USA > Texas > The bench and bar of Texas > Part 9
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
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"I might be excused for doubting my own identity. Surely I may be pardoned for having involuntarily prayed that this might be a troubled and protracted dream. Yet it is too true - too many evidences force conviction of the sad reality. But a few days past, the noble temple of American liberty stood complete in all its parts-stood in all the majesty of its vast proportions, and in the glory of its apparent strength and beauty of construction ; not a pillar missing nor a joint dissevered. And its votaries were gathered about the altar, worshiping, as was their wont, with hopeful hearts. Forebodings were felt and predictions made of the coming storm, and the destruction of the temple. And the storm has come, and still rages; the temple still stands, but shorn of its fair proportions and marred in its beauty. Pillar after pillar has fallen away. And while its proud dome still points to Heaven, it is reeling in mid-air like a drunken man ; while its founda- tions are shaken as with an earthquake. Yet there are worshipers about the shrine - and I am one of them. I have been called by warning voices to come out and escape the impending danger. I have been wooed by entreaties and plied with threats. But neither entreaties nor threats, nor hope of reward nor dread of danger shall tear me away until I lay hold of the horns of the altar of my country, and implore Heaven, in its own good time, to still this storm of civil strife; and, through such human agency as may be best, again uprear the fallen pillars to their original position, that they may through long ages contribute to the strength and beauty of the noblest struc- ture yet devised by man."
These were his abiding sentiments, and while he may not have approved of the harsh measures of reconstruction forced upon the South by the Federal Congress, he bent all his energies to fashion the affairs of Texas in the mould of Federal requirement, and in conformity with the Constitu- tional amendments.
He did not think that the great mass of negroes in the South were qualitied to exercise the right of suffrage, but he thought it unwise to exclude them from political priv-
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ileges on account of race or color. Progress, he said, was the great law of mind under a free government, and he did not believe that any policy could be enduring or permanent in this country which was based upon accidental circum- stances and the traditions of prejudice, instead of being founded upon the eternal principles of truth and justice.
Governor Hamilton was bold and fearless in the advocacy of his principles, and in the execution of his purposes; yet he was modest in his deportment, and kind and courteous in his bearing. He was a man of pure morals, and possessed a kind disposition and charitable heart. In private and social life he was highly esteemed by his friends and associates, and was a man of great personal popularity.
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BENCH AND BAR OF TEXAS.
LEMUEL DALE EVANS.
The subject of this sketch was born in the State of Ten- nessee in the year 1810, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar. He removed to Texas in 1843 and settled in Fannin County, which he represented in the annexation Convention of 1845, and of which he was a . prominent member. In 1855 he was elected to represent the eastern district of Texas in the United States Congress. He was opposed to secession and during the war adhered to the cause of the Union; but took an active part in endeavoring to restore the relations of Texas to the Federal government upon the basis of conservation and moderation, and was a member of the Reconstruction Convention of 1868. When all the officers chosen by the people were removed by military authority, he was appointed in 1870 chief justice of the Supreme Court, which position he held until the expiration of his term in 1873. In 1875 he was appointed United States marshal at Galveston and held that office until the time of his death, which occurred in the City of Washington, on the 1st of July, 1877.
