USA > New York > New York City > History of the Court of common pleas of the city and county of New York : with full reports of all important proceedings > Part 10
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Mr. Field concluded by offering the following reso- lution for the consideration of the meeting :
RESOLUTION.
The retirement of Chief Justice Charles P. Daly from the bench of the Common Pleas, where he has served for more than forty-one years, and presided for twenty- seven, appears to us, members of the bar of the City and County of New York, a fitting occasion for express- ing our respect for his private character and our com- mendation of his judicial career. To have passed safely for more than two score years through the trials of judicial life, encountering meantime the ordeal of
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Modne W. Dwight
Austin Abbott
JAMES C. CARTER.
BENJAMIN F. TRACY.
five popular elections, and leaving in the minds of all citizens the conviction that he has always administered justice without fear or favor, caring only for the law and the testimony, which he diligently studied-these things, combining with the uniform courtesy, patience and impartiality which have characterized his entire course with the bar, have given him a place pre- eminent in our regards, and lead us to salute him with our most respectful homage, as he descends from the bench of this tribunal. And while we give him this salutation for the past, we wish him for the future long life and that happiness in rest from judicial labor which springs from one's own self-respect, and a life well spent in the service of God and his fellow-men.
ADDRESS OF MR. WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The privilege is accorded to me of seconding the resolutions just offered, which I am sure express the unanimous sentiments of the bar of this city on this occasion, marked by so much of peculiar interest and significance.
However we may differ in individual opinion as to the wisdom of that provision of Section 13 of the Sixth Article of the Constitution of this State which cuts the thread of the judicial tenure at the age of three score years and ten, we are grateful for the opportunity it gives us to-day of testifying our respect and regard for the retiring Chief Justice of this honorable Court, who, having helped, as a member of the Constitutional Con- vention, to frame this very section, now feels its force; as the struck eagle of the poet's fancy
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" Viewed his own feather in the fatal dart,
And winged the shaft that quivers in his heart."
We are all reluctant to concede the facts which require the application of the constitutional mandate to Chief Justice Daly. Could our suffrages prevail, we would gladly imitate the example set, day before yesterday, by the great Republic of France in con- tinuing in its highest office one whose years number seventy-three .* But we have no alternative. Against the presumption of fitness arising from our observation of his unimpaired mental and physical vigor, we are met by his candid admission and by the conclusive evi- dence on the files of this Court, and so by force of a kind of inequitable estoppel, both in pais and by the record, the organic law, not of nature, but of the State, adjudges his retirement.
When this Court was organized by the Act of 1821, the tenure of office of its Judges was during good behavior, or until the age of sixty years was attained. This provision was similar to that of the Constitution of 1821, following the earlier Constitution, and it applied to the Chancellor and the Justices of the Supreme Court. Our present Constitution has length- ened the span of the judicial life by a decade, and the judiciary itself has improved on the Constitution by the repeated instances it has afforded of unimpaired facul- ties and fitness in incumbents of the bench when the limit of their terms had been reached. As it was with
* This happy reference of Mr. Butler's was to the re-election of President Grévy, whose term as President of the French Republic was expiring, and who was re-elected to his high office at the age of seventy-three, in Decem- ber, 1885, just before the retirement of Chief Justice Daly.
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them, so it is with our retiring Chief Justice; the shadow crosses the dial and marks the appointed hour; the object on which it falls still stands erect and in the sunlight.
The resolutions fitly emphasize the long duration of his term of office now about to expire ; a term longer by ten years than the judicial life of Lord Mansfield, and by nearly ten years that of Judge Story. The illustrious career of Judge Samuel Nelson, reaching to within a few months of a full half century of judicial service, embraced his term in the Supreme Court of the United States as well as that in the Supreme Court of this State. The peculiar feature of the judicial life of Chief Justice Daly is that it has been spent in this single sphere of duty, within the limits of this city, and the precincts of this Court. To have served as Associate Judge, First Judge and Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas for the City and County of New York is to have held a foremost place as a judicial officer in the commercial centre of the nation, during the most event- ful period in the history of our jurisprudence; a period marked by progress and reform; by the simplification of the methods of procedure; by the application of the principles of justice to all the new and unprecedented activities of the age; by the enlargement of the field of judicial cognizance and research through the aid of science and the inexhaustible energies of commerce; by the investiture of the Courts of Common Law with the benignant powers of equitable jurisdiction; and by the unexampled advance of freedom and the rights of man.
