USA > Ohio > Bench and bar of Ohio; a compendium of history and biography, Vol. II > Part 9
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LEVI JAMES BURGESS was born at Mt. Perry, Perry county, Ohio, Septem- ber 4, 1848. His father was Jeremiah Burgess, and mother, Eliza Evans. He obtained his education in the country schools of his locality, but received his mental training and literary acquirements mostly in that best of schools, the teachers' vocation. From his early boyhood he was compelled to sustain him- self. He was granted a teacher's certificate while yet in his teens. At an early age his resolution was firmly fixed to become a lawyer, and while teach- ing he entered upon the study of the law under the supervision of William E. Finck, a distinguished lawyer of Perry county, and for several years member of Congress from his district. This was at Somerset, then the county seat of Perry county. Mr. Burgess was admitted to the Bar August 26, 1873, and immediately began the practice at New Lexington, where he continued, being associated in partnership with Colonel L. J. Jackson and other members of the Bar at that place until 1879. By his magnetic disposition, brilliant oratory and universal popularity. coupled with great industry and natural legal ability, he soon occupied the most prominent position at the Bar of his county. He was nominated by the Democratic party of Perry county for the office of prosecuting attorney, and while the political complexion of the county rendered his election sure, he withdrew from the ticket because he was offered at that time special advantages for the continuation of his active practice in Hocking county. He thereupon removed to Logan, Hocking county, where
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he formed a partnership with Judge Oakley Case, succeeding to the practice of John S. Friesner, who had just assumed the duties of the Common Pleas Bench. Mr. Burgess became counsel for the C. H. V. & T. Ry. Co. and some large coal corporations of that place. An extensive and successful practice occupied his attention. In the meantime Mr. Burgess had abandoned the party of his early faith, and had become an ardent Republican in politics. On September 17, 1888, he was appointed reporter of the Supreme Court of Ohio, when he removed to Columbus and became a member of the Franklin county Bar. As reporter of the Supreme Court he gave great satisfaction, perform- ing the duties of that office with care and ability. Volumes 46, 47, 48, 49 and 50 Ohio State Reports were published under his supervision, and volume 51 was well under preparation when he was stricken with a sickness which caused his untimely death, on May 11, 1895. A distinguished member of the Franklin county Bar and one who knew him well, justly said of Mr. Burgess : " As a lawyer he disliked the drudgery necessarily attending the practice, but was an adept at drawing pleadings, and had few equals before the court and jury ; his perceptive powers were keen, his memory and oratory unsurpassed, and he was a good trial lawyer. There are few men who have clearer or broader perception of legal principles than did Mr. Burgess, and whether his preparation of a case was thorough or otherwise he could present an argument which indicated thorough preparation. Those who knew him most intimately were amazed at his ready knowledge and ability for its display, and wondered when and where he gained it. He was not frequently seen consulting law books, and when he did he spent but little time with them, giving text-book or case a passing glance, making his notes in his memory, his apparent purpose being'only to gather the thought of the writer or judge and make it at once his own, dressing it in his own language." Mr. Burgess was married to Miss Rebecca Ann Weller at Zanesville, Ohio, December 11, 1870. There are three children living, Alma, Levi J. and Lulu, the latter now Mrs. Frank Nau, of Portland, Oregon.
An article on the reporters of the Supreme Court of Ohio would be incomplete without mention of a volume of reported cases by John C. Wright. Mr. Wright was one of the judges of the Supreme Court, serving during the years 1831 to 1834, inclusive. At that time, under the legal organization of the court, the judges sat in bank at Columbus only three or four weeks annually. During the remainder of the judicial year the court was held in the several counties, in rotation, generally by two judges only, which number constituted a legal quorum, and it was the custom for the judges to relieve one another, so dividing their labor that each might perform one half the county circuit duty, as it was quite impossible for any one judge to participate in all of the trials of the entire circuit. Court was then held in seventy-two counties each year, requiring some twenty-two hundred and fifty miles travel. And there were on the trial docket, for instance, in 1834, in all fourteen hundred and fifty-nine cases. It inevitably followed, therefore, that the decisions of the court were largely " left to tradition, or
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which, orally reported and cited by counsel, were made to reflect the various minds and memories of the reporters, and the interests advocated by them." Judge Wright took notes of cases at the trials in which he assisted, with the intention merely to help his memory in forming his opinions or in recalling previous decisions. These minutes and notes, upon retiring from the bench in 1835, he moulded into a volume known as "Wright's Reports," and published as a personal enterprise. While, therefore, not official, they have the authority of a learned, able and conscientious judge. This volume embraces the reports of four hundred and ninety-eight cases, duplicating but five of the cases con- tained in Mr. Hammond's Ohio Reports, Volumes 5 and 6, which two volumes cover the same period of time as " Wright's Reports."