In the Convention of 1845, when the fifteenth section of article seven of the Constitution was under discussion, which required the Legislature to provide for the trial of cases by arbitration, upon the amendment offered by Mr. Howard, "when the parties shall elect that method of trial," Mr. Evans said: -
" I am opposed to the amendment offered by the gentle- man from Bexar, and decidedly in favor of the section as it now stands. I have contemplated going further; as I know, however, that I should be opposed, I have made up my mind to be content with voting for the section as it stands. I shall not assail the motives of lawyers ; but they are
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wedded to a certain system of settling disputes, by which they live, and draw into their pockets a large revenue ; and per- haps they can not view the question in its proper light. Now I do not want to excite any ridicule against myself, but I will state what I candidly believe, that the whole contrivance of courts of judicature is a fraud upon the community ; the whole system is an invention of the darker ages of the world and productive of the greatest injury. I take this position, that there is no question of right or wrong which a savage is not as competent to decide as the ablest judge in the land; no question which affects the rights of property or the person, which the untutored savage can not deter- . mine as well as a Story or a Marshall. And why ? Because questions of right and wrong depend upon feeling, and not upon reason. A man that feels right, no matter how un- cultivated his mind may be, is as good a judge of such matters as the most learned men that ever sat upon the bench. If this were not the case, there could be no human responsibility in this world or the world to come. I will take another position: that any man who teaches your country schools, and understands the common laws of syntax, is as well qualified to understand the constitu- tionality of the law as a Daniel Webster. Why? Because any sentence in the English language, whether it be found in a law-book or in the Bible, is to be construed according to the rules of grammar. I know that lawyers have a way of construing the former for themselves. I know that they have their particular phrases, and words with peculiar meanings, which the common people can not understand. And here is the fraud of the whole system. Let a plain law be passed. Say the lawyers, no man can write a law plain enough for the common people to understand. It is referred to a court to get the legal meaning of its terms ; the court weighs the terms, as they call it, and settles their meaning. How long does it stay so? Until they can get two men to fall out about the decisions, and then they get a court to decide a case already decided. The court then enforces the decision, or overrules it. There are now twelve hundred overruled cases in the common law. The
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world can not contain the books of legal reports. The ablest men in England and the United States, have ascer- tained to a mathematical certainty that the fees of lawyers and the costs exceed greatly in amount the value of the things in controversy. Take all the law-suits now in pro- gress in the United States, or the State of Texas, value the property in its dollars and cents, and you will find that the cost of litigation exceeds the value of the things litigated. Ought we not, then, to adopt some other system? And there is no other but this of arbitration. You can settle all your differences by arbitrators without costs ; for then the lawyers do not pocket large fees, and there are no officers who live upon litigants. I am friendly to the system, because I have seen it in active operation. I have lived in countries where there were no law-suits; where every difficulty was settled by the friendly interposition of neighbors. The peace-maker lived there ; the lawyer did not. And no difficulty resulted from this system. The members of the Baptist Church settle all their differ- ences by arbitration ; the Methodists all theirs ; the Quakers all theirs by arbitration. If this system prevail, you will find men in every neighborhood, able and Christian men, who would be proud of the character of arbitrators and peace-makers among their fellow-men."
It would certainly be well for the best interests of society, if the principles of morality inculcated by the Golden Rule and presumed in this argument, could be estab- lished as the law of the land, and practically enforced in the ordinary transactions of life ; but such a rule has been found to be replete with difficulties, and absolutely inap- plicable and inadequate to the wants and wishes of society. The doctrine of compulsory arbitration was rooted in the early laws of Texas, but formed a blank feature of its jurisprudence. No suit could be maintained until the matter in controversy had been first submitted to the arbitration of buenos hombres, and .a certificate obtained from them that the difficulty could not be settled by arbitra- tion. The Mexican laws also required that conciliation should first be attempted by the interposition of two
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conciliators, who had power to select a third, and their certificate of the fact was requisite to the commencement of an action. But the Anglo-Saxon settlers of Texas declined to submit their disputes to such arbitration, and resorted to the custom of simply obtaining the certificate in order to comply with the law. Not one case in five hundred was settled by arbitration. The principle presumes a standard which practical morality and voluntary justice has never yet attained in any community, and it is feared, never will, until the passions and frailties of men are subjected to more powerful moral influences and restraints than any rule of human conduct has yet been able to devise and enforce
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BENCH AND BAR OF TEXAS.
PETER W. GRAY.
The subject of this memoir was born in Fredricksburg, Virginia, in the year 1819. His father, William Fairfax Gray, removed his family to Texas while his son Peter was but a mere youth, and served as clerk of the House of .Representatives of the Republic in 1837. He was subse- quently district attorney, and held that office at the time of his death in Houston, in 1841.
