(Temoriam,

JOSEPH P. BRADLEY.
 

Cornell Law Sehool Library
     

Cornell University Library
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JOSEPH P. BRADLEY.
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THE PRESS OF

ALLEN, LANE & SCOTT,
PHILADELPHIA.

 
CONTENTS.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR MEETING OF THE SUPREME COURT.

PAGE

Remarks of Mr. George Gray, Chairman .... . a Was 5
Appointment of Committee ...............-. 6
Resolutions reported by Committee .... . ifs eden TT 7
Remarks of Mr. Cortlandt Parker... 2.2... 1.2... 8

es ee George Harding ............ 17

se “ Ay: Or Keashey ) kee eo ws es 25

“ se Samuel Dickson... ......... 31

es sf Jonathan Dixon ............ 35

fe a R. C. McMurtrie 2... 37

* «John G. Johnson ....... ees 37

" - Morton P. Henry ........2... 39.

‘

PROCEEDINGS IN THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT.

Presentation of Resolutions and Address by Attorney-General
Miller on so ae i ge ae SSR ae we A eo ee bea se Mey AT

PROCEEDINGS OF THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THIRD CIRCUIT.

Resolutions. ........ er ae ee ee 52
Reply of Judge Acheson. .............. gata 3

PROCEEDINGS OF THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT.
4 CONTENTS.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY.

PAGE
Resolutions... ...-.....0.50, Pig Dp tae Geka Bc lie We Gar eed 59
Remarks of Judge Depue ..-..---.e- eee eee 59
oe ‘““ Mr. Theodore Runyon ............ 60
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE,
Resolutions: > 402040 Go: 6 a ee NL Se 64
Remarks of Mr. Thomas F. Bayard ........... . 65
a fe William C. Spruance........... 68
: “ FOG. Bradford isa oy 6 © a 4 Se ee 71
er ee George H. Bates... 2... 2. ee ee 72
et . Samuel A. MacAllister ........2.. 74
a of Judge Wales 2. i i is be we RE we Rw 75
QBSHOUIES’ 2 4 2 8 2 2S bs We we Eee we RU Ge es 77
Address of Prof. Charles E. Hart, D.D. ........... 78
ADDENDA.
Address of Justice Bradley before the Law School of the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania. . 2... 2 ee ee 85
PROCEEDINGS IN THE SUPREME COURT OF
THE UNITED STATES.

SATURDAY, February 6th, 1892.

The Bar of the Supreme Court of the United
States and the officers of the Court met in the Court
Room in the Capital at twelve o’clock, and the
meeting was called to order by Mr. J. Hubley
Ashton, on whose motion Mr. George Gray was
called to the Chair and Mr. James H. McKenney
was chosen Secretary.

On taking the Chair Mr. Gray said :— |

Gentlemen of the Bar of the Supreme Court:

We are met to-day to express our sorrow at the death of
our distinguished brother, the late Mr. Justice Bradley, and
to make some public demonstration of our respect and
affection for his memory.

His long term of service upon the bench of the Supreme
Court, his eminent character as a judge, and his many
private virtues, combine to render this an occasion of more
than ordinary interest.

It was my pleasure and privilege to know Judge Bradley
for more than eleven years as presiding judge of the

(5)
6 IN MEMORIAM.

Third Judicial Circuit, and I there had an opportunity to
observe and recognize the varied learning, the profound
erudition, the remarkable intellectual activity, and the love
of justice that characterized his judicial career, of which
his opinions, through more than sixty volumes of the
Reports, are enduring monuments.

These high qualities will give his an enviable place
among the illustrious names that adorn the annals of the
great tribunal of which he was a member.

Judge Bradley came to the Supreme Bench from a State
and from a bar singularly affluent in the best traditions
of our profession. How well he maintained their high
standard we, their neighbors of the Third Circuit, can
abundantly testify ; and it is for this purpose that I have
availed myself of this opportunity to utter these few words
of inadequate eulogy. We revered and admired him while
living ; we sincerely mourn his death. I will not delay
longer, gentlemen, the proceedings of this meeting, and
now await your pleasure.

Mr. George Harding moved that the Chair appoint
a committee to draft suitable resolutions, which
motion being agreed to, the Chair appointed the
following-named committee :—

Mr. GEorcE F. Hoar, Charman ;
Mr. GEORGE HARDING,

Mr. CORTLANDT PARKER,

Mr. J. HuBLEY ASHTON,

Mr. THOMAS J. SEMMES,

Mr. JosEPH H. CHOATE,

Mr. Joun T. Morcan,

Mr. JOHN B. HENDERSON.
JOSEPH P, BRADLEY. 7

The committee, through Mr. Harding, reported
the following :

RESOLUTIONS.

Resolved, 'That the members of the bar of the Supreme
Court of the United States desire to record their sense of
the loss that has come to the profession and to the nation
in the death of Joseph P. Bradley, justice of this court.

He brought to the bench long experience, great energy,
strong and patriotic convictions, a scholarship as wide and
varied as it was thorough and exact, and an unyielding
courage. He was at the same time one of those rare
characters in which vast learning is united with intense
activity and business capacity ; a master of men as well as
‘books, practical as well as theoretical.

During his long service here he has more than done
every duty, growing constantly in his work and in the
regard of his fellows and of the nation, until, in the fullness
of age, rounded and softened by years of judicial duty,
gentle scholarship, and labor for the people, he has passed
away, lamented by the bar, the bench, and the country
that he served; a life complete, with a large place in history
among the creators and moulders of our national juris-
prudence.

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be presented
by the president and secretary of this meeting to the family
of Mr. Justice Bradley, with the sincere sympathy of the
profession in their bereavement, and that the Attorney-
General be requested to present to the Supreme Court in
session the proceedings of this meeting.
8 ; IN MEMORIAM.

REMARKS OF MR. CORTLANDT PARKER.

‘I have felt it a duty to be present on this occasion.
There is no one living who knew Justice Bradley so long
and so intimately as myself. He was my college class-
mate for three years, and during most of that time we
boarded in the same house. When he began the study of
the law I had preceded him a month or two, and he and I
were toom mates for seven years thereafter. We practised
at the same bar thirty years, opponents or associates in
many fiercely-fought cases. His call to the bench here
severed us, but did not estrange us from each other. Our
companionship had to cease. Our intimacy never did.
It was hard when he became a judge for us to drop.
the familiar names by which we called each other. We
kept up the brotherhood of our youth till the last.

This being so, it. would be strange indeed if I were not
here to-day. I have already in our own city, among our
younger brethren, said something of his history and char-
acter. But here, I speak to the bar of the country ; to many
entirely ignorant of the man, acquainted only with the
judge. They ought to know both, for, in my opinion,
remarkable as he was on this bench, he was even more so
elsewise.

His life in its beginning reminds one of that of Abraham
lincoln. He never told me of the straits of his early life.
I heard of it from others. They must have been very
great. His father had married when he was but eighteen.
Probably it was a not over-prudent love match. I knew
his mother—a lady of remarkable character and intelli-
gence, and of inspiring presence. Here influence over him
was complete ; his love for her intense. He was the eldest
of eleven children. ‘Their home was a small farm, part,
I believe, of the Van Rensselaer manor in the Helderberg
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 9

Mountain. All the family, I believe, were born during
his minority. It is easy to see that his early life must
have been one of much privation.

Like Lincoln in his mania for knowledge and for books,
devouring everything in print upon which he could lay
his hands, especially fond of arithmetic and algebra, he
became famous in his small, humble circle. His only
schooling was in the winter village school. When he was
about sixteen he was promoted to teach it. His success
increased his fame and stimulated his determination to
win a liberal education. At last he actually departed from
his home, without taking leave of his family or friends,
determined to reach New York and there, somehow, earn
enough to attain his object. An accident prevented his
reaching there the first time. On a later journey while
stealing away the Reformed Dutch clergyman of the
precinct met him, praised his industry and his success, and
offered to teach him Latin and Greek. He embraced this
offer with characteristic avidity, and made every use of his
opportunity. Very soon, the following .autumn, I think,
he came to Rutgers College, an institution mainly depend-
ent for scholars upon the Reformed Dutch Church, and
entered the freshman class. He had prepared himself for
it, too. ‘True, he had. read almost nothing. A little book
made up from Livy, entitled ‘‘ Viri Romae,’’? was all his
Latin. Three chapters of St. John’s Gospel, all his Greek.
But the grammars,—he knew them from cover to cover,
with a completeness which made translation easy.

I met and was introduced to him the day of his arrival.
Lincoln himself in his early youth was not much stranger
in personnel. His doting mother had made every garment
that he wore, the wool from the sheep on the farm.

He boarded, at first, on a farm near two miles from col-
lege, and soon rumors what a student he was began to pre-
vail. His reputation was enhanced by his falling sick, for
IO IN MEMORIAM.

a time almost desperately, and by stories that it was brain

-fever from over-work. But he recovered, and in the second
year of his college life leaped into my own class—from a
freshman becoming a junior. Such a thing had never
before happened. There were among us several lads of
capacity and ambition. He was a man, twenty-one years
old. His new classmates were mainly boys from fourteen
to sixteen. He had a purpose—we were but vessels into
which knowledge was poured. And so he strode to the
front, and with such plain desert that no one was dis-
pleased. He crossed no one’s path. He was busy getting
his education ; disciplining his mind. He cared for no
honors ; sought no applause ; cultivated no social clique.
He simply sought to learn.

But books, good books, old books, were his passion.
Somehow, he found time to learn what these were. He
explored the college library completely. There was no
treasure there of which he was not informed. And he
mastered everything worth mastering. Authors of the
Elizabethan age were his peculiar delight. A small
coterie, of which he was chief, got the soudriguet of being
‘‘Flizabethan age’’ scholars. |

While first in every department of scholarship, he also
devoted himself to the exercises of. the Literary society
of which he, myself, and others among his friends were
members. He became distinguished in composition and
debate.

Ours was a small college of not more than eighty stu-
dents. In my judgment those who were there were none
the worse off for its lack of numbers. We were taught
by professors, not by tutors. And individuality was better
developed.

A struggle occurred between the faculty and our society
which had a great deal to do with Judge Bradley’s future.
We were commanded to rescind some resolutions, of which
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. II

the faculty, spite of the fact that we were a secret society,
got wind. We would not doit. Wesaid that resolutions
of a secret society were no overt act, and that the faculty
might as well command individuals to rescind their unex-
pressed sentiments. The contest was long and bitter. It
was carried to the trustees, with whose request, and for the
sake of peace, we complied. In this battle Judge Bradley
was our leader, and the paper in which he presented our
case, its author never known, elicited the wondering en-
comiums of the distinguished bodies to whom it was pre-
sented. :

But Judge Bradley displayed traits of character in this
controversy which convinced all his friends that the pro-
fession to which he then looked was not the profession for
him, and that the law was. He was not loth to receive
our advice. Opportunity offered itself. A classical school
some ten miles away needed a teacher. The post was
tendered him, the faculty giving him a diploma without
requiring the last term’s study from him. He gladly ac-
cepted it, giving up, of course, the first honor, which, had
he remained, he must have won.

His success in this school almost made him a professor.
His pupils idolized him. He taught them to think, and
to love to think and understand. He was so thorough, so
simple, so clear. And he made them his companions, too,
and won their affections wonderfully.

But he had three special friends among his classmates,
who, when they graduated, studied law—one in New York,
two, of whom the late Secretary Frelinghuysen was one,
in Newark. We were anxious that he should join us, in
one place or the other.

An opportunity presented itself. The Collector of the
Port of Newark was a lawyer. He told one of us one day
that he needed an inspector of customs to whom he could
give a salary, small but sufficient for his support, and that
12 IN MEMORIAM.

he would receive him into his office as a student at law.
The communication of this brought Judge Bradley to
Newark, and he was soon established there. In three
years more he was admitted to the bar, and began a
struggle for practice. It wasin 1839. ‘The terrible panic
of 1837 had all but ruined our city. There was no one
worth suing. There were no contracts making—no sales
of land. Everything was well-nigh stagnant.

It was a hatd time for us, indeed. Mr. Frelinghuysen
had succeeded to his uncle’s practice, and his progress up-
ward was rapid. Not so with Judge Bradley, but he had
the good fortune to form a partnership with an influential
gentleman, the clerk of the county, through which busi-
ness came, which Judge Bradley alone transacted for their
joint profit. Then Mr. Frelinghuysen employed him quite
frequently to aid fzm. In a few years he married. And
then his practice sensibly increased. But his early years
at the bar were years beyond doubt of much pecuniary
want.

