USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume V > Part 97
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While in college Mr. Carson was a member of the Sigma. Alpha Epsilon fraternity, is a member and deacon of the Presbyterian Church, is a democratic voter, and earlier in his career was for a short time connected with the North Carolina Naval Reserves. On May 7, 1895, he married Ella Jen- kins Burwell, daughter of Judge and Mrs. Armis- tead Burwell of Charlotte, North Carolina.
JUDGE ARMISTEAD BURWELL. The ancient and beautiful custom of perpetuating in song and story the deeds and achievements of illustrious men has been so long sanctioned and followed as to be now considered one not founded upon mere sentiment, but also upon the obligation due by the living to the dead, and to themselves. The sentiment is one of loving remembrance of the good they accom- plished, their kindliness and human charity, which touched deeply our hearts when they were our com- panions in the active scenes of this life, and after they are gone awakens our sense of gratitude. The obligation springs from the duty we owe coming generations to preserve in permanent form the story of their lives, as an inspiration and an in- centive to higher and nobler endeavor. The ten- dency of all ages has been progressive, from good to better things, and it will continue to be so until we have fully secured the best that is attainable in this world. But we will never reach the farthest goal of our aspirations if the ripened wisdom of our ancestors, gathered by hard experience in the practical affairs of life, that knowledge and under- standing which alone can safely guide us in our present and future course, we in turn do not eventually, by the same medium, transmit to those who may come after us the inestimable benefit to our added wisdom and experience. Nothing has done more to contribute to this sum of human knowledge which has prepared us to take up the
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burden of life where they have laid it down than the records we have made and preserved of our great men, benefactors of their race, who, in their day and generation, were leaders of thought and exponents of the best in law, literature and science. It is this hallowed custom, to which I have referred, that brings me into this presence today, at the request of his friends and loved ones and by the courteous invitation of your committee, to speak a few grateful words to the memory of a cherished and honored friend. I can hardly trust myself to think of him, much less to talk of him, without unrestrained emotion, for I am sure no man es- teemed him more for his constant and never-failing friendship or admired him more for his many noble and excellent qualities. Before recounting his vir- tues and assigning his name to that exalted place it deserves in the annals of our illustrious dead, let me briefly trace his career, as boy and man, soldier, lawyer, statesman, jurist and patriot.
Armistead Burwell, the subject of this memorial, was born in the town of Hillsboro, North Carolina, October 22, 1839. He had, therefore, when he died reached and passed far beyond the high plateau of middle life, after a long career filled with honor and usefulness. His father was Robert Burwell, an eminent Presbyterian divine and educator, and his mother was Margaret Anna Robertson, remem- bered by those who knew her as a woman of rare intellectual endowment and beautiful traits of char- acter. She was noted far and wide as the finest type of gentle and noble Southern womanhood, and many are her pupils who would today gladly and lovingly bear witness to the truth of this tribute. This couple, both natives of Dinwiddie county, Vir- ginia, where they were happily married, emigrated from that state and settled in Hillsboro, North Carolina, where, as I have stated, Judge Burwell was born. It was fine stock on both sides, and there was in it a blended inheritance of the noblest virtues, refinement, culture and a strict devotion to principle. There was no pride of ancestry with him, for while it is desirable to be well descended, he knew that the glory belongs to our ancestors and is not ours. We are only what we make of ourselves. Their son, who so distinguished him- self in after life, was educated at what was then known as Caldwell Institute, presided over by that famous teacher, Dr. Alexander Wilson, the pre- ceptor of so many our noted men. After fin- ishing his academic course he was sent to David- son College, where he was a model student and scholar, graduating therefrom with the highest hon- ors of his class in 1860, and delivering the Latin or salutatory address. He then decided to make his home in the West, and settled in Washington, Arkansas. While there teaching school and in the diligent pursuit of his law studies, the tocsin of war sounded and he promptly answered its call to arms, joining a company of cavalry in the Third Arkansas Regiment, which was in the brigade com- manded by General Armstrong, and being his assistant adjutant general. He also served under Generals Bedford Forrest and Joseph Wheeler. Those who know of his military career speak of him as a brave and gallant soldier, intelligent, faithful and fearless in the discharge of every trust, obedient to superior authority, no matter how severe the discipline, and possessing in a marked degree the entire confidence of his associates, who admired him for his great courage and daring, his absolute devotion to duty and his other fine sol- dierly qualities. I knew him well, and thus know- ing him, I am sure that he was among the bravest
