USA > Ohio > History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I > Part 96
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At this time Mr. Guthrie was recognized as the leader of the Louisville bar, having carried on his practice in spite of his numerous other occupations, and with a brilliant success that led many to class him as the ablest lawyer in Kentucky. He had grown from year to year in learning, skill, and reputa- tion, and had at the same time more than laid the foundation
of the magnificent fortune of which he died possessed. Aside from purely professional reputation, he had gained a name beyond the borders of his State both as a person of incorrupt- ible honesty and as one of administrative ability and tact in affairs beyond any other Kentuckian. In February, 1853, this reputation led President Pierce, then considering as to the formation of his cabinet, to so far depart from ordinary pre- cedent as to summon Mr. Guthrie, a man utterly a stranger to Federal politics, and tender him the Treasury portfolio. The offer was, after due consideration, accepted, and Mr. Guthrie at once set to work, familiarizing himself with the working of Government machinery, and prepared not only to occupy but to fill his surpassingly important place. That he did it, and fully, the history and records of the department conclusively show. It was no unusual thing in those days to hear him described as the greatest Secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton. Be this as it may, certain it is that he was a very great one. Without parade or ceremony he soon proved to his subordinates the country over that he was a working man, and that none other could find or retain place in the department. He cut, pruned, and lopped right and left, until there was not a drone or sinecure remaining, and he reformed the system of auditing and paying claims against the United States in such manner that the great army of claim agents who had lived by bribing clerks and thus se- curing preference for their clients, were fairly starved ont and forced to turn to some more honest business. If Guthrie de- cided to pay a claim, it was duly paid in its order; if he de- termined to disallow it, not the President himself could move him one iota from his position.
A story related by the late Hon. Caleb Cushing in a speech delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, after the close of the Pierce administration, well illustrates this peculiar independ- ence of character. A large claim had been presented to the Treasury department and, after full consideration, payment thereof refused. Pressure was brought upon the President, a very amiable man, to give the matter his personal attention. . He sent to the Treasury department for the papers, and having examined them, called a Cabinet meeting to consider the case. . The President introduced the discussion, the various mem- bers of the Cabinet made comments, and, at last, after the subject had been pretty thoroughly canvassed, Mr. Guthrie alone remaining quite silent, the President, addressing him, said:
"Mr. Secretary of the Treasury, this matter comes from your department, and we have not heard from you; we will be glad to know your views of the claim."
Mr. Guthrie arose and said:
"Gentlemen, this claim has been disposed of, in the Treasury Department." With this he took his hat and left the room.
The President and Cabinet decided that if the claim were allowed, it would be necessary to find a new Secretary of the Treasury to pay it. It was not paid.
During Mr. Guthrie's administration, he lived squarely up to the Independent Treasury act passed during Polk's ad- ministration, employed no banks, paid the debts of the United States in silver and gold, reduced the national debt by many millions, leaving only a small remnant, and left his office with its debts paid, its accounts collected, the Govern- ment credit of the best, and no suspicion in the mind of any one of the possible existence of fraud or defalcation.
On his return to Kentucky at the close of the Pierce Ad- ministration in 1857, his aid was invoked by the directors and stockholders of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company, an enterprise which had progressed to the point,
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common with new railroads, where its resources were all ex- pended, the road unfinished, and its promoters at their wits' end for further means. Mr. Guthrie entered the organiza- tion first as Vice-President, and soon after became Presi- dent. In his endeavors in behalf of the road he found him- self for the first time in his career in Louisville, surrounded by a people no longer doubtful in their allegiance to him and their support of his measures. Upon his return a great dinner had been given him at the Court-house, by his fellow- citizens, irrespective of party, and so, irrespective of party, they rallied to his aid. He showed his own confidence in the future of the road by risking his large fortune as its indorser to the amount of $500,000, and from citizens of Louisville and Kentucky banks, and the city of Louisville itself, money came at his call, until the completion of the road which now owns or controls nearly three thousand miles of track and is worth not far from $100,000,000, was rendered possible.
