USA > Texas > The bench and bar of Texas > Part 31
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In 1876 he was chosen a delegate to the National Demo- cratic Convention which assembled at St. Louis and nomi- nated Mr. Tilden for the presidency. Since that time he has devoted himself exclusively to the practice of his pro- fession ; yet, has cherished a lively interest in political events, and especially in those affecting the welfare of the South and of his State.
Mr. Sexton is a man of great moral and personal integ- rity, and pursues the even tenor of a career adorned with ability and genius and arched over with the purest Christian virtues. He is a devout communicant of the Episcopal Church, and has been an active member of the Masonic fraternity since he was twenty-one years of age, which has honored him with the highest official positions of the order. He has been grand master, grand high priest and grand commander of the Knights Templar.
A biographer often finds the currents of character flow- ing from the inspiring fountains of a mother's affection, and their course and vigor shaped by the encouragement of a noble wife. The virtues of these have formed the noblest themes of both romance and reality.
Xenophon, in his elegant memorabilia of Socrates, relates a beautiful allegory describing the choice of Hercules be- tween the superficial allurements of sensuality and the real charms of virtue. The youthful hero, having arrived at the age of discretion, sought the stillness of solitude for the purpose of reflecting and deciding upon his course of life, and while in a state of perplexity as to whether he should enter upon life by the way of virtue or the path of vice, he was approached and accosted by two women of remark-
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able stature and appearance. The countenance of one of these ladies glowed with benevolence and the modest smile of amiability. Her manners were dignified and gentle : every feature betokened the highest culture of decency and gentility. She wore no ornaments. Her native charms needed no artificiality to add to their serene splendor. She was adorned with neatness and elegance, and all her gar- ments were of the purest white.
The other was not without beauty ; but, notwithstanding her rouged cheeks and carmined lips, her countenance had the appearance of being sallowed and bloated from luxurious excesses ; and while she affected the most engaging man- ners her demeanor was evidently studied and constrained, and every artifice was invoked to remedy her natural defects. Her fingers and ears and breast glittered with sparkling ornaments. She was exceedingly bold, and the blush of modesty was altogether a stranger to her cheeks. Her dress was of the most gorgeous colors, and she was ever on the alert to detect the least glance of admiration; indeed, she would often stop to admire her own shadow. .
With characteristic pertness she hastened in advance of the quiet, majestic step of her companion, and addressing Hercules with a bland but affected smile, announced to him that she was aware of the character of his meditations, and if he would accept the offerings of her friendship she would conduct him along the most flowery paths of happiness and ease, where every delight should court his enjoyment, and not a thorn of pain or thistle of sorrow should ever pierce his feet. Free from the harsh and annoying concerns of life the pleasures of luxury should be his only employment. Upon this flattering and seductive announcement, Hercules demanded her name. "My friends," said she, " call me Happiness ; but my enemies brand me with the nick-name, Sensuality."
By this time the other lady had arrived, and, accosting Hercules, said that she, too, had come to offer the consola- tion of her friendship in the matter about which he seemed to be disturbed ; that she was not a stranger to his eminent parentage, and had remarked the goodness and amiability
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of his disposition from his early childhood, and in view of which she entertained the most lively hopes that if he would follow her lead he would achieve glory for himself and be an honor to his chaperon ; but that she did not intend to allure him by specious promises of pleasure, but would represent things as they existed in reality, and disclose to him the will of heaven concerning them. " Know then, young man," said she, " that the allwise rulers of the uni- verse have decreed that nothing great, nothing excellent can be achieved without care and labor ; that no good, no hap- piness, can be attained on any other terms. If, therefore, you would obtain the favor of the gods, adore them. If you desire the love of your friends, be worthy of it. If you wish to be honored by your fellow-citizens, serve them. If you wish to enjoy the fruits of the earth, cultivate it. Thus alone, O Hercules, mayest those attain that felicity with which I am empowered to reward those who yield to my direction, and who not only enjoy the richest blessings of earth, but when the fatal hour arrives, my votaries sink not like others into inglorious oblivion, but live forever in the favor of the gods and the grateful remembrance of mankind."
