Biographical sketches of the bench and bar of South Carolina, vol. I, Part 11

Author: O'Neall, John Belton, 1793-1863
Publication date: 1859
Publisher: Charleston, S.C. : S.G. Courtenay & Co.
Number of Pages: 484


USA > South Carolina > Biographical sketches of the bench and bar of South Carolina, vol. I > Part 11


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He was born in North Carolina, but when or where, I have been unable to ascertain. He migrated to South Carolina, and settled in York District, when very young and poor.


He was educated in part, probably by the Rev. Mr. Alex- ander, the able teacher, and minister of the Presbyterian faith, at Bullock's Creek, and finished his course at the Mount Zion College, Winnsboro'. While at Mr. Alexander's school, he met with Gen. Jackson as a school-mate, and no doubt, when the two noble Romans met at Washington, as President of the United States and Senator from South Carolina, they met as friends in early life, and friends in all the fierce political strifes to which our country had been and was then subjected. The Hon. Wm. H. Crawford was also his school-mate. Hence, perhaps, began his devotion to him, which was perfected by their principles and politics being the same.


At thirty years of age, Mr. Smith began the study of the law, and as three years was then the prescribed term of study for the graduate of a College, he must have been thirty-three years of age, when admitted to the Bar. I have scrutinized this matter, and think his grand-daughter, Mrs. Calhoun, is nigher right in her statement that he was admitted at twenty- one. In the Roll of Attorneys admitted at Charleston, Wm. Smith is put down as admitted 6th January, 1784. Judge Smith was a member of the Legislature of South Carolina for many years. In 1805, he was elected a member of the Board of Trustees of the South Carolina College. In 1806, he was elected President of the Senate.


He represented his early life to an intimate friend-Col. Thomas Williams, formerly of York, now of Montgomery,


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Alabama-"as wild, reckless, intemperate, rude and boisterous, yet resolute and determined."


He had the rare blessing to win the love of one of the purest, mildest and best of women, whose character has ever been presented to the writer. He married Margaret Duff. "In his worst days, she never upbraided him by word, look or gesture, but always met him as if he was one of the kindest and best of husbands. This course on her part humbled him, and made him weep like a child." This sentence, it is hoped, will be remembered, was the language of Judge Smith to the friend already named, and to those who knew the stern, unbending public character of the Judge, it will teach a lesson of how much a patient woman's love can accomplish. He was at last reformed by an instance of her patient love and devotion, as he himself told it:


" The evening before the Return Day of the Court of Com- mon Pleas for York District, a client called with fifty notes to be put in suit. Mr. Smith was not in his office-he was on what is now fashionably called a spree, then a frolic. Mrs. Smith received the notes, and sat down in the office to the work of issuing the Writs and Processes. She spent the night at work-Mr. Smith "in riotous living." At daylight, on his way home from his carousals, he saw a light in his office, and stepped in, and to his great surprise saw his amiable wife, who had just completed what ought to have been his work, with her head on the table and asleep. His entry awoke her. She told him what she had done, and showed him her night's work-fifty Writs and Processes. This bowed the strong man, "he fell on his knees, implored her pardon, and then and there faithfully promised her never to drink another drop while he lived." "This promise," says my friend Col. Williams, " he faithfully kept," and said the Judge to him, "from that day, everything which I touched turned to gold." " His entire success in life," says Col. Williams, " he sat down to his faithful observance of this noble promise."


No better eulogy could be pronounced on Mrs. Smith than what has just been given in the words of her distinguished hus- band. The reformation of such a man as William Smith is a


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chaplet of glory, which few women have been permitted to wear. To the people of South Carolina, and especially of York District, certainly no stronger argument in favor of tem- perunce and total abstinence, need be given.


Judge Smith was an able, but rather tyrannical Judge. All stood in awe of him. He committed the Captain of a volun- teer company in Charleston for disturbing the Court, by per- sisting to cause his drum to be beat after he had been ordered to desist. At the Spring Term of 1814, he quashed every venire around the Southern Circuit, because new Jury lists had not been made out within three years, and from them the Jurors drawn and summoned. This was a great legal blunder, and worked great delay in the administration of justice. Still no one doubted the purity of the Judge, although Bench and Bar condemned the act as high-handed and uncalled for.


