USA > Pennsylvania > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of Pennsylvania, Vol. I > Part 12
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engaged divested her capture of its piratical charac- ter. Judge Woodward, the Chief Justice of the State, sustained her capture as au act of war by a de facto government. Judge Agnew denied Judge Woodward's conclusions. His opinion asserted that secession and confederation were nullities ; that the United States was the supreme government both de jure and de facto; that while its functions were temporarily suspended in certain districts, its actual existence continued everywhere within its rightful jurisdiction, coupled with actual possession of im- portant posts in every seceded State, necessarily ex- cluding all other sovereignties ; and that a rebellion or attempted revolution by a portion of a people, taking the form of a government, but leaving the true government in esse, actively and successfully assert- ing its rightful authority, with important posses- sions, did not constitute a de facto government, for the reason that it in no sense represented a nation in fact nor exercised its sovereignty. He, therefore, denied Judge Woodward's conclusions of an accom- plished revolution-the position of au independent power de facto-and the abrogation of the Constitu- tion in the seceded States, leaving them under the laws of war and of nations alone. Again: Pennsyl- vania was the third State in which the constitution- ality of the Act of Congress, authorizing the issuing of treasury notes and making them lawful money and a legal tender for debt, was called in question. New York and California were the first two, and their courts had snstained the act. Holding that a specific contract for payment in coin was not pay- able in treasury notes, and that the latter were re- ceivable only for debts payable in lawful money, Judge Agnew, with Judges Strong and Reed, over- ruled Chief Justice Woodward and Judge Thomp- son, and brought the Supreme Court of Peunsylvauia into line. Judge Agnew had in fact decided the same question in the same way while in the Court of Common Pleas of Butler County. His opinion was published in the Legal Journal of Pittsburgh. During his service on the Supreme Court bench, Judge Agnew rendered many other important de- cisions, and interpreted many principles of law which have become recognized as standard author- ity, not only in his own but in other States. Among these the gravity of the questions involved and the influence of his opinions, give an appropriateness to the mention of three cases in this connection. The first was the case of Speer vs. Blairsville. In this the vital question was that touching the right of a State to raise money by taxation to pay bounties for enlistments. When the case came before the Su- preme Conrt, ex-Chief Justices Black and Lowrie argued in opposition to the power to tax ; but Judge
Agnew settled the legality of the act imposing the tax in an opinion which placed the question beyond future controversy. The second, in brief, involved the right of deserters from the military service to vote at State elections. Two cases came before the court for the adjudication of the one principle, that of Huber vs. Reilly and McCafferty vs. Guyer. In the former a majority of the court held that the electoral franchise of a deserter from military ser- vice could not be taken away by an Act of Congress without a conviction of desertion by a conrt mar- tial, aud that a board of electiou officers was incom- petent to try the fact. Judge Strong, who wrote the opinion, put the decision on this gronnd, con- ceding that the Act of Congress was not an ex post facto law, and that Congress had power to pass it. Judge Agnew, however, maintained that the ques- tion before the election board was in no sense a trial for a penalty, but an inquiry into a personal privi- lege claimed by one offering to exercise it, and the real question was one of fact only, desertion, triable as any other fact, in relation to citizenship, by the election board ; the consequence being declared by Congress, whose right to declare it was not denied by Judge Strong. In the second case, which was presented nnder a State law authorizing the board of election officers to try the fact of desertion, Judge Agnew took the ground that the whole question was resolved into the single inquiry : Is a deserter, pro- scribed by Act of Congress, a freeman under tlie election clause of the Constitution ? In his decision he established the status of a freeman by tracing the origin of the term from the earliest historical periods down to the insertion of the word in the State Constitutions of 1790 and 1838, and proved that a proscribed deserter was not a freeman within the meaning of the word in the Constitution. He, therefore, concluded that as the election board was authorized by a statute to determine the fact, the appellant was rightfully denied a right to vote. The third case arose before the adoption of the XIVth amendment to the Federal Constitution and before the passage of the Pennsylvania act defining the rights and privileges of negroes withiu the State limits. The latter act made it an offence for a rail- road company to discriminate between passengers on account of their race or color. In 1867, when the case in question reached the Supreme Court, public opinion ran high in favor of the rights of colored people. A lower court had decided against the right of a railroad company to direct a negro woman to take a different seat from the one she was occupying. In considering the point made in the first decision, that the other seat was " one in all respects as comfortable, safe, convenient, and one not in-