To help along, he became the legislative correspondent
of the then, as now, leading newspaper of the State, the
Newark Datly Advertiser. This involved little absence
from practice and extended his acquaintance among lead-
ing men. His communications were widely read, their
author became known, and their good sense and literary
ability increased his reputation.

About this time great opposition occurred to the Cam-
den and Amboy Railroad Company—odious as an asserted
monopoly ; and believed, wrongfully, as I think it turned
out, to have been unfaithful to the State as one of its
stockholders. ‘To allay the excitement which arose, the
company selected three citizens of the highest repute for
integrity and capacity and submitted its books to their ex-
amination. This board selected Judge Bradley as its clerk.
He possessed minute and practical knowledge of book-
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 13

keeping, and became soon thoroughly familiar, more so
than any of its employés, with all the affairs of the cor-
poration.

The report of these gentlemen intensified the excite-
ment. ‘They were christened the Whitewashing Commit-
tee, and their well-earned lofty character was no shield
against the most cruel animadversions. ‘The legislature
would have nothing to do with their report, but appointed
a committee of their own, with instructions to fathom all
the supposed iniquities which were thought to be con-
cealed.

Thus put on their defense, the corporation chose Judge
Bradley as their counsel. He spent months in this service,
and triumphantly. And such was the reputation he thus
acquired that he was made the regular counsel of the cor-
‘poration, and soon after one of its directors. He was thus
set upon the pathway to fortune and professional fame.
He retained this place, and was the counsel of the United
Canal and Railway Company and one of their most in-
fluential directors when he was selected to fill the place
from which death has taken him.

This position, and the thorough knowledge of the law
which his habits of severe study had given him, and with
his possession of which the community soon became ac-
quainted, gave him a large and lucrative practice of a
varied character, the exhausting nature of which induced
him, so he said, to look to the bench as a means of extend-
ing the period of his life.

I am not sure that he was not right in this. His con-
stitution in early life was frail. On at least three occa-
sions, within my own knowledge, he was in great peril.
And while he probably depreciated, until experience taught
him, the severity of the labor required of the members of
the Supreme Court, he escaped there the worry which sO
much exceeds work in its injury to vitality.
14 IN MEMORIAM.

His practice at the bar, as I have said, was a very varied
one. On four occasions at least, as I remember, he de-
fended parties accused of homicide, and he appeared in
other criminal cases. But that branch of litigation was
certainly neither his fore nor one that he desired. In real
estate matters, patents, will cases, corporation cases, con-
stitutional cases, matters of contract, and civil actions in
tort; in fine, in every sort of litigation he had a large,
share There were certainly very few causes of import-
ance in which, on one side or the other, he did not ap-
pear. Secretary Frelinghuysen throughout his practice
frequently called him to his aid, and the two together
were not easy to match—the one distinguished in every
art of forensic skill and for winning eloquence, the other
for knowledge of the law and skill in its application, while
both were famous for pugnacity and persistence.

The reports of the Supreme Court since he was a mem-
ber show, and the profession throughout the country ac-.
knowledge and admire, the depth and breadth of his legal
knowledge, his clear apprehension and statement, his clean-
cut logic, his power of lucid exposition, as well as his un-
swerving pursuit of the right as he regarded it. He has
established, far and wide, his reputation as a great judge.
But those who knew him best, in my judgment, will speak
with more wonder of his acquisitions in other departments
of thought than the law. I am free to say that it has not
ever happened to me to meet a man informed on so many
subjects entirely foreign to his profession—and informed,
not slightly or passably, but deeply—as it seemed,
thoroughly on them all. Literature, solid or light, in
poetry or prose ; science ; art ; history, ancient and modern ;
political economy; hieroglyphics; modern languages,
studied that he might acquaint himself with great
authors in their own tongues; the Hebrew and kindred
tongues that he might perfect himself in Biblical study ;
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 15

mathematics, in knowledge of which he was excelled by
few—all these were constantly subjects of his study. How
he found time for all he did his friends could never com-
prehend. But his powers of comprehension and acquisi-
tion were most remarkable, and his memory of facts and
doctrine was simply a wonder. Whatever he read became
at once his property, and remained so, to be called up for
use whenever required.

His talent as an advocate was great, not especially in
merely fact causes, but upon questions of law ; and before a
bench, right or wrong, he was among the most formidable.
And his shrewdness in management, both in strategy and
tactics, became, in time, very distinguished.

His special intellectual distinction was thoroughness.
He was never satisfied till he had gotten to the very bottom
of every subject to which he devoted himself. In college
and while studying law he studied topics, not text-books.,
I doubt if he ever read a treatise consecutively through.
He used text-books to aid him, but he adopted no man’s
opinions as such. If he had a fault as a. lawyer, perhaps
as a judge, it was, I think, that he feared to worship the
doctrine of stave decists. I do not mean that he abjured
that doctrine ; far from it. I mean only that he thought
there might be an abject submission to what had been
established as law, and so was readier than many to follow
the right as he understood it, the opinions of others to the
coutrary. a:

He was not generally an eloquent speaker, though
earnest, and often impassioned. He was clear, orderly,
and lucid. Once, in the defense of a murder cause, in
which he and I were together, he displayed talent as an
orator for which I had never credited him. He was like
Webster in weight of thought and in solemnity of diction.

What he was upon the bench I shall leave to others to
say. It was with pride that we all in New Jersey saw,
16 IN MEMORIAM.

soon after he took his seat, that he, only the second man
who for a century has been called to the United States
Supreme Court from our bar, was so eminent and so appre-
ciated. True, he was born in New York ; but his educa-
tion and his legal equipment were in New Jersey. We are
rather proud, let me confess, that we have given to the
highest American tribunal Judge Paterson and Judge
Bradley.

As an associate and a friend he was always kindly and
manly. He practiced no popularizing arts, yet he was
always glad to do a kindness. He did not forget his own
interest, but he invaded no one’s rights. He loved to be
hospitable. He did not forget early friends. Over the
mantel in the room he mostly occupied there is a multitude
of photographs, likenesses of the friends of his youth ;
proof of the tenacity of his affections.

This is no place to dwell on his character in domestic
life. It is not wrong to say, however, that allallied to him
have occasion to mourn him as a useful and steady friend
and helper.

He was a patriot; in doctrine a nationalist. In the
dreadful days of our civil war, through his connection with
the New Jersey Railroad Companies, he was, at the early
crisis of the war, when the question of transportation of
troops to Washington was vital, of much more service than
the world in general knew. And throughout the struggle
he was a power for good to the country.

One thing more I add. He was a Christian, a lover and
a student of the Bible, decided in his support of the
Christian Church. His failings in the Christian life (for
who of us is perfect ?) were as much eccentricities as faults.
In every substantial respect he sought to do his duty.

Pardon the extent to which my long-lived friendship has
extended these remarks. His departure leaves me very
much alone. And yet I can scarcely mourn him. A life
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. | 17

of nearly four score years, full of usefulness, full of honor,
leaving behind him in sixty volumes of reports proofs of his
wisdom, his erudition, his love of right and of justice, his
loyalty to the Constitution and the nationality it created—
of men who finish such a life, it may be said, with ex-
ceeding truth and force, ‘‘They rest from their labors
and their works do follow them.’’ ‘The voice of the great
judge never dies. From age to age we hear and obey it.
Is Marshall dead? Is Taney? Is Chase? Is Story? Are
their compeers? Notso. Not so. ‘They speak, and with
authority—authority, in the case of some of them, increas-
ing as the years roll on. They depart, indeed, but on
earth, as in the far Beyond, they are immortal.

This immortality, throughout the lifetime of law in this
greatest of republics, will Joseph P. Bradley, the farmer’s
boy of the Helderberg, enjoy—immortality as an. example
to every lad that shall live upon our soil of what may be
attained by resolution, energy, self-reliance, love of work,
love of usefulness, and love of duty, and by that industry and
integrity which these qualities of true manliness inspire.

And uow, brethren of the bar, let me say my word of
parting to my friend—friend of my youth, my manhood, my
later years—gone before to fathom the mysteries and enjoy
what God gives to those ‘‘not dead but sleeping,’’ to
whom, I hope and believe, death is life—‘‘Vale/ Vale!
atque salve /”’ Farewell! Farewell! And yet, all hail?

REMARKS OF MR. GEORGE HARDING.

Before his accession to the bench it was my privilege
‘to have.an intimate acquaintance with Justice Bradley,
which continued until his death.

Justice Bradley presented a combination of dignity of
character with great simplicity. While upon the bench
18 IN MEMORIAM.

he was a model of judicial deportment. He never, either
in the Supreme Court or in the circuit, condescended to .
levity or familiarity. He was always a patient and at-
tentive listener. He rapidly appreciated every subject
or point presented. He instantly detected fallacy and
yielded his judgment as promptly to sound logic. He
was thoroughly impartial in his manner and wholly un-
influenced by personal attachments or sympathy. ‘The in-
experienced and unknown, and the able and renowned,
advocate received from him like attention and consider-
ation. ‘

He assumed to himself no intuitive power of perceiving _
which side of a case should, on the whole, prevail, in advance
of fullargument. On the contrary, he maintained his judg-
ment in complete suspense until both sides had been fully
presented. After argument he retired to his library and ex-
amined the records and briefs patiently before arriving at a
decision. He was accustomed oftentimes to prepare an out-
line of an opinion which he laid aside temporarily in order .
to return to it again after an interval, to criticise his own
work and to see if he was still satisfied with the conclusion
reached and the reasoning on which it was based. It is
known to his associates that not infrequently after preparing
this written outline, his own criticism thereon induced him
to change his conclusions and rewrite a new opinion adverse
to his first draft. ‘These outlines or draft opinions he called
his ‘‘ studies.”

Whenever his mind was engaged in reflection upon any
subjects outside of the law, he in like manner reduced his
temporary reflection to writing in the form of the so-called
‘‘studies.’’ It afforded great pleasure to his intimate
friends to have him take down his book of ‘studies’ and
read therefrom some recorded train of thought thus evolved
by him. He would recur to these “studies” long after
they were written and modify them by his subsequent
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 19

reflection. When he had arrived at a final decision in any
case argued before him, he displayed the highest courage
in asserting and maintaining his conclusions. Judge
Bradley’s mind exhibited the result of a combination of
thorough mathematical and classical training with a legal
training, under a separate system of equity and law, as still
preserved in the State of New Jersey. When he emerged
from college he was equally proficient in both mathematics
and in Latin and Greek. When he left the bar for the
bench he was a fully trained common-law lawyer. and
a counsellor in chancery. After he was assigned to the
Fifth Circuit he made an exhaustive study of the theory
aud practice of civil law, and thoroughly mastered it. In
his opinions, “the precision and close reasoning due to
mathematical training may be observed, united to a clear
comprehension of the line between legal and equitable
jurisdiction and relief, and the peculiarities of the civil
law. As an illustration of the extent to which his mathe-
matical training pervaded his mind, I may mention that in
his last conversation, a few days before his death, in speaking
of Burton on Real Property he said, ‘‘’The book reminds —
me of Euclid.”

When off the bench he was simple and unpresuming.
He enjoyed free intercourse with the young and unlearned.
On his vacations he would spend hours with farmers and
laboring men, conversing about matters which most inter-
ested them, instead of with those who might have adulated
him for his learning and high judicial position. He sedu-
lously avoided all occasions where social attention and dis-
play would have been thrust upon him. It was these
lovable qualities which made him the object of so much
and such widespread affection from all classes of the com-
munity. He indeed at times displayed ebullition of feeling,
such as many men of genius have done before ; but in his
case it quickly subsided, and the deep regret, which he
20 IN MEMORIAM.

promptly expressed for not having controlled himself,
endeared him all the more to those who had encountered it.

He had great happiness in the companionship of his
books. He had amassed together many valuable and rare
works, and he reveled in his literary wealth. When he
visited the circuit he spent most of his leisure in hunting
ainong old collections. The wisdom of Shakespeare and
the massive style of Bolingbroke were favorite topics of his
conversation.

Of Judge Bradley’s qualities it may certainly be said that,
as a lawyer andas a judge, his honor and his integrity were
not only above impeachment or imputation, but beyond the
thought of it. He was kind in-principle and heart. In this
connection I may advert to the cruel and unjust aspersions
cast upon him by reason of his action in the Legal Tender
cases. ‘The first decision against the constitutionality of
the Legal Tender Act was rendered by a majority of five
to three of this court on the 7th of February, 1870. Mr.
Bradley’s nomination was prepared by President Grant, on
the 5th of February, and transmitted to the Senate on the
7th of February, actually prior to the reading of that
decision in court. Those, therefore, who censured Judge
Bradley and the Executive implied that this court had im-
properly communicated its decision in advance to the Ex-
ecutive, and that the Executive and Mr. Bradley had entered
into a compact that if appointed he would vote to reverse
that decision. The simple statement of dates I have recalled
to you is sufficient to remind you how false and slanderous
were the charges that the appointments of Judges Bradley
and Strong were intended to secure a reversal of the
decision of the court upon the Legal Tender Act.

