USA > South Carolina > Biographical sketches of the bench and bar of South Carolina, vol. I > Part 9
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1791. His name does not appear on the roll of attornies fur- nished to me, and hence I cannot be more accurate. Mr. Lee practiced successfully, both in Charleston and in the country. He was married in 1792. Soon after his admission to the Bar, he was elected to the Legislature, and served for several years, and advocated with enthusiasm the Republican measures. Yet he never was a partisan : he did that which he believed to be right, whether it met with the approbation of his party or not. In 1794, he was elected Solicitor, (and I doubt not from the language of the fee bill of '91, 1 Faust, 4, that he might have been styled Solicitor General, as his ap- pointment is called in Dr. Gilman's discourse,) but, in fact, in 1794, he was appointed one of three Circuit Solicitors, who were directed by the 11 ยง of the Act of '91 (1 Faust, 165) to be appointed. He continued in that office until he was elected Clerk of the House of Representatives, November, 1798 ; he probably retained that office until May, 1804, when he was elected one of the Associate Judges. This office he held only till December of the same year, when, owing to some " con- stitutional maladies," which were increased by sedentary employments, he resigned, and was immediately elected the successor of Paul Hamilton, the first Comptroller General, who succeeded in bringing the finances of the State into great order and prosperity. Mr. Lee pursued the same course, and as Dr. Ramsay (2 vol. Ram. So. Ca., 194) says, " from their exertions a chaos of public accounts has been reduced to or- der, energy and decision infused into every department of finance, and the fiscal concerns of the State recovered from disorder, are now in a flourishing and healthy condition."
The office of Comptroller General he held until 1816. By the Act of 1812, it was provided that the Comptroller General " shall be elected, as heretofore, for two years, but after having served four years in succession shall not be re-eligible to that office till after the expiration of two years." Under this pro- vision Mr. Lee vacated the office of Comptroller General, and never sought it any more. Although I was young when he ceased to be Comptroller General, yet I had had the opportu- nity to see Mr. Lee in his official character frequently, and he
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seemed to me the most perfect man, in that department, who has ever since filled it. I know, too, that the public opinion was, that his retirement was a great loss to the State.
In 1817 Mr. Lee was elected President of the State Bank, and filled that office most satisfactorily for the last twenty years of his life. In 1822 Mr. Lee was a member of the House of Representatives, from St. Phillip's and St. Michael's, and Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means. His fine person, powerful voice, and elegant elocution, filled me (then for a second time a member of the House) with admiration. He always spoke without effort, and yet his voice, as Judge Huger said to me on a former occasion, seemed to fill per- fectly the Representatives Hall. In 1823 he was appointed by President. Monroe, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, Judge of the District Court of the United States for the State of South Carolina, and in this office he closed his valuable life. He was as a Judge as successful as he was in all other stations. Long removed from the former, he return- ed to preside in it with as much dignity as if he had been absent only a day. He gave universal satisfaction. He met all the responsibility of the great "Bond Case for Duties under the Tariff," and in which it was intended to give a triumph to Nullification, by overriding the Act of Congress, in the verdict of a jury. Judge Lee ruled out the defence, and thus defeated the project, and prevented the effect of Mr. McDuffie's powers of argumentation and eloquence on a Jury.
In addition to all the eminent services of Judge .Lee, to which allusion has been made, it must not be forgotten, that he aided in the Temperance Reform. His beautiful ex- ample, in this respect, as he stood by the side of the never enough admired Gilman, had a powerful and just effect in giving Temperance the ascendancy, which, subsequent to his death, it attained and maintained for years in Charleston.