Peter W. Gray was chiefly reared and educated in Houston, studied law in the office of his father, and suc- ceeded him as district attorney. In 1846 he was a member of the first Legislature of the State, and his services in that body were distinguished for the highest efficiency. He was the chief author of the practice act, which eliminated and excerpted from the mutually repugnant systems of the civil and common law the clear and well defined method of reaching the merits of a case, which led to the present excellent systems of pleading and practice in the Texas courts.
He was soon afterwards appointed judge of the Houston district, and so learned, impartial and just was the manner in which he performed his judicial duties, that he was characterized by Chief Justice Roberts as " the very best district judge that ever sat upon the Texas bench."
As a lawyer Judge Gray attained early in life a high standing at the bar, and was distinguished for his astuteness and vigor, and for his solid professional accomplishments. His knowledge of the law was profound, and he was pro- ficient and practical in the application of principles. His mind was highly analytical, and he was expert in eliminating truth from the speciousness of circumstances. Subsidiary to this, his love of justice and abhorrence of wrong
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prompted his best exertions in the establishment of legal right and equitable principle. He was ardent in his devo- tion to duty and conscientious in his professional dealings, which engaged the confidence of his clients and the esteem of the people. He was thoroughly familiar with Texas jurisprudence, and his knowledge of the statute law and of the import and reason of the decisions of the Supreme Court, made him a safe counselor and a successful lawyer.
These qualities, enhanced by his habits of self-reliance and independence of thought, responded to the require- ments of an eminent judge and attained for him the dis- tinction upon the bench sc generously canonized by the eulogy of the chief justice.
During the war, Judge Gray represented the Houston district in the Confederate Congress, and was a staunch supporter of every measure for strengthening the arms and promoting the interest of the Confederacy. When hostili- ties ceased he returned to Houston and resumed his prac- tice, endeavoring by his example and counsel to re-establish the order of peaceful pursuits and ameliorate the condition of his people.
In February, 1874, he was appointed an associate justice of the Supreme Court, to fill a vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Judge W. P. Ballinger, who had been but recently promoted to the bench, and, though in feeble and declining health, he responded to the call for his services and entered upon the discharge of his judicial duties. But soon finding that he was physically unable to perform the functions of his high office, and being unwilling to leave the court with an even number, which might embarrass the course of justice, while he sought to repair his health in retirement, he resigned his seat on the 18th of April, hav- ing held the position but two months, and, retiring to his home in Houston, died on the 3d of October, 1874.
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BENCHI AND BAR OF TEXAS.
MICAJAH HUBBARD BONNER.
This remarkable man and eminent judge was the son of Rev. Wm. N. Bonner, a Methodist minister, and was born in Greenville, Butler County, Alabama, on the 25th of Jan- uary, 1828 ; but in 1836 removed with his father's family to Holmes County, Mississippi. His early education was ob- tained from the common schools of the country and completed by an irregular course at La Grange College, in Kentucky; but he possessed an aspiration for knowledge which no cir- cumstance of his youth could suppress, and an ambition to achieve a name and a place among men undaunted by any prospect which the future could present to his view. Hav- ing prepared himself for the practice of law, he was admit- ted to the bar at Lexington, Mississippi, in 1848, and the next year, being attracted by the allurements which the new fields of the West offered to enterprise and genius, he emigrated to Texas and began the practice of his profession at Marshall, in an office built with his own hands ; but soon afterwards removed to Rusk, in Cherokee County, and formed a copartnership there with the distinguished J. Pinckney Henderson, who, in view of his great talents and success, was justly considered as the head of the Texas bar. This association afforded to Mr. Bonner at once the field to which his energy and genius were adapted and which his ambition had coveted, and he now entered upon that brill- iant and successful career at the bar which finally raised him to the highest position upon the bench. This partner- ship continued until General Henderson was elected to Congress, after which Mr. Bonner practiced alone for some time and then associated with his brother, F. W. Bonner ; but so eminent and widespread was his reputation for legal . learning and ability, and his fine social qualities and per-
M.F. Bon Mir.