Judge Smith possessed a wonderful memory; and I have often heard it said that he reported to the Constitutional Court the case of the State vs. Fley and Rochelle, without referring to his notes. "He never forgot the faces of men or their pecu- liar traits of character." If he knew a man once, he knew him ever after, and neither the lapse of time, nor the place where he might meet him, however little expected, misled or deceived him. As an illustration, the following incident may be noted. He had been employed, many years before, to defend a man at Pinckney or Spartanburg, for killing a horse in the night time, which, by our Statute, is a clergyable felony. His client did not meet his trial-he fled the State. If the case occurred during the existence of the Court at Pinckney, at least twenty years must have come and gone; and if at Spartanburg, at least ten years must have elapsed, before Judge Smith entered Congress as a Senator from South Caro- lina. Walking into the Hall of the House of Representatives, soon after he had taken his seat as Senator, he discovered his client in the person of John Alexander, commonly called the " Buffalo of the West," sitting as a member from Ohio. In Spartanburg, the name was usually called Elchinor, and so the Judge addressed him. The member professed not to know him. The Judge, with one of his bitterest oaths, swore he


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should know him, telling him he had his note at home for $100, and that he should pay it. He wrote to his wife to send the note, and by the return mail it came, and Mr. Alexander admitted the acquaintance by paying the note.


The speeches of his political opponents he never forgot; and often, to their dismay, the Judge, from the bottom of his old trunk, fished up some speech, or speeches, entirely at war with their present views. What a terrible basting he gave to Mr. De Wolf, the Senator from Rhode Island, when he arrayed before him the evidence of his participation in the slave-trade before 1808, will be recollected by some, even at this late day !


His ability as a Judge will be seen by referring to the case of Read and Eifert (1 N. & McC., 374, note.) His opinion in that case settled the vexed question of adverse possession, and gave, for the first time in our Court, a plain, sensible, and just construction of the Act of Limitation.


At the session of the Legislature in December, 1816, Judge Smith was elected to the Senate of the United States, and thus vacated his place on the Bench. From March, 1817, to March, 1823, he served, and most faithfully and ably dis- charged his duties in the United States Senate. In December, 1822, the talented and accomplished Attorney-General of the State, Robert Y. Hayne, was elected Senator in preference to Judge Smith. He was returned to the House of Representa- tives of South Carolina in 1824, and in 1825 he led the party which reversed Mr. Calhoun's previous policy in the State. The doctrine of a strict construction of the Constitution was adopted with singular unanimity. In December, 1826, Judge Smith was elected Senator in Congress, for the unexpired term of John Gaillard. In 1830, his former friend, Stephen D. Miller, superseded him. The doctrine of Nullification was then beginning to gain the ascendancy in the State. In 1831, Judge Smith was one of those who signed the appeal to the Union party of South Carolina. Throughout the strug- gle to which Nullification gave rise, Judge Smith remained true to the Union; but the violent divisions and party strife


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which then pervaded the State, drove Judge Smith and many other valuable men from it.


Judge Smith was remarkable for the "indomitable energy of his character." He turned not aside for obstacles-what he thought right to be done, he did. His opinion he surren- dered to no man, and of consequence, he was led by no one. To this unbending will, is to be attributed his opposition to Mr. Calhoun. He felt that he was much his senior; that he belonged to the old, radical school, when Mr. Calhoun, Mr. McDuffie, Generals Hayne and Hamilton, belonged to the party in favor of a liberal construction of the Constitution; that he had a larger experience as a Republican than any of them, and that his former position as a Judge placed him far above Mr. Calhoun, and that, therefore, if deference ought to be paid to any one, it ought to be paid to him. His love of truth made him defend, in the strongest terms, his opinions political or otherwise.


"As a friend or neighbor," says Col. Williams, "no one could equal Judge Smith. No kinder hearted man ever lived, and none could be found who sympathized with the distressed more sincerely." But his sympathies could only be elicited by and for virtue in distress. "He had no sympathy," as he said, " with vagabonds." While he loved his friends, he hated his enemies. "He could not bless the man that cursed, nor pray for the him who despitefully used and persecuted him." He was a total stranger to the idea of conciliating an enemy ; his course towards such an one was defiance.