In conclusion we may be permitted to say that the office of the Supreme Court Reporter has ever been maintained by occupants of high character and ability. The reports of the Ohio Supreme Court have always received in the other courts of the country recognition commensurate with the prominent and influential position of our State.
Since the days of Edward Coke, the office of court reporter has been one of increasing usefulness and importance in our judicial system. And Shakes- peare's famous character, Hamlet, must have been mindful of the faithful performance of the function of this office when in his dying words he enjoined Horatio to " report me and my cause aright."
THE CINCINNATI LAW SCHOOL.
The first school west of the Allegheny mountains instituted for the pur- pose of imparting to lawyers professional instruction and qualifying them for practice was established in Cincinnati in May, 1833. It was a private enter- prise, the work of a few public-spirited lawyers who had themselves received the benefits of education in special law schools of the East. Their own expe- riences and observations had convinced them of the advantages of special schools for professional study. The first term of the "Cincinnati Law School " was opened on the 7th of October, 1833. Two years later, to wit, in 1835, it was incorporated with the Cincinnati College, a literary and academic institu- tion founded in 1819. For a period of more than sixty years thereafter the law school was conducted under the name of the "Law School of the Cincinnati College." As such it was housed in the college buildings and endowed from the college funds for the establishment of professorships and the formation of a law library. Early data regarding the conduct of this school are meager, but it is known that many prominent lawyers from time to time were entrusted with its executive management and its course of instruction. Among the emi- nent men who filled the office of president and dean of the faculty were Bel- lamy Storer, Myron H. Tilden and Marshall E. Cursen. Most of the patrons of the school from the time of its first establishment have been from the State of Ohio. As nearly all of them. remained in the State, they have greatly enriched the Bar of Ohio by their learning. The course of study adopted embraced three years, divided into Junior, Middle and Senior classes. The instruction included topical lectures and recitations from standard text-books. Hypothetical cases always had a place in the instruction as a means of making practical application of legal principles. The first or Junior year included both the general elements and the development of principles upon which each department of the existing law rests. It was the introduction to the topics taken up in later courses. It laid the basis for the advanced study of rights, wrongs and remedies, affecting person or property. During this year lectures were given upon the History of the Law, the relation of the English Common Law to American Law, the relation of the Feudal System to the existing Law of Real Property, the rise and the general province of Equity Jurisprudence. The Middle year took up Evidence, Criminal Law, Equity Jurisprudence ; the Study of Cases; Torts ; the Ohio Constitution; Domestic Relations; Com- mercial Law, etc. In the Senior year the study of Commercial Law is con- tinued under various topics : Civil Procedure and Code Pleadings; Conflict of Laws ; Real Property ; Wills, Administrations, Insolvency ; Corporations --
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Private and Municipal, Highways, Eminent Domain; Equity Jurisprudence and Pleadings; Legal Ethics. Upon the completion of the course of study the degree of Bachelor of Laws is conferred, and the number of students who have been thus honored approximates five thousand. A library of about six thousand volumes has been collected, which comprises the works of the best writers on law and jurisprudence, and such reports of cases as are regarded important.
In 1877 Julius Dexter, who was at the time one of the trustees of the college, provided funds amounting to $250 per annum for prizes to be awarded members of the graduating class, as follows: Seventy-five dollars for the member passing the best examination ; seventy-five dollars for the best essay upon a subject designated; fifty dollars for the second best examination, and fifty dollars for the best performance in a public forensic discussion. Mr. Dexter continued this annual provision until 1881, when it was assumed by the board of trustees. In addition to the awards mentioned, a prize of seventy- five dollars has been awarded for the best examination in the Middle and Junior classes, and a prize of fifty dollars for the second best examination.
