed in the uses and functions of party and of the merit that attached to an intelligent allegiance to party, and who was prepared to do manful battle for it when necessity or occasion required such ser- vice. But when this has been said it must be added that Senator Shepley never permitted his action to be controlled by his party ties in opposition to his real convictions; and, although no man was a stancher party man, in the best sense of that term, or was inclined to do less to embarrass his political friends, the intellectual veracity of which I have spoken refused to be divorced from whatever was clearly vouched by his moral sense. He had no taste for the rough-and-tumble and the personalities of debate, as they were allowed, and too frequently encouraged, in those days, in both Houses of Congress. His clear and logical mind would be satisfied only with the orderly marshalling of facts, and the sober and severe processes of dialectics. He participated but seldom in the general debates, and spoke only at any considerable length on important and pressing questions."
At the time of Mr. Shepley's entrance upon Senatorial duties the country was con- vulsed by the action of the President in removing the U. S. deposits from certain selected or "pet" banks of the States. Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and their friends denounced it as arbitrary and illegal. Jackson had removed Samuel D. Ingham of Penn- sylvania from his office as Secretary of the Treasury, and appointed Roger B. Taney in his stead. By the latter the removal was effected, but the act was substantially that of Jackson. In the midst of the most able and most exciting debate that took place in the Senate of those days Mr. Shepley took his seat, and met the charge that the President had been guilty of usurpation of power. His speech began January 14, 1834, and con- tinued for three days, through so much of the time as was allotted to that question. Said he : "Sir, I have one word more before I pass from this branch of the subject. . .. It is provided in the Constitution that the executive 'shall take care that the laws be faith- fully executed.' What does this power imply? The Senator from Kentucky does not regard it as granting the power which I consider that it does grant. I regard it as a grant of power to the President to examine into the manner in which the laws are executed. How can the Executive take care that the laws be faithfully executed without an examina- tion into and a decision upon the manner of executing ? Can he take care how they are executed, and yet not look into the mode and manner in which they are carried into effect ? Sir, the Constitution not only gives him the power to look into the mode and manner, but further, it imposes it upon him as a solemn duty-he shall look into the manner in which the laws are executed. To omit an inquiry of the manner in which an officer performs his duty, is to omit to perform his own duty, to which the Constitution, as well as his oath, enjoins and binds him."
To the friends of President Jackson, who granted the premises assumed by the speaker, this line of reasoning was perfectly logical, and its conclusions irresistible,
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But the most cogent and thoroughly convincing speech of Mr. Shepley while in the Senate was that delivered on the French Spoliation Bill. Certain American citizens held claims against the United States for spoliations by the French prior to the year A.D. 1800. France admitted the wrongs, and was ready to make indemnity. But the United States was under onerous treaty obligations to France, under the provisions of two conventions made February 6 and 7, 1778, which might involve the country in the wars of France. From these obligations the United States were most anxious to escape, and did escape from them by engaging with France to indemnify American citizens for the losses which they had suffered from the French. " Our Government pocketed the consideration and repudiated the debt-a meanness and dishonesty unsurpassed in the undisputed history of any other civil- ized nation." A bill for the payment of these claims has twice passed both Houses of Congress, and failed each time to become a law, because vetoed by the President. It has passed one or other of the Houses not less than a dozen times, has never received an ad- verse report from a committee, and yet has never become law. On the 22d of December, 1834, Senator Shepley maintained the obligation of the country to pay these claims, and closed his address as follows :
"Compensation has been secured by treaty for all, or nearly all, the injuries which our citizens have suffered from other nations. Can the high character of this nation for doing justice to all, at home and- abroad, be maintained without making compensation for these injuries, which have been the considera- tion of procuring for her a discharge from very onerous obligations? If the bill may pass, the only great claim remaining may be satisfied, and the duties of the Government, to do justice to all, will have been fulfilled. If these claims are just, all fear of evil consequences to arise from their allowance may be dismissed. Things are rightly so ordered here, that to do justice to all others is to serve ourselves best."
