History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 163

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992

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but by means of a local and special election law which had been enacted in the mean time, he was defeated by a small majority. In 1874 he was unani- mously nominated again by the Democratic County Convention, and was indorsed by the Citizens' Mu- nicipal Reform Association. After a campaign al- most unexampled in its activity and earnestness, and which aroused more than a merely local interest, he was elected by a vote nearly six thousand above the average of that received by the Democratie State ticket, while the vote of his opponent was reduced over eight thousand below that of the Republican State ticket. The term to which Mr. Sheppard was thus elected expired on the 1st of January, 1878.

Upon receiving his third nomination for the distriet attorneyship, in July, 1874, Mr. Sheppard addressed a letter to the committee which notified him of the action of the convention, which well illustrated his position relative to that office. The following is an extract :

"My occupation brings me in contact with persons of all shades of political opinion and of all classes of society, and I am constrained to say that the feeling which pervades the general body of citizena, as re- spects our municipal misgovernment, is one of mortification, diatruat, and apprehension, to auch an extent, indeed, that public spirit and local pride seem to languish in our city, good men abrink or are driven into retirement, and thus the management of public business is the more easily usurped or retained by kpavery, mediocrity, and disrepute."

Mr. Sheppard paid especial attention to the dispatch of criminal business arising during the centennial summer, and by procuring the establishment of a Magistrate's Court on the centennial grounds for the immediate hearing of criminal charges, and by other arrangements, he succeeded, in most cases, in having offenders indicted, tried, and sentenced within a few hours after the commission of the offense. This rapid proceeding was popularly designated as "Sheppard's Railroad," and it, in connection with the vigilant co- operation of Mayor Stokley, entirely broke up the preparations of the criminal class for plundering our centennial visitors.

Having accomplished what he believed to be his duty in connection with that most important branch of the public service which was under his charge, he announced his determination, in 1877, to decline a renomination, and to resume his private practice. This announcement was received by the public with a very reluctant acquiescence, and a reconsideration of it, although strongly urged, was finally declined.

Shortly before the meeting of the Democratic State Convention of 1877 a very general impression pre- vailed that the nomination for the then existing vacaney in the Supreme Court would probably be conceded to Philadelphia, and Mr. Sheppard con- sented to the use of his name as an aspirant for the position. On the first ballot Mr. Sheppard received 64 votes, to 73 for John Trunkey, of Venango, and 116 scattered among seven other candidates. On the second ballot Mr. Sheppard led with 103 votes, Trun- key having 100 only, with 48 scattering. During the

progress of the third ballot, which appeared to stand 125 for Trunkey to 124 for Sheppard, the excitement ran very high. The chairman finally decided that the third ballot must be taken over, and the roll was again called. All the candidates were dropped but Trunkey and Sheppard, and the vote between them ran singularly even. They were not ten votes apart at any time; they were exactly even at 85, again at 90, again at 97, again at 100, again at 107, again at 113, again at 117, again at 120, again at 122, and the roll closed with Trunkey 123 and Sheppard 123, with five not voting. Two more votes were cast, and it stood 124 to 124. Then the chairman voted for Trunkey, and as the two other delegates were absent, Sheppard was defeated by one vote. Mr. Sheppard's defeat was brought about by a defection in the Philadelphia delegation. At the Democratic Convention of 1878, Mr. Sheppard was again a candidate for Supreme Court judge, and again his chances for the nomina- tion were sacrificed by antagonism in the Philadel- phia delegation, one-half of which voted for Judge Henry P. Ross, of Montgomery, who was nominated on the first ballot. Judge Ross received 162 votes, to 71 for Sheppard and 10 for Edward S. Golden, of Armstrong.

For several years after 1878, Mr. Sheppard devoted his energies entirely to the practice of his profession. However, on the 24th of January, 1884, having been unanimously nominated by the Democratic Conven- tion as a candidate for the office of eity solicitor, and indorsed by the Citizens' Committee of One Hundred, he again entered the political arena. His written ae- eeptance of this nomination, addressed to the com- mittee which acquainted him with the action of the convention, was as follows :

"Gentlemen,-In reply to the communication which you have just banded me, informing me of my nomination as city solicitor, I may say at once that I accept it. Indeed, it has been tendered su unanimously and spontaneously, that to do otherwise would be almost an act of rudeness.

