USA > Ohio > Bench and bar of Ohio; a compendium of history and biography, Vol. I > Part 11
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Mr. Ewing was a Whig, but took little part in politics until elected to the United States Senate in 1830. His election was due to his acknowledged supremacy at the Bar. In the Senate he added greatly to his reputation. His speeches on the tariff, in 1832, and on President Jackson's removal of the government deposits from the National Bank, in 1834, made a great impression in the Senate, and were widely read. Though in opposi- tion to the administration, and of the minority in Congress, he, almost single handed, forced a reconstruction of the laws relating to the Post Office Depart- ment and the public lands. He did not wholly suspend his professional labors, and when at the expiration of his term, under the operation of strict party discipline, he failed of re-election, he resumed his practice with undiminished ardor and' success. When General William Henry Harrison
* became President in 1841, Mr. Ewing was appointed secretary of the treasury. General Harrison offered to General Reasin Beall, of Wooster, Ohio, his companion-in-arms in the Tippecanoe campaign, the portfolio of secretary of war. Had General Beall accepted, the writer would have had his grandfather on his father's side, and a great-grandfather on his mother's side, in this cabinet. General Harrison died on April 4, 1841. Vice-President Tyler, on becoming President, requested the members of the cabinet to retain their places. Congress, assembled in extra session, passed Mr. Clay's bill for rechartering the Bank of the United States, and President Tyler, against the advice of his cabinet, determined upon a veto. A new bill, prepared mainly by Mr. Ewing and Mr. Webster in accordance with. the President's sugges- tions, and passed without alteration, was also vetoed. The limits of this sketch do not permit even a brief statement of this celebrated controversy. I deem it important, however, to say that Mr. Ewing has been wrongly represented as a mere follower of Mr. Clay, whose evident determination to force the sub- mission of the administration seemed to Mr. Ewing arbitrary and selfish. Until he concluded that the President would betray the party, Mr. Ewing made every effort to meet the President's views; and did not consult with Mr. Clay until after resigning. His scathing letter of resignation, in which he declared that the veto was rested "on grounds having no origin in con- science, and no reference to the public good," did much to mark the boundaries that separated the President from the true men of the party. Mr. Webster, the only member of the cabinet who did not resign, urged Mr. Ewing, before his letter was published or shown to the President, to withdraw it; and in the name of the President offered him his choice of the foreign missions, if he would part in friendship. But he declined to withdraw the letter. Before he had resigned a member of the cabinet called to learn what he intended to do, knowing that the cabinet generally must follow his lead. He found Mr. Ewing reading a French book. Said he: "Mr. Ewing, do you read French ?" " Yes," was the rejoinder, " and walk Spanish." Mr. Ewing, though fond of public life, cheerfully resumed the practice of the law, from which he derived a large income. He continued in private life until 1849, when General Taylor selected him to organize the Home Department, now called the Department of
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the Interior, of which he became the first secretary. He filled the position with great ability. Soon after entering upon his duties he offered the commis- sionership of the general land office to Abraham Lincoln, then retiring after a term of service in Congress, of whom Mr. Ewing had formed a high opinion. Mr. Lincoln declined the position and it was then offered to another. After- ward Mr. Lincoln changed his mind, and, finding that the President was not committed respecting the appointment, made strenuous efforts to gain it, but failed. He was a good deal cut up by his defeat. Mr. Coffee, of Lancaster, told that, going to his room, he threw himself on the bed, where he lay, dejected, for several hours. Then, rousing up, he said : " Well, I reckon they'll find some use to put me to yet." Mr. Lincoln preserved an anecdote of Mr. Ewing and Mr. Webster which is told in F. B. Carpenter's Six Weeks at the White House: On one occasion Mr. Ewing had, contrary to his usual custom, indulged in a somewhat bombastic prophecy to the effect that the Democratic opposition to internal improvements would result in our great canals becoming a solitude. This led to his being nicknamed " Old Solitude." Soon after the formation of General Taylor's Cabinet, Mr. Webster and Mr. Ewing happened to meet at an evening party. As they approached each other Mr. Webster, who was in fine spirits, uttered in his deepest bass tone, the well known lines:
" O Solitude, where are the charms That sages have seen in tby face ?"