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sonal integrity had rendered him so popular, that, in 1873, the lawyers of the Seventh District, of which he was not a resident, but which was already within the scope of his practice, unanimously petitioned for his appointment to the bench of that district. This was effected, and he then re- moved to Tyler, which was his place of residence during the remainder of his life.
Upon the bench Judge Bonner exercised in the highest degree the ability and qualities which had raised him to that position, and in 1874 Governor Coke reappointed him to the same judgeship, which he held until the adoption of the Constitution in 1876, which provided for an elective judi- ciary, and was then elected to the same office by the people. In 1878 he was appointed by Governor Hubbard an asso- ciate justice of the Supreme Court, to fill a vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Chief Justice Moore, and was chosen to this position by the people at the ensuing election. At the expiration of his term he declined to be re-elected and returned to the bar, preferring the duties and more remunerative emoluments of a large practice.
Judge Bonner possessed a vigor, perseverance, and in- quisitiveness of mind which permitted nothing to pass from under his observation without his thorough compre- hension of its character; and to these trained habits of sensation and perception was added a well regulated judg- ment. While these qualities will assert their superiority in whatever sphere they may be exercised, they are, of all others, the most important qualifications for success at the bar.
As a lawyer, Judge Bonner was profound and exact. He was methodical and laborious in the preparation of his cases, and. was always well armed with precedent and authority. He was cautious and deliberate in assuming his ground and surveyed with care every inch of the field before he rushed to the attack or planted his lines of de- fense; hence there was a fixed precision - an engaged cer- tainty attending the positions he took, which no skill of sophistry could shake. His judgment was intuitive and his logical powers spontaneous. He rarely indulged in the
Boromi
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lofty strains of rhetoric, and never in impassioned challenges of applause. But while his oratory was usually devoid of ornamentation, it was forcible, logical, and laden with argument. He readily perceived the main points of a question and addressed himself to the gist of the contro- versy - a rule which commends itself both by its utility and the sound sense by which it is dictated, and which, if more universally observed, would greatly enhance the ex- pedition of the courts and the attainment of justice, while it would often lift a heavy burden from the patience of both judge and jury.
Another feature, which added greatly to Judge Bonner's success as a lawyer, was his uniform placidity and good nature. While stern and immovable in his convictions and in the positions he had assumed, his professional ethics were marked by a cultured suavity which preserved the most cordial relations between bim and the other members of the bar, and, as has been said of another, he wielded the club of Hercules wreathed with roses.
In addition to his large and well stratified stores of legal knowledge, the vigorous and active mind of Judge Bonner had gathered resources from every branch of science. While he delighted to delve in the rugged field of his pro- fession, his sentimental nature and refined taste collected also the gems of romance and the flowers of æsthetics ; yet he never neglected the realities of life for the mere visions of fancy. His attention was attracted but not beguiled by that literary curiosity which often allures a man of genius from his chosen pursuit, and engages his powers in the wasting diversions of inutility. Capable of great applica- tion and full of the ardor of a versatile genius, he devoted himself with severe restraint and indefatigable zeal to the attainment of all useful and refining knowledge.
But it was upon the bench that he wore his brightest laurels. It was here that his fearless independence of character in thought and action, his uncompromising regard for truth and justice, and his profound knowledge of law, were most strikingly exemplified. He was eminently gifted with the power of methodical and accurate dispatch, and,
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as a district judge, the business of his court was conducted with the current smoothness and uniformity of a well regu- lated machine. If he hesitated, it was but to assure him- self of that which was right and lawful, and then his firmness of character and conscientious conviction per- mitted no unnecessary obstacles to be thrown in the path of expedition. His court was a sanctum of dignity and decorum. But whilst he maintained with scrupulous and exacting regard the sanctity which should always surround the altars of justice, he was not austere ; but his official de- meanor, like his social intercourse, was clothed with the graces of culture and Christianity.