The Law School was continued as a part of the Cincinnati College until 1867. The last faculty comprised ex-Governor Jacob D. Cox, LL. D., Dean ; ex-Governor George Hoadly, LL. D., Emeritus Professor ; Honorable Henry A. Morrell, LL. D., Professor of the Law of Contracts, Torts, Wills and Assign- ments; Judge George R. Sage, LL. D., Professor of Equity Jurisprudence and Criminal Law ; Judge Hiram D. Peck, LL. D., Professor of the Law of Cor porations and of Evidence; Judge John R. Sayler, A. M., Professor of Com- mercial Law and the Law of Contracts; Francis B. James, LL. B., Lecturer on Statutory Law.
In June, 1896, the Law Department of the University of Cincinnati was organized, and in October of the same year it was opened. The board of directors intended to make it a genuine university law school. Before the close of the first year overtures ; were made by the board of directors of the Cincinnati College to bring about a union of the two law schools. A contract drawn up by a joint committee of the two boards of directors was ratified by both. It provided that a new school, to be designated " The Law Department. of the University of Cincinnati," should be established permanently, and certain members of the faculty of the Law School of the Cincinnati College should be added to the faculty of the new school. A complete consolidation or union was thus effected. The faculty chosen for the year 1897-98 was composed of Judge William II. Taft, LL. D., Dean and Professor of Law ; and the following named members designated simply as Professors of Law : Henry A. Morrell, LL. D .; Judson Harmon, LL. D. ; John R. Sayler, LL. D .; Joseph Doddridge Brannan, A. M., LL. B .; Lawrence Maxwell, Jr., A. M., LL. B .; Gusta- vus H. Wald, A. B., LL. B .; Rufus B. Smith, A. B., LL. B .; Alfred B. Bene- dict, A. B., LL. B .; Harlan Cleveland, A. B .; Francis B. James, LL. B., Instructor in Statutory Construction and Real Property ; Charles M. Hepburn, A. B., LL. B., Instructor in Code Pleading.
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Like the old school, the course of instruction in the Law Department of the University comprises three years. It is modeled after the Harvard Law School, which is generally regarded the equal of any in America. The Case system is adopted instead of the Text Book system, which prevailed in the old school. The valuable library belongs to the new school. Moot courts are held under the supervision of members of the faculty. Law clubs have been organized by the students, as well as a general debating club. Briefs are required from those appointed to lead in the discussions of law questions. Every candidate for admission to the Law Department is expected to be pro- ficient in orthography, punctuation, use of capital letters, paragraphing and English grammar. His proficiency is determined by a written essay. He is also required to translate correctly passages selected from Cæsar's Commen- taries, or to read French and German at sight. He must have a knowledge of English and American history and understand mathematics, including plane geometry. These provisions for some literary and scholastic learning as the basis of any intelligible study of the law are wise. They cannot fail to encour- age a higher standing and larger efficiency among members of the profession.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
RUFUS P. RANNEY, Cleveland. Among all the illustrious names pre- served in the records of the Supreme Court of the State none is higher, nobler or purer than " Rufus P. Ranney." He died at his home in Cleveland on the sixth day of December, 1891, at the age of seventy-eight years. The sketch of his life, together with the analysis of his character and the estimate of his public services here presented, is the collaboration of Allen G. Thurman, Richard A. Harrison, Jacob D. Cox, Francis E. Hutchins and Samuel E. Will- iamson. The memorial prepared by Judge Williamson for the State Bar Association in 1892 furnishes the material relating to Judge Ranney's work in the Constitutional Convention, and some of his important judicial deci- sions. As a man, as a lawyer, as a judge, and as a statesman, he left a record without a blemish ; a character above reproach ; and a reputation as a jurist and statesman which but few members of the Bar have attained. Judge Ran- ney came from New England, a land of robust men of wonderful physical and mental fiber and endurance. He was born at Blandford, Hampden county, Massachusetts, on the 30th day of October, 1813. His father was a farmer of Scotch descent. In 1822 the family moved to Ohio, which was then a " western frontier." They settled in Portage county. In the son, the old blood of New England had its forceful inheritance; and his hard struggles with pioneer life were favorable to the full development of his great natural endowments, his inherited characteristics and the attainment of the highest excellence. The means of public instruction were quite limited ; but the stock of intelligence in the family, with a few standard books brought from Massa- chusetts, coupled with an active, penetrating and broad intellect, aroused in the son a desire to get an education. And he had one of those exceptional minds that take learning by nature, as Shakespeare and Columbus did. Not until he had nearly arrived at man's estate was he able to manage, as he did by his manual labor and teaching in backwoods schools, to enter an academy, where he in a short time prepared himself to enter college. By chopping cord-wood at twenty-five cents per cord, he earned the money to enter the Western Reserve College, but, for want of means, he could not complete the college course. He made up his mind to study law ; and at the age of twenty- one years he entered the law office of Joshua R. Giddings and Benjamin F. Wade and began his preparation for admission to the Bar, and in 1836 he was admit. ted. Mr. Giddings having been elected to Congress, the firm of Giddings &