Judge Bradley, in delivering his able opinion in that case,
concurred with Justices Miller, Davis, Strong, and Swayne
and with fifteen of the Supreme Courts of the several States,
while the contrary doctrine had been maintained by only
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 21

one State Supreme Court—that of Kentucky. ‘That decis-
ion, moreover, was contrary to and reversed the decision
of the eminent Chancellor of Kentucky.

_Aspersions have been attempted to be cast upon Justice
Bradley because he concurred with the majority in his
decision in the electoral commission. He was called to per-
form an office which was no part of his duty, and while he
was certain his action must expose him to the enmity of
one or the other of the two great political parties of the
country, he nevertheless patriotically entered upon it and
fearlessly performed the duty thrust upon him. ‘Those
nearest to him at the time know that while so acting he re-
fused access to himself to all who sought to advise or to
influence him, and decided conscientiously according to the
dictates of his judgment. ‘Politicians, lawyers, personal
friends called to advise him—even a high ecclesiastic called
to counsel, and perhaps, pray with him—but to all he was
alike inaccessible. He had reached the summit of his
legal ambition. His position was secured for life. He had
never been a partisan politician. His most intimate, per-
sonal friends and admirers belonged to both political parties.
What motive of friendship or reward then existed to
swerve his judgment? He placed the reasons for his judg-
ment on record, and few of those who have sought to
abuse him have troubled themselves to read or reply there-
to, but have contented themselves with impugning his
motives. He bore the slanders heaped on him by political
rancor with dignity and patience, conscious of their
falsity and injustice. JI mention all this now because the
occurrences are within my recollection and I think they
should always be remembered in this connection.

In his opinions on questions of constitutional law Justice
Bradley has placed himself in the very first rank of the
eminent men who have adorned the Supreme Court. It is
sufficient here to remind you of his opinion on the powers
22 IN MEMORIAM.

of Congress in reference to civil rights under the thirteenth
and fourteenth amendments to the Constitution (civil rights
cases, 109 U. S., 3); of his opinion on habeas corpus and
the power of the Federal Courts to issue the same (ex parte
Parks, 93 U. S., 18, ex parte Siebald, 100 U. S., 371, ex
parte Clark, /d., 400)—of his opinions on the boundary
between State and Federal power in cases affecting inter-
state and foreign commerce ; (Transportation Co. vs. Park-
ersburg, 107 U.S., 702; Brown vs. Houston, 114 U.S., 622;
Walling vs. Michigan, 116 U. S., 406; Coe ws. Errol, Za,
517; Robbins vs. Shelby Co., 120 U.S., 489 ;)—of his opin-
ion on the unconstitutionality of seizure of private papers
in criminal and penal cases: (Boyd ws. U. S., 116 U. S.,
616;)—of his opinion on the right of the Federal Courts
to construe State laws: (Burgess vs. Seligman, 107
U.« S., 20):

By reason of his eminent scientific and mechanical at-
tainments and his wonderfully quick perception, combined
with a habit of patient attention, he was well fitted to
investigate and decide questions arising under the patent
law. In that branch of law, as a judge, he has never been
surpassed, if he has been equaled. No matter what de-
partment of the arts was invoived—mechanics, chemistry,
electricity, or steam engineering—he mastered the subject.
He fully comprehended the true philosophy of the patent
law itself. By the now famous opinion he delivered on
the law of reissues he revolutionized the recognized prac-
tice under this branch of the law. He there demonstrated
that the true construction of the patent law authorized no
alteration in the specification of an existing patent unless
promptly made and for the purpose of correcting a real
bona fide mistake inadvertently committed, such as a Court
of Chancery, in cases within its ordinary jurisdiction,
would correct. This decision ended forever the practice of
reissuing patents in the hands of speculators to cover
JOSEPH P, BRADLEY. 23

inventions made by subsequent inventors and not contem-
plated by the patentee himself, and thus removed the
greatest stigma upon our patent system.

So, again, by his opiuion in the fat acid and glycerine
case, he demonstrated that the true spirit and intent of the
patent law was to secure to the inventor of a new applica-
tion of a principle to effect a useful purpose, a monopoly of
the application of the principle, instead of limiting him to
the special means which he had described in his specifica-
tion—reversing a prior decision of this court. We cannot
but feel that it was to him largely that the American patent
law is indebted for these and many other contributions.

During the first ten years that he was on the bench he
never omitted visiting every part of the Fifth Circuit (ex-
tending from Florida to Texas) during the heat of the
summer recess of the Supreme Court. After he was
transferred to the Third Circuit he continued faithfully to
visit that circuit'in each year. His last act was to pre-
side at the organization of the Court of se aaa for that
circuit.

Mr. Justice Bradley was always at work. He sought
recreation, like Franklin, not in idle rest, but in variation
of occupation. His favorite amusement in the summer
vacation was mathematics—surveying, algebra, and astro-
nomical calculations. I remember especially one summer
vacation in the mountains that he amused himself by de-
termining the true meridian line by a new set of observa-
tions planned by himself. He worked at it industriously
at night by the aid of the stars, and when he had fixed the
line with great accuracy, it was cut into the solid rock, and
there, upon the mountain summit, it will be hereafter
known as Bradley’s Meridian Line.

I desire to repeat his own account of an incident in his
early life which may perhaps interest you. Justice Bradley,
while walking near the banks of the Hudson River, pointed
24 IN MEMORIAM.

to the old steamboat landing at Catskill, and said to me:
“An incident occurred there when I was a boy which de-
termined my career in life. While working upon my
father’s farm I received a letter from New York informing
me that a New York grocer wanted a young man in his
store and that I could have the position. I packed my
clothes and walked to the Catskill landing, intending to
take the steamboat on its way from Albany to New York.
It was late in the fall, and during the preceding night a
thin layer of ice had formed around the pier and extended
out into the river. "The steamboat approached the wharf,
but the ice interfered with its landing. The boat backed
out and made a second, and then a third, unsuccessful
attempt at landing. Then the captain waved his hand to
those on shore, and the boat pursued its course to New
York. I knew it was the last trip ‘of the boat for that
season. I turned away, sad and disappointed. I felt that
my prospect in life was gone. I walked into the little inn
and sat down to reflect what I should do. While I sat
there, despondent and. gloomy, the dominie of the village
came in. I told him of my disappointment and that my
future was dark. He said: ‘Come with me and I will
find some work for you about my place, and you can study
at night, and at odd times, under my direction.’ I picked
up my bundle and accompanied him home. By night I
studied the few books he had, and in the day I made my-
self useful to him. He directed my thoughts to studying
Latin and Greek and preparing for the ministry, and so it
came out that I was afterwards sent to Rutgers College.
On how little a thing,” he said, ‘‘a man’s career in life
depends. If the boat had reached the wharf I should have
been a grocer’s clerk, and probably a grocer.”

Those only who have had the privilege of an intimate
friendship with Justice Bradley can estimate its value.
His predecessor, Justice Grier, admired and respected him
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 25

for his ability and loved him for his personal qualities ;
and when he tendered his resignation, it was accompanied
with a most earnest request to the President that Mr.
Bradley might succeed him. ‘The consciousness that he
was successful in attaining this wish was a source of com-
fort to him during his remaining life.

The devoted attachment of the bar and citizens of New
Jersey was demonstrated in the immense throng of citizens,
who, with sorrowing hearts, filled the old Dutch Church
at Newark at his obsequies. The lifelong friendship which
subsisted between him and the late Secretary Frelinghuysen
and Courtlandt Parker, through all the rivalry of college
and the contests at the bar, is known to you all. Justice
Bradley was as great as a friend as he was as a judge.

REMARKS OF MR. A. Q. KEASBEY.

I knew and honored Mr. Justice Bradley for nearly half
acentury. He was my friend throughout my whole pro-
fessional life—at the bar of my State and through his serv-
ice on this bench. Few knew more intimately the traits
of his character, and none can appreciate more fully his
personal qualities, his great and varied learning, his logical
power, his mastery of language, his grasp of fundamental
truths, his knowledge of jurisprudence in its widest sense,
his broad views of constitutional law and the relations of
our complex governments, his wisdom in great matters of
national policy, and his courage in expressing his con-
victions. And few have better reason to remember the
gentler graces of his character, his ready kindness and
sympathy, and the hospitalities of his home—or more
cause to deplore his loss.

But of all these I will not speak here in this scene of
the illustrious labors of his later years. It has been the
26 IN MEMORIAM.

habit of men to suppress personal emotions in doing honor
to soldiers dying on the field in the discharge of military
duty, and to exult rather than mourn, declaring, with
Horace, that it is sweet and decorous to die for one’s coun-
try. And surely when we come to pay our tribute to the
memory of one who, after reaching the age of fifty-seven,
devoted twenty-two years of his life to such high service
as he was enabled to render—dying at last in the fullest
ripeness of his powers—we may almost forget our grief in
admiration for his achievements and gratitude for the fruits
of his labors.

Let me therefore speak of him in his victories of peace,
as we do of the heroes, not in the accents of mourning,
but in tones of exultation for the service he has been per-
mitted to perform for his country.

The judge, so long as the heart of a State is sound, is
always an object of honor. The man whom Sir Philip
Sydney called, ‘‘ The indifferent judge between the high
and low’’—the judge whom no king can corrupt—the
final arbiter of private interests and the vindicator of per-
‘sonal rights, is always a commanding and interesting figure.
But the judge who sits here, with the powers conferred by
our judicial system on this unique tribunal, of which the
keenest foreign observer declares that, of all our institu-
tions, few are better worth studying, few deserve more
admiration or have more contributed to the peace and well-
being of the country—a judge clothed with power to ex-
pound the written constitution of a great nation, thus
shaping its destiny by moulding its organic law—to guide
a complex system of State governments in harmony with a
supreme central power—to control by a few words quietly
spoken in this chamber the political storms that threaten
to wreck the State, and to hold with a firm and impartial
hand scales of justice in which the most momentous public
interests must be weighed—such a judge as this has a work
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 27

to do which, when well done, and not untimely ended,
may well beguile us to remember no more our sorrow, and
express only our gratitude and admiration for a faithful
servant of the State in peace, as we do for soldiers in war.

To this work Mr. Justice Bradley brought the rich ma-
turity of his powers, the fullness of his stores of learning,
and the weight of his personal character, at a time when a
turning point in the history of the country had been re-
cently passed and the gravest questions of its policy were
demanding solution.

I cannot, in the few words I may say here, attempt even
to sketch the part he took in that work. He was fully
equipped for it, not by any judicial experience, but by
great acquisitions of learning, by a wide range of profes-
sional experience, and by participation in important prac-
tical affairs. And, therefore, conscious of his powers, he
entered upon it with alacrity, as congenial to his nature
and training. I was with him when a telegram announced
his confirmation, and I knew that he went out to his post
with a soldier’s joy of the contest, welcoming the larger
duties which his new field afforded. Only four of all who
preceded him were more advanced in years at the time of
appointment, but it is a subject of national congratulation
that only fourteen of the entire body of fifty-three men
who have composed the court since its organization ex-
ceeded him in length of service, including one who still
adoms the bench, and whose eulogy for his great share of
its work will, I trust, be long delayed.

When Mr. Justice Bradley assumed his duties at that
ripe age he was equal to the work in all its wide range,
from the pecuniary controversies of individuals to the
largest issues affecting the foundations of government.

But there were some branches in which he took espe-
cial interest, and in which his acquirements and habits of
mind gave his efforts especial value. In these he rendered
28 IN MEMORIAM.

services whose influence upon the future of the country can
never be effaced. In matters of adiniralty, in the judicial
development of the patent system, in the difficult depart-
ment of civil rights under the amendments to the Consti-
tution, in questions of Federal jurisdiction and the construc-
tion of the Federal Constitution and Statutes, his powers of
mind and his practical wisdom were signally manifested.

I wish to refer to one only of these important fields of
his labor—that which concerned the working of our Fed-
eral system. He felt, to the fullest extent, the significance
of this branch of his duty. He knew its far-reaching
influence and spoke of it to me in our last interview, re-
viewing his work with a painful consciousness that it was
almost done.

To men of his mould age may bring lassitude as to
matters of transient interest—the drudgery of the bench—
but as to labors which concern the permanence of our
national system and the future well-being of the country,
the unimpaired mind struggles to lift itself free from the
burden of failing physical powers.