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ferior to the one she left," Judge Agnew realized | In a murder case, in 1874, Chief-Justice Agnew that as the Constitution and precedents stood when the case arose, it was impossible to deny with hon- esty that the legal status of the negro, both civil and political, differed from that of the white man ; aud that the social status was even more dissonant, that the rights of carriers and the repugnance of races necessarily involved a reasonable power of separation of passengers, as a part of the carrier's duty in the preservation of the public peace and the proper performance of his public obligations. Of all the judges who heard the argument, Judge Reed alone dissented. In 1873 Judge Agnew be- came Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of Penn- sylvania, and served in that office until 1879. Dur- ing the whole period of his service on the bench he worked coustantly, and each Monday morning the sessions of the court had a full budget of his de- cisions, while his vacations were given up to the unravelling of more than usually difficult points. Shortly after he became Chief-Justice, a majority of the Convention called to propose amendments to the State Constitution, to be voted upon by the peo- ple, conceived that its powers were uot restricted by the call under which it was convened; and, claimiug absolute sovereignty, undertook to dis- place the existing election laws in the city of Phil- adelphia by an ordinance, without any previous submission of the new constitution to the people, as required by the laws under which the Convention was called and authorized. The case came before the Supreme Court on a proceeding to enjoin the Couvention's appointees from interfering with the lawful election officers. There was at first a dispo- sition on the part of some members of the court to dismiss the bill on the ground of want of jurisdic- tion; but the Chief-Justice prepared an opinion, which has been considered the ablest of his entire judicial career, during the night following the argu- ment, and upon this the court unanimously agreed to meet the question on its merits, aud enjoin ap- pointees of the Convention from interfering. This opinion was supplemented by another by Judge Aguew in what is known as "Wood's Appeal," in which the claim of absolute sovereignty was dis- cussed upon fundamental principles, and the same conclusion reached. It was an interesting fact, de- veloped by the ruling of Judge Cox iu the selection of jurors for the trial of President Garfield's mur- derer, that Judge Agnew was the first judge in Pennsylvania and one of the earliest in the country to modify the rule which excluded jurors who liad formed opinions in capital cases, and admit them if their opinions were not so fixed but that they could still try the prisoner on the evidence alone.
considered at length the plea of insanity as a de- fense, and laid down such clear rules in relation thereto, that his most pertinent remarks are worthy of repetition here. He held that, "The danger to society from acquittals on the ground of doubtful insanity demands a strict rule. Mere doubtful evi- dence of insanity would fill the land with acquitted criminals. To doubt one's sanity is not necessarily to be convinced of his insanity. A person charged with crime must be judged to be a reasonable be- ing until a want of reason positively appears. In- sauity as a defense must be so great as to have con- trolled the will and taken away the freedom of moral action. When the killing is admitted, and insauity is alleged as an excuse, the defendant must satisfy the jury that insanity actually existed at the time of the act; a doubt as to the sanity will not justify the jury in acquitting." On the expiration of his term of service as Chief-Justice, Judge Agnew retired to his home in Beaver, with a name respected everywhere and a fame that will live in the judicial annals of the Nation. He was full of honors, and although full of years also, was then and still is, in a large enjoyment of physical health and mental activity. Since his retirement he has frequently appeared in public and the familiar courts of law. He delivered the address of welcome of the citizens of Pittsburgh to General Grant upon his return from the memorable trip around the world. He supported with his voice, his vote and his influence the candidacy of General Garfield; was employed by Allegheny County in the cases growing out of the great railroad riots of July, 1877, prepared the address to the Legislature, and argued the question of the county's liability before the Supreme Court of the State, and more recently ar- gued the case of Kelly vs. the city of Pittsburgh in the United States Supreme Court. In the latter case his brief was an elaborate statement of the purpose of the XIVth amendment to the Federal Constitution, and a vindication of individual funda- mental right, and the jurisdiction of the court in a case of unlawful taxation, infringing upon the right of property without due process of law. While all of his decisions as a judge bear the stamp of pro- found statesmanship, those rendered during and immediately after the war period will doubtless have the greatest permanent value. These, with the consequences probable had they never been given, have been thus succinctly summed up : " Without the power to draft, the military arm of the government would be powerless. Without money to carry on the war it would be ineffectual. Without the power to pay bounties, the hardships