This growth and advance are well illustrated in the
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history of this tribunal, and in the experience of its Chief Justice. At first, an outgrowth of the Mayor's Court-a purely municipal organization-it was com- mitted in 1821 to the care of a single Judge. After- wards, as the city grew and its commerce was enlarged, the number of its Judges was, from time to time, increased, and the jurisdiction of the Court extended, until now, with its common law and equity jurisdiction it is, substantially, coordinate with the Supreme Court. I cannot but think that the Chief Justice must have exerted some occult influence over the Reformers of 1848, when the whole nomenclature of pleading was swept away, and pleas in abatement, pleas puis darrein, rejoinders, rebutters, and surrebutters, went by the board. Nothing was saved except the demurrer- which no honest defendant will ever part with-and the name of this Court, which remains unchanged. It is a link between the judicial system of to-day and that which was administered by the Court, when, in 1844, Chief Justice Daly first took the oath of office and found himself encircled, but not entangled, by the net- work of special pleas woven by such veteran experts of the common law as John Anthon, James W. Gerard, Charles O'Conor, Daniel Lord and their many com- peers, whom time fails me to mention, but whose names your memories will supply.
Very near to the people in its original and its appellate jurisdiction, this Court has commanded the respect of the bench and the bar, by the character of its Judges, and the weight of their decisions, a respect largely due, as many of us can testify, to the personal probity, the undeviating courtesy, the ability, the
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Clarence A. Lecaros
Joseph At. bhoate
Johnd Wwlook
Time Root
industry and painstaking of the learned and accom- plished jurist who for more than two score years has aided in its administration of justice, and for more than a quarter of a century has been its Presiding Judge. Standing thus as a representative of the past as well as the present judicial system, we may well point to the Chief Justice as an example of the best working of both; and as illustrating, in his person and career, the excellence of the Judges we had when Judges were appointed, and the excellence of the Judges we have had since Judges became elective; while his protracted term certainly vindicates the wisdom of the popular suffrage by which his long continuance in office has been secured.
I can only advert, in passing, to special instances of decisions and opinions, in conspicuous cases, which will remain as permanent memorials of the legal ability and skill of Chief Justice Daly, and to his varied and versa- tile labors in the field of literature, and to his intelli- gent and long-continued work in the department of geographical exploration and research. The admira- tion and encomium of Baron Von Humboldt, as expressed in his published letters, in regard to the learn- ing and accomplishments of the Chief Justice, are a just tribute, the truthfulness of which will be attested by many voices at home and in Europe. As President of the Geographical Society we congratulate him on retaining a jurisdiction co-extensive with the great globe itself.
I cannot close without adverting to another charac- teristic of the Chief Justice-his sterling integrity. This, it may be said, is superfluous. Integrity is a
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primal and necessary element of the judicial character, without whose authenticating stamp it would be a base or a counterfeit thing. But, as in the solar spectrum, while the prismatic colors are always the same, their brightness is enhanced according to the purity of the medium through which they pass, so when the honesty of the Judge is the exhibition of the purity of the indi- vidual character, we may well accord it the meed of personal praise.
If our retrospect of the period covered by this long term of judicial service took in nothing at variance with the absolute integrity of the judicial character we might leave to silence this conspicuous trait. But we are only dealing truthfully with ourselves and with the great interests which, by virtue of our profession, we hold in trust, when we acknowledge our obligations to men who adorn and elevate the judicial function by stern, inflexible uprightness. It is because we have had, during that period, in this great city, in the midst of its greed, its temptations and its selfish competitions, on the bench of this Court, and of the other Courts within these walls, men of the stamp of Charles P. Daly, that the administration of justice remains to us, to-day, a safe and sacred thing; men of whom, as indi- viduals, if judicial defection, as a strange, anomalous exception to the rule of judicial integrity, is ever abroad-worse than the pestilence that walketh in darkness, or the destruction that wasteth at noonday- we can truly say " It shall not come nigh thee." And it is a source of the highest satisfaction to us to-day to see the ideal of this high, unswerving judicial upright- ness exemplified by a career such as that we now con-
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template, which alike at its setting as at its dawn and its meridian has satisfied this first and supreme require- ment.