Judge Lee, in 1817, with his pastor, Mr. Foster, and other members, seceded from the Congregational Church in Meet- ing-street, and constituted the Unitarian Church, to the care of which Dr. Gilman was subsequently called. I do not pre- tend to inquire into forms of faith, either to commend or con-
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demn. Liberty of conscience and freedom to worship, as he pleases, belongs to every one under our free and happy Con- stitution. And Judge Lee and Dr. Gilman worshipped God as they believed to be right : and if the true test be to "judge a tree by its fruits," then indeed the lives of both these emi- nent men entitle them, so far as men can see, to "the well done good and faithful servant ;" on the part of their Master, " enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
He died on the 23d of October, 1839, in his seventieth year, leaving a large family. His eldest son, John Miles Lee, graduated in the class of 1813 in the South Carolina College. He was one of my most intimate and endeared friends. Like his noble, gifted father, he was a bright light, which, if it had not early been extinguished, would have been seen and known of all men. I last saw him when I was admitted to the Bar in Charleston in 1814. He soon after died.
Judge Lee needs no commendation from me : his life is his praise. But I would not do him full justice without citing the eloquent tribute of that great and good man, Dr. Gilman, with which he so happily closes his funeral discourse.
" Judge Lee," he says, " may be said to have died an envia- ble death. The very time that has taken him away was almost as felicitous as the many happy points about his own character. He has died in the fullness of a ripe and good reputation. He has not outlived his friends and admirers. He was almost borne away like Elijah in a chariot of glory- for surely the affectionate admiration of a whole community may be compared to the Tishite's ascending car. He died before the infirmities of age had dimmed his faculties, or made it a question with the succeeding generation whether his fame was so well founded as his cotemporaries represent. The young have known and heard him. The middle aged have been stirred by the tones of his manly and melodious voice, and have been prompted to high and virtuous action by his persuasion and example. The aged have witnessed his long, consistent, and honorable career. Could happier circumstan- ces and coincidences have attended his death ? Yes, one thing is happier than even these. He died the death of a righteous
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man. " Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."
A Discourse on the Life and Character of the Honorable Thomas Lee, late Judge in the District Court of the United States. Pronounced in the Unitarian Church, Charleston, S. C., on Sunday Evening, Nov. 3, 1839, by Samuel Gil- man, D. D.
PROVERBS, X. 7 .- "The memory of the just is blessed."
Refreshing indeed is the recollection of departed excellence. Death seems to consecrate and fix an unalterable seal on the virtues which we love and admire. They have now become our inviolable inheritance. We know that nothing hencefor- ward can tarnish or impair them. So long as we beheld these virtues connected with a mortal, fallible man, we might feel a sense of their precariousness and insecurity. We could not predict, with certainty, their continued strength and lustre. But now-they are beyond the reach of accident. Neither time, nor earth, nor change, can affect them. They are as fixed as the stars of heaven. They have taken their place among the imperishable treasures of our souls. The memory of the just is blessed.
Penetrated, no doubt, with this profound and affecting sen- timent of inspiration, you, my hearers, have requested me to appropriate a portion of the religious services of this evening, to a delineation of the life and character of one, who has long worshipped among you-whom you have tenderly loved and revered-and whose place in this sanctuary will know him no more.
The true and proper object of eulogy, I conceive, is neither to flatter the dead, nor gratify the living. Why should we lavish praises on the unconscious dead? Far are they now beyond the reach either of our applauses or reproaches. Almost equally futile is it, to trace out their biographies, or to dwell on their extraordinary qualities, for the mere purpose of satisfying a busy curiosity, or to indulge the fond vanity of surviving friends and admirers. No. We must not be led to
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our interesting subject, this evening, through any such man- worshipping, or man-admiring motives. It is not to exalt, or blazon forth, an individual, that I interpret your recent resolu- tions and request. To us, the memory of the just is blessed, not because we happened to know him, and to be thrown into the same limited sphere of action with him-but because he, himself, was a noble representative of what is excellent and enduring in human nature. The memory of the just is blessed, not because we can call him by name, and remember the graces of his person, the energies of his intellect, or the virtues of his mighty heart, but because we see in him a new manifestation, a glorious revelation, of the Deity-an illustra- tion of the power of Christianity-an animating encourage- ment amidst the trials and toils, the darkness, embarrassments. and contradictions of life-a type of what we might, and ought to be-a specimen of what man may yet be-a blazing light, to call forth, sustain and direct, the pure and undying aspirations of our souls. Such, as I apprehend, were the legitimate objects which you had in view, in requesting me to present to you, at this time, some fitting memorial of the late Honorable Thomas Lee.