His intercourse with his friends was unrestrained freedom and pleasantness. He abounded in anecdotes of the Bench and Bar, and of his varied life; these he poured out for the enter- tainment of his friends. But to those whom he disliked, or who he supposed disliked him, he was reserved, but cour- teous.


He and his wife were blessed with an only child, a daughter, She became the wife of John Taylor, Esq. of Pendleton, and died soon after the birth of her only child, a daughter, who was raised and educated by her grand-parents.


The Western land mania seized the Judge while in his first


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term in the United States Senate. He bought largely in Alabama, but without any purpose of removing. It was left, however, to the unfortunate Nullification difficulty to drive him from the State. He left soon after his last term in the United States Senate, and became a Louisiana planter.


His idolized wife preceded him to the tomb. He died at Huntsville, Alabama, on the 26th day of June, 1840, full of years and almost a millionaire in wealth.


He was of the common height, rather square built, and of great physical powers. His face rather pale, exhibiting un- flinching firmness. His voice was peculiar-rather shrill in his intonations, and calculated by its sharpness to add much to his withering sarcasm.


On the whole, he was a remarkable man, with the iron will of Jackson, and like him utterly ignorant of the word, FAIL .*


I have sought information in reference to Judge Smith in every way I could, to do justice to a great South Caro- linian.


Mr. Calhoun, the husband of his grand-daughter, promised materials which I have never received.


* The following anecdote has been communicated to me by a friend, to whom I am under very many obligations for aid in Sketches of the Bench and Bar: Just after the first defeat of Judge Smith for the United States Senate, a gentle - man of the bar and only a little younger than the Judge, said to my informant : " The old Judge will not stand beaten by the dominant party; he will go into the Legislature, present a Jeffersonian platform, and revolutionize the State." Mr. Horlbeck remarked, "The weight of talent and ambition was on the other side, and it would be hard to break down the party." The reply was: "I tell you, though Judge Smith is old, he never forgets anything." He was in the habit of standing with his hands in his pockets when talking, and it was said by the " knowing ones," he had a piece of white pasteboard in his pocket, on which when conversing he would write the name of a person and a word, so as to enable him at a retired hour to write down and not forget an important matter. This predic- tion was verified in '24 and 25.


Quere. Was Judge Smith a member of Congress in 1796? In the report of the Committee of Ways and Means of the House of Representatives of South Carolina, is the following sentence : "But your Committee learn from a commu- nication of William Smith, Esq. member of Congress from this State, that on his application to the Treasury for information," (relative to a demand of $48,425, 25-100 which had been audited and allowed to the State,) "he was told that no money had been appropriated by Congress to the discharge of this debt."


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From Judge Porter, of Alabama, I have received a most interesting reminiscence of Judge Smith, which I append after an article from the Huntsville (Ala.) Democrat, which seems to have been taken from statenients of his grand- daughter; and also after an article from Major Perry, of Greenville. Taking these altogether, with the preceding memoir, I have no doubt we have about as correct an account of Judge Smith as can be obtained.


I think his grand-daughter is right as to his birth; he was born in 1762.


We publish to-day a biographical sketch of Judge Smith, which, we think, will prove interesting to many of our readers, particularly his old neighbors and constituents of this county. There are, however, sundry errors of fact, which require cor- rection, and we now propose to correct them, after consulting his grand-daughter, Mrs. Calhoun, who is, at this time, occu- pying the house in our town in which Judge Smith last resided and died. She informs us that her grand-father always spoke of himself as a South Carolinian, and he was always (since her recollection) regarded by his family as a native of that State, but she is not certain as to his birth-place. She has a vague impression that, by a re-adjustment of the boundary lines between North and South Carolina, his birth-place, for- merly in the jurisdiction of South Carolina, was thrown into North Carolina.


Judge Smith's father was, at one time, a man of considera- ble property, but his fortune was greatly impaired by the depreciation of the continental money. He, however, was able to give his sons as good classical educations as the academies of those days afforded.


Judge Smith was a good Latin and Greek scholar. General Jackson and William H. Crawford, both, were his school- mates, and he was a devoted friend of both of them to the end of his days. His father started him in the world with only one negro, Priam, well known here as a foreman, and now living on the farm, adjacent to the town of Huntsville, which Judge Smith left to Mrs. Calhoun.