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Wade was dissolved, and, upon Mr. Wade's suggestion, he and young Ranney entered into partnership. This firm was the leading law firm in northeastern Ohio. In 1845 Wade was elected judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Shortly afterward Ranney removed to Warren, Trumbull county, which was the chief center of business and wealth in that section of the State. He at once commanded a large practice. In 1846, and again in 1848, he was nominated as a candidate for Congress ; but his party being hopelessly in the minority, the opposing candidate was elected. In 1850 he was elected, from Trumbull and Geauga counties, a delegate to the convention which had been called to revise and amend the Constitution of the State. In this convention he served with distinction on the committees on the judiciary, on revision, on amendments, and others. His associates on the committee on the judiciary were Stanbery, Swan, Groesbeck and Kennon. Although he was then a young man, he was soon recognized as one of the leading members of the convention. In this body of distinguished lawyers, jurists and statesmen, there were few members who had as thorough knowledge of political science, constitutional law, polit- ical and judicial history, and the principles of jurisprudence, as Judge Ranney displayed in the debates of the convention. There was no more profound, acute and convincing reasoner on the floor of the convention, and in the com- mittee rooms his suggestive and enlightened mind was invaluable. The amended Constitution conforms very nearly to the principles and provisions advocated by him. In March, 1851, he was elected by the general assembly judge of the Supreme Court, to succeed Judge Avery ; and at the first election held under the amended Constitution in 1851, he was chosen to be one of the judges of the new Supreme Court. He was assigned the longest term and served until 1856, when he resigned and removed from Warren to Cleve- land, where he resumed the practice of his profession as a member of the firm of Ranney, Backus & Noble. In 1859 he was the unsuccessful candidate of his party against William Dennison, for governor of the State. Three years after- ward he was nominated, against his expressed desire, as a candidate for supreme judge. One of his partners, Franklin T. Backus, was nominated by the oppos- ing party for the same office. To his own surprise, Judge Ranney was elected. He qualified, but resigned two years afterward, and resumed the practice of law in Cleveland. The demands upon his professional services were now more than he could comply with. Anything like a selfish regard for his own pecuniary interest would have induced him to select for his attention the most important and lucrative business that was offered ; but the needs of a man or woman in difficulty or distress were more likely to secure his devoted services than the offer of a large fee. When the Ohio State Bar Asso- ciation was organized in the year 1881, he was unanimously elected its president. Towards the close of his life Judge Ranney gradually withdrew from the practice of his profession ; but the urgent solicitation of some old friend, or an attack upon some important constitutional or legal principle, drew him occasionally from his library to the court room. The announce- ment that he was to make an argument never failed to bring together
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an audience of lawyers, eager to learn from him the art of forensic rea- soning, of which he was a consummate and acknowledged master, and to be entertained and instructed by his sympathy and familiarity with the more recent advances in the science of jurisprudence. The well-earned leisure of his later years was far from being indolence. If he had needed an inducement to continue his reading and study, he would have found it in the pleasure it gave him to share with others the results of such study .. He was anxious that young men should have the educational advantages which had been denied to him, and it was for the double purpose of helping to provide such advantages and justifying the confidence which had been reposed in him by a valued client and friend, that he devoted much of his time for several years to placing the " Case School of Applied Science," at Cleveland, upon a firm foundation and providing for it adequate buildings and equipment. From the time of Judge Ranney's admission to the Bar he found time, by means of his ability to dispose of business rapidly and by unremitting industry, to make up to some extent the deficiency in his early education. Accident and taste combined to direct his attention particularly to the language of France, and as soon as he could read it easily he made a profound study of her literature, politics, history and law. The civil law and the debates which