He was born in the city of Charleston, on the 1st of Dec. 1769: a year which happened to be prolific of so many dis- tinguished men who adorned the past and present centuries. He was thus near the verge of seventy years, at the time of his decease, on the 23d of the last month. It may be worthy of remark, that about one year ago, when he appeared to be in possession of perfect health and vigor, he calmly stated to me, in confidential conversation, the very strong presentiment he felt, that he should not live much beyond the limits of three-score years and ten. I state the circumstance as at least an interesting coincidence, and undertake not to decide how far the presentiment might have been casual, or how far it was an instance of his usual practical sagacity.
His infancy and youth were exposed to the well known vicissitudes which marked the progress of the Revolutionary war, and the early struggles of our republic. He may be said to have been born along with his country, and felt his way
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together with her, up to fame and fortune, through various developments of intellectual and moral character. Thus he was an American in grain ; and the lover of our institutions might fairly and proudly point to him, as an indigenous spe- cimen of what they were intended to produce. His father, who pursued the industrious and skilful occupation of a watch- maker in Charleston, entered among the foremost into the conflicts, exposures and sacrifices, encountered by the inhabi- tants of the colonies. This gentleman must have been distin- guished for considerable energy of mind and character, since he was for some time a Commissioner in the American army, and was afterwards appointed colonel of one of the regiments of South Carolina. We also find his name in the list of that honorable band, who, for purposes of intimidation, were exiled to St. Augustine by the enemy when in possession of Charles- ton. The subject of our memoir was at this period about eleven years of age. His father had transported his whole rising family for safety to Philadelphia. To what influences the youthful Lee was exposed at that very observing and impressible age,-whether he saw anything of the excellent society which then abounded in Philadelphia, or was engaged in pursuing such an elementary education as the times would permit, or felt the pinching grasp of privation and poverty, I have no materials whatever to determine.
The next incident which I have been able to trace in his juvenile biography, is his attendance at the respectable classi- cal school of Messrs. Thompson and Baldwin, in this city. This must have occurred not long before and after the peace of 1783, when he was about thirteen years old. Here it is certain, that he made sufficient proficiency at least in the Latin language, to serve as an auspicious foundation to his attain- ments in legal science, for which it appears he had an early instinctive propensity; for we find him only two or three years after, at the age of fifteen or sixteen, already a student in the office of an eminent lawyer, who still survives at a very advanced and most honored decline, and who well remembers his youthful pupil, as one of the most promising and interest- ing of his time. He belonged about this period to a Moot, or
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Debating Society, which numbered among its members the flower of the city, many of whom subsequently obtained high distinction in the race of honorable renown. It was in this society, no doubt, that Judge Lee first developed and culti- vated the elements of that fluent, persuasive, and commanding eloquence, which afterwards so frequently enlisted all hearts in its favor, prompted as it ever was, by a conscientious love of right, and clothed in the most captivating gifts of voice, lan- guage, and manner. Even in his early life, an opportunity was not wanting for its public exercise and display. The French Revolution, in its preliminary stages, had commanded the best sympathies of the whole world; and when intelli- gence in the year 1789 arrived, at Charleston, of the destruction of that stronghold of oppression and tyranny, the Bastile, a meeting of the citizens was summoned to express their con- gratulations on the event. Although but in his twentieth year, young Lee appeared with characteristic ardor, on this conge- nial occasion, before his fellow-citizens, and won the first leaf of that public chaplet, which continued to increase and strengthen for fifty years, and which was even on the point of acquiring new and verdant honors, when the venerable wearer was summoned, we trust, to receive an infinitely more precious crown, that fadeth not away.