From 1857 until his death the construction, operation, and extension of this road were the main objects of Mr. Guthrie's life, and by his own wisdom and untiring industry he justi- fied the faith of himself and of his friends in the great un- dertaking, every cent thus advanced having proved a rich in- vestment.
In addition to his duties as president of the Louisville and Nashville railroad, Mr. Guthrie was president of the Louis- ville and Portland Canal company, raising and expending $1,500,000 in deepening and widening the canal, rendered valuable aid in securing the building of the railroad bridge over the Falls of the Ohio, and was an efficient promoter of the building of the railroad from Elizabethtown to Paducah.
During the civil war Mr. Guthrie was a Union Democrat ; he disapproved of the war, but still more of secession. His service as president of the Louisville and Nashville railroad was worth more to the Federal Government than a brigade of troops. Three railroads and the river were bearing to Louisville men, horses, ordnance, stores, and heaping them up at the wharves and depots for transportation to the armies of the South and West. These were the very sinews of war to those armies, and, to transport them beyond Louisville, there was but the single track of the Louisville and Nashville railroad. But there was a man at its head of mighty brain, energy, and activity, and he fed, clothed, armed, and rein- forced the armies, day by day, throughout the war, without ever breakage, delay, or mishap. Stanton, Secretary of War, came, soon after entering the Cabinet, incognito, to Louis- ville, to study the matter of transportation and to advise as to the propriety of the Government assuming charge of the road. That no such policy was ever adopted, is sufficient indication of his opinion.
In 1865 Mr. Guthrie was elected by the General Assembly of Kentucky, as United States Senator. He assumed bis seat on the 4th of March, 1866, and served until February 19, 1868, when he was compelled by ill health to resign. His service in the Senate was during the stormy days of the administration of Andrew Johnson, and his contest with the leaders of the party by which he was elected. Mr. Guthrie supported the President very warmly and opposed the so- called reconstruction measures, favoring an immediate, full, and complete rehabilitation of the lately seceding States.
With the expiration of his Senatorial service Mr. Guthrie's official life was at an end. In 1860 he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency before the convention at Charleston, and would doubtless have been the most available compromise candidate, had a compromise between the sections been possible. As it was, he had a very respectable following. In 1861 he spent much time and labor
in the peace movements of that year, corresponding and conversing on the subject with many prominent men, and attending the Peace Convention at Washington as a delegate from Kentucky.
The foregoing is a brief and formal statement of the busy life of a great man. From boyhood to old age he worked, as few men work, unremittingly, conscientiously. He pos- sessed to the highest degree the power of grasping and car- rying many subjects at once, and transferring his attention from one to another without hesitation or confusion. In business he was methodical, exact, even somewhat cold. In his home he was all that was different from this-indulgent, mild, unexacting, loving, and sweet-tempered. Few men were ever more practical and prompt in affairs or more strict in requiring the same qualities in those about them; few men, on the other hand, arrogate so little in their homes and in contact with their friends.
Mr. Guthrie succumbed to disease and years of over-work, and died on the 13th of March, 1869, after an illness of several months, aged seventy-six years, three months, and eight days. He left surviving him three daughters, his wife, Eliza C. Prather Guthrie, having died on the 25th day of July, 1836.
JUDGE HENRY PIRTLE.