and best of those who followed the victorious standard of the heroic Forrest-the great com- mander of the West. His rank was that of cap- tain until just before the close of the Civil war, when he was promoted to the position of major, and held a commission for the higher rank when the war closed. He was severely wounded in the battle before Atlanta, while performing a most dangerous duty in the execution of a command which required the display of courage and dash of the highest order. His condition was so desperate that his young and noble life was almost despaired of, but he feared not, nor did he repine, for, brave man and splendid soldier as he was, his life was at the service of his country, and willingly would he have yielded it up for the cause which he had espoused and firmly believed to be just, and to which it had been dedicated. By the use of heroic and painful remedies, his wound was healed and his life was saved, but he was left with the use of one arm greatly impaired. After his recovery, when the actual strife was over, he returned to Charlotte, to which place his parents had removed, and there taught school with the Rev. Mr. Griffith, and at the same time studied law, receiving his license to practice in the courts of this state soon thereafter. He located in Charlotte, and became, first, the partner of Calvin E. Grier, as gallant a soldier as ever drew sword and as genial and fine a gentleman as you will meet with in more than a day 's journey. Of course they prospered, for two such men could not have failed. After the law firin of Vance, Dowd & Johnston had been dis- solved, Captain Burwell, as our people loved to call him, became the partner of Governor Zebulon B. Vance-the great and only and incomparable Vance. This firm continued to do a large, lucra- tive practice until its senior member was elected in 1876, and, for a third time, governor of the state. It was a strong, yes, almost an impreg- nable combination of intellect, learning, and elo- quence. There was no better lawyer than Captain Burwell as he was at this time, and there was no greater or more brilliant advocate than Vance. I had the honor of being a member of the Mecklen- burg bar while the latter was still a practitioner there, and it disparages no man for me to say, if he had an equal I have never seen him-and so thought Captain Burwell, his intimate friend and professional associate, whose daily companionship with him afforded peculiar opportunity to measure and gauge his professional ability and attainments, and his estimate of him, both as lawyer and advo- cate, was very high. He was devoted to Governor Vance and the latter to him. The governor once said to me, many years ago, just after his first election to the United States Senate, when return- ing to Charlotte from Gaston Cut: "If every man in the state was like Armistead Burwell, what a great commonwealth we would have. It is not too much to say that he is the purest and best man I ever knew, and it reflects on no one to say it." I almost recall his very words, and at least suffi- ciently so to be entirely accurate. Governor Vance also paid generous tribute to his great mental powers, to his intuitive business preceptions and his almost infallible judgment.
Captain Burwell once told me of an incident in his court house experience, and the judge who presided at the time afterward repeated the story to me. There was a long special term of the Su- perior Court of Mecklenburg County, held by one of our ablest judges. The firm of Vance & Bur- well had many appearances on the docket, and at
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the end of the term it was found that they had won nearly all, if not quite all, of their cases. A mem- ber of the bar, himself a great lawyer and suc- cessful advocate, one of the best trial lawyers I have ever known, moved for a new trial in one of the eases he had lost to Vance and Burwell, when the judge, who could discover no error in the record, asked him upon what ground the motion was based. He replied that he had but one, which was that no cause, however strong and just, could be won if Vance had the last speech against it, for he is simply invincible, and for this reason there has been, in this particular case, a mis- carriage of justice. The judge, though admitting the correctness of the statement, was compelled in law to deny the motion.