The six or seven years which he devoted to the study of the Law, at a period of comparative boyhood, sufficiently evince the original decision of his character, together with a deep-seated consciousness of his appropriate destination in life. Among his other accomplishments, he acquired so per- fect a knowledge of the French language, that he could, at any time afterwards, address with his accustomed ease and happy effect, a body of his French fellow-citizens, or examine a French witness at the Bar, without an interpreter.
In 1790, as soon as he arrived at age, he commenced the practice of his profession under the most favorable auspices. The general difficulties and embarrassments of the country had been now surmounted ; the new Government had acquir- ed a stability which secured universal confidence; commercial activity and prosperity every where revived : and Charleston
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partook largely of the happy renovation. Mr. Lee continued several years in very successful practice, at the same time riding an extensive circuit, in company with a few ardently attached friends, some of whom yet survive to bear witness to the delights of a connexion, which grew stronger and dearer through every subsequent and strange vicissitude, preserving even its genial fires amidst the storms of party abroad, and beneath the whitening hair at home, until the hand of death brought about the irrevocable parting, and the warm tears of long tried friendship were poured into his closing grave.
In the mean time, his imposing talents and fine qualities attracted the attention of his fellow-citizens, who, shortly after he commenced the practice of the law, elected him a member of the State Legislature. In this capacity he served for seve- ral years, advocating, with especial enthusiasm and effect, every measure which leaned to what is called the popular side. Yet I am assured by those whose opportunities and penetration well qualify them to decide, that even in times of the greatest political agitation, he never was properly a party-man; he never surrendered himself as the slave of any faction-but always preserved his independence untrammeled, and refrain- ed from pushing his favorite principles to a reckless extreme .* He was married in the year 1792, and afterwards passed a few years in the country, but has generally resided in Charleston with his large and interesting family, on whom he conferred the most enlightened education that his opportunities allowed.
In the year 1794, he was appointed, at the age of twenty- five, Solicitor General of the State, an office which he discharg- ed to universal satisfaction for about ten years, when he was appointed one of the Judges of the Court of General Sessions and Common Pleas. This office he held but a very short time, being induced to resign it by some constitutional maladies,
* During the highest excitement of the recent conflict between South Carolina and the General Government, when many even of the most honorable members of both the opposing parties contributed to separate funds, for the purpose of purchasing votes, Judge Lee, although surpassed by none for a deep interest in the great questions at issue, nor for a readiness to incur pecuniary sacrifices in the promotion of what he deemed the righteous cause, resolutely refused to en- courage a proceeding which he considered so unjustifiable.
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incompatible with the sedentary duties which it required. He was soon after appointed Comptroller General of the State, and continued to discharge that office for twelve or fourteen years. Respecting his services in this department of public duty, per- haps no authority more satisfactory could be adduced than the late Dr. Ramsay, who rendered him, while living, the fol- lowing testimony in his excellent History of South Carolina- a testimony, the full truth of which I am not aware was ever in the slightest degree questioned. When speaking of the recovery of the State from her financial embarrassments and difficulties at the commencement of the present century, Dr. Ramsay remarks: " After five years faithful service, in which Paul Hamilton introduced the same order into the finances of the State which had been done by his illustrious namesake for the United States, he was honored by his grateful country with the highest State office in its gift. Thomas Lee was appointed his successor, who with equal firmness and ability, prosecutes the same good work. From their exertions," he continues, thus evidently including Judge Lee in the same encomium with his meritorious predecessor, "from their exer- tions, a chaos of public account has been reduced to order; energy and decision infused into every department of finance ; and the fiscal concerns of the State, recovered from disorder, are now in a flourishing and healthy condition." Dr. Ramsay also remarks afterwards, that the very delicate and difficult measure of adjusting the legislative representation of the peo- ple to their property and numbers, was effected by the prelimi- nary exertions of Comptroller Lee, who reduced to one view the whole property of the State from numerous and compli- cated returns. The Legislature then adopted a new principle of distributing the representation, introduced and ably sup- ported by Abraham Blanding. Thus, he concludes, " a real difficulty, which threatened the peace of the State, was com- promised to general satisfaction, and the reform of the fiscal department essentially contributed to a reform of the Constitu- tion, and the stability of the Government."