After the death of the President, the cabinet resigned in August, 1850. Mr. Corwin left the Senate to enter the cabinet, and Mr. Ewing was appointed to fill the vacancy. In the debate on the Bradbury resolutions he warmly defended General Taylor and his administration. He strongly opposed the compromise measures of Mr. Clay, particularly the fugitive slave law. His term expired March 4, 1851, and he was not re-elected. Upon the breaking up of the Whig party he no longer considered himself a member of any polit- ical organization, but at proper times, as he once said, spoke his own free thoughts and the conclusions of his judgment. His practice, to which he returned, was now largely before the Supreme Court of the United States, and some of his greatest professional work was done after 1850. A suit involving a tract of land in St. Louis, in which he succeeded in establishing an old Spanish title, made his circumstances easy for the rest of his life. The most important criminal case in which he was engaged was the celebrated case which arose out of the burning of an Ohio river steamboat called the Martha Washington. It was tried at Columbus, Ohio, in the fall of 1853, before Judge McLean, of the United States Supreme Court, sitting on circuit. Mr. Ewing defended William Kissane, who was charged with having caused the vessel to be burned, to get the insurance. The Honorable Henry Stan- bery conducted the prosecution. After a tremendous battle, the jury disa- greed. Kissane was released and never again put on trial. In the election of 1860 Mr. Ewing supported the candidacy of Mr. Lincoln, delivering at Chilli- cothe, Ohio, a " masterly speech, broad, wise and patriotic," which produced a
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profound impression throughout the North. He was a member of the Peace Convention which met in Washington in February, 1861, on the invitation of the State of Virginia. Ile was one of the commissioners from Ohio, and his son Thomas represented Kansas, of which State he was Chief Justice, though but 31 years of age. The convention effected nothing toward composing the differences which caused the secession of the South. Though never again in office, Mr. Ewing rendered great public service as a trusted adviser of the Administration during the war. But, important as his personal service was to the Union cause, through his counsel and influence, he was prouder of the distinguished military service of members of his family. Of the splendid achievements of General Sherman, the husband of his eldest daughter, Ellen Boyle, it is needless to speak. Mr. Ewing's other daughter, Marie Theresa, became the wife of Colonel C. F. Steele, who was badly wounded in the desperate assault on Fort Wagner. Three sons, Hugh Boyle, Thomas and Charles, each attained the rank of brigadier general, and the two former the brevet rank of major general. General Hugh had been trained at West Point, was an able disciplinarian, and distinguished himself at Antietam, Vicksburg and Mission Ridge. General Thomas served with ability in Mis- souri and won a romantic fame for his heroic conduct of the Pilot Knob cam- paign. General Charles led his regiment in the terrific assault on Vicksburg, May 22, 1863, where, after several standard bearers had been killed, and no one volunteered, he snatched up the colors and planted them upon the para- pet of the enemy's works. One son alone, Philemon Beecher, did not enter the service. He was a man of business and peace. During the war he was appointed to the Court of Common Pleas of Fairfield county, where he is re- membered as the ablest and most impartial judge that ever sat upon that Bench. In the Reconstruction and Impeachment controversies, Mr. Ewing warmly espoused the cause of President Johnson, who, on February 22, 1868, nominated him to be secretary of war. The Senate refused to confirm the nomination on the ground that, under the Tenure of Office Act, the removal of Secretary Stanton was illegal, and that therefore no vacancy existed. Dur- ing this period Mr. Ewing wrote several political addresses of great power. One of these was entitled " To the unpledged voters of the United States." The New