resulted in the Code Napoleon became as familiar to him as the Commentaries of Blackstone, and had their part in forming his clear and mature conceptions of natural justice and views of public policy. Judge Ranney was a man of great simplicity of character, wholly free from affectation and assumption. He was a man of native modesty of character. He could have attained the highest standing in any pursuit or station requiring the exercise of the best intellectual and moral qualities ; but his ambition was chastened and moderate, and he seemed to have no aspirations for official place or popular applause. While always dignified, he was a genial and companionable man, of fine wit and rare humor. He had singular powers of memory. Every fact, every rule, every principle, when once acquired, remained with him always. He combined extensive and varied general knowledge with remarkable accuracy of judgment. His originality of mind was not impaired by his accumulation of knowledge and the ideas of others. No man was more fearless in asserting the right, and in the performance of what he deemed his duty. His known integrity and honesty, and his never-failing common sense and sagacity in affairs of business, placed in his hands many weighty and responsible trusts, embracing important interests and large amounts of property. From the beginning of his career as a lawyer, by reason of the professional learning, the clear and persuasive method of reasoning, the nice power of discrimination, the strict sense of justice, the inflexible integrity, and the great practical wisdom which char- acterized and adorned all his efforts, he occupied the position of a leading representative of the Ohio Bar. He had remarkable power of analysis, and saw with the quickness of intuition the principles of law, as well as the right or morality of a controversy. In the argument of a cause he never made a useless parade of authorities. He used authorities only to
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illustrate principles. While Judge Ranney was on the Bench he was one of the strongest administrative forces of the State government. He held a place of his own. He was a personal force whose power was profoundly felt in the administration of justice throughout the State. He made a deep and permanent impression on the jurisprudence of Ohio. His facility and accuracy in disposing of business was owing, in a large measure, to his almost unequalled habit of concentration on the business before him -- the analytical structure and logical action of his mind, his acute perception of the crucial points in a cause, his comprehensiveness of view, and his quickness in discovering how natural justice and equity suggested a controversy should be decided. His most distinguished trait was his grasp of general principles, in preference to decided cases. He never ran to book shelves for a case which had some resemblance to that in hand, perceiving as he did, that the resemblance is frequently accidental and misleading. To consider questions of constitutional law, or of public policy and justice, was above all things con- genial to him. He took large views of every matter or question with which he had to deal. He was at his best when under the stimulus of working to solve a great and difficult constitutional or legal problem. Difficulties melted away under the fire from his keen and powerful intellect. His reserve force never failed him. Occasionally, in hearing or deciding a case, his broad and mellow humor and bright imagination illustrated or illumined the questions involved. He was always courteous on the Bench, and no member of the Bar, young or old, ever had just cause to complain of unfair treatment at his hands. On the Bench, as at the Bar, he never extended any hospitality to loose notions of professional ethics. Judge Ranney's rich style furnished unmistakable evidence that he had drunk deep at the wells of English undefiled. His reported judicial opinions, all of which are characterized by inherent strength and breadth, and dispassionate and unbiased judgment, show he had great facility in clear, precise, forcible expression. No one could say a plain thing in a plainer way, nor deal with an abstruse subject in a clearer manner. In oral argument or public discourse, he gave a sort of collo- quial familiarity to his utterances. No one could use an apt illustration or an amusing anecdote with greater effect. He never declaimed. He was as wise in what he left unsaid as in what he said. There was never anything puerile or irrelevant in his arguments. They were characterized by a vigor and grasp of mind, a full possession of the subject, and a fertility of resource whenever an emergency arose requiring him to bring to his aid his reserve power. Upon occasion, no one could use sarcasm with greater effect ; but the blade he used was the sword of the soldier, not the dagger of the assassin. Judge Ranney had those qualities of simplicity, directness, candor, solidity, strength and sovereign good sense which the independence and reflective life of the early settlers of the western country fostered. At the Bar, or in his own library, he was one of the most interesting of men. He had a just economy of labor ; he never did anything which men of narrower capacity could do for him well enough. He did not expend upon his work any superfluous strength. It is
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