"Should it be the pleasure of the citizens of Philadelphia to ratify your action, I shall earnestly endeavor to discharge the duties of the position with whatever of ability I may possess, and with a full sense of the double obligation, professional and official, resting on me."

Notwithstanding the claims of a busy professional life, Mr. Sheppard's liberal taste has led him to devote spare time to the study of languages and literature. In the "Vocabulary of the Philosophical Sciences," published by the late Rev. Charles P. Krauth, viee- provost of the University of Pennsylvania, the author expresses his acknowledgment for friendly and useful suggestions, among other named persons, " to Hon. Furman Sheppard, who, known to the world as one of our most distinguished jurists, is also one of our ripest philosophical scholars and thinkers." By ap- pointment of the judges of the Supreme Court, Mr. Sheppard was for several years, and, by appointment of Governor Pattison, is at present an inspector of the Eastern Penitentiary, and his interest in matters of science and literature has led to his election as a

Hurman Siffran

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trustee of the Jefferson Medical College at Philadel- phia, and to membership in the American Philosoph- ical Society. In the year 1855, for the purpose of introducing the systematic study of the principles of the Constitution of the United States as a branch of instruction in schools, he prepared a work, entitled "The Constitutional Text-Book," together with an abridgment of the same, entitled "First Book of the Constitution." Each of these works was exten- sively circulated and largely used as a text-book in schools and colleges.

In making this summary of the most notable per- sons and things connected with the bench and bar of Philadelphia, we have been compelled to pass over many others of much, though secondary, interest. Our sufficient for the general purposes for which this branch of the work has been compiled, will enable readers easily to find where they may study more ex- tensively upon individuals, persons, or events.

The history of the bench and bar of Philadelphia is one of especial interest. It is, indeed, wonderful to contemplate the development from those rude beginnings of William Penn, down to and after the time when had resulted the production of ju- dicial excellence, quite superior to what was estab- lished anywhere else in the country. Whoever studies this history will have enhanced admiration for the character of William Penn. His antecedents, both in personal culture and in the social relations of his family, were favorable for the great enterprise he had undertaken. Having embraced the faith of a sect despised in his native country, he had done so from sincere convictions of the insufficiency of the Established Church, as its career was being run after the Restoration, to encourage the religious growth of minds seriously concerned about the truth. But these convictions did not bring with them prejudices against individuals, and the history of the world does not exhibit a founder of a new commonwealth who was more circumspect and sagacious in the employ- ment of those who were to assist in his great work. Capacity, integrity, sincerity, vigor of purpose were the qualities he was in search of, and when he found them, whether in Quakers or Episcopalians, he em- ployed them. Some of these belonged to his own relatives. The latter he must naturally prefer, in a condition where his personal interests were largest and most important ; but in such selections his sagacity was apparent as in those made outside of his religious faith. In regard to that, he was a man ever disposed to give the freedom and the respect that he desired for himself. The hostility to professional judges and lawyers was not to be greatly wondered at when it is considered how oppressive, how unscrupu- lous the English bar had become in the times of the two last of the Stuart kings. The men, English born, who were in Pennsylvania in 1683, for the most part, were those who or whose families had suffered from these

and other oppressions, and they were determined to organize, if possible, a judiciary that would be without many of the evil elements of the one they had left behind. As for lawyers,-they hoped to be able to get along altogether without them. They were a class who, in their opinions, were mere dishonest hinderers and delayers of justice, practicing in all the various stages between audacity and servility. Disputes, in the hope of these law-givers, might be settled with suffi- cient ease and promptness by the courts on their pre- sentation by the disputants themselves, or their per- sonal friends, or yet more easily and soon by the arbitrament of their neighbors. We have seen what this first judiciary organization was, its ancient, simple origin, and what praise it has received from the most object has been to sketch outlines that, besides being . gifted of the profession in later times who have studied well its history.