After the dissolution of his partnership with Governor Vance, Captain Burwell practiced law alone for several years, and until the fall of 1880, when he formed a partnership with the writer of this sketch, which continued for more than twenty years, broken only by the short period when he was on the bench. During my association with him I recognized at all times his great ability and learn- ing as a lawyer, and received from him, without a single exception, the most uniform courtesy and kindness. In 1880 he was elected to the General Assembly of this state, as senator from Mecklen- burg County, and served one term, declining a re- election. He served in the Senate with W. T. Dortch, Theo. F. Davidson, James A. Lockhart, William B. Glenn, Hugh R. Scott, and other distin- guished men of this state, who bore willing tribute to his ability and lofty ideals as a public man and to his great efficiency and usefulness as a legis- lator. He was a leader in that body, possessing all the traits of character and habits of thought that go to make the great statesman-courage, fidelity, truth and patriotism and an almost un- erring judgment, but preferring the walks of pro- fessional life and the honors of the private station, he steadily refused all political preferment, though he always actively espoused the cause of the party to which he belonged, and had perfect faith in his political creed. He was not controlled by the ebb and flow of public opinion, being a leader rather than a blind follower of men. He had just con- tempt for the demagogue, appreciating the truth in the philosophy of Bacon, that "nothing doth inorė hurt in a state than that cunning men some- times pass for wise."
In 1879 Judge Burwell was appointed by Gov- ernor Vance a director on the part of the state of the North Carolina Railroad Company, and served in that capacity a number of years, with such able men as Governor Thos. M. Holt, Gen. R. F. Hoke, and others, and was considered by them to be, as I happen to know, one of the most valuable mem- bers of the board, and was especially noted for his clear-sightedness, his fine business capacity and judgment, his saving common sense, and his won- derful knowledge of the practical affairs of life. His great influence in that body was conceded from the beginning, and continued throughout his long service. He resigned this position when he was ap- pointed a justice of the Supreme Court in Novem- ber, 1892, by his warm friend and admirer, Gov- ernor Holt. He served in the latter position for a little more than two years, and would certainly have remained there until his death, had not the fortunes, or in this case, the misfortunes, of politics swept his party to defeat, when all of its nominees, with a single exception, I believe, were obliged to succumb to the inevitable, if untoward, mischance
of a popular election, generally uncertain and some- times apparently perverse. But the misfortune was not his so much as that of the people of the state. for they both lost as true and loyal a public serv- ant and as able, learned and upright a judge as ever sat in that court. His career on the bench was one to be envied. He had every quality of mind and heart, body and temperament, to fit him for a great judge, and so he was. He was indeed a superb judge, simply because he could not help being so, for he was born to that position, and to his natural gifts were added those excellent judicial qualities which only study and experience can bring to any man. He was not of those who believed that genius or exceptional talent or even extraordinary natural endowment can fully take the place of industry and achieve the same results, but he carefully saved all his talents and improved them by labor and diligent study. In all my expe- rience at the bar or on the bench, I have seen none who had a stronger or better regulated mind, a clearer or more incisive judgment, or a more attractive manner. He viewed things from a prac- tical standpoint. He could see through a case from its beginning to its end with admirable foresight and separated the false from the true with almost unerring discrimination. In his personal life, he drew men to him by the very strength of his spot- less character and by the gentleness and kindness of his nature. He sternly insisted upon the right at all times, but behind it all there was a warm, sympathetic and genial heart, which, with his hand, was always outstretched to the poor and humble, the desolate and the oppressed. His soul was so pure and immaculate that no blemish could ever touch it, and not more spotless was the ermine which he wore so splendidly and so honorably when called to a seat in the council of the judges.