your old friend Josiah Coupling
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of war would fall on classes least able to be spared. With a de facto stauding of the Confederate Govern- ment it would have been entitled to recognition by European powers ; its prize court decisions would be recognized as a valid source of title; its ports would be opened by foreign powers, and various obstacles thrown in the way of the United States to prosecute its lawful authority. With a right to vote by deserters, the whole policy of the State might be changed and its safety endangered." In the year 1880 the Constitutional Temperance Amendment Association of Pennsylvania was formed, and Judge Agnew became its first Presi- dent. He entered into the work actively, making addresses throughout the State, and contributed largely to the passage of the amendment through the House of Representatives, by a majority of nearly two to one. It failed in the Senate, but ac- tive measures were continued by the Association, Judge Agnew giving his personal efforts, and mak- ing an address before the Assembly in 1883, which was published and largely circulated. To that As- sociation, aided by other temperance organizations, much of the success of the Amendment in the ses- sion of 1887 is attributable. Judge Agnew's part was active and influential. Judge Agnew was married in July, 1831, to Miss Elizabeth Moore, daughter of General Robert Moore, a leading lawyer and Representative in Congress. Six children were born of this union, two of whom, the eldest son and the eldest daughter, are dead. The latter was the wife of Col. John M. Sullivan, of Allegheny City, and died in 1874. Of the others there are two sons, both lawyers; the elder, F. H. Agnew, lately a member of the State Senate, is practising in Beaver, and the younger, Robert M. Agnew, in Lancaster, Pa. One of the daughters is the wife of Hon. Henry Hice, of Beaver, President-Judge of the Court her father presided over so long and worthily. The other daughter is the wife of Rev. Walter Brown, of Cadiz, Ohio. Judge Agnew's wife died after a lingering illness, Oct. 1, 1888, in the seventy-ninth year of her age. Judge Aguew has been honored with the degree of LL.D. from two sources, first Washington College and then Dickinson. To-day he is universally recognized as one of the best and soundest lawyers that ever wore the ermiue of the Keystone State.
JOSIAH COPLEY.
JOSIAH COPLEY, a secular and religious wri- ter of great vigor and force, was the fourth child of Samuel Copley and Jane (Sibbet) Copley, and was
born in Shippensburg, Pa., September 20, 1803. His paternal grandfather was a manufacturer of woolen goods in the town of Leeds, England, a member of the Church of England, and a man of large and lib- cral views, for in the Revolutionary struggles of the colonies against the mother country he sympathized most heartily with the apparently weaker party. He had four sons, all of whom came to this country while young and settled here, the two elder, John and Samuel, arriving in 1792. Samuel Copley did business in Massachusetts for a short time, and then went to Pittsburgh. There he purchased property which is now in the heart of the city, but, desiring to return to England, he sold out. Changing his mind, however, about leaving his adopted country, he entered into the manufacture of textile fabrics in partnership with his brother John, in the town of Shippensburg. Here he was married, his wife being a North of Ireland Presbyterian and a woman of strong religious character. Indeed, it was to the teachings and example of his mother that Josiah owed most of his own religious nature. She died while he was a boy, and Mr. Copley has placed on record his judgment concerning her in the following words : "She was a woman of strong and original cast of mind, gentle but firm, sensitive yet patient. She was one of the pleasantest and most impressive readers I ever knew, and much of what may be called the keys of knowledge, the first germs of thought, I gained from hearing her read, especially the Scriptures. She read poetry admirably, and no one I ever knew surpassed her in reading and recit- ing the poetry of Burns, or in singing Scottish bal- lads, with which her memory was well stored." Shortly after the birth of Josiah his father went into the woolen manufacture in Blairsville, Pa., but ow- ing to the troubles between this country and England, and the consequent commercial depression, he was unsuccessful. This fact preyed upon his mind and he died in 1813 in poverty. The boyhood of Josiah was thus saddened by death and burdened by mis- fortune. He was apprenticed at an early age to the printing business, this being, in fact, in the spring of 1818, when he was bound out to Mr. John Mc- Cahan, of Iudiana, Pa., who printed and published a little weekly sheet called the American. Josiah was at this time in his fifteenth year, and under the severe terms of his master was bound to serve until the age of twenty-one-almost six and a half years. For the first three years of this time he was engaged to spend one-half the time carrying the mail on horseback, his employer being not only a printer but a mail contractor on two or three different routes. The result of this combination on the part of the shrewd Irishman was, that he not only got