Henry Pirtle was born in Washington county, Kentucky, near the town of Springfield, on the 5th day of November, 1798. His father, John Pirtle, was a man of strong intellect and fine attainments, who combined with the duties of a minister of the Methodist church those of a teacher and sur- veyor. Under his instruction, and with the opportunities which the neighborhood school afforded, Henry Pirtle ac- quired, if not a classical, a good education, and had implant- ed in him a love of learning and habits of patient study and thought which continued through life. He always expressed a great admiration for his father's talents and acquirements, and regarded himself as much his inferior; he dwelt with especial pride upon his fine voice, pure character, and great mathematical and mechanical genius, and there remains to this day, as evidence of his learning and industry, a manu- script work of his writing, on mathematics as applied to sur- veying, containing a full table of logarithms worked out by himself for his own use. His mother, Amelia Fitzpatrick, was a gentle, sweet-tempered woman, who had a spirit and courage which enabled ler, when a young wife, to accom- pany her husband alone through the wilderness from Virginia when they came to Kentucky to establish their home. This home became the center of a large circle of religious influ- ence, and thither came all the pioneer Methodist preachers, so many of whom were men of power and eloquence. The religious atmosphere had its effect on the young boy growing up in this simple life, which was felt in after years, and gave to his character a reverential and moral tone which was never changed.
In 1816 Judge John Rowan, who lived near Bardstown, invited Henry Pirtle to come to his residence and make it his home while he studied law. The opportunity was a rare one, and was gratefully accepted and most devotedly used. For three years the young student applied himself, under the di- rection of his accomplished friend, to the acquirement of the science of the law, and to a generous course of collateral reading. The library to which he had access was rich in classics of the ancient and modern schools, and the compan- ionship of Judge Rowan-a finished scholar, a profound
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jurist, an orator and statesman, and an enlightened student -stimulated the ambition which burned in his breast.
The basis of the learning and accurate scholarship which distinguished Judge Pirtle was laid while at Federal Hill, and when he received his license in December, 1819, he was a well-trained lawyer, needing only the facility which comes from practice. His preceptor said he was the best lawyer of his age that he had ever seen. He first commenced practice at Hartford, and speedily took the rank to which he was en- titled, and rose into a good business, extending into many of the counties in that section of the State, and occasionally calling him to those more remote.
In 1825 he removed to Louisville, which remained his resi- dence the rest of his life. He had not been a year at his new home when he was appointed Judge of the Circuit Court by Governor Desha, with the approval of the Louisville bar.
Although only twenty-seven years old, his fitness for the office was not doubted, such was his learning, familiarity with practice, and purity of character.
His reputation steadily grew while on the bench, and when compelled by the meagre salary to resign, in 1832, he returned to the bar, he had attained to the first rank among the lawyers of the State.
Whale he was holding the Meade Circuit Court in 1827, Judge Pirtle for the first time in Kentucky decided that upon the arrest of judgment for defect in the indictment, after con- viction for felony, the prisoner should be held to await a new indictment. The practice had been to discharge the accused in such cases, under the provision of the Constitution that no man shall twice be put in jeopardy for the same offense, and thus, by a legal technicality and in consequence of lack of skill, or negligence, of the attorneys for the Commonwealth, many guilty men went free. The Judge maintained that the party was not put in jeopardy, within the meaning of the Constitution, on a bad indictment. There was much opposi- tion to the new ruling; but it was followed universally and be- came the settled law of the State.
As indicative of the value which was attached to his judg- ments, it may be mentioned that an exhaustive opinion of his, written in a lucid, nervous style, upon a question which was of great interest, challenge of jurors in criminal cases, which could not, from peculiarity of practice, come before the Court of Appeals, was published as an appendix to the seventh volume of T. B. Monroe's reports, as an authority for the guidance of the bench and bar. In 1833 he pub- lished a digest of the decisions of the Court of Appeals from the origin of the Court to that date. The work was pre- pared, with great care, upon a plan comprehensive and easily understood, and with perfect accuracy. The author supple- mented the notes of the decisions with references to other authorities and occasional criticisms. The favor with which this digest continues to be regarded is the highest evidence of its value.
With the exception of a short interval, in 1846, during which he acted as Circuit Judge under commission from the Governor, until a permanent appointment could be made, Judge l'irtle was actively and laboriously engaged in the practice of law until 1850, when he accepted the office of Chancellor of the Louisville Chancery Court, tendered him by Governor Crittenden. His first partner was Larz Ander- son, and, upon his removal to Cincinnati, he formed, in 1835, a partnership with James Speed, which continned for fifteen years. The practice of l'irtle & Speed grew to be equal to any at the bar, embracing cases in all the courts. The habit of Judge l'irtle was to follow his causes to the Court of Appeals, and argue them orally. The reports of
that time show a very large number of important cases thus argued.