I cannot well separate his professional from his judicial life, as they merge into each other so naturally. In his practice, as on the bench, his great judicial qualities were always preeminent. Clients sought his counsel and his leadership be- cause they knew intuitively, as people generally perceive in such cases, that it was always the safest and the best. He would have attracted them no matter where he lived, because he had, in rare measure, that mysterious something which gave him the magnetic power to draw them irresistibly towards him. He would have succeeded anywhere. It was Emerson, I believe, who once said, and he was right when he said so, that, "if a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or even make a better mouse-trap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door." And the sentiment, thus so pungently expressed by the great philosopher and writer, may fittingly be applied to the subject of this memorial. Somehow he just knew how to do things better than most other people. In all that he did he had a rare perfection. If I may be permitted to paraphrase, with a slight change, what has been so well spoken of another, it may be said of him that he was planetary rather than irregular, and this tendency of his nature made the orbit of his life steady and uniform, in- stead of changeable and erratic. "His advocacy of any cause was fearless to the verge of temerity, and he appeared indifferent to applause or censure for their own sake. He accepted intrepidly any conclusions that he reached, without inquiring whether they were politie or expedient." His pre- dominant traits were his rugged honesty and un- spotted integrity. He adjusted his life, every aet
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of it, and all his conduct, to the highest moral standards and the loftiest ideals. There was no dissimulation about him, for he had nothing to conceal from the world. His life was as an open book, to be seen and read of all men. He dealt fairly and honestly with everyone, and exacted the same treatment in return for himself. He was al- ways ready to forgive a wrong and sometimes to forget it, but in all his social and business rela- tions he expected and required of every man with whom he dealt that he be a gentleman. With him, this comprehended everything essential to virtuous conduct. He never was a blind follower ' of any man or set of men, but, by his very nature was so constituted as always to be a molder of public thought and an acknowledged leader in his community. His people followed him and trusted to his leadership because of their implicit faith in his wisdom and courage, and their unhesitating confidence in the strict integrity of his purpose.
As a lawyer he approached every trial and dis- cussion in which he appeared after full and com- plete preparation and patient investigation of the facts. Believing in precedents of the law, as safe and sure guides and as containing the concentrated wisdom of its sages, applied to the practical affairs of men, he yet would not forsake the eternal prin- ciples of justice for a mere dictum of the judge. While he studied his cases thoroughly and ex- haustively, his arguments did not have the odor of the lamp. They were advanced to enforce the right, and not for any insidious purpose of merely winning a bad or unrighteous cause, and he paid little or no attention to the "nice, sharp quillets of the law," for he was too honest and frank to engage in the low arts and tricks of the petti- fogger, which he held in merited contempt. He believed that there were defeats more honorable and triumphant than some victories. Nor did he try to embellish his discourses with the flimsy drapery of a florid rhetoric, but rather clothed his strong and vigorous arguments in the clear and sinewy, though polished, diction of the genuine scholar that he was, having liberal education, po- lite learning and broad culture.
When things have taken thorough possession of the mind, apt and expressive words are always plentiful. He always commanded the unlimited respect and deference of his associates at the bar and of all those with whom he came in contact who easily knew him as he really was, for no man could be with him long without being deeply in- pressed with his noble qualities. By the very force of his character and his manly virtues, coupled with mental faculties of the highest order, he easily took first rank among his peers. Such a man, of course, condemned cant and hypocrisy in any and every form-the charlatan and the dema- gogue. There was no room for hypocrisy in his nature. It could not for a moment survive con- tact with qualities so pure and free from dis- honesty of any kind. He could deceive no man, and, for this reason, there was none who was more confidingly trusted by his people than he; nor did he worship any man for his wealth or influence, however great or potential, but he believed that such a man should be praised only in proportion as he used his good fortune, or any power thus acquired for the betterment of his kind and the advancement of the human race. He thought, with Anarcharsis, that a man's felicity consists not in the outward and visible favors and blessings of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind, and as Solon is reputed
to have said for himself, he would not have ex- changed his virtue for all the wealth and power of the world.