He rejoiced in such labors to the end. It is understood
that he dropped his pen at last in the midst of an opinion
maintaining the power of the national legislature to refuse
the agencies of the Government to a service injurious to
the moral welfare of the people.

I wish it were possible for me in a few sentences to give
even a bare outline of the import of his judicial labors in
this one branch—the relations of the State to the Nation.
But it would require a power like hisown. Indeed, I can,
perhaps, better portray the spirit and meaning of his efforts
in this branch of his duty by using some of hisown words.

In one of his earliest opinions, December Term, 1870—
a dissenting opinion—he said :—

‘“‘Tt is the common government of all alike. * * *
I cannot accede to the doctrine that the General Government
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 29

is in any sense foreign or antagonistic to the State govern-
ments, their officers or people. Nor can I agree that a
presumption can be admitted that the General Government
will act in a manner hostile to the existence or franchises
of the State governments, which are constitutional parts of
the system or body politic forming the basis on which the
General Government is founded. * * * Jamas much
opposed as any one can be to any interference by the
General Government with the just powers of the State. But
no concession of any of the just powers of the General
Government can be easily recalled.”

Here, at the outset, he touched the keynote of the strain —
which sounds throughout all his judicial utterances on this
subject.

Again, soon afterwards, he said :—

“A citizen of the United States has a perfect constitu-
tional right to go and reside in any State he chooses, and
to claim citizenship therein and an equality of rights with
every other citizen, and the whole power of the nation is
pledged to sustain him in that right. He is not bound to
cringe to any superior or to pray for any act of grace as a
means of enjoying all the rights and privileges enjoyed by
other citizens.”’ ;

About ten years afterwards he declared, in the tone of
exhortation rather than judgment :—

‘Let a spirit of national as well as local patriotism once
prevail, let unfounded jealousies cease, and we shall hear
no more about the impossibility of harmonious action
between the National and State governments in a matter
in which they have a mutual interest.’’

And again, after the lapse of eight years, he said, in deal-
ing with the subject of interstate commerce, in which he
had always taken profound interest :-—

‘“The power of Congress is supreme over the whole
subject, unimpeded and unembarrassed by State lines or
30 IN MEMORIAM.

State laws. In this matter the country is one and the work
to be accomplished is national, and State interests, State
jealousies, and State prejudices do not require to be con-
sulted. In matters of foreign and interstate commerce
there are no States.”’

These words of his reveal the spirit in which fig: dealt
with these great subjects. They indicate the lines of force
in which his faculties were directed in those matters so
vital in the working of our Federal system.

May I not claim, without approaching any field of
political controversy, that his services in these lines, during
more than twenty years, have redounded to the stability
and glory of his country? Is not the United States of
America more proudly and permanently ‘‘one country”
amongst the nations of the earth by reason of his labors?
Have not State jealousies been assuaged and State prejudices
subdued and State interests made one with the interests
of the nation, by quiet, irresistible forces set in motion, in
no small degree, by him? Is not every American citizen
more free to pass through all this land without cringing
to any superior or praying for any act of grace, through
immunity which he helped to give? Has not the march
of this Republic to the front rank of civilized states, during
the last quarter of a century, been impelled and sustained
by the words he has spoken here from year to year ?

And finally, taking thé whole scope of his judicial
action, and recalling his part in that remarkable tribunal
which held popular passions in check while it adjudged
the great question of the title to executive power, may we
not claim for him no small share in teaching that lesson,
which mankind must some time learn, however painfully,
that the arbitrament of war is barbarous, and that—

A peace is of the nature of a conquest,
For then both parties nobly are subdued,
And neither party loser.
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 31

If so, we may well do him honor, now that his words
may be spoken no more. For myself, I am proud that the
bar of my State and city gave him to the service of the
country, and putting aside all expression of personal
sorrow, I pay my tribute to him as one of the wisest,
ablest, and most upright of the members of this tribunal,
upon whose continued wisdom, ability, and uprightness
the future of the country in a great measure depends.

REMARKS OF MR. SAMUEL DICKSON.

Mr. CHAIRMAN:—The work of Mr. Justice Bradley as a
member of the court of last resort was, of course, his most
important and enduring work ; and the opinions delivered
by him will long serve as beacon lights of the law to
enlighten and guide those. engaged in its practice or
exposition. But it was while serving upon the circuit
that he best displayed what manner of a lawyer he really
was. Asa rule, he disposed of the cases which there came
before him at the close of the argument, or filed an opinion
at the next session of the court ; and he seldom, if ever,
left Philadelphia till every case had been decided.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the impression pro-
duced by his visits. The variety, the extent, and the
accuracy of his learning, the quickness of his perception,
and the certainty of his judgment, made his dispatch of
the list a most interesting exhibition of intellectual power
and resource, even to those not immediately engaged as
counsel. ‘The well-known remark of Bacon found in him
both confirmation and illustration. Reading had made
him a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an
exact man. Only the specialists in patent and maritime
law could fully appreciate his merits in their particular
32 IN MEMORIAM.

lines of study ; but it is probable that with us the general
practitioner was most struck with Judge Bradley’s famil-
jarity with the forms as well as the principles of equity,
and with every phase of the law of corporations. Coming,
as he did, from a State which has always maintained a
separate Court of Chancery, he had an easy mastery of the
principles and proceedings in equity never surpassed, if
equaled, in this country. In this connection it may be
interesting to note that his reference, in Thomson vs.
Wooster, in 114th U. S., to the first edition of Daniell’s
Chancery, as the only edition exhibiting ‘‘the present
practice of the High Court of Chancery in England,”
alluded to and adopted by the Ninetieth Rule, created such
a demand for that edition that it is now almost impossible
to find a copy. ‘The most elaborate opinions filed by him
in Philadelphia related to the liability of stockholders of
insolvent corporations; but one of the most important
concerned the foreclosure of a railroad mortgage. When
sitting in the Fifth Circuit he had had large experience
in this branch of the law. Nearly every railroad in the
Southwest was, at that time, in the hands of receivers;
aud it would seem that no question could ever arise con-
cerning the effect or enforcement of railroad mortgages, or
the administration of receivers, which had not been con-
sidered and discussed by him in the opinions contained in
the volumes of Reports, edited by Judge Woods, then of
that circuit.

It is well known that immediately after his appointment
Mr. Justice Bradley undertook the systematic study of the
civil law, and it is the concurrent testimony of the Louisiana
bar that he made himself a most accomplished civilian.

The most interesting revelation of himself, however, was
furnished in an address, which he delivered before the Law
Department of the University of Pennsylvania, in October,
1884, upon The Office and Nature of Law as the Basis and
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 23

Bond of Saciety. So far as I know, it can only be found
in the Legal Intelligencer, of Philadelphia, and it might
well be published as a supplement to one of the vol-
umes of Reports of the Court, or of the proceedings of
this meeting. The advice given to the students as to
methods of study is, obviously, and in part avowedly,
based upon his own experience. In treating of the
importance of acquiring a correct style, he refers to Mr.
George Wood as the greatest forensic speaker he had ever
heard, and ascribes the purity and felicity of his style to
his habit of memorizing Blackstone. He adds that he had
studied Gilbert on Evidence in the same way, and declares
that he had derived ‘‘as much benefit from that little old
book, thus thoroughly learned, as from any other, except,
perhaps, Stephen on Pleading.’’? While thus enjoining
thoroughness in the study of certain selected books, he
emphasizes the necessity of general culture and wide
inquiry in every department of knowledge, and he closes
with a description of a lawyer, which may well be accepted
as a faithful, but not too flattering, portrait of himself :—

‘“To sum up all in one word, in order to be an accom-
plished lawyer, it is necessary, besides having a knowledge
‘of the law, to be an accomplished man, graced with at
least a general knowledge of history, of science, of phil-
osophy, of the useful arts, of the modes of business, of
everything, in fact, that concerns the well-being and inter-
course of men in society. He ought to be a man of large
understanding ; he must be a man of large acquirements
and rich in general information ; for he is the priest of the
law, which is the bond and support of civil society, and
which extends to and regulates every relation of one man
to another in that society and every transaction that takes
place in it.

“Trained in such a profession, and having these acquire-
ments and two things more (which can never be omitted
34 IN MEMORIAM.

from the category of qualifications), incorruptible integrity |
and a high sense of honor, the true lawyer cannot but be
the highest style of man, fit for any position of trust,
public or private ; one to whom the community can look
up to as a leader and guide ; fit to judge and to rule in the
highest places of magistracy and government ; an honor to
himself, an honor to his kind.’’

Mr. Chairman, much has been heard, of late, of the
probable necessity of compelling the respect of other coun-
tries by force of arms; but in this room, at least, it may
be permitted to doubt if the infirm little old man, who
lately sat upon that bench and who had for nearly a quar-
ter of a century done his full share, and more than his
share, by the constant and unfaltering exhibition of vast
learning, assiduous industry, and an enlightened sense of
justice, to enhance and enlarge the fame of the Supreme
Court of the United States, did not do more to win for
this Government and his fellow-citizens the confidence and
esteem of other lands than will ever be secured by any
demonstration of force, however victorious it may be.
That court has often been spoken of as a more than Am-
phictyonic Council. It has administered justice between
the alien and the citizen with steady hand, and it has
composed the strife of co-equal States ; and so well has it
performed its task, not only in the eyes of the American
people, but of all peoples, that within the last twelve
months the Queen of England has attempted to bring be-
fore it the question of the rights of British ships in the
waters of the Pacific, and the Republic of Chile has offered
to submit to its arbitrament the question whether it had
fulfilled its duty to the Government, of which that court
isa part. Such tributes to the learning, the impartiality,
and the competency of a court are without parallel in
history, and almost exalt it to the position assigned to,
but never attained by, the Emperor of the Holy Roman
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. ; 25

Empire, whose proudest title was /mperator Pacificus, and
whose duty it was, we are told, ‘‘to preserve peace, and
be a fountain of that by which alone among imperfect
men peace is preserved and restored, law and justice ; to
be upon earth the representative of the Prince of Peace
and to maintain throughout the world, looking down as
from a serene height, that supreme good without which
neither arts nor letters, nor the gentler virtues of life can
rise and flourish.”’

Seeing how nearly that ideal has been realized by the
tribunal of which Mr. Justice Bradley was not the least
illustrious member, it is easy to believe that

Peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war.

REMARKS OF MR. JONATHAN DIXON.

Mr. CHAIRMAN :—In estimating the character of Jus-
tice Bradley we must mark the beginning as well as
the ending of his course.

He was born poor; he died rich, with wealth earned
by himself. He was born in lowly station ; he died at
an eminence beyond which the lawyer’s ambition cannot
soar. ‘The interval denotes the vigor and steadiness of his
march.

We must also remember who were his cotemporaries,
his competitors without rivalry.

At the bar of New Jersey there were William L. Day-
ton, William Pennington, Henry W. Green, Abraham O.
Zabriskie, Peter D. Vroom, and Frederick T. Frelinghuy-
sen, names that bring to the heart of every educated Jer-
seyman a thrill of pride. Besides these, there still survive
others, their peers, whose lives and characters New Jersey
36 IN MEMORIAM.

cherishes with high regard. Among them all, Bradley
was ever found abreast of the foremost.

And while he sat upon this bench, here were Chase and
Davis and Miller and their associates, the picked minds of
the country.

In your dispassionate judgment was Justice Bradley
second to any one?

But the chief of all tributes to his powers is the work
which he here performed.

To compass the diversified statutes of these numerous
Commonwealths and fit them like well-made garments —
upon the shapely body of the common law, to sift and
weigh the reasonings, sound or sophistical, of the ablest
lawyers whom the nation produces; this is the constant
occupation of the court. But the period of Justice Brad-
ley’s service was crowded with exceptzonal labors.

The bankrupt law, the confiscation acts, the far-reach-
ing fingers of taxation, the enfranchisement of the freed-
man, the restoration to each State of its due autonomy,
the adjustment of a political struggle in face of which
the Union trembled, the great and rapid strides of the
useful arts, the numerous issues upspringing from the
guardianship reposed in the Federal Government over
the life, liberty, and property. of every citizen, and that
vast field for legislation and litigation which the im-
mense development of foreign and interstate commerce
has opened ; from all these sources came a tide of judi-
cial duty which only the strongest could surmount.

To these tasks Justice Bradley brought habits of in-
dustry formed by fifty years of unremitting effort, a ca-
pacious mind stored with learning from every quarter, a
keen and far-sighted power of observation which no sug-
gestion of law or fact could escape, a faculty of analysis
that simplified the most complex problems, a judgment
which moved to its conclusions with unswerving logic,
| JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. a7

an independence born of the consciousness of personal
responsibility, a sense of justice that gave to every one his
own, and a patriotism that sought the greatest good of all.