The last sentence is "an apple of gold in a picture of silver," and deserves place among the aphorisms that American citizens should most highly prize.
Such legislators as Senator Shepley are above the reach of envenomed slander. As he himself remarked in reply to John C. Calhoun (February 18, 1836), who had complained of the press as corrupt and abusive : "All our past history teaches us that among all the numbers who have been politically destroyed, not one has been so destroyed by general denunciations of the press, or by like denunciations delivered either in legislative halls or in public assemblies of the people. They have been destroyed by their own acknowledged sayings and doings."
The U. S. Senate was not the true scene of activity for one of Senator Shepley's talents and tastes. He was first, foremost, and always a lawyer. He longed to re-enter legal pursuits. In September, 1836, he was appointed by Governor Dunlap to fill the vacancy on the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine occasioned by the resig- nation of Judge Parris, His first term of service was at Bangor. It commenced about
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the end of October, and lasted till late in December. "This was just after the culmination of the great eastern land speculations, and the docket was crowded with cases." Judge Emery quaintly said that it needed to have "its backbone broken." Judge Shepley did break it. He " was a power on the bench, which, although gracious and courteous, was not to be trifled with, " and who was resolved "that the facts were to be elicited only after the rules of law." In one especial case, argued by the ablest and most brilliant lawyers of the State, he gave the cause to the jury " in a charge in which every legal point involved, as affected by the testimony, was presented in such a manner that not even the dullest man on the panel could mistake the meaning of what had been said. ... When the charge was concluded, there was a universal expression that a more perfect address, both in mat- ter and manner, had never been given from the bench of that court in Penobscot County."
Judge Shepley was appointed Chief Justice in 1848,-succeeding Chief Justice Whit- man,-with the general concurrence of the bar and of the public. His long experience as jurist and judge, the fidelity and acuteness he had always illustrated, made the appointment an eminently fitting one. He held this high office until the fall of 1855, when his constitu- tional term of seven years expired. He then retired, with ermine unsullied, and with the highest reputation for learning, impartiality, decision, and promptitude. "The ability which characterized his judicial career is amply illustrated in the twenty-seven volumes of the Maine Reports, from the fourteenth to the fortieth, inclusive. His opinions are drawn with clearness, directness, and force, and no one can mistake the point which he endeavors to establish."
Judge Shepley "held rigidly that justice was to be found in a faithful adherence to legal principles and rules." He keenly enjoyed the excitement of a skilfully conducted trial, and watched the movements, the strategic manœuvres, the dashing onsets, and in- genious retreats of eminent lawyers with a zest as keen as that of the stoutest Roman in presence of the gladiatorial combats of the arena. But he never lost sight even for a moment of the law and the justice involved in the contest. Strongly attached to profes- sional and judicial life, he would not permit any outside allurements to withdraw him from it, and resisted all solicitations to accept official positions under the General Government.
When Judge Shepley retired from the bench in 1855, the members of the Cumberland bar on the 23d of October voiced the general sentiment regarding him. They unani- mously adopted the following :
" Resolved, That we recognize with the liveliest sensibility the debt which we and the whole State owe to Chief Justice Shepley for his long-continued labors and services upon the bench; we bear testi- mony to the eminent learning and ability, the unbending integrity, and untiring and conscientious de- votion to duty, with which he has discharged all the functions of his elevated and responsible station ; and we look with pride to his judicial career, marked by a dignity which ever commanded respect, and by a learning which ever justified confidence."
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The last public office that Judge Shepley was ever called upon to perform was that of revising the laws. Mr. Willis states that between the date of April 1, 1856, and the 15th of November following, "he prepared a very full index of the whole body of the public statutes, which constitutes what is now cited as the ' Revised Statutes of Maine,' published in 1857."