The community have so long associated his name with the Chancery Court that few persons know, even by tradition, the power of Judge Pirtle, at this time, as a jury lawyer and practitioner. From 1833 to 1850 he was a skillful and success- ful practicing lawyer ; his power before both judge and juries was not surpassed by any member of the bar, distinguished as it was for men of talent and genius, He was an impres- sive speaker, and not lacking in earnestness and fire. Such was the weight of his character, of the confidence which all men had in his integrity, that he carried juries with him against lawyers possessing more of the graces of oratory and rhetoric than he had. There yet lingers about the Court-house a tradition of his speech in a breach of promise case in which he secured a verdict for $5,000 damages, an amount not since recovered, and of the contest over Polly Bullitt's will, in which he crossed swords with Henry Clay.
It was during this period that Judge Pirtle was elected to the State Senate, serving in the sessions of 1840 -- 41 and 1842 -- 43. As Chairman of the Committee on Federal Re- lations in 1842 he made a report which was noteworthy for its eloquence, and for the coincidence of its sentiment with the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, subse- quently made, in the case of Prigg vs. Pennsylvania, 16 Peters, 539, and which was widely circulated and discussed.
The following quotations, in an interesting manner, show the views of the Kentucky Senate at that time on constitu- tional questions which later became of vital importance, and express the devotion of the Chairman of the Committee to the Union, a devotion that strengthened with time, and in which he never wavered :
The doctrine of the American people is not that the Constitution is a mere compact between the States, a breach of which on the part of one is to be remedied by coercive retaliation on the part of the others, but that it is a form of government of the people of this na- tion, as sovereign in its sphere as the government of a State is with- in its sphere ; that no State can interfere with its power or assume its action ; that National subjects are under this Government referred to National judicature.
Your committee believe that the duty of the respective States to comply with the provisions of the Constitution in regard to fugitives is one to be enforced by the National Government, or it is left with- out a remedy ; for coercion on the part of another State implies dis- union.
Retaliatory exactions of compliance with the obligations of the Constitution are dangerous usurpations, to be deprecated by all the American people.
Your committee has witnessed with much concern the differences between these States on these subjects. The quiet union of the American States should strike every lover of mankind as a desidera- tum unsurpassed by any subject of sublunary concern ; and so it is felt by the people of Kentucky.
His reputation as a lawyer was well sustained by his career in the Senate, and he showed a capacity for politics and statesmanship which would have enabled him to attain the highest rank had he devoted himself to them as to his pro- fession. But his tastes and ambition were for the pleasures of home and the fame of the lawyer and jurist, and he would never consent to take political office again.
Judge Pirtle took a great interest in the foundation of the University of Louisville in 1846, and upon the organization of the Law Department was elected Professor of Equity and Constitutional Law and Commercial Law; his colleagues were Preston S. Loughborough and Garnet Duncan. He entered upon this new field of study and labor with great en- thusiasmı, and the Law School became and remained the cherished object of his affection as long as he was in sufficient
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health to discharge his duties, and indeed to the end of his days. The field was suited to his talents, his learning, and his taste. He was a natural teacher, so full of learning, so devoted to the law and the profession of the lawyer, so sympathetic with the students and so beloved by them, that the duties of the instructor and the studies of the pupil were pleasures. Every graduate felt that Judge Pirtle was his friend, and in after years freely turned to him for aid in sur- mounting the difficult questions which confronted him in practice, with the certainty of receiving it. The remarkable attainments of Judge Pirtle in the common law, in equity jurisprudence, commercial and maritime law, in constitu- tional law and in the civil law were best displayed in the Law School. He was not merely an able lawyer and great judge, but he was a profound jurist, extending his studies into all departments of the science of law, and as familiar with the most difficult branches and those little needed and rarely used in his practice or his court, as with the simpler rules of daily practice. The accuracy of his memory was not more wonderful than the store of learning which it held. Through life he mastered every subject under consideration before
leaving it, and seemed never to have forgotten any fact or principle which he had once known. His culture was broad, for he had that scholarly mind which delighted in the acquisition of knowledge of every useful kind. He was al- ways a student; and whether reading law or history, or the exact sciences, or theology, he was acquiring an understand- ing of the matter so that he would never need to go over the same ground again.