The lady in white beautifully represents the spirit of maternal influence - the virtuous inspirations of a noble mother or devoted wife, and as the life of Hercules evinced the wisdom of a choice which enabled him, under the sternest decrees of fate, to glorify the teachings of virtue, so the life of Judge Sexton verifies the power of those hal- lowed admonitions which he received from his pious and devoted mother.
One of the most important cases argued by Judge Sexton in the Supreme Court is that of Snider v. The International and Great Northern Railroad Company. The question in this case arose upon the interpretation of the act of the 29th of November, 1871, declaring that the withdrawal of a cer- tificate and field notes from the land office by the owner or his authority, " will render the location and survey null and void." In arguing the meaning of the statute, he said : -
"Those words speak for themselves. True it is that the
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language of the article is ' the withdrawal of such certifi- cate,' and the words ' by the owner or his authority' are not there. But what is the ordinary meaning of the word « withdrawal ? ' 'To take back,' 'to recall.' (Web- ster's Dictionary. ) Who can take back or recall, except the one who originally deposited the thing to be taken back or recalled? The Legislature must be understood to have used words in their usual and ordinary signification. If some man, baving no right to, or claim on a piece of prop- erty in the land office, or elsewhere, takes it out of the place where it has been depositel, that is not a withdrawal. It may be a theft ; it may be a trespass ; it certainly is not a withdrawal. And, for the quite conclusive reason that hav- ing never put it there, he could not withdraw it. The owner of the certificate could control it. Having placed it there, in the first instance, he could let it remain, or he could re- call it, or withdraw it and then, he became subject to the consequences of his own act. Article 7097 of Paschal's Digest provides, that where the field notes of surveys made by virtue of certificates referred to in the preceding section (Art. 7096) ' have been returned to the general land office, and the certificate by virtue of which the survey was made is not on file in the general land office, nor has been withdrawn for location of unlocated balance as is provided in the first section of this act, such certificate shall be returned to and filed in the general land office,' etc. Appellant's whole case consists in a literal construction of the words ' and the certificate by virtue of which the survey was made is not on file in the general land office.' And, in order to give those words the effect contended for by appellant, all the balance of the act must be entirely stricken out, and they must be made effectual, if they can be, by their own inherent force and energy. I do not think this court will undertake such an enterprise. What those words mean is rendered apparent by what immediately follows them, viz. : ' nor has been withdrawn for location,' etc. The balance of the sentence and of the article (7097), in which these words occur, shows clearly that the legislative mind was still contemplating an act by the owner of the certificate (i.e.
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a recalling by one who had placed the certificate in the land office and had the right and power to recall, or withdraw it), and was, for satisfactory reasons of public policy, pro- viding certain legal consequences to that act. The use of the word ' return' in the same connection strengthens the view I am endeavoring to present. It is possible that a party who had illegally and improperly taken a piece of property from the owner thereof, or from the place where it was by law deposited, might return it. But such conduct is not usual and we can not suppose the Legislature was providing for such an unusual and improbable contingency. The Legislature was evidently contemplating a 'return' by the party who had withdrawn the certificate and it was for him and his conduct that it was then providing. Article 7098 uses the word ' withdrawn' and ' withdrawal' alto- gether when referring to field notes and surveys.
" Not only is the meaning of the Legislature clear, as I think, by the words it has used, but if resort is had to con- struction it seems impossible to make the act, under con- sideration, mean what is contended for by appellant. And this, for the reason that the construction placed upon the act of 29th of November, 1871, by appellant renders it absurd and unjust. Is it reasonable or just that one man should suffer for the act of another which he did not know of and could not prevent? And is not that the direct and necessary result of the construction of the act in question which is insisted upon by appellant to be correct? It seems so to me. Appellant says the McNutt certificate and field notes were ' out of file' -' not on file ' - and . therefore ' the location and survey thereunder were for- feited, and I (appellant ) have located the land.' We ask who took them out? We did not. Appellant replies, ' I do not know or care who took them out; they are out, and I have taken your land.' Is this reason? Is this justice ? Is it what the law means? Did the Legis- lature intend to produce a result which so shocks the moral sense and common intelligence of mankind?