Not only did he decline the office of Attorney-General of the United States, but also that of Governor of Maine. His conviction was that as a judge he ought not to have anything to do with party politics. He would neither vote at purely political elections nor give recommendations of his best friends for political office, being most solicitous to preserve himself from the appearance of bias and the suspicion of prejudice.
As a Christian, he was an ornament to the Church of God. His pastor, the Rev. Edward Y. Hincks, of the State Street Congregational Church in Portland, speaking of his life and character, in a sermon delivered January 21, 1877, said :
" But the life of Chief Justice Shepley rose to its highest usefulness in the service which he rendered to the Church of Christ. He was an eminent member of a class of laymen who, during the past genera- tion, adorned the Congregational churches of New England-men of high station and eminent ability, who laid their gifts in humble devotion at their Master's feet. ... Realizing that Christ's kingdom is world-embracing, consecration to the advancement of that kingdom, meant to him consecration to its advancement throughout the earth. He was a zealous supporter of home and foreign missions, a cordial friend and active assistant of the Christian educational institutions of his own State. The temperance reform found in him a prompt and efficient advocate. The leading benevolent societies of the Church received his generous and cordial support. ... He had the passionate love of righteousness which was the noblest element of the Puritan character-a love so absorbing as to swallow up self-interest, and make the whole soul a free offering to the majesty of eternal law."
There was no acerbity or asceticism about Judge Shepley. "The inflexible principle of this servant of God was made winning by the sweetness of his feeling and the gentle- ness of his manner. He was tender and lovable in the home-circle, modest and amiable in social life, childlike and humble in the Church of God. He loved young people, and drew them to him by his kindness. He joyfully welcomed young disciples to the church," and to his pastor was ever a kind and sympathizing friend. Many a member of the bar, espe- cially if ingenuous and ambitious, was indebted to him for kindly words of encouragement, and also for grave words of admonition and reproof as kindly meant. For his children he wrote and left certain most valuable lessons, which embody the mature conclusions of his long experience, observation, and reflection. They contain the rules by which his own con- duct was guided, and indicate most clearly the lines of his own perfect Christian character.
Judge Shepley was a wide but discriminating reader. With periodical literature he kept thoroughly abreast. Works on religion and theology had special attractions for him. Books on philosophy, science, history, and biography, as also the best works of fiction,
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occupied much of his time, and gave delightful occupation to his declining years. In the cause of education he revealed genuine interest. For more than thirty-seven years he was a member of the Board of Trustees of Bowdoin College. He was an original and also an active and useful member of the Maine Historical Society which was organized April 11, 1822. He was the first president of the Portland Natural History Society, and held that office by successive elections from 1843 to 1848.
When the Rebellion against the Government of the United States broke out, the fires of patriotism in the breast of this venerable statesman and jurist were glowing as vigor- ously as when General Jackson uttered his immortal sentiment, "THE UNION-IT MUST BE PRESERVED." He presented one of the colors to the Twelfth Maine V. M., of which his son George Foster Shepley was the colonel, and accompanied the presentation by an im- pressive statement of the principles and issues involved in the war. He also took the over- sight and direction of one of the largest and most lucrative law-offices in the State, which his son was obliged to relinquish for a time in order to employ his brilliant abilities in the deliverance of his imperilled country. Promptly and patiently Judge Shepley met the demands upon his time and energy.
With the close of the war came relief from active work. The loss of his wife, the beloved companion of more than fifty years, soon followed. All the harsher lines of char- acter were worn away by time, meditation, and divine grace, " leaving only a breadth of sympathy and catholicity, of charity of creed, party, social interests and aims, which spread over the closing scenes of his life a vesper light of exceeding softness and beauty." On the 15th of January, 1877, he died at the house of his son Judge George F. Shepley, at Port- land. Ten days before that event he fell and fractured one of his hips. Of great age and infirm health, he could not rally. He died full of years and honors. Just men carried him to his burial. Lawyers, physicians, clergymen, civic officials, and crowds of citizens attended his obsequies. His favorite hymn, "Asleep in' Jesus," was sung by the State Street choir, and his remains were interred in Evergreen Cemetery, in sure and certain hope of a blissful rising again to eternal life.