York Herald of September 7, 1868, published it, but changing the p to an f, addressed it to the " unfledged " voters, to Mr. Ewing's great disgust. He continued in active practice until 1865, after which he attended to little business besides old cases. One of these was the case of Magwire against Tyler, in which Mr. Ewing appeared for Mr. Magwire, This case came before the Supreme Court in 1862, and again in the spring of 1869, when it was de- cided favorably to Mr. Magwire. It came up again in the fall on a rehearing. On October 22, 1869, while addressing the Supreme Court, Mr. Ewing fainted from nervous exhaustion. He remained unconscious for several hours. On October 22, 1896, twenty-seven years later, to a day, while addressing the same court, in the same room, his son, General Thomas Ewing, lost conscious- ness. The venerable Justice Field, who sat at the hearings in both cases,
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noted the remarkable coincidence in the date. Mr. Ewing regained his health, and his life was prolonged for two years ; but in the fall of 1871 he began to fail rapidly. On October 18, he developed alarming symptoms. Next day absolution and extreme unction were administered to him with his full knowl- edge and assent, and before death he received the Holy Communion, though he was not until then a member of the Catholic Church. On the 19th he calmly told his son Philemon that he could not expect to live beyond a week, perhaps not another day, and gave a few simple instructions for his funeral and the disposition of a portion of his property. He died in Lancaster on October 26, 1871, surrounded by his children and grandchildren ; and was buried by the side of his wife in the Catholic cemetery at Lancaster. Soon after his death his son, General Thomas Ewing, wrote of him : "To most of those who knew him the habits of self-restraint and intellectual labor which withdrew him from the resorts of men were a barrier to intimacy. They only knew of his power at the Bar and in the Senate. But others of culture and purity akin to his own were drawn to him by common tastes and sympathies, and learned to feel how noble and great he was. Only such can fitly commemorate him." One such friend, the Hon. A. F. Perry of Cincinnati, said of him :
" The main works of Mr. Ewing's life were at the Bar. His fame was spread abroad and his great capacity made more widely known by his official positions. But his grade as a man of intelligence was definitely that of his grade at the Bar. I am not aware that I ever met a stronger man. In breadth, impetus, and log- ical force, Mr. Ewing's mind had no superior, at least none which has come within the range of my observation. It may be that the necessary struggles of his early life fixed upon him an aspect of sternness which he carried through the vigor of his life. His nature was too large and full not to be moved by genuine sympathies ; but it was sometimes possible to wish them more demon- strative. In his later years, after his combats were ended, all this was changed. A more lovable, affectionate, sympathetic nature was never bestowed on man or woman. As he neared the evening horizon the orb of his being seemed to grow larger ; its rays neither penetrated nor scorched any more, but filled the scene with tranquil affections. While arguing the McMicken will case, he used an expression, considerately muffled, which could mean nothing else than negation of religious belief. It did not imply positive disbelief, but simply absence of belief. With such a mind as his, the line between religious belief and the want of it is narrow. It depends upon the existence of deity and the immortality of the soul, and belief in those is less the result of reason than of intuition ; rather a part of the constitution of the mind than a product of the mental operations. It would seem that as his will, the dominating trait of his mental structure, subordinated itself to the supremacy of his affections, he left that side of the line on which he stood at the McMicken argument, and passed over to the side where waited for him the departed mother of his children."
[By Thos. Ewing, Jr., New York, February 28, 1897.]