There is no part of the annals of this whole coun- try more deserving of study and reflection than those of the judiciary of Pennsylvania. To its early ac- tions are to be traced an almost incredible amount of whatever, since their time, has been best in all the institutions of the country,-political, civil, mercan- tile, social, and domestic. Taking the word aristoc- racy in its just literal sense, government of the best, it has certainly obtained from the influences begun under William Penn's government earlier and more extensively than those originating in any other State in the Union. With trifling exceptions, the men selected to preside in these courts were such as, ex- cept in the matter of professional training, were won- derfully well fitted for their positions. They were not only with honorable connections in the old soci- ety of Great Britain and Ireland, but they had not lost enough of the memories of society there to lead them to feel that they could dispense with many of the forms and other attributes of government in all its forms. To themselves they assumed the costume, and endeavored to practice the decorum, of the courts of the mother-country. Even the appointment of sheriff's and other subordinate officers was made with a carefulness that has long ago ceased to be employed. Out of three persons nominated by popular will for the offices of sheriff and coroner, one was selected by the government.

In a society so young, consisting of so small a number of inhabitants, litigation could not be very extensive or involving many subtle important ques- tions. Most of it was petty, both in civil and crimi- nal adjudication, yet occasionally questions intricate, involving important principles and considerable pecu- niary interests, demanded both strong understandings and painstaking research and reflection on the part of those who were to decide upon them. Yet the bench by gradual usage became more and more con- petent for its functions, and we find that under the Asshetons, who were relations of the proprietor, and had come over on his invitation, and were trained lawyers of careful and accurate habits, judicial forms

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very shortly after the beginning of the eighteenth century, even the forms in courts, were put upon a basis of entire respectability.

The rise of the bar, as we have seen, was difficult, and only after experience of their inevitable neces- sity. It is somewhat amusing to read the pitiful petition of Francis Daniel Pastorius, in 1708-9, to the Governor and Council of Pennsylvania, com- plaining of one John Henry Sprogel, "through the contrivance or plotting of Daniel Falkner in the last adjourned court held for the county of Philadelphia, the 18th of January, by means of a Fictio Juris (as they term it), wherewith your petitioner is unac- quainted, hath got a writ of ejectment, that the said Sprogel hath further feed or retained the four known lawyers of this province, in order to deprive your petitioner of all advice in law, which sufficiently argues his case to be none of the best." The peti- tioner " notwithstanding he was the first of all Ger- mans who came into this country since it was a prov- ince, yet being poor, and unable to fetch lawyers from New York," begs, in his helpless condition, " for what- ever relief the Governor and Council in justice and equity shall think expedient."

It must have seemed to Governor, Council, and judges a pitiful case indeed, when it required the four known lawyers of the province to handle a fictio juris, to the ejectment of one German, who was too poor to fetch lawyers from New York.

With the overthrow of this prejudice there began a system of training for the bar that resulted in the production of a large number of men, whose likes, in comparison of numbers, were not to be found else- where, and who imparted not only to the judiciary and the bar, but to commercial and social life a tone that, in the number of those who maintained it in its highest pitch, was as pure as could be maintained anywhere on the earth. The early judges were mainly merchants. They had with them the traditions of ancestry that for the greatest part were of the best of English society, both among the gentry and the peerage. The sittings upon the bench, preserving the decorous usages which they remembered to have seen and respected in their native countries, the habitual application of their minds alternately to mercantile transactions and the adjudication of disputes among their fellow-citizens, made them, both as judges and as merchants, rise with ease to the standard which we have described.