Can we wonder that he was equal to his station ?

At this station came the end—

“Flic labor extremus, longarum haec meta viarum.”

And now we attempt the words, not of praise, but of
appreciation : and if he was such a man as I think him
to have been, if I have truly touched his qualities and
his achievements, tell me, would not the highest eulogies
fall short of his worth ?

REMARKS OF MR. R. C. McMURTRIE.

In what respect could one have desired that he should
have been otherwise than he was, either in character,
ability, learning, or conduct? I think this may be fearlessly
asked by any one in any place.

Great experience in affairs gave him an inestimable
advantage in understanding the real effect of facts, con-
tracts, usages. Great acuteness was tempered and guided -
by practical wisdom. Quickness of apprehension was
coupled with a deferential patience so fascinating to the
advocate. And there was then acharm of manner, a high-
bred courtesy, which, combined with all ‘that one could
desire of the more sterling virtues, made Judge Bradley
one of the most conspicuous among those who have served
the country in the administration of justice.

REMARKS OF MR. JOHN G. JOHNSON.

Justice Bradley’s loss is a loss to the nation which, at the
time of his death, was his debtor, greatly his debtor, for
services he had rendered to it in the administration of the
28 IN MEMORIAM.

law—invaluable services, which could not have been better
performed.

The opinions. he delivered, to be found in. so many
volumes of the reports of the Supreme Court of the United
States, did more than wisely settle the particular controver-
sies which elicited them. ‘They made impossible any
future question concerning the points of commercial, mari-
time, or constitutional law involved therein. Whilst he
never went out of his way to say aught which displayed
his learning, it shone through every paragraph he wrote.

His decisions belonged to that rare class, those which,
whilst they pleased the victor, convinced the vanquished
by their demonstration.

His grasp of the cases presented to him for adjudication
was instant and was extraordinarily vigorous.

No lawyer, no matter how thorough his research in any
particular case, was able to present to him an authority of
which he was ignorant, or a principle of law which was
new to him.

At the end of an argument, no matter how complicated
the questions of law and of fact it covered, he was ready
with a judgment, ripe and matured. Whilst his sense of
duty made him investigate, and debate with himself, after
the discussion had ceased, his equipment was so thorough
that such investigation and debate, did little more than
enable him better to round the sentences by which his
judgment was expressed.

It is rarely that the great advocate becomes a great
judge. Those who are familiar with Judge Bradley’s career
at the bar know that he was the first. The bar of the na-
tion will attest, without dissent, that he was not only a great,
but that he was an almost perfect, judge. The explanation
of the reason of this success, where so many have failed,
is possibly, that he never, as an advocate, advanced argu-
ments which his own judgment condemned as fallacious.
“JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 39

Three men in our generation have died in judicial har-
ness whose names will be as imperishable as the law itself—
Jessel, Miller, and Bradley. None have ever lived, in our
generation or in the past, possessed of stronger legal com-
mon sense, or more gifted with the legal instinct. They
knew the law intuitively.

Judge Bradley’s mind was filled with an ‘eeehaustbile
store of legal learning ; but, with him, learning never, as ©
it so often does, submerged his common sense. It irradiated ;
never clouded. He was perfectly equipped, by nature and
by study, for the great position he filled and adorned.

REMARKS OF MR. MORTON P. HENRY.

I should like to express in a few words the rank in
which Justice Bradley’s judgments place him as a maritime
lawyer. Few men have been his equal, either on this or
the other side of the Atlantic. Some of the most important
decisions of the Supreme Court were prepared by him.
They display his erudition and familiarity with the foreign
law applicable to this interesting branch of the law mer-
chant. ©

The case of The. Noewict. Co. vs. Wright (13 Wallace,
104), in which the construction of the law limiting the lia-
bility of ship-owners was first authoritatively made in the
Supreme Court and its enforcement declared to be the sub-
ject of the exclusive Admiralty jurisdiction, is one of the
best instances of his broad and constructive intelligence in
giving effect to a newstatute. Huis opinion in this case and
in The Scotland (115 U. S. R., 24), entitle him to excep-
tional rank as a jurist. ‘he latter case involved the ques-
tion whether the owners of an English vessel sued in the
courts of the United States could claim the benefit of ex-
emption under the law of the country of the forum. It
40 IN MEMORIAM.

involved also a question of the conflict of laws. The
conclusion that the foreigner was entitled to claim the ben-
efit of the American law was sustained by Judge Bradley
in a masterly decision, in which he refused to follow the
English decisions, which had confined the benefit of the
English act to their own subjects. His opinion is a model
of his mode of thinking on a very difficult subject.

In the opinion, in the case of the North Star (106 U. S.
R., page 17), the mode of ascertaining the loss, in the case
of divided damages between two vessels in collision, was
also declared in an opinion of remarkable breadth and pre-
cision, in which he again refused to follow the English
Court of Appeals in Chapman ws. The Royal Netherlands
Steam Navigation Company, which reversed the judgment
of the eminent Master of the Rolls Jessel.

Few finer judgments appear in the Reports than this
carefully-rendered opinion of Judge Bradley, and in the
Appendix to that volume in which it is reported it is noted
that the House of Lords, since its publication, had reversed
the decision of the Court of Appeals, taking the same view
as in the opinion of Judge Bradley.

These decisions are marked instances of judicial develop-
ment of the law of maritime commerce. ‘There are others
of great importance, notably that of the Lottawana in 21
Wallace, but those quoted illustrate the marked originality
as well as the lucidity of his reasoning, in opinions which
ran counter to the judgments of courts for which he had a
great respect.

It has been the good fortune of the Supreme Court to
have on its bench many lawyers well versed in this branch
of the law, but none better than Jadge Bradley.

After the remarks of the bar (in the order named)
the resolutions were adopted, and, on motion of Mr.
Ashton, the meeting adjourned.

+
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 4I

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Mownpay, ‘Marcu 7th, 1892.
Present :-— :

The Honorable MELVILLE W. FULLER, Chief Justice.

STEPHEN J. FIELD,

Joun M. Har an,

Horace GRAY,

SAMUEL BLATCHFORD,

Davip J. BREWER,

HeEnrvY B.° Brown,

Associate Justices.

REMARKS OF ATTORNEY-GENERAL MILLER.

May it please the Court: On the sixth day of February
last the bar of this court adopted a memorial which I now
have the honor to present :—

‘“* Resolved, That the members of the bar of the Su-
preme Court of the United States desire to record their
sense of the loss that has come to the profession and to
the nation in the death of Joseph P. Bradley, justice of
this court.

‘“He brought to the bench long experience, great en-
ergy, strong and patriotic convictions, a scholarship as
wide and varied as it was thorough and exact, and an un-
yielding courage. He was at the same time one of those
rate characters in which vast learning is united with in-
tense activity and business capacity ; a master of men as
well as books, practical as well as theoretical.

‘‘During his long service here he has more than done
every duty, growing constantly in his work and in the re-
gard of his fellows and of the nation, until, in the fullness
42 IN MEMORIAM.

of age, rounded and softened by years of judicial duty,
gentle scholarship, and labor for the people, he has passed
away lamented by the bar, the bench, and the country that
he served ; a life complete, with a large place in history
among the creators and moulders of our national jurispru-
dence.

‘“« Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be pre-
sented by the president and secretary of this meeting to
the family of Mr. Justice Bradley, with the sincere sympa-
thy of the profession in their bereavement, and that the
Attorney-General be requested to present to the Supreme
Court in session the proceedings of this meeting.”

These occasions are recurring with painful frequency.
In each of the years 1887, 1888, 1889, 1890, and now
again at the threshold of 1892, an honored member of
this court has been summoned into that presence of incon-
ceivable solemnity, where all must appear at last to answer
for duty done or duty neglected. Well may the bar and
the court say they are ‘‘becoming reluctant to grant
these, their last highest honors.’’? Yet neither in length
of days, nor in their results, is the end of the life of Jus-
tice Bradley untimely. Having passed the limit prescribed
by the Psalmist, and ‘‘by reason of strength’? attained
almost fourscore years, all the journey rich and useful in
the fruits of his talents, his industry, and his learning,
‘like the mildness, the serenity, the continuing benignity
of the summer’s day he has gone down with slow, .de-
scending, grateful, long-lingering light,’’ the radiance of
the evening giving sure promise of a morning and a mor-
row of endless brightness.

The oldest of eleven children, of Puritan New England
lineage, Joseph P. Bradley was born on a farm in Albany
County, New York, on the fourteenth day of March, 1813,
and therefore, on January 22d last, the day of his death,
was near the end of his seventy-ninth year.
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 43

The means of his parents, who at his birth were only
nineteen years old, were slender, and the circumstances of
his childhood and youth were very hard. The little farm
was rugged, almost mountainous, the soil thin and barren.
The meagre crops were eked out by cutting wood from
the hillsides and burning it into charcoal, which young
Bradley peddled about the streets of Albany. But though
sore pressed to supply the needs of their fast-growing flock,
this father and mother were of the intelligent farmer class,
so often ambitious to give their children a better chance
than their own, and they did for their boy the best they
could. A few months’ country school in winter, and a few
books, were the foundation on which a great superstruct-
ure of learning was built, a foundation which, with all due
respect to so-called improved school systems and modern
methods, it is believed was all the better for the ambitious
boy, because the opportunities were rare and the few books
so entirely mastered. In the intervals of necessary work
we can imagine this boy, in garments homespun and
home-made, every thread and every stitch interwoven with
the warmth of a mother’s love, slight of form, but full of
life and energy, quick of motion and quick of temper,
eager and apt in all the sports with his fellows, but even
more eager and more apt in the use of his slight opportu-
nities, by book or school, to feed the beginnings of that
hunger of the mind which was the spur of his whole life
and which to the last was insatiable.

At sixteen this boy, with so few advantages, instead of a
pupil became the teacher of a winter school, an occupa-
* tion continued for four seasons. ‘This was the best possi-
ble training, because it necessitated thoroughness. As
a pupil one may get along with superficial knowledge.
Before one can instruct, he must not merely know,
but he must know how and why and for what pur-
pose; he must know not merely facts but principles. At
44 IN MEMORIAM.

twenty, entering the freshman class at Rutgers, with a
very meagre preparation in Greek and Latin, at the end of
the year he had, nevertheless, made such progress as to
jump the sophomore and enter the junior class, and was
graduated two years later with the late Secretary Freling-
huysen, Governor Newell, and Cortlandt Parker, all emi-
nent in the law and in public affairs.

Mr. Parker says that Bradley was faczle princeps in his
class, though compelled to miss the last term of his course,
in order, by teaching, to earn money to pay his way.

‘Of many incidents of ‘his student life, suggestive of his
future character and achievements, time forbids to speak.
They all prophesied a man of integrity, of industry, and
of notable talents.

Young Bradley does not seem to have been strikingly
precocious—was not a genius like Grotius or Hamilton,
striding at once to the front of his profession. His first
years at the bar, as with most young mien, were a struggle ;
his success and greatness were a growth, the result of days
of toil and nights of study. The unfolding of the law to
him is admirably described in his own language :—

‘‘As in the creation we may suppose that the light of
the stars did not all burst upon man at a single moment,
but came upon him from their distant chambers in suc-
cessive beams one after another, according to their recon-
dite stations in space, so in the study of the law one great
principle after another comes to the yearning mind and
overspreads it with light and gladness; and many long
years may elapse before one can feel that he has really
mastered the law and fully obtained the ‘ gladsome light of
jurisprudence,’ spoken of by Lord Coke.”’

As a student and as a man a most striking trait of his
character was thoroughness. He studied almost every-
thing, and whatever he studied became his own, a part of
his very self.
JOSEPH P, BRADLEY. 45

In concluding the address (already quoted from) deliv-
ered by him before the students of the law school of the
University of Pennsylvania in 1884, an address worthy the
pen of Blackstone, Justice Bradley pictured the ideal law-
yer as follows: ‘‘’To sum up all in one word, in order to
be an accomplished lawyer it is necessary, besides having
a knowledge of the law, to be an accomplished man, graced
with at least a general knowledge of history, of science, of
philosophy, of the useful arts, of the modes of business, of
everything, in fact, that concerns the well-being and inter-
course of men in society. He ought to be a man of large
understanding ; he must be a man of large acquirements
and rich in general information, for he is a priest of the
law, which is the bond and support of civil society, and
which extends to and regulates every relation of one man
to another in that society and every transaction that takes
place in it. Trained in such a profession and having these.
acquirements and two things more, which can never be
omitted from the category of quailifications—incorruptible
integrity and a high sense of honor—the true lawyer can-
not but be the highest style of a man, fit for any position
of trust, public or private; one to whom the community
can look up as a leader and guide ; fit to judge and to rule
in the highest places of magistracy and government—an
honor to himself, an honor to his kind.”