" Elementary authors, among the different rules for the construction of statutes, say that it is proper to consider
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' the old law, the mischief and the remedy.' Let us briefly apply these tests to the statute under discussion. It was a fact so notorious as to have become a matter of public legislative history, and therefore I am justified in referring to it, if, indeed, this court will not take judicial notice of it, that the owner of a certificate would locate it in one place, have a survey made under it, and return the field notes to the general land office, then withdraw it (or, as was sometimes said, float it) and locate it in another place, have another survey made and again return the field notes, and so on, until, in some instances, three or four or perhaps more different surveys or tracts of land were held by the same certificate. The party making these different locations and surveys would hold them until an opportunity was afforded him to sell upon speculation to some one who had a certificate, when he would again float his and make another location, his original location and survey meanwhile remaining in the land office, and when he had speculated as much as he desired, or was pru- dent, he would return his certificate and obtain a patent on his original field notes. Or perhaps the process would be reversed, and the party floating his certificate from place to place would procure certificates by purchase or other means not necessary to be specified, and apply them to the choice locations he had secured by floating his original cer- ticate. There was a well known phrase, borrowed from the nomenclature of stock raisers, often used in conversa- tion to describe the proceeding to which I have just re- ferred, but judicial propriety forbids that I should use it here, though it is very expressive. I doubt not your Honors have heard it and readily understand my allusion. This was doubtless the mischief which the Legislature was trying to prevent, and which the old law was not sufli- ciently specific to prevent. The remedy clearly was, to provide that the owners of certificates who had withdrawn them from the general land office for the purpose of speculating improperly upon the public domain, or apon the ignorance or necessities of others, should return them and procure patents upon their original locations. Is not
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the conclusion irresistible that this is just what the Legis- lature was considering and what it intended to do, and did? The case of a certificate and field notes already in the general land office and never withdrawn by the owner, but simply on deposit and awaiting patent, was not thought of, much less in any way provided for or effected by the Legislature which passed the act of 29th of November, 1871.
" If it be said that the object of the Legislature was more or different than I have stated, in this, that it was to ascertain the quantity of unappropriated public domain, and to induce diligence upon the part of the owners of cer- tificates, still, I answer, the idea is clear and conspicuous that the act from the beginning to end contemplated and was framed with reference to withdrawal by the owner. It nowhere appears that it was intended by the Legislature to punish the owner of a certificate and survey for an act done by another. It has no word of reference to the man who has complied with the law ; to the man whose location and survey had been made, whose field notes and certificate had been returned and were on file in the land office. To him it said, by saying nothing, that you have done your duty - you have only to get your patent. But to the man who had ' withdrawn' his certificate or field notes, it said, you must return it, or you will be held to have abandoned your location, and we will let another take it.
" Says Professor Lieber, an author whose recent work on Political and Legal Hermeneutics can not fail to commend itself to those of the legal profession who read it, ' there can be no sound interpretation without good faith and com- mon sense.' (p. 109. ) Again on the same page he says, ' that which is probable, fair and customary, is preferable to the improbable, unfair and unusual.' In reference to construction, says the same author (p. 136), 'no text im- posing obligations is understood to demand impossible things.' ( Would it not be impossible for the owner of a certificate to return it to the land office when he had not withdrawn it therefrom, did not know of its absence and did not know where it was?) Again, on same page, 'the
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effects' which would result from one or the other con- struction may guide us in deciding which construction we ought to adopt.' In the preceding brief your Honors will find several references to this author and to Dwarris on Statutes, all of which are earnestly commended to the con- sideration of the court. The interpretation and construc- tion of this statute of 29th of November, 1871, is an important feature in this case, and this is my apology for- occupying so much time with it.