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HENRY STANBERY, Cincinnati. Honorable Henry Stanbery, one of the giants in the law, was born in the city of New York, February 20, 1803, and died in the same city, June 26, 1881. He was the son of Jonas Stanbery, a physician, who emigrated to Ohio and settled in Zanesville in 1814. Henry was a studious boy, applying himself to books with eagerness and zest. His literary taste was innate and his understanding remarkably clear. At the age of sixteen he was graduated from Washington College, Pennsylvania, and took up the study of law the same year. He was qualified for practice long before attaining his majority, but was obliged to wait for admission to the Bar until the lawful age was reached. In May, 1824, he was admitted by the Supreme Court in session on the circuit at Gallipolis. Immediately afterwards he was fortunate in receiving an invitation to become associated with Thomas Ewing. No possible association in Ohio could have been more desirable. Mr. Stanbery settled himself in the office of Mr. Ewing, at Lancaster, and soon afterwards tried his first case before a justice of the peace. It was an action of replevin for a cow, and he was accustomed to speak of it afterwards as his " great first cause, least understood." He won the case and charged his client a fee of five dollars, which was settled by note. Subsequently one-half the amount was paid in oats to the lawyer's landlord, and the balance was never paid. Mr. Stanbery kept the note throughout his life as a souvenir of his first contest and victory in the law. Such was the beginning of a lawyer who afterwards commanded thousands in a single fee. His association with Thomas Ewing continued until 1831, when the latter was elected United States Sena- tor. He rose rapidly in his profession, rode the circuit with Mr. Ewing, and other distinguished lawyers of the locality, and won his own position in the front rank. No county Bar in the State was more eminent during a period of thirty years than that of Fairfield county. Lancaster became widely known and acquired a national reputation through the ability and character of her lawyers. Mr. Stanbery maintained his residence there until 1846, when he removed to Columbus on account of his election to the office of attorney- general of the State, created that year. He was the first occupant of the office and therefore charged with the duty of inaugurating a system for the new department of justice. He remained in Columbus about five years, and built up a valuable practice in United States courts and in the Supreme Court of the State. He was elected a member of the constitutional convention of 1850, in which his superior abilities and large experience were utilized to great advantage. His broad learning, practical wisdom and skill in parliamentary debate gave him much influence in the important discussions of that body. He was fully conscious of the responsibility resting upon the men called to the solemn duty of framing the organic laws of a prosperous commonwealth. His duty was intelligently and conscientiously performed. In 1852 he removed his law office to Cincinnati, where he continued in practice, most of his time being occupied in the appellate courts. His growth as a lawyer was uninterrupted through his whole life and his career is in evidence of the fact that acquire- ments in the profession are practically boundless. So long as a student of law
Henry Hanbury
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lives and retains possession of his faculties he may learn and grow. There is no limit save that of mental capacity. Mr. Stanbery devoted the full meas- ure of his powers and his devotion to the law. Occasionally he delivered public addresses on popular themes, and sometimes he discussed political topics on the stump. But his place was the forum, and in the gladiatorial combats of the forum his victories were won. He was no seeker of political office and seldom participated in the fierce contests of the campaign. He was born into the Whig party and supported its creed until the inter- ests of slavery divided it and occasioned its dissolution. His con- victions led him to oppose the encroachment of slavery upon free territory, and naturally led him to join the forces organizing the Republican party. He was firm and enthusiastic in his support of the administration of President Lincoln; firm and true in his loyalty to the Union. He accepted the office of attorney-general of the United States tendered him by President Johnson in 1866, from a noble sense of duty, after much deliberation. He recognized the peril to which the government was exposed by the unseemly and intemperate quarrel between the Executive and Congress. His desire to be of service when wisdom, integrity and conservatism were of so great impor- tance, and the council of his most intimate friends influenced him to accept the exalted office. He resigned a year later in order to serve as one of the eminent counsel of the President under impeachment. His keenness, his grasp of prin- ciples and his discriminating knowledge of technical law were of great service in that memorable trial. The condition of his health was so delicate that he was unable to endure the strain of oral argument, and the charm of his delivery was lost. He was obliged to submit his argument in writing. Afterwards the President nominated him for justice of the Supreme Court, but a hostile Senate, more as a rebuke to the Executive than as an expression of unfriend- liness to the nominee, refused to confirm the nomination. Mr. Stanbery returned to Cincinnati and resumed his law practice, having acquired a national reputation and a character for independent thought and action that honored him. His domestic life was always beautiful and free from discord. He was married in 1829, at Lancaster, to Frances E., daughter of Philemon Beecher, an able member of the Fairfield county Bar. By this marriage he had five children : Frances E. and Henry, deceased ; Philemon B., of Pomeroy, a lawyer and judge, whose biography is published in this volume; Louisa and George. His first wife died in 1840, and he was subsequently married to Cecilia Bond, daughter of William Key Bond, of Chillicothe, who survived her husband about nine years. There was no issue of this marriage. Mr. Stan- bery died of acute bronchitis, after an illness of three days, in New York, and his ashes repose in the beautiful Spring Grove Cemetery, at Cincinnati. His last words were : " I have been neither saint nor savage, but have tried to do my best." Henry Stanbery was no ordinary man. His name can never be omitted from any list of half a dozen of the greatest lawyers of central and southern Obio. Impartial history will always accord him an honorable place among the few whose national fame is imperishable. Ilis brain possessed the