Studying his life and its results, one is impressed that
this picture was ever before him. By a long life of striv-
ing, probably more nearly than any one of his time he
attained to that lofty ideal.

Of Sir Thomas More, the first layman commoner to be-
come lord chancellor, and who was wiser than his cotem-
poraries by at least three hundred years, it is said that “he
was perfecting himself in most of the liberal sciences, as
music, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and growing to
be a perfect historian.’”’ So of Judge Bradley. While the
46 IN MEMORIAM.

law was his business and the great study of his life, many,
perhaps I should say most, other fields of knowledge were
diligently cultivated, not only as recreations, but as aux-
iliary to his profession. Mathematics, for which he had a
special fondness and aptitude, and which he pursued with
delight into its most abstruse applications ; astronomy, the-
ology, biblical criticism, languages, literature, science, pol-
itical economy, in short, he seemed to have studied almost
everything, and to have madea part of himself all that
his thought had touched. Yet wide and profound as were
the general researches of this great man, they were only
snbsidiary to his work in the law. For thirty years he
studied and practiced his profession in all its branches with
great diligence and great success.

William Pinckney is said to have declared that in his
time only two men at the bar of the United States had
mastered Coke upon Ljittleton—Chief Justice Parsons and
himself. Indeed, to acquire a thorough knowledge of Eng-
lish and American jurisprudence, as administered in the
courts of law, chancery, and admiralty, is a life task, to be
accomplished only by large abilities under the spur of high
ambition. Add to this a thorough acquaintance with the
jurisprudence of republican and imperial Rome, with the
Code Napoleon, and generally with the laws of conti-
nental Kurope, and we approximate the strictly professional
resources of this great lawyer and judge. Indeed, to speak
the truth of this man’s marvelous learning is to invite the
charge of exaggerated eulogy. Yet neither in his writings
nor in personal intercourse was there any display by Jus-
tice Bradley of his acquirements. One was impressed, not
with what he knew, but with what he was and what he
did. All that he learned enlarged the man; it did not
merely add to the load of his possessions,

He was a modest man.

Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 47

Nor was Justice Bradley simply a student, a man of
learning. He was a practical business man, a man of
affairs—a man to be called upon where large business in-
terests were to be handled—a patriot, not only wise in
council, but capable, energetic, and efficient in action
when the Government was in peril, when troops were to
be raised, transportation furnished, and men, munitions,
and supplies hurried to the front.

Prior to his appointment to this bench Mr. Bradley never
held a public office ; yet no man was more active and influ-
ential, by word and deed, on the side of whatsoever things
were just and of good report in his city and State.

His study of the law was not as something abstract, »
speculative, lifeless, but in its relations to society—yea, as
the very essence, ‘the life-blood of civil society, even as the
surgeon studies the life of his living subject. He had not
the gift of eloquence, as the term is generally understood
in its relation to juries ; but he had what is vastly more
important to a lawyer and a judge, the power of clear,
terse, vigorous statement, which, illuminating the subject
under discussion, if it does not enlist the ete does
convince the understanding.

Politically his affinity was rather in the school of Hamil-
ton than of Jefferson. He believed that, in framing the
Federal Constitution, the fathers intended to create a
nation, a sovereign among the sovereigns of the earth ;
and, his judgment approving their work, he omitted no
opportunity to assert and vindicate that sovereignty. Hence
in his decisions upon constitutional questions, whether _
arising out of economic or guasz political issues, the na-
tional idea always appears, even as the strand royal in the
woof of all the banners of Britain.

Of the quality and measure of his work as a justice of
this court, running through near sixty volumes of the re-
ports, there is no need to speak. With all his learning,
48 IN MEMORIAM.

with all his familiarity with reported decisions, Justice
Bradley’s opinions rarely rest primarily on adjudged cases.
They are bottomed in principle, and then, when practicable,
butttessed by authority. The principle involved is clearly
stated, with its necessary logical results, and cases are cited
to show that, on similar facts, like deductions have approved
themselves to other judges—been sanctioned by other
courts. The conclusion is right, not because others have
said so, but others with him have said so, because it is
right. Being what he was, the work of Justice Bradley
could not be less than what it is—worthy of the man, an
honor to the great court and the great country for which
he spoke. His opinions are their own eulogy, the best,
the most enduring monument to the fame of their author.

But let no jurist suppose that popular fame awaits him.
Such honors are for more showy service, for men on horse-
back, or for those in political life who touch the people’s
heart—excite national enthusiasm. The laws of society
like the laws of nature work unseen and in silence. ‘I‘he
principle of gravitation, pervading and regulating the
material universe, was unnoted by men for near six
thousand years. If the law herself, omnipresent and _all-
beneficent, excites so little interest, her priests, quietly
ministering in her temple, must be content with respect
and veneration. They may not hope for popular ap-
plause.

Justice Bradley was a Christian man, cherished the
domestic virtues in his home, was a good neighbor, and a
good citizen. He tried always to preserve a conscience
void of offense toward God and man. Charges against his
integrity or honor fell away from him as hurtless as hail
from the face of yonder monument. ‘To assert that such
endowments, enriched by such cultivation, have perished,
that the light of such a life has sunk in endless night, is
to impeach the economy of nature.
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 49

Justice Bradley was a great lawyer, a great magistrate, a
great man. He exalted the tribunal wherein he sat; he
enlarged the measure of the place he occupied. His suc-
cessor will in due time be appointed; his place will not
soon be filled.

¢

REMARKS OF CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER.

We receive the memorial of the bar and the address of
the Attorney-General as deserved tributes to the eminent
man whose labors have illuminated the conclusions of this
tribunal, and whose gracious presence has been to its mem-
bers a source of inspiration and fraternal regard for so
many years. We, indeed, sorrow deeply that we shall see
his face no more.

- The story of the lives of those who have triumphed over
adverse circumstances and by indomitable will and industry

attained that greatness in usefulness and in fame to which
their mental gifts entitled them, is always full of interest
and instruction, and in portraying the early difficulties sur-
mounted by our departed brother, the Attorney-General
has justly called attention to the impressive lesson taught,
in that particular, by his career, and indicated one of the
most striking grounds of the success with which that
career was attended. For the capacity for unremitting in-
tellectual toil was his, accompanied by that power of con-
centration wherein lies the secret of mastery.

He had not only the ‘‘inquiring’’ but the ‘‘ intending”
mind. He not only looked into things, but threw himself
upon them and possessed himself of them. In each in-
stance his nature seemed subdued to what it worked in,
“(like the dyer’s hand.’? Minuteness and comprehensive-
ness went together, so that to his understanding the illus-
tration from the Arabian Nights might well be applied, as
it was to Bacon, that it resembled the fairy’s tent, which
50 IN MEMORIAM.

could be placed, perfect in its proportions, on the hand,
but set up upon the plain, whole armies could encamp be-
neath its shade.

It would be unreasonable to say that he took ‘‘ all knowl-
edge for his province,” yet the range of his studies was
vast; the books chewed and digested, many; and his
acquaintance with affairs so extensive, that what was orig-
inal and what acquired poured from him in a common
flood.

If, as has been said, great judges may be divided into
those who decide the particular dispute correctly, and those
who, in doing that, expound the principles which will
govern future cases, Mr. Justice Bradley undeniably be-
longed to the latter class ; for his decisions in disposing of
the matter in hand so explained the reason and the phi-
losophy of the rule applied, as to furnish a guide to the
solution of problems to come.

Taking his seat upon this bench, conversant with every
branch of the law, and with a mind filled with the results
of brooding over fundamental principles in the vigils of
many years, there is no ground for surprise that he has left
a lasting impress upon the jurisprudence of his country.
His opinions from the 9th Wallace to the r41st United
States (numbering nearly five hundred), couched in pure,
undefiled English, vigorous but elegant, whether in the
great domain of constitutional law, in cases at law or in
equity, in admiralty, in patent causes, covering the whole
field of judicial investigation, whether involving the appli-
cation of the subtle learning of the common law, or the
refined and equitable distinctions of the civil, whether
treating of the principles of social order, of civil and po-
litical liberty, the bases of forms of government or the
immortal structure of his own, constitute a repository of
statesmanlike views, and of enlightened rules in the ad-
ministration of justice, resting upon the eternal principles
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 51

of right and wrong, which will never pass into oblivion—
an edifice which will remain even though time erase from
its corner-stone the name of the architect and builder.
This is the exceeding great teward of an illustrious magis-
trate, that his work in contributing to the progress and
happiness of mankind by the just enforcement of the laws
will last as long as humanity endures. .

The President of the United States, in acknowledging
the official notification of Mr. Justice Bradley’s death, said :
‘He was not only learned in the law, but the temper of
his mind was so fine and his wisdom so great that I do not
wonder that you valued his counsels so highly.” This
observation is discriminating and just, for it touches that
reserved force, termed character, which gave Mr. Justice
Bradley an influence beyond the mere words he wrote or
uttered. Fineness of mind, wisdom of thought, cordiality
of heart, simplicity of manner, conscientious devotion to .
duty, an absolute integrity—these he had, and possessing
these, he has Jeft no unfinished window in the palace of
the reputation bequeathed to posterity. Never suffering
the talents given him to be weakened or extirpated by
disuse, he persevered in the performance of public duty far
beyond the period assigned as entitling to well-earned re-
pose.

And so beneath the quiet stars, that appeared in the
heavens as the twilight faded away, he continued to reap
the harvest of a well-spent life, and at the summons of his
Master came, bringing his sheaves with him.

An adjournment has heretofore been had as a mark of
respect to the memory of our beloved associate, and a ma-
jority of our number has attended the committal of his
body in the sure and certain hope of the life of the world
to come. The resolutions and the remarks which have
accompanied their presentation will be entered upon the
record. .
52 IN MEMORIAM.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT.

In MEMORY OF JUSTICE BRADLEY.

A session of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third
Circuit was held at Philadelphia, March r5th, 1892.
Present—Circuit Justice Acheson, Associate Judges Wales
and Green. At the opening of the court George W. Bid-
dle presented the following minute of the proceedings of
the bar of the Circuit Court of Appeals :—

At a meeting of the bar of the Circuit Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit, held at Philadelphia, March 7th,
Mr. George W. Biddle was called to preside, and Mr.
George Harding was appointed secretary.

On motion of Mr. McMurtrie, a committee was ap-
pointed by the chair to prepare suitable resolutions in ref-
erence to the late Justice Bradley.

The chair appointed Thomas F. Bayard, Wayne Mac-
Veagh, Richard C. McMurtrie, Cortlandt Parker, George
Shiras, Jr., Thomas H. Dudley, John G. Johnson, William
C. Spruance, William Bakewell, Samuel Dickson, George
T. Bispham, George Harding.

The committee reported the following minute and reso-
lutions, which were unanimously adopted :—

In expressing our sense of the loss sustained by the
country in the death of Justice Joseph P. Bradley, we, rep-
resenting the bar of the United States Circuit Court of
Appeals for the Third Circuit, desire to record our testi-
mony to the unusual scope of his general information, the
critical accuracy of his legal knowledge, the indefatigable
vigor of his apprehension, the keenness and impartiality
of his reasoning powers, the strength of his judgment, his
wise appreciation of the practical bearings of the law, and
the complete probity of his character.
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 53

For more than twenty years, during which labors of ex-
traordinary variety and importance devolved upon him, he
discharged his duties in such a manner as to earn the un-
feigned respect of the bar, the high esteem of his associ-
ates upon the bench, and a large place in history among
the creators and moulders of our national jurisprudence.

Without the stress of pecuniary necessity, he rested not
from his labors till long after the period when most men
abandon the struggle of life, and, indeed, not till he heard
the final summons to another sphere of usefulness.

His life presents another example of the inspiring truth
that, under our political institutions, the way lies open
from the lowliest origin to the noblest end.

His last official act in this circuit was to preside at the
organization of this court.

Resolved, That a suitable memorial of Judge Bradley,
as the first presiding judge of this court, be prepared un-
der the direction of the committee, and, with the approba-
tion of the court, be placed in the court-room of the Cir-
cuit Court of Appeals.

Resolved, That the officers of the meeting be instructed
to convey to the family of Justice Bradley this ‘expression
of our sentiments and a copy of these resolutions, together
with the sincere sympathy of the profession in their be-
reavement.

Resolved, That the officers of this meeting be requested
to present these proceedings to the court at its next session.

JUDGE ACHESON’S REPLY.