Our citizens cannot too often be reminded that the main source of security and strength for our free insti- tutions is in the due administration of justice, and nowhere is there greater need than here in this city that we properly understand and appreciate the abso- lute necessity of placing and keeping on the bench hon- est, capable and courageous men. The recent election marked the ascendency of sound views in this direction in the expression of the popular will in the reëlection of faithful Judges whose terms had expired, and but for the constitutional bar there would have been a unanimous reëlection of the Chief Justice whom, with- out undue adulation, but with honest praise, we honor to-day in this city of his birth and of his life-long labors, in the Court in which he has been a familiar presence for so many years, beside his co-workers of the bench with whom he has shared his responsibilities of faithful judicial service, and among his brethren of the bar who pay this united tribute, not only to the learned and upright Judge, but also to the true-hearted and large- hearted man.
Happy, says the Roman poet, is he to whom it is given to say, at each day's close : " I have lived."
" Laetus * * cui licet in diem Dixisse Vixi."
Certainly he is more to be felicitated who, in the evening of life, can look back over a career of public service begun in early manhood and pursued to the
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final limit of permitted judicial labor, and say with truth that he has filled up' the measure of usefulness and duty. Such satisfaction attends our venerated friend and brother, Chief Justice Daly, and as he quits his place of dignity and authority on this bench and lays aside the ermine, worn so worthily, he will be invested with the affection, esteem and best wishes of all his professional brethren on the bench and at the bar, and with the grateful respect of the community he has served so long and so well.
ADDRESS OF JUDGE RICHARD O'GORMAN.
Judge O'Gorman said that no word of his could heighten the interest of this occasion, which had brought together so many distinguished members of the bar. They felt the joy of the friend, the pride of the fellow- lawyer and citizen that one of them should have deserved so great praise as was awarded to Chief Justice Daly. The only regret was that the public was to lose the ser- vices of an officer still in the prime of intellectual vigor. The occasion was one almost unprecedented. Forforty- one years Charles P. Daly had been a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas and for twenty-seven years Chief Jus- tice. The office was full of care and responsibility and he had filled it in the full glare of publicity for all these years. He had played his great judicial part, and, like the actor turning to leave the stage, awaited the ver- dict, which was unanimously in his favor. The presid- ing officer of this meeting had lately laid down his office as the head of the Goverment with unostentatious dignity, carrying with him golden opinions from all, and this vast meeting of prominent members of the
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Thu = H. Hubbard
Thomas 9. Shearman
Wager Giayno
Julien 7. Dannes
bar, presided over by him, was not one of unmeaning flattery of the retiring jurist. His impartiality, his suavity and fair treatment of all had made him friends among all parties.
Judge O'Gorman's speech was very earnest and elo- quent.
ADDRESS OF JUDGE RICHARD L. LARREMORE.