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his mail carried without cost, but was able to dis- tribute his papers to his subscribers at the same time. The route was from Indiana to Butler via Kittaning, thence to Freeport back to Kittaning, and from there home, a three days' ride in all. This mail-carrying gave the young man an experience among people, taking him into the world to a cer- tain extent ; though much of it was lonely riding. He seems to have been at this early age imbued with religious instruction and a tendency in that direction not usually shown in boys, for he tells us himself of passing away the time while riding, at first three times a week and afterwards about every day in the week, singing psalms and hymns, of which his memory had stored away a great many, learned in the happy days when he was under the pious instruction of his mother. Often his journeys were through violent tempests of snow or rain, with flooded streams, bridges carried away, and all the rough and dangerous characteristics of a wild coun- try when storm-beaten. In commenting, more than half a century after, on this portion of his personal history, Mr. Copley said : "I am persuaded that that service gave a higher and better direction to my whole subsequent life. It was a school into which it pleased God to put me-a dangerous one to be sure, both morally and physically-but he led me safely through it. Not once during all those years did I meet with the slightest accident, nor did I do or say anything the remembrance of which gives me pain." Probably, also, much of the medi- tative habit of thought and the power of close ob- servation, which were the marked characteristics of Mr. Copley, grew out of this hard discipline. In 1825 he went into partnership with Mr. John Croll, in the printing business in Kittaning. The business included the Kittaning Gazette, and was sustained to a certain extent by two or three prominent citi- zens of the town who, doubtless, recognized the strong qualities of young Copley's mind. He con- tinued to publish this paper for eight years, during the latter four alone. During this period he was married to Mrs. Margaret Chadwick Haas, step- daughter of his uncle, Mr. Sibbet, who resided in Philadelphia. She was the widow of a young physi- cian who sacrificed his life during an epidemic near Philadelphia in 1824. Mr. Copley was married to Mrs. Haas in Philadelphia in 1826. They made a journey to Huntington in a private conveyance, and from thence to Kittaning by stage. The Kittaning paper was a success from the start, and determined Mr. Copley on his career. For the remainder of his life he was always connected with newspapers, both secular and religious. He became best known for his connection with the Pittsburgh Gazette, which
began as early as 1838, and lasted two years, when his health failed and he removed to Appleby Manor. Here he superintended a farm and manufacturing establishment, but continued to write for various newspapers, and also a number of pamphlets, on general, political and economic subjects It was at this time that he first made a collection of his reli- gious articles, under the title of "Thoughts of Fa- vored Hours." From 1850 to 1852 he was again on the staff of the Pittsburgh Gazette, and again his health failed, and he was obliged to retire tempora- rily from that position. In 1860 he removed again with his family to Pittsburgh. Now the war of the Rebellion broke out, and Mr. Copley had four sons engaged in it. One, John Sibbet, fell at the battle of South Mountain, Md., September, 1862. Another son, Albert, was wounded at the battle of Stone River, Tenn., taken prisoner, and from exposure and privation during captivity died, and now lies in an unknown grave. Another son was taken prisoner at Chicamauga in 1863, and suffered untold hard- ships for eighteen months in Libby Prison and Cas- tle Thunder, Richmond, and in Danville and Ander-