The resolutions adopted by the bar of the Circuit
Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit are a truthful and
fitting tribute to the memory of Mr. Justice Bradley. The
sentiments therein expressed are participated in by the
54 IN MEMORIAM.

whole bench of Federal judges of the circuit. Brought
into close personal association with Judge Bradley, the
innate nobility of his charactet was clearly revealed to us,
and while, in common with the bar and the public gener-
ally, we admired his profound learning and his extraordi-
nary qualities, which made him a great judge, we enter-
tained genuine affection for the man. As perfectly as any
one it has been my privilege to know, Judge Bradley ful-
filled the Divine injuction ‘to do justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God.’

The suggestion that a suitable memorial of Justice Brad-
ley, as the first presiding judge of this court, be placed in
this court-room, meets with our cordial approval. In the
heat of last summer, with health somewhat broken, he jour-
neyed from a distant retreat to this city to preside at the or-
ganzation of this court. That was his only appearance on
this bench. But the words of friendly admonition which
on that occasion he addressed to those intrusted with or
concerned in the administration of justice—to the judges
and to the members of the noble legal profession—are still
ringing in our ears. May his wise counsel long abide with
us as an inspiration. Some now present will recollect
that, in concluding his admirable remarks, he spoke in a
tone of sadness of the improbability of his long continu-—
ing to assist in carrying on the business of the new court ;
but he expressed the hope and belief that, with the aid of
an intelligent and honorable bar, the court would prove a
blessing to the community and to the country. May his
aspiration be verified. Surely it will be if we, his surviv-
ing associates upon the bench and those who come after us,
shall emulate his patience, industry, promptitude, fairness,
and sturdy love of justice.

The clerk will make an appropriate minute of these

proceedings and spread upon the records the resolutions of
the bar.
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 55

CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES,
EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA.

In MEMORIAM—JOSEPH P. BRADLEY.

Resolutions—Extract from the Minutes, January 30, 892.

The members of the bar of the Circuit Court of the
United States for the Fifth Circuit and Eastern District of
Louisiana, represented by the committee appointed by the
Honorable Edward C. Billings, one of the judges of the
court, January 25th, 1892, desire to put on record their senti-
ments of sorrow in view of the death of the late Mr. Justice
Bradley, and their high regard for his memory as a jurist.

The life of Judge Bradley was a credit to American insti-
tutions. Born in comparative poverty, inured from his
earliest years to self-denial and toil, educated to combine
plain living with high thinking; teaching others while
still a youth that he might gain the means to obtain the
higher education for himself; entering college at an age
somewhat more mature than was usual at the time, and
thus securing the highest benefits of college instruction ;
studying law in the leading city of New Jersey under the
influence and amid the competition of a gifted bar; rising
to sure distinction by merit and not by mere fortune or
favor ; appointed to the bench of the Supreme Court of the
United States in the full vigor of middle life and adorning
that bench for nearly twenty-two years—his example is
full of lessons and of encouragement to American youth.

Judge Bradley was a man of sensitive organization and
of an intellect essentially acute. His fine large eyes indi-
cated his unusual powers of perception. He was an accom-
plished mathematician, an astute logician, and a master of
English style. Nor was he merely a legal critic, and least
of all was he a mere case lawyer. Called to the bench at
56 IN MEMORIAM.

a time when many grave questions were urging themselves
on the attention of the courts, and sitting as he did so long
in our highest tribunal, as well as for several years on this
circuit, studying the civil as well as the common law, he
accomplished much in constructive and comparative juris-
prudence. His work remains imbedded in the decisions he
rendered, and which are reported in Woods’ Circuit Court
Reports, and in the reports of the Supreme Court from oth
Wallace to the 141 United States Reports. On questions
of the issue of paper money, of the laws and results of war,
of confiscation and its extent and effect, of equity powers
and chancery practice, of patents and their reissue, of ad-
miralty jurisdiction, of the responsibility of the owners of
ships and vessels, and the limitation of their liability under
both general law and the acts of Congress; and of inter-
state commerce and its regulation, his clear and generally
prevalent opinions are juristic landmarks in the history of
our country.

It should be added to this that while he was of a deli-
cate and nervous temperament, -his demeanor on the bench
was self-contained and courteous. He compelled himself
to listen patiently, and the bar could make no complaint
of any want on his part of kindness and consideration.

The death of Judge Bradley was not unexpected. His
life had been graciously prolonged beyond the common
limit, and his hoary head had become indeed a crown of
glory. Not the less we mourn his loss.

And we ask that this brief memorial be spread upon the
minutes of the court, to the end that the expression of our
feelings at this time may be preserved in permanent form.

(Signed) E. Howarp McCa.xs, Chairman,

Cus. LOUQUE, Ws. S. BENEDICT,
CARLETON Hunt, Morris Marks,
WILLIAM GRANT, Cuas. S. RICE,

RicHarD DEGRay, W. W. Howe.
JOSEPH P, BRADLEY. 57

REMARKS OF JUDGE EDWARD C. BILLINGS,

Who was presiding in the United States Circuit and District Courts of
“the Eastern District of Louisiana, in response to addresses of the
members of the bar of New Orleans commemorative of Mr. Justice

Joseph P. Bradley.

Death always comes to us with a startling effect, no
matter how ripe the age of the person stricken, or how
gradual may have been his approach to that boundary line
between the things called death and existence. When the
end has come, no matter how gently ushered in, and we
realize that a friend has passed away forever from our
mortal vision, there comes over the mind a feeling of sur-
prise which is almost a bewilderment, and. as we attempt
to sustain ourselves amid the felt separation and loneliness
and bereavement, and the near certainty of our own end,
we say with Burke, ‘‘ what shadows we are and what shad-
OWS we pursue.”’

The death of Justice Bradley comes to us with an im-
mense aggregation of suggestions. He was a great in-
tellect; he was a great scholar; he was a great jurist ; so
great, so admittedly great, that now that death has stilled
all voices save that of candid and just and discerning criti-
cism, amid the acclaim of respect and admiration for him
which will go up, which is going up not only from all over
this country, but from all over every country where our
language is used, there is nothing that we can say which
will add to the universal recognition of his great labors and
his great achievements.

His judicial decisions are characterized by a breadth and
fullness of comprehension and of learning and a power of
discrimination—just, and most comprehensive and most
acute discrimination—so that in his delineation of a sub-
ject in order that he may pass judgment upon some point
involved in it, the careful student perceives a titanic
58 IN MEMORIAM.

strength which is capable of grasping all that is most ex-
tended in its fullest amplitude, and also the capability to
discern the subtlest distinction—“‘ to trace suggestion to its
inmost cell.”? To be able to comprehend a subject in its
entirety and in its minuteness, and to be omnipresent in
much of the learning pertaining to it—this was one of his
endowments, as supplemented by his acquisitions.

What shall we say of his history—of his career? It had
in it that which kindles the pride and quickens the pulse
of every Ainerican beholder. Commencing life in a lowly.
sphere, making by ‘‘force his merit known,’’ he rose to be
a pillar and an ornament of the most truly grand and august
tribunal, as men who measure things in their broadest re-
lations count grandeur and elevated dignity, which has
ever existed on the earth. He came to his position in this
tribunal when not only there came before it the important
questions connected with defining and enforcing in the
action of a great nation as it sweeps on in its orbit its
fundamental law, but also when there were heaved up by
our civil war those vital questions pertaining to sovereignty
and union and freedom, the magnitude and far-reaching
influence of the decisions upon which have added to the
vigor and the resources of representative government for-
ever. Amid all these trying circumstances his ability and
weight of learning were such that their traces are left upon
many of the decisions of those stupendous questions as the
ineffaceable impressions of a master mind—to such a degree
did the consummate manner of his solution comport with
questions of greatest moment and difficulty.

The versatility of his mind was not more wonderful than
was the variety of his learning. He could compute the
eclipse of a planet with the ease with which he could add
up a day’s expenses. He once sent mea poem composed
by him upon the death of a ‘“‘ much-loved” sister, which,
in tenderness of feeling, is equal to Montgomery, and in
sweetness of versification is equal to Moore.
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 59

He was one of the great men of our day. He was not
‘“born to greatness,’’ nor did he ‘‘chance’’ upon it. He
‘Cachieved ’” it.

But above his intellectual greatness, above the vastness
and ramified character of his studies, now that his rounded
life has closed, be it said, that there looms up his faithful
adherence and inflexible devotion to his convictions. No
commotion of the people, no temporarily blinded opposi-
tion, no matter how infuriated, no criticism of his opinions, ~
no matter how bitter, could for a moment deter or move
him from espousing with all its consequences an opinion
which he believed to be rooted and grounded in the right.
Throughout his judicial life he lived and moved and had
his being in what he believed to be just.

It is little we can say for him by words of ours in at-
tempted commendation and eulogy; for his career will
enduringly reflect credit upon the American bar in that he
_ was a member of it, and will continue to illumine the name
and fame of American jurisprudence in that his habits of
- thought and the results of his researches and his fearless
and upright spirit will continue to glow in it. .

TRIBUTES BY THE BAR OF THE STATE OF
NEW JERSEY.

MEMORIAL RESOLUTIONS—JOSEPH P. BRADLEY.

A meeting of the Essex County Bar was called at noon,
January 25th, to take action on the death of Justice
Bradley.

~ Judge Depue presided, and announced that the meeting
had been called in order to express the regret of the bar at
the death of Justice Bradley. Judge Kirkpatrick was then
elected secretary, and the following were appointed a
60 IN MEMORIAM.

committee on resolutions : Ex-Chancellor Theodore Run-
yon, A. Q. Keasbey, Thomas N. McCarter, W. B. Guild,
John W. Taylor, Frederick W. Stevens, R. Wayne Parker.

After a short recess the committee returned with the
resolutions, and Mr. Runyon, addressing Judge Depue,
said :—

Before presenting the resolutions which the committee
have adopted, I will be glad to say a word or two of com-
memoration. I cannot hope by any expressions of mine to
add to the force of the eulogiums which have already been
pronounced upon the distinguished jurist on the occasion
of whose death we have assembled. I can only add another
to the well-deserved and just tributes to his excellence and
public and private worth. Sometimes, when we are
similarly convened, we are called upon to regret a life un-
timely ended, noble aspirations left unattained, and brilliant
promises of future success unfulfilled. But such considera-
tions have no place here. In the fullness of his years, and
crowned with honor, after a long period of great usefulness
in a great sphere, for which he was eminently fitted, Justice
Bradley has laid down the burden of life. He served the
country for more than a generation in one of its highest
places—in one of the greatest tribunals in the world. No
man ever came to it better equipped than he, and even
when he entered upon its duties, no spirit of prophecy was
needed to predict that he would surely attain the eminence
which he so speedily reached. Ofttimes associated with
him in business matters while he was at the bar, I came to
know him extremely well, and to enjoy his friendship and to
adinire his ability, his learning, and his other great qualities.
He was happy in reaching early the goal of his honor-
able and praiseworthy ambition. He was happy in his
work and.his environments and his success, so that to the
last he continued his congenial public employment. His,
too, was an euthanasy. Surrounded by family and friends,
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 61

in the very midst of his labors, he retired from the scene
with the honor due to a life successfully devoted to the
public welfare.

Mr. Runyon then read the resolutions, which are given
herewith in full :—

In attempting to express our feelings upon this occasion,
we have no common duty to perform, for our late friend
and brother was no common man. For over half a century
a member of the bar of New Jersey, he maintained toward ”
it a constant love and devotion. Even in his last great
office he was still at heart the New Jersey lawyer, never
ceasing to care for our welfare, and always eager to hear of
the members of our profession, and to know of their ability
and success.

Newark he regarded as his real home. Here he sent his
sons to live, and here he is to rest. It was the home of his
youth, of his marriage, and of his heart. The qualities
that took him from his birthplace on a poor mountain farm
are known to all. From the first he was distinguished,
different from others, remarkable and remarked. His
characteristics were so strong that they would have been
eccentricities had not one class balanced the other. What
is more rare than the union of fiery business activity with
a scholar’s devotion to his books, of restless ambition with
absolute simplicity, and of invincible combativeness with
great native gentleness and charity? Almost his last act
before his death was to order a check sent that he had
drawn as a gift for an old acquaintance in Newark: not
heard of for years.

By his family and friends, and his associates at the bar
and on the bench, he was loved as only the really gentle
can be loved, yet his masterful energy was ever present.

He entered Rutgers College a country lad with little
knowledge but of the grammar. In a year he had jumped
a class, and in thirty months he had graduated by special
62 _ IN MEMORIAM.

examination. From that day labor was his pleasure and
study his recreation, and in harness he died. .