As a judge of the Supreme Court, his diligence and ca- pacity for patient and laborious research left no field unex- plored in his search for principles and precedents which nestle in the dictates of truth and equity, while his learning, his powers of analogy and parity of reason directed their application with unerring fingers and enabled him to rescue justice from the most specious claims of wrong. The lan- guage of his decisions is that of a thorough legal scholar, and sparkles with the imprint of a clear mind, an upright heart and a pure conscience. It would be gratuitous ser- vice to the profession to attempt to cite the important points in his opinions. With these the gentlemen of the Texas bar are already familiar. They settle many im- portant questions and establish some of the principle features of Texas jurisprudence.
In private life Judge Bonner was amiable and refined. Like Lord Chesterfield, he considered politeness the lubri- cator of society, and to smooth the pathways of others he recognized as the great duty of man. This sentiment, quickened by his nature, and intensified by the love which he bore to his profession, enlisted his especial sympathies and services in behalf of those who sought its pathway to success and prominence, and the young lawyer found in him a friend who delighted in efforts to promote him. He was a fond husband, a doting father, and a devoted friend. and the golden chain was linked with the jewels of domestic felicity. He was married at Marshall, in 1849, to Miss
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Elizabeth P. Taylor, daughter of Dr. Job Taylor, a lady in every respect worthy of the character of her husband, and who, no doubt, afforded him that encouragement which only the smiles of loveliness can inspire. .
On his retirement from the Supreme bench in 1882, Judge Bonner resumed his practice at Tyler, and at the request of many of his professional friends, and being instigated by a liberal encouragement, he began the prep- aration of a work to contain a compendium of the rulings of the Supreme Court of Texas from the earliest period of its organization; but his labor was prevented by declining health, and he died on the 28th of November, 1883.
Judge Bonner was of a decidedly religious turn of mind, and early espoused the cause of Christianity. His life was modeled by the training which he received from pious pa- rents, and he attributed with reverential pride his early and lasting victory over temptation especially to the hallowed influence and teachings of his mother. He was from his youth a strict member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and died in the communion of that sect.
The life of Judge Bonner was a noble commentary upon the value of amiability and gentlemanly traits of character, and impressed the lesson that a mild temper, a uniform de- corum and moderation were virtues compatible with the greatest attainable success at the bar and with the preserv- ation of the highest dignity upon the bench, as well as in the social circle and the ordinary intercourse with men ; but although he was fond of society, he never indulged in either the social glass or the social game, and, while guarding with a drawn sword every avenue of moral temptation, he per- mitted no approach to his judicial favor. The following letter from a railroad official upon his elevation to the Su- preme bench shows that he extended this sentiment even to that which may now be an innocent custom :-
" PALESTINE, TEX., Dec. 28, 1878.
Hon. II. M. Bonner, Tyler, Tec .-
MY DEAR SIR : - Returning from Galveston, I have at hand yours of the 24th inst., with inclosure of pass returned. We sent the pass to you for the reason that it is customary
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for railroad corporations to extend such courtesies to the highest officers of the State government. We highly appre- ciate your sentiments upon the subject, and feel that in your elevation to the high office you fill, private citizens and cor- porations have alike common cause for satisfaction.
Very truly yours,
[Signed]
IRA H. EVANS.
While it was Judge Bonner's custom to treat in this way all such proffers from corporations and individuals, his charities were large and open-handed and untainted by any element of ostentation. They sprang from the dictates of a pure heart and a love of virtue, and afforded as much pleasure to him who gave as to him who received them. A bright Mason, he practiced the hallowed precepts of faith, hope and charity, which the ancient order so beautifully and forcibly inculcates ; an exemplary Christian, he made the teachings of Scripture his rule of conduct ; a learned judge, his knowledge was subsidiary to his moral fortitude. His addresses to the grand jury were models of legal exposi- tion and moral commentary. They were elevating to the bar, admonishing to the people, and an honor to jurdicature.
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