In the particular of his fullness and accuracy of memory he was not surpassed by any one. Perhaps the greatest excel- lence which Judge Pirtle achieved in his life of industry and distinction was as a teacher of law. All over the land there are men occupying high positions in the profession and in pub- lic life who look back to him as the beloved preceptor of their youth, and who reverence his memory, his genius, and his character. He was devoted to his "boys," and loved to gather them around him and pour into their minds knowledge, and inspire them with an exalted estimate of the duty and responsibility of a lawyer. His style of lecturing was collo- quial, often rising into eloquence when discussing great prin- ciples, interspersed with questioning, and his success as a teacher entitles him to a place beside Story and Kent and Robertson.
Judge Pirtle remained chancellor until September, 1856, having been elected without opposition at the first election under the new constitution, and after an interval of six years was again in the office, retiring at the end of his term in I868.
Soon after his return to the bar in 1856 he formed a part- nership with Bland Ballard, which was continued until 1860, when he entered into partnership with John Roberts. He enlisted in the active duties of a lawyer with zeal, and dis- played a readiness and skill not often found, after so many years on the bench, at his age. His firms enjoyed excellent practice, and the advice of Judge Pirtle was much sought by clients and attorneys.
The twelve years which he spent on the bench were busily occupied by the varied duties of the equity judge. The man- ner in which he conducted the court gave him fame through- out the State, and many of his decisions hecame part of the legal literature of the country. He was not accustomed to write opinions, usually disposing of the cases by an endorse- ment directing what order should be entered, but on rare oc- casions, when the gravity or the newness of the questions seemed to require it, he wrote out his opinion in a concise,
vigorous style with sufficient reference to authority to show his entire familiarity with the principle involved, but with no display of learning. The business of the court was dispatched with promptness in open court and in chambers. The great familiarity that he had with most of the questions which were presented enabled him to dispose of them without taking time, and cases which were sent to him on Tuesday afternoon were generally returned on Friday morning.
On the occasion of his retirement from the bench, in August, 1856, Chancellor Pirtle received from the bar a testi- monial of their high esteem for him, in the course of which they said: " In you the bar have beheld the learned and up- right chancellor, who, while administering the law with un- wavering fidelity, has softened the asperities of its practice by the benevolence of your feelings and the amenity of your de- portment. As a jurist, they desire to pay a just tribute to your attainments; as a man, to honor you for your many virtues. "
During his third term of office Judge Pirtle added greatly to his reputation. Many nice questions new to the bar arose out of the war, and came before the Chancellor. They were decided by him in opinions luminous with his great learning, and distinguished for clearness and acumen. These opinions were published in the law journals, and were useful as author- ities in other courts having before them these grave questions of international law, involving the rights of belligerents.
The admiration of the Bar for the Chancellor's learning and character extended to the people, and he was universally regarded as the embodiment of equity. The confidence which was felt in the purity of his principles, was accom- panied by a reverence for his deep knowledge of the springs and fountains of that part of our jurisprudence which is de- signed to soften the hardness and supply the deficiency of the common law. And in truth the Judge delighted in the beau- ties of equity, and its benign principles conformed to the kindness of his nature.
Such men as he have made the body of this branch of the law, with minds stored with the common law, but enlightened and deepened by profound study of the civil law and of morals and natural equity, they have adapted the narrow code of our ancestors to the needs of our time, and by the ameliorating influence of equity jurisprudence rendered the common law that which it otherwise would not be, "the perfection of reason."
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