The Court of which Chief Justice Daly is the retiring member asks the privilege of adding another leaf to the closing chapter of his judicial life. His associates wholly appreciate the delicate but still deserved compli- ment which the occasion commemorates. We feel hon- ored and encouraged by this public recognition of a long and useful judicial career. Over fifteen years of personal and professional intercourse have taught us the value of Charles P. Daly to the Court of Common Pleas. He has been so long and closely identified with it that it may be said without affectation or extrava- gance he represented it. Born in the old school of our profession, he has never forgotten his early training in exhaustive and elaborate investigation; yet has he always been keenly alive to that progressive spirit which would simplify the practice and enlarge the benefits of the law which he administered. Of his ability and success as a jurist it is unnecessary to speak. His decisions form no inconspicuous part of the juris- prudence of the State, and may safely be left to stand upon their own merits. In his social and judicial rela- tions he has always been the dignified gentleman and jurist. Kindness and courtesy have always character- ized his action. This has been continuously mani-
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fested, not only to his immediate associates, but to all who came within the contact of his influence. It has so happened that in small matters our honored Chief Justice has won our admiration and respect. Whether the amount in litigation was $2 or $200,000, the same patient care and scrutiny were always exercised. Faith- ful in the least, he has necessarily been faithful in much; and none except those immediately interested will ever know how firmly he has always withstood the encroachments of the powerful upon the rights of the lowly. Apart from his judicial life, Charles P. Daly is favorably known and recognized in the departments of literature and science. We are greatly gratified that from the onerous requirements of his strict professional calling he has found time and opportunity (without neglect of official duties) to diverge his attention and influence in other channels of usefulness. Our most intimate relations with him have been as colleagues of an upright, capable, conscientious Judge, whose judi- cial career for over forty-one years will ever inspire our zeal and invest his memory with many cherished asso- ciations. Nothing more remains to be said. It is a comfort to feel that we have not met under the shadow of a death, but in the ripened life of a living jurist who is permitted to know and realize his exact place in pub- lic estimation. The Court of Common Pleas, Mr. President, gratefully acknowledges this expression of the interest by yourself and the assembly in the career of Chief Justice Daly, and unites in the anticipation that his future life will find repose in contemplation of
"Duty well done and joy well earned."
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RESPONSE OF CHIEF JUSTICE CHARLES P. DALY.
It is a very inadequate expression of my feelings to say that I am deeply moved by this demonstration, not only from what has been said, but by this large assem- blage of the bar and by the honor you have done me, sir [turning to the ex-President], by presiding on this occasion. It is embarrassing under any circumstances to listen to one's own commendation, and more embarrassing still to reply to it. When I went upon the bench at the early age of twenty-eight, it was not without a sense of the importance of the judicial office and of how little I was qualified to fill it, from my youth, my limited learning and want of experience; for which I had at least this excuse, that I had not been an applicant for the office; that I declined the appoint- ment when it was first offered to me, and accepted it finally only upon the advice of Governor Marcy, as the consummation of an arrangement that satisfied others who had been contestants for the place. Accepting it under such circumstances, I resolved earnestly to endeavor to do my duty, and now that I am about to withdraw from it after an official service of more than ordinary duration, it is very gratifying to receive this public acknowledgment that you think that I have done so. It is gratifying for several reasons. Erasmus has prefigured the general situation of a Judge in the exclamation of "Unhappy is the man who sees both sides," to which may be added, and still more unhappy is he who hopes to satisfy both sides. I early recog- nized this truth, and when I had applied all my powers to the examination of a case, and had decided it, I never thought of it afterwards; and as a Judge's duties lie
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chiefly in the settlement of legal controversies in which one party is gratified and the'other disappointed, it is very satisfactory for me to feel that, as far as I know, the discharge of this duty over so many years has left behind it no unpleasant recollections.
There is another reason why this demonstration is gratifying. I made it a rule very early in my career, from an experience which I had had, that I never would reply to or seek to correct any misrepresentation or erroneous statement respecting myself in public journals, of which, during my long career, I have had my share-that I would leave everything of this kind to time. This was sometimes hard to bear. During the rule of what was known as the "Ring," in this city, my name was made use of and appeared in the public journals without my knowledge, authority or ap- proval as one of a board of trustees for the receipt of money for the erection of a statue in this city to Will- iam M. Tweed. It was very hard in this case to adhere to that resolution; but I did, and this meeting is, at least to me, an assurance that I lost nothing by doing so.
In receiving this acknowledgment on the part of the members of the bar, I have also to make my acknowl- edgements to them; for I can say, as Lord Mansfield said upon a like occasion, if I have given satisfaction it is owing to the learning and assistance of the bar. It is due to them also to say that I have, especially in my later years, been the recipient of great courtesy at their hands; that the instances, if any, have been few in which I have experienced any rudeness or discourtesy from any member of the profession. I feel this the
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more because judges, in the discharge of their duties, cannot always be as affable or as courteous as they would be under other circumstances. Having gener- ally to give the closest attention to the matter before them-to concentrate all their faculties for the imme- diate decision of questions that may be new, intricate or difficult-the earnest discharge of such duties fre- quently brings about a highly nervous condition that shows itself in a brusqueness of manner and curtness of speech that sometimes gives offense when none was intended, and as I have, with my judicial brethren, shared in this infirmity, I feel, as I have said, more sensibly, the courtesy always shown me by the bar.