There must be some mistake (Mrs. Calhoun thinks) about


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Judge Smith's youth-intemperance, and spending his nights "in riotous living." At one time he used tobacco immode- rately, but was not addicted to the use of ardent spirits ; indeed, he refused everything of the kind, and was a miracle of abstinence and sobriety. For, perhaps, the last forty years of his life, he would not drink even tea or coffee. He would, sometimes, take a little spruce beer, of his own make, or sweet cider, or milk and cider mixed, but nothing stronger. We have ourselves seen him decline coffee, tea and wine. Colonel Williams has, probably, confounded Judge Smith with a brother of his, who was a lawyer also, and, unfor- tunately, intemperate.


Judge Smith married at 19 years of age, his wife being only 14; and was admitted to the Bar at 21, and was in the full tide of successful practice at 30, according to Mrs. Calhoun's recollection from conversations with her grand-parents. It is true, that Mrs. Smith aided him greatly by writing for him. They had only one child, a daughter, who became the wife of John Taylor, (who at one time, represented Pendleton District, S. C., in Congress,) and had three daughters, only one of whom lived. She was raised by her grand-parents, and married Mr. Meredith Calhoun. Such was Judge Smith's devotion to his daughter, that, after her death, wherever he moved he carried her bones with him, and they never found a permanent resting place until after his death, when they were buried near his remains.


While in the United States Senate, Judge Smith purchased a sugar plantation on Lafourche, Louisiana, and a cotton plantation in Alabama. Subsequently, he sold out the former and bought plantations on Red River. The Nullification excitement drove him from South Carolina, and he settled in the vicinity of Huntsville, Alabama, and afterwards built a palatial dwelling-house in the town, and lived there until his death on the 16th of June, 1840; and Mrs. Smith died there about fifteen months after.


Judge Smith repeatedly represented this (Madison) County in the Alabama Legislature, and was an able, influential, efficient member. He was at one time looked upon as a


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prominent candidate to represent this District in Congress, and, if he had run, he would probably have been elected, but a strong disposition being manifested to ask of Congress an appropriation, for the improvement of the Muscle Shoals, which was inconsistent with his ideas of strict construction. and anti-internal improvement by the General Government, he declined the canvass. Judge Smith never would tell his age. His family think that he was born in 1762, which would make him about 78 at his death. He was very active, ener- getic, vigorous, with great powers of endurance to the last, often tiring down young men of half or a third of his age in riding on horseback during his political canvasses, or when traveling. Nor was there any apparent deterioration of memory or intellect; but all was unclouded, clear, strong and vigorous. This wonderful retention of his mental and physi- cal powers, was, doubtless, due to the great sobriety and regu- larity of his life.


We understand that Mr. Meredith Calhoun has in his pos- session many valuable and interesting papers of Judge Smith's, which we hope he will see fit to give to the public. He would be the proper person for Judge O'Neall to apply to for aid in perfecting their proposed biographical sketch .- Huntsville (Ala.) Democrat.


SYDNEY, MARSHALL Co., ALA., Sept. 25, 1858.


My Dear Sir :- I have just read, with much interest, your graphic sketch of Judge Smith, in the Courier. I hope you will continue these notices, for I know of no reading more ben ficial to the younger members of the profession, aside from their law books, of course. Will you excuse a few addi- tions from my own reminiscences ; not only with regard to Judge Smith, but other members of the bar, with whom it has been my fortune to be intimate ?


At the period when I first began the practice of law, I settled at Chester Court House. There I saw Judge Smith. A very large assemblage was gathered to meet Stephen D. Miller, then a candidate for Governor. The anti-tariff excite- ment was as its height, and Mr. Miller appeared in a full suit


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of domestic jeans. Mr. McWillie took ground against the resolution, and made a speech, so plain, so full of historic fact, so persuasive, that its effect was powerful on my young mind, and carried away every vestige of the anti-tariff no- tions, which, like most of the youth of the time, I had adopted. In vain an answer was attempted by the Com- mittee. I think Col. Thomas Williams, now of Montgomery, made a sperch, as well as Col. Wm. F. Davie, and others. To carry the resolutions, Judge Smith left the chair, and made a most violent declamatory effort. I remember he compared South Carolina to the condition of the worm, that would not turn, if tread upon, if she failed to resist the action of the United States Congress in respect to the tariff. The profound wisdom, perfect good temper, clear thought, and admirable expression of Mr. McWillie's effort have ever stood in my recollection, as the finest model of a speech I ever heard.