" I submit, further, that the construction of this statute, contended for by appellant, would deprive the defendants of their property, the land appropriated by the McNutt certificate, survey and field notes, without due course of law. The owners of the McNutt certificate have complied with the law. Neither McNutt, or those holding under him, have done anything to forfeit his or their rights. Is a forfeiture of their estate to be declared by legislative enactment on account of the tort or malfeasance of another, or on account of the negligence or carelessness of a public officer (the commissioner of the general land office or his clerks), in permitting a paper to be lost in his office or taken therefrom, without any agency of theirs? Such a . result was prohibited by the Constitution of Texas, in force when the act of 29th of November, 1871, was passed, and by every constitution Texas has ever had. Will this court give to an act of the Legislature a construction which must . produce such a result ? I think not."
This view of the question was affirmed by the Supreme Court in Snider v. Methvin, 60 Texas, 487.
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JOHN H. REAGAN.
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The distinguished subject of this memoir was born in Sevier County, Tennessee, on the 8th of October, 1818. His education was confined to the advantages afforded by the common schools and an academic course. He immigrated to the Republic of Texas in 1839, and settled east of the Brazos. His first occupation was that of a surveyor of lands, which he pursued until the year 1843. Soon after his arrival in Texas, in 1839, he was engaged in the battles which occurred that year with the Cherokee Indians, and was with General Torrant in his expedition to the Cross Timbers in 1843. While engaged in the occupation of a surveyor he studied law and, having obtained his license in 1844, he began the practice of his profession at Old Fort Houston, now Palestine, where he still resides.
In 1847 he was elected to the Legislature, and acquired reputation by his energetic advocacy of measures affecting the general interest of the State. In 1852 he was elected district judge and was re-elected to that office in 1856. In 1857 he was elected to the United States Congress from the Eastern District and was re-elected by a large majority in 1859.
Judge Reagan, until 1861, had always been a Democrat of conservative views, but the triumph of sectionalism in the election of Mr. Lincoln upon a platform avowedly hos- tile to Southern interests caused him to advocate the seces- sion of Texas from the Union and the resumption of her sovereignty as an Independent Republic, and in January, 1861, while still a member of Congress, he was elected a delegate to the State Convention at Austin. He immediately left Washington and took his seat in that body. By re- quest of the members he addressed the convention, and in
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an able and pathetic speech presented to it his views upon the great question which was then agitating the country and gave the reasons by which he was actuated in advising that Texas should resume her sovereignty. When the secession of the State was accomplished he was elected a deputy to the Provisional Congress of the Southern States, which was about to convene at Montgomery, and participated actively in framing the Constitution and organizing the Provisional Government of the Confederate States.
Judge Reagan is a man of great tenacity of purpose and firmness of character, and his business capacity is equaled only by the soundness of judgment which directs it. He is a man of intense convictions and unswerving in the pur- suit of noble ends by noble means. Mr. Davis had ob- served these traits of his character while Judge Reagan was a member of Congress, and when he entered upon the Presidency of the new Confederation he immediately selected him as a member of his Cabinet. As Postmaster- General of the Confederate States his services were univer- sally recognized as efficient in the highest degree. Upon him devolved the task of organizing and putting in motion the postal service of a new nationality containing millions of people, and to maintain it amid the march and counter- march of armies, the transportation of hundreds of thousands of troops, the shocks of battle, in the face of invading hosts, in the van of retreating armies, to re-establish cap- tured and desolate lines, and keep open communication with all parts of the Confederacy. How well and thor- oughly he accomplished this task belongs to the history of the world, and is known among all civilized men.