Ether Shepley was married to Anna Foster, September 17, 1790. Five children-all sons-blessed their union. Three survived their parents, viz .: John R., a graduate of Bowdoin College, and a successful lawyer in St. Louis ; George F., the learned and dis- tinguished Judge of the United States Circuit Court for the New England Circuit; and Leonard D., a merchant in Portland.
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ESSENDEN, SAMUEL, was the fifth child of the Rev. William Fessenden, the first minister of Frycburg, who was descended from Nicholas Fessenden of Cambridge, the ancestor of all the Fessendens in America. He came to America about 1674 with his sister Hannah, to inherit the estate of his uncle, John Fessenden, who had emigrated from Canterbury in 1636, and had set- tled in Cambridge, where he had acquired a considerable property. Nicholas lived near the college, and had a large family. Chief Justice Samuel Sewall says he boarded with him, and his brother afterward married Hannah Fessenden. Nicholas had thirteen children who grew up, of whom William was the tenth. William lived and died in Cambridge. His son, also named William, was graduated at Harvard in 1737, studied theology, but never preached. He was called a famous schoolmaster, and died at the early age of forty, leaving a widow whose maiden name was Mary Palmer, and several children. His eldest son was William, who was the father of Samuel. A daughter married President Dana of Dartmouth College ; and a grandson was Thomas Green Fessenden, celebrated in his day as a wit, poct, and political writer.
The father of Samuel was an earnest and devout man, of marked character, who did much good in his day and generation for the community in which he lived. He was born in Boston, November 14, 1747, and was graduated at Harvard in 1768. He studied medi- cine three years, and then prepared himself for the ministry. Being licensed to preach, he went as a candidate to Dunbarton, New Hampshire, where he fell in love with the daughter of a family then going with a company of settlers to Fryeburg. The young min- ister went with them, and was invited to become their pastor at a salary of forty pounds a year. The place was then a wilderness. There was no settlement within thirty miles, and the country to the north as far as the St. Lawrence was Indian hunting-ground. The first years of his ministry were full of toil and privation, and he performed the double labor of clearing his farm and composing his sermons, working in hours which should have been given to sleep. He was, however, well fitted to cope with the hardships of frontier life, his physical strength being sustained by courage, energy, and perseverance. For twenty years there was no minister between him and Canada, and the settlements in Lovell, Sweden, Waterford, Norway, and other places were not incorporated. The good divine spread his labors over all these places, and into New Hampshire, preaching without fee or reward. He procured medicines and carried them with him on his missionary tours, and by study- ing the diseases of the country he successfully combated corporeal as well as moral maladies. Eager to benefit and improve the community, he exerted himself to found an academy. As a result of his efforts, united with the exertions of some of his leading parish- ioners, the Fryeburg Academy was incorporated within eighteen years after the opening of
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the wilderness, and has proved an inestimable blessing to the surrounding towns. He preached to within a few weeks before his death, though for several years he had relin- quished his salary, having by his energy and labor acquired sufficient means of living. He was an earnest advocate of the independence of his country, and subsequently he labored to have the Constitution accepted by the people. His interest in public affairs caused his election to the Legislature of Massachusetts in 1799, 1800, 1802, and 1804, where his wis- dom and prudence gave him much influence. In 1805 he was appointed the Judge of Pro- bate for his county, but he died shortly after, at the age of fifty-eight. As a speaker his manner was dignified and graceful, his style persuasive, and his voice clear, commanding, and musical. The most prominent points of his character were benevolence, integrity, and frankness. In his public and private relations he was a model. Dignified in bearing, gen- erous in spirit, hospitable to a fault, fearless and uncompromising in maintaining the right, he was yet eminently courteous and forbearing.