In 1817, Judge Lee was elected President of the State Bank in this city, an office which he faithfully and satisfactorily
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filled for the last twenty-two years of his life. A sense of his services to that institution has been publicly expressed by the directors, precluding any farther reference to the subject here.
In 1823, he was commissioned by President Munroe, as Judge of the District Court of the United States for South Carolina District. His connexion with this office also ceased only with his death, after a punctual and assiduous perform- ance of its duties for almost seventeen years. Those who were best acquainted with his merits in this department, and best qualified to judge of them, have in a public manner already conferred on him the beautiful and comprehensive eulogy, that his "decisions were characterized by a love of truth, and his judgments were given in mercy ; that he ad- ministered justice without respect to persons, and did equal right to the poor and the rich." In addition to this high testi- monial, it has been privately remarked by a competent observer, that Judge Lee exhibited a striking flexibility of talent in adapting himself immediately to the forms and phraseology and spirit of his juridical function, after the long disuse of legal habits to which his other duties had previously subjected him. Another, eminently qualified, assures me, that no Judge ever sat on the Bench, who was more patient in listening to Counsel, or more candid and open to every just impression, or who made up his judgments with more calm deliberation, or who would more gracefully surrender his deeply fixed opinions and prepossessions, before the light of reason and argument. And if I might venture, myself, another train of remark on a subject so alien from my sphere, I would diffidently observe, without presuming to pronounce on his legal merits either one way or another, that the published decisions of Judge Lee ex- hibited a most commendable perspicuity of style; that he did something to free the profession from the usual charge of being technical and pedantic : that there was a happy neatness and point about his explanations and reasonings, avoiding both the extremes of saying too much and too little ; and that in one respect at least, he followed at no large distance the steps of the great legal luminary of our country and day, himself
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so lately extinct, by popularizing and rendering intelligible to ordinary capacities the science and mysteries of the law.
While enumerating the public services of Judge Lee, it will by no means be out of place to allude to his exertions in the cause of the Temperance Reform. The time will come, when South Carolina, and his whole country, will more vividly re- member and recognise his merits in this department of action, than even his fiscal and juridical services. In fact, the Tem- perance Association may now be regarded as one of the settled institutions of our country, although no legislature has sanc- tioned it, and no political convention has enforced its para- mount authority. And he, who takes a leading part in it, as did our deceased friend, without the least tincture of fanatical ultraism on the one hand, or of shrinking timidity and inde- cision on the other, may be as emphatically pronounced a public man, as if he acted by the unanimous vote of a legis- lature, or could show on his warrant, the Great Seal of the United States. For he has God for his authority-his con- science for his charter,-and the advancement, good order, happiness, both spiritual and temporal, of the community, as much his object and guide, as if he were the author of a whole code of engrossed laws. It was therefore, I conceive, with peculiar propriety, that in your resolutions of the last Sabbath, you gave this feature of his public history a prominent place. Truly, also, might the Managers of the Young Men's Temperance Society, while recently bewailing his decease, observe, that if his departure is a source of affliction to other associations, it is profoundly and emphatically so to them; Judge Lee having been identified with the rise and progress of the Temperance movements in South Carolina. Yes, to his lasting honour be it said, that with that far-reaching in- stinct of benevolence and usefulness, which was one of the constituent elements of his character, he perceived from the very beginning, the vital importance of this cause to families and to States-to fathers, mothers, children, neighbours, com- munities and nations. It was about ten years ago that he stepped forth with a little band-long before the cause began
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to be in any way popular,-nay, when it was decidedly un- popular,-when it was thought the most legitimate object of wit, sarcasm and reproach. All this he cheerfully and calmly bore, both from high quarters and low, moving steadfastly onward to the end with an unshaken and devoted faith.
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