After most of Judge Smith's property had been removed to Alabama and Louisiana, he still continued to exert an influ- ence in politics. On one occasion he came from York to Chester to exercise his power in an election in which Mr. John McKee was either a candidate or greatly interested in the candidate to whom Judge Smith was opposed. In Mr. McKee he met an opponent of much greater power than many of higher name, whom he had easily conquered. Mr. McKee boldly raised on him a question of absenteeism. This Smith denied, and called for proof, which McKee, who had followed Smith's example of always having proof ready, pro- duced, by showing certified copies of the tax lists, exhibiting the relative amounts paid by Smith in South Carolina and the West. This, I am sure, weakened Judge Smith more with the people than many efforts of much greater men.


When I again met Judge Smith, it was in the Legislature of Alabama, where we served together; he being returned from Madison County. There existed at this period much excitement on the Bank question. We served on a Commit- tee to examine the State Bank, which was accused of corrup- tion, having been elected by the House. Judge Smith entered


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into this field of contest against the Bank, with the zeal of an old hunter. He and myself, day after day, and night after night, explored the accounts until we became thorough Anti- State Bank men, and made a report, which was the basis of all action taken afterwards by the Legislature. I then pro- posed a re-charter of the United States Bank, with General Jackson's modifications. On this question Judge Smith be- came the champion against me, and made one of his usual fiery, but convincing, logical and popular speeches. In the course of it, he alluded to Mr. Calhoun and quoted him ex- tensively. In my reply, I produced and read his denuncia- tions of Mr. Calhoun in previous times, and expressed my wonder that the man whom Judge Smith once thought the vilest of traitors, should be taken to his bosom and made his oracle. I never saw a man so infuriated. He walked across the house and approaching me, said, " by - Porter, do not throw up Mr. Calhoun to me again."


During this session he became greatly prejudiced against the Commission Merchants of Mobile, and introduced se- verely restrictive measures, regulating their business. His speeches were naturally criticised by the Mobile editors and members, among whom Charles C. Langdon, of the Adver- tizer, was the most prominent. He entered the list with Judge Smith, and held him a most gallant fight, in which, if Judge Smith did not fall, he certainly was not conqueror.


At the time of which I last spoke, Judge Smith had lost little of his energy of mind. But his irritability had naturally increased with age, and he was less capable of that calm re- flection which had previously regulated his action. He was still, however, the courteous, polished gentleman.


During the debate on my United States Bank resolutions, he had been replied to by Col. Young, of Greene, a very fresh looking old man, with a very bald head. The gallery was crowded with ladies, and Col. Young was exceedingly emulous of their good opinions. He spoke of the differ- ence between new and old times, and said that the age of the last war must not control the present times. That time had been working longer on the head of his venerable friend,


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(Judge Smith's) than on his own; and while he respected his age, he could not his opinion. At this point Judge Smith rose and said, he asked no favors on that point, for every one must observe, that while time had not interfered at all with his bushy head, it had not left a solitary hair on that of his not less venerable friend, Col. Young. The effect was irresis- tible ; but Col. Young, who was quite an eloquent gentleman, bowed to the house, and said, he admitted he had been struck down by a blow pat on the head.


Very respectfully, your obt. servt.,


BENJ. F. PORTER.


Hon. J. B. O'NEALL.


Messrs. Editors: I have read, with great pleasure, the very interesting biographiical sketch of Judge Smith, by our friend, Judge O'Neall, and am much gratified to learn that he intends publishing sketches of the Bench and Bar of South Carolina. I hope you will republish his sketch of the life of Judge Smith in the Patriot and Mountaineer, herewith sent you. I will suggest one or two omissions, which Judge O'Neall has made, and which he will, no doubt, include in his second edition of Judge Smith. After his removal to Alabama, Judge Smith was appointed, by General Jackson, one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, which ap- pointment was declined by the judge. This very high honor, in his old age from his old school-mate, President Jackson, should not be omitted in a sketch of his life.




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