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creative quality-the capacity to evolve principles, when authorities were inade- quate to apply to cases of equity or law. He lived and practiced at a time when books were less numerous and authorities less prolific than in these times. It was a time when lawyers read less and meditated more on their cases. The studious were more thorough and their achievements more bril- liant. The perception of Stanbery was wonderfully acute. His apprehension of facts, however carefully concealed or deeply buried by circumstances or ver- biage, was marvelously clear and accurate. He was able to penetrate the thickest disguises and unravel the darkest sophistries. A judge of the Supreme Court of the United States at one time said: "Mr. Stanbery is the most- accomplished and elegant advocate that ever appeared before this court." His manner was reserved, but not cold or repellent. There was a pronounced dignity in his bearing that did not invite familiarity ; but there was no affec- tation. Perfect naturalness was characteristic of his social contact and inter- course. He was on all occasions courteous and kindly disposed toward younger members of the profession who sought his advice. Politeness was inseparable from his manners. Kindness and gentleness were among the adornments of his life under all conditions. Witnesses did not writhe and rebel under his cross-examination ; for he never abused or insulted them. In gentle tones, con- veying assurance of friendly interest, he directed his inquiries to the ascertain- ment of the truth, and the witness, charmed and flattered by this unusual deference, responded without reserve. His cross-examinations were successful because he disarmed antagonism and established confidential relations with the witness. He was a man of marked individuality, as well in personal appear- ance as mental characteristics. In stature he was tall and slender ; in attitude as erect as a granite shaft. His manner of speech was earnest and impressive. One of the eminent lawyers and jurists of Ohio has contributed a brief esti- mate on request of the editor :
" It is difficult to formulate an estimate of Henry Stanbery as a lawyer. Most men who have become eminent at the Bar have shown marked charac- teristics which were easily discernible, and for which they were especially noted. It was not so with Mr. Stanbery. He was, beyond question, the most symmetrical and evenly rounded lawyer of great prominence of which we have knowledge. It is certain that he had no equal in this respect among the lawyers of the Ohio Bar. There have been others of perhaps greater strength in certain lines, but none of them seem to have been so evenly balanced in their talents or acquirements. There was no field of legal practice in which he was not highly accomplished and perfectly at home. His knowledge of the rules of pleading and practice seems to have been practically perfect and always at command. It was a current saying among the lawyers of his time that he never was known to make a mistake in pleading, or to misconceive the true theory of his case, or to allow any point of importance to escape him. However true this may be, it illustrates the fact that he was a most accurate common-law pleader and a most careful and accomplished lawyer. In the trial or argument of a cause and in everything connected with his profession as a lawyer he was by general consent the most graceful-mannered man of his time. It was said of him by one of his contemporaries that he could do nothing from the picking up or laying down of a book or paper to the great-
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est earnestness in the argument of a case that was not graceful and lawyer- like. He did everything naturally, and his manner at the Bar and elsewhere was characterized by the highest dignity, accompanied by a marvelous ease of manner. Ilis ambition was that of a lawyer, and he cared little or nothing for political preferment. The official positions which he held were all in the line in his profession. As a member of the constitutional convention of 1851, as attorney-general of Ohio, and as attorney-general of the United States, he displayed the highest qualities of a lawyer. These positions were congenial .to his nature, and he performed the duties in each of them, not only with fidelity, but with a zeal approaching enthusiasm. It has always been under- stood that he was, perhaps, the most influential member of the constitutional convention of 1851 which framed the present Constitution of Ohio, and this is certainly saying much, when it is remembered that he had as associates in that body such men as the late Rufus P. Ranney, Sherlock J. Andrews, Peter Hitchcock, General Samuel Mason, Judge Joseph R. Swan, and many other lawyers of marked abilities. Among those who have exercised a salutary and elevating influence npon the profession of law, it is doubtful if any man stands higher than Henry Stanbery. He must certainly be ranked among the fore- most. He honored his profession and was honored by it."
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