sonville, and North and South Carolina. Mean- while Mr. Copley had begun again to work on the Pittsburgh Gazette staff, and gained a wide fame for his articles on protection, enjoying the reputation of being one of the clearest and strongest writers on that subject in the country. He remained on the Gazette until advancing years brought a desire for freedom from care and responsibility, but after giv- ing up his desk he continued to supply articles for the Gazette as the spirit moved his pen. During these latter years Mr. Copley became better known to readers of the religious than to those of the secu- lar press, being a valued contributor to the Presby- terian Banner, the United Presbyterian and other rellgious papers throughout the country. As a wri- ter he possessed a wonderful command of language, and though slow of speech could write rapidly, with- out need of correction, and always employing the purest English. In politics Mr. Copley was a Re- publican, and before the war was a conservative Abolitionist. He was also a strong temperance man, taking the greatest interest in advancing that cause up to the latest hours of his life. In religious belief he was a Presbyterian, having united with that church in very early life. He was not, how- ever, bigoted, but recognized the several evangelical denominations as only other divisions of one grand army. So late as Christmas, 1884, Mr. Copley pub- lished in the United Presbyterian a paper entitled, "A Crippled Translation," in which he sets forth triumphantly his belief that portions of the 71st and 73d Psalms were revelations of both the resurrection
Mag & Eug. C.n. L. N.Y
Franc Hinckley
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of the body and the consciousness of the everlasting existence of the soul. In 1878 Mr. Copley published a volume entitled, " Gatherings in Beulah," on the title page of which was a quotation from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. This latter appears, next to the Bible itself, to be the book of all books that Mr. Copley most read and loved. After a life of more than fourscore years, in November, 1884, it was seen that the end was not far off. The last day of the year was the last on which Mr. Copley left his sick room, where he suffered intensely at times, though with intervals of ease and rest. As his body failed his spirit seemed to grow stronger, and his intelligence to shine brighter. He died in the evening of March 2, 1885, his strong and clear reli- gious character being sustained to the last, and, to use the expression of the writer of his obituary in the Pittsburgh Gozette, his old paper, "his only fear being that he was too anxious for his release and for his entrance into that better world he habitually contemplated as his final home." In 1886 a collec- tion from the writings of Mr. Copley was made, with an introduction by the Rev. S. H. Kellogg, D.D., and published by his old publisher, Anson D. F. Randolph, of New York. This work is entitled, " Gathered Sheaves." In this volume there are sixty-nine different articles, most but not all of which are distinctly religious. Among those of a secular character is one entitled "Recollections of Boyhood," in which the author sets forth many of his peculiar experiences, going back as far as 1810, when he went to school in a log cabin of the most primitive kind. Among his recollections at this period were seeing the great comet of 1811, which stretched from the horizon to the zenith, and also his observation of an annular eclipse of the sun, of which the locality where he lived appears to have been exactly the centre. He remembered the inci- dents of the war of 1812 and recited them, and also the wars of the first Napoleon, including the burn- ing of Moscow. The tremendous earthquake which shook a large portion of the Valley of the Missis- sippi, and the frightful calamity of the burning of the Richmond Theatre, where eighty of the best people of that city lost their lives, were also among his recollections. Other papers in this volume (which includes the one already referred to, entitled "A Crippled Translation ") are somewhat singular for speculations and investigations into primeval and ancient history. Such are : "The World Be- forc the Flood " and "A Map of the World, A. D. 1490." An article entitled, "Is Our National Con- stitution Atheistic ? " was written with a view to the consideration of the oft proposed interpolation of some recognition of God in that instrument. Mr.
Copley in this paper gave some interesting historical facts in regard to the cause of the omission, and ac- knowledged that, in his opinion, "the Constitution, as it stands, is negatively atheistic." Other papers bear such titles as "The Root of all Evil," "Man's Limitation," "Prophecy and History," "The Sab- bath was made for Man," " Religious Progress in Seventy Years," "The Blessings of Poverty," " Recognition in Heaven," etc. An article on " Scriptural Revision," giving a history of the En- glish Bible and of the work of translation in different hands, is important as setting forth his judgment concerning the great value of the new revised inter- pretation of the Bible, in correcting old errors and placing more clearly before the Christian world thie most scholarly translation of the Scriptures, as writ- ten in the original text. It will be seen from these brief references and quotations that Mr. Copley's mind was broad enough to entertain ideas upon a great variety of important subjeets, and his intelli- gence shrewd and vigorous enough to make his views on the subjects he chose of importance to the reading community. This was, in fact, the case, and taking him all in all not many general writers for the press have gained so high a reputa- tion for dignified, conscientious and noble work, both religious and secular, as Josiah Copley.
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