The Rev. William Fessenden was twice married. His first wife was Sarah Reed, who died in the first year of their married life. His second wife was Sarah Clement, whom he had met at Dunbarton, New Hampshire, and who was a fit helpmate for her husband. She was a woman of remarkable mind and character, and possessed a spirit as courageous and benevolent, and as keen a love for literature, as her husband. Left a widow with nine children, she reared her sons and daughters in the highest principles, in the accomplish- ments of a liberal education, and with the training for laborious and useful lives.
Samuel Fessenden, the subject of this sketch, and better known in the State of Maine as General Fessenden, was born in Fryeburg on the 14th of July, 1784, and died in Port- land on March 19, 1869. From his father he inherited an impressive person, and from both of his parents massive intellectual powers, great benevolence of spirit, and benignity of character. Early in life he received instruction in the rudiments of education from his parents, who were also accustomed to impart in familiar talk their own information and reading to their children, and who cultivated in them a love for history and literature. One of the sons, Thomas Fessenden, a distinguished lawyer in New York, used to relate how he read Gibbon's "Decline and Fall" in the intervals of farm labor, and General Fessen- den himself read Virgil by the light of the camp-fire while making sugar in the woods. He completed his studies for college at the Fryeburg Academy, entered Dartmouth Col- lege in 1802, and was graduated in 1806 with a high reputation as a scholar. While in col- lege he formed an intimate friendship with Daniel Webster, the acquaintance having begun in 1801, when Webster was teaching at the Fryeburg Academy. During his Senior year he taught school in Boscawen, New Hampshire, where Webster had opened a law-office, and with whom Fessenden would read law in the hours not devoted to instructing youth. Among his classmates were Richard Fletcher, the eminent lawyer of Boston ; Governor Harvey of New Hampshire, and Governor Parris of Maine. After leaving college he
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studied law for three years in the office of Samuel A. Bradley of Fryeburg. In 1809 he was admitted to practice, and immediately opened an office in New Gloucester, in the cen- tral part of Cumberland County, and then the centre of a considerable trade. A trifling incident soon occurred which gave him much popularity in the neighborhood. In a hear- ing before a justice of the peace he severely cross-examined a witness, a man of great physi- cal strength, and a notorious bully. The latter being greatly exasperated, declared to the outsiders that he would thrash the lawyer after the hearing. When General Fessenden emerged from the court-room the bully made a furious attack upon him, but the General, who possessed extraordinary muscular power, knocked his assailant down. Then approach- ing his antagonist, he remarked that if he had finished with him he would go home, as he was in somewhat of a hurry. The crowd as usual shouted for the victor.
At the beginning of his practice he encountered Weston, afterward Chief Justice of Maine, who was settled in the town, and Simon Greenleaf, the celebrated jurist, then a practising lawyer in the adjoining town of Gray. Greenleaf was his most powerful com- petitor, and had already acquired a reputation for his ingenuity and eloquence. The encounters of these two young men struggling for mastery in the profession were often sharp and interesting. Their professional skirmishes and battles have been vividly described in the interesting History of the Courts and Lawyers of Maine: "For more than twenty years they encountered each other at the Cumberland bar. They were nearly of the same age, had nearly the same acquaintance, and were usually opposed to each other." Their rivalry and conflicts did not impair their mutual friendship and respect, and ended only when Greenleaf abandoned the arena in Maine to accept the professorship at the Cambridge Law School, there to extend his usefulness and increase his fame. The historian Willis says "that for twenty years the rivalry between Greenleaf and Fessenden existed in a larger degree than with any other members of the bar; that their forensic encounters, from their rivalry and ability, were listened to by the bar and the court with much interest ; for in them were displayed copious resources of legal knowledge and cultivated powers of elocution. In learning and ability it was difficult to choose between them."
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