As I look around among the faces of the members of it present I see from the appearance of some of them that they could not have been born when I went upon the bench. This reminds me more than the enumera- tion of years, of the length of time I have passed in the discharge of judicial duties, and recalls also how many, during that time, have passed away, with whose faces and whose voices I was so long familiar. This is not the occasion, however, to indulge in a retrospect of the past. At some future time I hope to call attention to many of my distinguished contemporaries by embody- ing in some permanent shape, as I have frequently been asked to do, my recollections of the bench and the bar of this city during the past fifty years.
In conclusion, allow me to say, gentlemen, that though leaving the bench, I do not intend to separate myself entirely from the profession. Accustomed as I have been for the past forty-one years to go down town every morning to business, I do not deem it wise
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to give up that habit as long as my mental and bodily faculties remain unimpaired. A long experience has taught me that the happiest life is a life of labor when it is properly intermingled with rest, recreation and exercise, and as I propose to continue it in the pursuits of the profession hereafter, I trust that my relations with my legal brethren in the future will continue to be as pleasant as they have been in the past.
PRESENTATION OF A GAVEL TO CHIEF JUSTICE CHARLES P. DALY.
Nathaniel Jarvis, Jr., Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, then stepped forward and placed in the hands of the presiding officer the gavel wielded by Chief Justice Daly for so many years, and requested him to present it to the retiring jurist. Ex-President Arthur placed it in the hands of Justice Daly and said :
Chief Justice, it gives me great pleasure to present to you, on behalf of the Clerks of the Court of Com- mon Pleas, the gavel that you have wielded so many years with so much honor and dignity.
This was received with a bow, and the meeting was adjourned.
INSCRIPTION UPON THE GAVEL.
Both heads of the gavel are encased in gold. On one head is the arms of the City combined with those of the State. Above the arms is the name CHARLES P. DALY, and below the motto Suscipere et Finire (to undertake and complete), and on either side of the arms are the dates 1844-1885. On the gold plate of the other head is this inscription :
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This gavel was used by MICHAEL ULSHOEFFER, First Judge, From 1838 to 1850.
DANIEL INGRAHAM, First Judge, From 1850 to 1857.
CHARLES P. DALY, First Judge, From 1857 to 1871.
CHARLES P. DALY, Chief Justice, From 1871 to 1885.
Upon the shank of the handle, which is surrounded by a gold plate, is the passage from Shakespeare's " Mer- chant of Venice,"
- O wise and upright judge, How much more elder art thou than thy looks?"
The gavel was contained in an oaken box, highly polished, having a gold plate on the lid with the in- scription :
CHAS. P. DALY, HÆC OLIM MEMINISSE JUVABIT, 1885.
which may be rendered, "Hereafter it may be pleasant to recall these things."
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PRESENTATION OF A MEMORIAL TABLET OF JUDGE HAMILTON W. ROBINSON, ON DECEMBER 2, 1895.
There was a crowded attendance in the General Term room of the Court of Common Pleas on Monday, December 2d, 1895, to witness the presentation to the Court by the bar of New York, of the bronze memorial tablet in honor of Judge Hamilton W. Robinson. The tablet occupies a position immediately under the oil painting of Judge Robinson.
The tablet was presented in brief addresses by former Chief Justice Charles P. Daly and John E. Parsons.
ADDRESS OF EX-CHIEF JUSTICE CHARLES P. DALY.
I rise to offer and ask the acceptance of this cenotaph or tablet as a memorial of Hamilton W. Robinson. This Court, after an existence of two hundred and forty- two years, passes away at the end of this month, and it is our wish while it is still in being to place upon the wall of the chamber where it is now sitting this cenotaph in mem- ory of one of its most satisfactory Judges. I say satis- factory, for we do not claim for Judge Robinson the dis- tinction expressed by the words "a great judge." Hor- ace Binney, in his eulogy of Chief Justice Marshall, said that the world had produced fewer great Judges than it has of great men in any other department of civil life. In
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