He was faithful and true to the Confederacy. He had espoused its cause with all the ardor and sincerity of his nature, and when he accepted a place in the Cabinet of Mr. Davis it was the seal of his unswerving fidelity and devo- tion. He was true to the Confederate President in all the vicissitudes of his fortune, and was with him at the time of his capture.
He was for some time held a prisoner at Fort Warren, in Boston harbor, and while there counseled the people of
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Texas to confer the right of suffrage upon the most intelli- gent portion of the negross, which was at that time dis- tasteful to them, and his " Fort Warren letter," as it was called, invoked upon him a torrent of abuse and contumely. They would, however, have gained nothing by the adoption of his views, nor did they lose anything by rejecting them ; for, as subsequent events show, the dominant party deter- mined to stop short of nothing but universal suffrage, which, though intended as a policy of revenge, was the most fortunate measure for the South and the most merciful of all Republican acts, since it has given to the South the power of asserting its rights in the National Congress, overthrew the party which forced it upon the Southern people, and has given a Democratic President to the coun- try in 1885.
On being released from prison, Judge Reagan returned to his impoverished home in Texas, and with a brave heart set about providing a support for his family. Hav- ing been re-enfranchised in 1872 he was elected in 1875 to the convention assembled for the purpose of conforming the Constitution of Texas, which had been forced upon it by military authority in 1868, to the rights and dignity of the State and the wants of the people. In this assembly he was an able advocate of those fundamental principles and guarantees upon which the future welfare of the State depended, and was the author of the provisions protecting actual citizens and those seeking homes in it from fraudu- lent claims and forged titles.
In 1874 he was elected from his old district to a seat in the Forty-fourth Congress, and was re-elected to the Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth, and has been re-elected to the Forty-ninth Congress; and during all this time he has devoted his energies as faithfully to the service of his constituency, to the interest of the Union and to the honor of its flag, as he did to the cause of the Confederacy.
His career in Congress has been particularly distinguished for the ability and constancy with which he has advocated the protection and promotion of the industrial and com- mercial interest of the country. His Inter-State Commerce
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bill, which has been for a long time pending before Con- gress, is more largely promotive of the interest of the people than all the revenue bills, bills for internal improve- ments and measures of finance that have ever been invented, and is one of the most important measures ever brought be- fore Congress. For the passage of this bill he has made a faithful and able fight. He has had to contend against the great railroad and steamship companies, all the monopolies and nearly every great monied corporation in the country. But he is still persistent and strenuous in his efforts to ac- complish this great public good, and is still hopeful of suc- cess through the power of the people; and if he is successful in procuring his bill to be enacted into a law of the land, it will cause him to be designated as a benefactor of his country, and his name to be handed down through the cor- ridors of time, as one whose foresight, ability and perse- verence achieved a triumph for the people over the oppressive aggregations of wealth and the monopolies of commerce that will ripen its beneficent fruits for both the present and the coming generations of men.
Judge Reagan is an eminent lawyer and an able practi- tioner. His calm and penetrating perception, correct judgment and sound " common sense" enable him to grasp and digest a question in all its practical as well as philosophical bearings, and he is an excellent counselor.
His plain, frank and self-possessed manners impress his honesty and uprightness of purpose upon all who come in contact with him, and his well known character engages universal popularity and esteem - the merited rewards of an able lawyer, a faithful officer, a true patriot and a good man.
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THOMAS NEVILLE WAUL.
The distinguished subject of this sketch is a native of South Carolina, and was born near Statesburg on the 5th day of January, 1815. His paternal ancestors immigrated to Virginia at an early period, and their descendants settled in New Jersey and the Carolinas. Thomas was the only child of his parents, and is the only remaining descendant of the Carolina branch of the family. He lost his mother during his infancy, but his early scholastic training was ample, and at the age of fifteen years he entered the Uni- versity of South Carolina, but was compelled to abandon his collegiate studies before graduation, in consequence of the death of his father and his limited means. His health, too, at this time was feeble, but being thrown upon his own resources he promptly buckled on his armor and boldly entered the battle of life.
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