It has been a pleasing task to contemplate the reciprocal influences these two avocations exerted. The number of eminent lawyers was small for a con- siderable period after the subduing of the prejudices against them ; but when the sons of the old councilors had grown up and received the careful training we have mentioned, completed, in many cases, at the Inns of Court in London, then it was that the bar of Phila- delphia took its rapid rise to the very top of excellence, and maintained it for fully fifty years. To the inter-

marriages among the early descendants of these coun- cilors, society, especially in Pennsylvania and Mary- land, is indebted for a vast number of those who yet contribute most to its respectability and its general well-being. In the har, so constituted, there was much of that family aristocracy which, exhibited as it then was, assisted far more than it injured in the advance of social existence. The coming on of the Revolution and the declaration and attainment of independence effected great changes in all con- ditions in the community. Hostile as were the leading families to the oppressive laws of the mother- country, yet many of the fathers, and some of the younger members among them, contemplated with pain a separation that seemed to threaten the de- struction not only of their own established prosperity but that of the country. Many of them, when their magistracies were abolished and their profes- sional practice suspended, withdrew in sadness from public life and waited the end of revolution and war. Others among them, scions of fathers who thus re- tired, went heartily for independence, and were con- spicuous in service from its inception to its final at- tainment. To the great honor of those who had borne no part, but neither had contributed in any respect, except in the known state of their sentiments to the British cause, such was the universal confi- dence in their integrity that many of them were restored, after independence was achieved, to their offices in the conrts organized under the new govern- ment.

And now, in accordance with the natural results of revolutions, a new set of men came on, men outside of the old families, men who had learned from the history of late events what may be accomplished by courageous, persistent endeavors, in spite of the want of high family connections and long training under ex- perienced guides,-self-made men, ambitious of honor and power and wealth,-and we have seen to what rank they rose in time on those fair fields. In the contem- plation of these new men it is pleasing to notice the benign influences imparted by what had been so long the rule in a profession that had been in the hands of gentlemen well bred in all the discipline of personal and professional honor. The new men could see no hope of satisfactory rivalry with those who were by inheritance, as it were, the leaders of the profes- sion, except by imitation of their long, persistent studies before and after admission, their unsullied integrity, and the becoming dignity of their deport- ment. They also, many of them, intermarried among the older families, and helped to perpetuate blood so productive of good citizenship in all pur- suits. It may have been a mistake to bestow the appointment of the judiciary upon popular election. Doubtless it was, but, so far as Pennsylvania is con- cerned, her experience has been such that she need not, up to the present time, regret it.

The bar of Philadelphia to-day, as reflected in its

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living and active members, both those upon the shady side of the hill and those younger men who are gal- lantly climbing toward the summit, is not unworthy in any respect of the distinguished ancestry whose faint outline has been painted in the preceding pages. It has not lost any of its old-time brilliancy. It is still distinguished for its eloquence, its integrity, and for its solid learning, as of yore. But these qualities are not so conspicuous now as their singularity made them in the period from 1760 to 1860, when, for a century, the lawyers of Philadelphia were almost without peers in their profession upon this continent.

The profession holds out to-day the same high re- wards to honorable industry, cultivated talents, prob- ity, and integrity, and our contemporaries toil witlı an inherited zeal and compete with an ardor trans- mitted through unbroken generations for the same sort of distinction as that which compensated Hamil- ton, Allen, Tilghman, and Sergeant. Those who lightly pretend to believe the bar has degenerated are not familiar with its past, or have neglected to , the present time, and now includes the majority of measure the stature of its present. They may not the members of the bar in good personal and profes- sional standing. It owns a law library second to none in the country, as is more fully noticed in another part of this work. have forgotten Price, Gowen, Cassidy, Edward Coppee Mitchell, John G. Johnson, George W. Biddle, Daniel Dougherty, Henry M. Phillips, MacVeagh, Edwin Shippen, and Brewster, perhaps, but they do not suffi- ciently take into account men who are their equals in energy and learning, although they may be not as well known.