Judge Burwell, in his public and private life, was animated by a profound sense of justice and thought that its great virtue consists in modera- tion as regulated by wisdom. I have already said that his leading quality was his rugged and un- assailable honesty. Nothing could tempt him to do wrong, or to swerve by even a hair's breadth from the path of the strictest rectitude. He was for the right always, and so it naturally was his belicf, following the teaching of the ancient prov- erb, that "there is no debt, with so much ease and prejudice put off, as that of justice." While his sympathies were broad and deep, and as gentle and tender as a woman's love, yet without variable- ness or shadow of turning he steadily and con- sistently pleaded for justice, however much he might weep with the unfortunate, and though always ready to extend pardon or to temper his judgment with mercy. There never was a kindlier man, but one of the dominant ideas of his being was that justice and right should finally prevail. With his natural gifts of mind and body, his habit of study and of thought, his true and abiding sense of right, his superb character and his store of knowledge and learning, which lie had gathered by arduous labor and in the hard school of expe- rience, we cannot imagine how any man could have been better equipped or more exactly fitted for the highest judicial station. And so did his people think, for through their governor they chose him among many eminent and worthy men, and raised him to the highest honor within their gift, as a judge over them, to decide issues of life and death. His career on the bench, all too short, unfortunately, was fully up to the high standard fixed by his friends at the beginning, and he fully redeemed every pledge and promise they made in his behalf. I have been told by his associates on the bench that he was greatly beloved and honored by them as he had before been by his professional brethren and his people at home, and his judicial labors, as we know, were crowned with preeminent success. How could it have been otherwise, with such a brain and such a character to guide and direct it? "For Justice, all place a temple and all seasons summer,'' can well be said of him, and he dispensed it, as he should have done, with the cold neutrality of the impartial judge. He was true always to the obligations he assumed when he took the official oath that he would administer the right without respect to persons, and do equal justice to the poor and rich, to the state and to individuals, and in all things faithfully and im- partially perform the duties and functions of his high office. His opinions were always character- ized by clearness, force and vigor, couched in the best and most elegant English, and devoid of all attempt at display or affectation of style. He was one of the best of classical scholars, but his lan- guage was always plain, simple, direct and force- ful. He had no fads, nor did he insist that his views be adopted merely because he entertained them, but always thought only of the right, with- out the slightest regard to any effect upon his own personal fortunes. He had the greatest re- spect for the serious arguments of others, and always gave them proper heed and consideration. This was his habit at the bar and on the bench. As a judge he sought to bring the court into har- mony, rather than to give its opinion color of direc- tion in favor of his personal views. It is a trite
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saying that in union there is strength, and so he believed that agreement and unanimity imparted great force and weight to the decisions of any court; not that he would compromise about a mat- ter of principle, but he would sometimes yield his own views rather than weaken its opinion by dis- sent, and especially so when no great right was sacrificed.
His best deliverance, perhaps, was in the case of Haynes vs. the Gas and Electric Company, re- ported in 114 N. C., at page 205, that is, it has been cited more than any other of his opinions, and is a settled precedent in our courts for the great principle in the law of negligence it in- volved, and was the pioneer of all cases upon that subject. It is difficult, though, to select any one opinion as his best among the many of the highest merit which emanated from his pen. As it was, he ranked easily with the ablest and most learned jurists who have sat in that court, and by longer service and greater experience he would, of course, have raised still higher his standard of judicial excellence.
He was not a man of any vanity or conceit, and while brave, courageous and reasonably aggressive, he always practiced a becoming humility. Like the noble Duncan, as a judge, "he bore his faculties meek, and was always clear in his great office." He regulated his judicial conduct, not by the example, but according to the precept of Lord Bacon, who thought that judges ought to interpret law, and not to make law or to give law; else will it be like the authority claimed by some who do not stick to add and alter, and to pronounce that which they do not find, and by show of antiquity to introduce novelty. Judges, he thought, ought to be more learned than witty, and more advised than confi- dent. And to use more closely some of the words of this great thinker: "Above all things, integ- rity is their portion and proper virtue. Cursed (saith the law) is he that removeth the landmark, The mislayer of a mere stone is to blame; but it is the unjust judge that is the capital remover of landmarks, when he defineth amiss of lands and property. One foul sentence doth more hurt than any foul example; for these do but corrupt the stream; the other corrupteth the fountain."'
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