In making comparisons between the lawyers of the past and present, it must not be forgotten that much more is demanded of advocates nowadays than was the case a hundred or even fifty years ago. The rules and forms of practice have been greatly simplified, statutes codified, reports made more complete and comprehensive, and the profession wears much more the aspect of a science than formerly. But, at the same time, the sphere of the advocate has both widened and deepened enormously. Precedents and rulings have multiplied on all sides, and the juris consult must nowadays be ready at a moment's warn- ing to thread the intricate labyrinths of a dozen branches of science which had no existence in the times of Hamilton, Shippen, and Hopkinson. Then expert testimony was almost unknown; now it is called in the majority of important issues. Patent law, railroad law, telegraph law, all open new and most ardnous fields to the profession, and compel it to specialize itself more and more every day. Busi- ness law is assuming a thousand new shapes, each more complicated than the other; nor can the vast body of decisions, rapidly as it accumulates, keep pace with the ever-swelling volume of new issnes daily coming up for adjudication. A lawyer who would embrace the whole scope of his profession nowadays must travel very far beyond Coke and Blackstone, Chitty and Greenleaf, Kent and the code. He must be an accountant, a civil engineer, an architect, a mechanician, a chemist, a physician ;

he must know the vocabulary and technology of all the arts and professions; he must be a theologian and a metaphysician, with the experience of a cus- tom-house appraiser and the skill in affairs of an editor. And, after all, with all these stores in his possession, so great is the competition that he may scarcely be able to hew ont a living in his profession.

Bar Associations .- The bar of Philadelphia was among the earliest, as well as among the most diligent and judicious, in the matter of associations for the pur- pose of keeping up a common professional library and the professional education of young inen. As early as 1802 was formed "The Law Library Company of the City of Philadelphia," whose first officers were Joseph B. Mckean, Edward Tilghman, William Lewis, Wil- liam Rawle, and J. Bradford Wallace. In the year 1826 this company was united with another known as "The Associated Members of the Bar," the new com- pany being styled "The Law Association of Phila- delphia." It has continued with great prosperity to

In 1810 there was a law society in existence, of which Peter A. Browne was president. This appears from a communication sent to the Law Association in that year.

In 1811 another law society was formed, composed probably of students and young members of the bar. They called upon P. S. Du Ponceau to act as their president. This association was in existence about two years.

In 1820 "The Society for the Promotion of Legal Knowledge and Forensic Eloquence" was founded, and was composed of judges of the Federal and State courts, and lawyers and students who had attained the age of twenty-one years. Its principal object was "to connect with the mode of instruction at that time exclusively pursued a more scientific and academical system, whereby not only a greater degree of jurisprudential knowledge might be acquired, but the students might be exercised in the art of public speaking, so as to unite the talent of the orator with the science of the jurist." On the 12th of January, 1821, the society was incorporated. William Tilgh- man was chosen president ; William Rawle, vice-presi- dent ; John K. Kane, secretary ; and Benjamin Tilgh- man, treasurer. The trustecs were Charles Chauncey, Thomas Kittera, John M. Scott, Bloomfield Mc- Ilvaine, and John Keating, Jr.

There was in 1818 an association in existence which was called "The Law Society," before which in that year Thomas M. Pettit, the president, delivered some opinions upon questions argued, and John K. Kane, also president at a subsequent period, delivered opin- ions. This society was invited to become a "Law Academy" by the "Society for the Promotion of

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Legal Knowledge," etc. The members of the Law Society agreed to this, and their society was formally annexed to the new association as "The Law Academy." The members of the academy were treated as an associate branch, and were accorded the privilege of electing their own officers, who were differ- ent from the officers of the principal association. They chose Peter S. Du Ponceau to be the provost, and James Gibson, vice-provost. Poulson's Advertiser in February, 1821, published the following item of news :

"THE LAW ACADEMY, a recent institution, was opened in due form in the hall of the Supreme Court, in the presence of lawyers, judges, mem- bers of the Supreme Court, etc. The provost delivered an address show- ing the necessity of a national school of jurisprudence, and the advan- tage which this city possesses over all other American cities, after which there was a discussion of the question whether the inhabitants of Penn- sylvania have a right to tow npon the banks of the river Delaware without permission of the owner of the lands over which they pass,- Roger Dillion Drake in the affirmative, Charles B. Penrose in the nega- tive; to be followed at the next meeting by Thomas S. Smith in the affirmative, and Samuel H. Perkins in the negative."

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History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 163

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 992

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992