He was devoted to our profession, and is a fitting example
of what can be achieved by such devotion. With his mar-
velous memory of cases and principles, his acuteness of in-
tellect, and his concise and severe style, he became imme-
diately a leader among us, and, as a judge, acquired the
greatest influence in the high court where he sat so long.
How his associates valued him is best shown by the fact
that frequent conferences were held in his study after
he fell ill. His death is a national loss, not to be repair-
ed, a loss the greater now that long judicial experience
has tempered the original uncompromising vigor of his
views.

In the Electoral Commission, amid the storms of party
feeling and the awful responsibilities of the time, he was
the calm, inflexible judge, in whom all had to recognize
the man, the master of the hour.

Living an active life, he yet found time for study, the
food of youth, the delight of old age, and the ornament of
prosperity. His real home was in his library, ‘‘ entering
which he could bolt the door on ambition, avarice, and all
those vices whose nurse is idleness, and in the very lap of
eternity, among so many souls divine, could take his seat
with so lofty a spirit and with such sweet content, as to
pity all great ones and rich who knew not this happiness.”’

In this practical age we turn to the words of the elders to
describe that passion for learning, and its happiness and
power, which dwelt in him who was to the last a scholar,
and is now gone to join the school divine.

Resolved, That the following minute be adopted :—

It is fitting that amid the universal expressions of regret
on the occasion of the death of Mr. Justice Bradley, the
bar of New Jersey, of which he was an eminent and highly
esteemed member during all his professional life, and which
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 63

from consequent association with him has special knowl-
edge of his qualities and characteristics, should express its
sense of the justness of the public estimation of that dis-
tinguished jurist. Before his advancement to the bench,
he lived among us for many years, and was prominent in
public and private business. His interest-in the State and
its welfare continued to the end of his life. He was public-
spirited and enterprising, and of strong and outspoken
patriotic impulses and convictions. Though he never
sought political office, he never shrank from active partici-
pation in public affairs when called by the voice of his
fellow-citizens. In the practice of his profession -he was
employed in the most important causes of his time, and he
exhibited the same high traits which afterward made him
so conspicuous in the judicial office. He was acute, wise,
careful, and conscientious, serving with signal ability and
fidelity the interests—very often of very great magnitude
—committed to his charge. His elevation to the bench of
the Supreme Court of the United States, and his excep-
tional success in the discharge of the important duties in-
cumbent on him there, were a source of gratification and
pride, not only to the bar from which he was taken, but to
the people in general also. When he was appointed his
reputation had passed far beyond the boundaries of the
State. His fitness for the place was conceded by all who
knew him, and the years of his long service as they passed
by only made his judicial excellence more and more mani-
fest and undeniable. By nature he was self-reliant, indus-
trious, and energetic, and in his career he furnished a
striking and encouraging example of what may be accom-
plished by unaided efforts with those qualities alone. He
was especially distinguished for his erudition. In legal
learning he'had no superior and but few equals, and the
extent of his acquirements in other departments of knowl-
edge was surprising. ‘Thoroughness was a characteristic
64 IN MEMORIAM.

of his varied attainments in whatever field. Of unim-
peachable integrity, patient in hearing, of large experience
at the bar and on the bench, industrious and painstaking
in investigation, sound and just in judgment, deliberate
and courageous in decision, he combined in himself all the
qualities of a great judge. To the advantage of our in-
stitutions and to the benefit of the people, he has left the
deep and ineffaceable impress of his strong and enlightened
mind upon the law as declared and administered by the
august tribunal of which he was so eminent a member,
and he has closed in honor a long, well-spent, and useful
life, much of it passed in an exalted sphere of wide re-
sponsibility, in which he won great and well-merited dis-
tinction. :

Resolved, 'That a copy of these resolutions be sent to his
family, with our respectful sympathy in their bereavement,
and that they be entered upon the minutes of the Circuit
Court of this county.

ACTION OF THE DELAWARE BAR ON JUSTICE
BRADLEY’S DEATH.

Resolutions in memory of the late Joseph P. Bradley,
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United
States, were adopted by the members of the bar of this
State at a meeting held yesterday morning in the grand
jury room of the United States Court. Thomas F. Bayard
was chairman of the committee on resolutions, the other
members of which were Charles B. Lore, William C.
Spruance, E. G. Bradford, and George H. Bates.

After the adoption of the resolutions Judge Leonard E.
Wales presided at a session of the Circuit Court, to which
they were presented.
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 65

REMARKS OF MR. THOMAS F. BAYARD.

May it please your Honor : I am instructed by the bar of
the State of Delaware, and as a member of the committee
appointed for that purpose, to report certain resolutions
which were adopted by them this morning in relation to
the death of the late Mr. Justice Bradley of the Supreme
Court, and the presiding judge of the Circuit Court for
this district.

The resolutions are as follows :—

WHEREAS, The bar of the State of Delaware were
called upon in common with their professional brethren
throughout the Union to lament the death of the Hon.
Joseph P. Bradley, lately an Associate Justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States, whose district of duty
_ in the Circuit Court for many years past included this
State ;

WHEREAS, As expressive of the sorrow sincerely felt
and the high respect and honor in which the deceased
magistrate was held by this bar, be it

Resolved, ‘That in the death of Mr. Justice Bradley we
mourn the loss to the entire community of a jurist of great
experience, wide and varied learning, whose well-stored
logical and analytical mind sheds light upon the jurispru-
dence of the nation, and importantly throughout the ad-
ministration of justice in the land ;

Resolved, That the eminent, prolonged, and laborious
career of the deceased in the public service, and his per-
sonal and social virtues entitle his memory to be cherished
in the hearts of his countrymen as a wise, virtuous, and
patriotic citizen ;

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be en-
grossed and transmitted, in testimony of our sincere con-
‘dolence, to the family of the deceased ;
66 IN MEMORIAM.

Resolved, That the resolutions be presented to the
Circuit Court of the United States for this district with the
request that they be spread upon the record.

It is but fitting upon such an occasion that we should
pause and reflect upon the importance of the loss we have
sustained and of the brevity of all mortal career. The
Supreme Bench of the United States is probably to-day the
most reinarkable object lesson to the people of the United
States of the brevity of human life ; for we have been ac-
customed to consider it the most permanent of our institu-
tions, and by creating a life tenure that the personnel of
the bench should remain long unchanged, and as is a fact,
this gentleman, whose death occurred on the 22d of January
last, was the oldest member of the bench in point of years,
and the oldest in service excepting Mr. Justice Field.

Mr. Justice Bradley’s term of service on the Supreme
Bench was twenty-two years, and for eleven years he has been
the presiding judge of the Delaware Circuit. A man of del-
icate physique, laborious and struggling with great energy
against a debility, he could have retired under a beneficent
provision of law nine years ago with the full enjoyment of
his salary, but filled with an ambition to render public
service and aconscientious desire to perform his duty while
it was in his power, he stood courageously at his post of
duty, and may be said to have literally died in harness.

I personally recollect him but a few weeks ago dragging
his feeble frame upon the bench for the purpose of taking
part in the hearing and decision of a public question of
much importance. All felt that it was a very great exer-
tion for him to be present, and all recognized with great
respect the feeling of fidelity to duty that induced so great
an effort.

It is a matter of great satisfaction that up to the very
last there was no indication of the failure of his mental
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 67

power, but to the very end there seemed to be the fullest
control of his accumulated learning and power for its ex-
pression, with a full sense of high moral responsibility for
the duties he had to perform, so that his last days might
well be said to have been his best. -

Judge Bradley’s career was distinctively American. No
more admirable illustration of the equities of our system
of government could be presented than by his life. He
was born in poverty, the eldest of eleven children, of a
poor farmer in the State of New York. Whatever educa-
tion he received was from the study of a few books at home
and at Rutgers College in New Jersey, except the self-edu-
cation to which I shall refer. Up to the age of sixteen he
was compelled to work for his living on a farm. After
that time, by the aid of citizens of New Jersey, who recog-
nized his ability and worth, he was enabled to enter Rut-
gers College, and after he left college he taught school for
his support and was admitted to the bar in 1839, from
which time on he continued to the day of his death a stu-
dent of the law, not a mere hunter of cases, but a seeker
after the principles which he found embodied in the de-
cisions of the courts. Mr. Bradley’s education was the best, _
for it was self-education, and it never ceased until death
came. He was not a narrow student of the law alone.
He knew that the foundations of jurisprudence are imbed-
ded in philosophy and religion and in the morals that flow
from religion, so that when he came to apply the fruits of
his studies in the administration of the law, the spirit of
the sources from which he drew his education became ap-
parent in his opinions, and they have been recognized and
respected by those to whom they were addressed.

I have more than once been his guest and have been
shown by him with great pleasure and delight the remark-
able collection of editions of the Holy Scriptures he had
gathered. I presume no such collection of bibles exists in
68 IN MEMORIAM.

any private library in the United States as Judge Bradley’s.
Nor do I think that this collection was made in the mere
spirit of a bibliophile or from literary curiosity, but that
he was, as I have reason to know, a student of the bible.
Asa mathematician he was distinguished in college and
enjoyed its study as a relaxation in after life.

His library of history and the drama was extensive and
well selected and remains a monument to his liberal tastes
and cultivation. The result of all this varied reading be-
came manifest in the opinions which as a judge he de-
livered upon manifold topics, and while being based upon
sound general knowledge as well as of exact law were au-
thoritative and influential.

His labors are best recorded in sixty volumes of reports
of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States,
which attest his sound learning, his sagacity and upright
public service, and will long endure for the benefit of his
country. And now he rests fron his labors and his works
do follow him.

May it please your Honor, as instructed by the resolutions,
I move that they be spread upon the records of this court.

MR. WILLIAM C. SPRUANCE’S REMARKS.

In seconding this motion Mr. Spruance spoke as fol-
lows :—

It was my good fortune to argue several cases before Mr.
Justice Bradley while he was upon this circuit, and to fre-
quently meet him socially, and I was led to entertain for
him a profound respect as a judge and a high regard for
him asa man. It nowaffords me a melancholy satisfaction
to be permitted to second these resolutions and pay a brief
and feeble tribute to his memory. He was endowed with
JOSEPH P, BRADLEY. 69

' great natural powers; among others, with a facility for
rapid acquisition and a remarkably retentive memory. ‘To
these great gifts he added in childhood, youth, and old age
a passionate love of knowledge and a great capacity for
protracted intellectual labor. -

Notwithstanding his ardent desire for learning, great ap-
titude and diligence, the way of knowledge appeared to be
at first absolutely barred to him. He would, of course,
have made his mark in life whatever might have been his
calling, but it was a fortunate circumstance which unex-
pectedly opened to him the path of the scholar and en-
abled him, although with scanty means and much added
labor for self-support, to complete a full college course and

‘regular training in the study of the law. Self-made men
are too often but poorly made, but here is an example of a
man who, without fortune and against many adverse cir-
cumstances, laid deep and broad and strong the foundations
of his great career. His life appears to me to reverse
many of the maxims of prudence to which most men find
it wise to adhere.

We were early told ‘‘ that the law is a jealous mistress,”’
“that itis better to do one thing well than many ill,”
‘that no man can attain all knowledge.’? But here is a
man who, while he attained a profound knowledge of the
common law, equity, admiralty, and the law in all its

. branches, as administered in this country, was almost equally
skilled in the civil law, and familiar with the jurisprudence
of the whole civilized world, ancient and modern. Added
to this, he was a linguist of such high order that he could
with credit have filled the chair of ancient or modern lan-
guages in any university in the country. For mathematics
he had a talent, love, and knowledge which would have
been creditable to a specialist.

Think of this busy lawyer who, as he tells us in his

brief and modest autobiography recently published, was
‘70 IN MEMORIAM.

for thirty years under the constant pressure of professional
engagements, and who for twenty-two years fully, faith-
fully, promptly, and with signal ability performed all of the
arduous duties of a justice of the Supreme Court of the
United: States, who amid these engrossing occupations
found time to revive and extend his knowledge of Latin
and Greek, and add to these Hebrew and Sanscrit, German,
French, Spanish, and Italian, the higher mathematics, and
a vast store of general knowledge. I remember to have
heard one of his associates, a justice of the Supreme Court,
say a few years ago, ‘‘that he thought him the most learned
man he had ever known. ‘That there was seldom a topic
broached that he did not know more about than any one
present, and if he did not that day he would the next.”’

With all this varied and profound knowledge his mental
operations were simple and lucid, and his style, both writ-
ten and spoken, was clear, direct, and utterly free from any
unnecessary display of learning.

His quick perception, great analytical power, profound
and varied learning and wide experience, both as a lawyer
and a judge, enabled him to solve the most difficult ques-
tions, and reach the ultimate truth with a clearness and
certainty almost phenomenal.

In private life Judge Bradley was charming. His con-
versation and manners were gentle, unaffected, and attract-
ive. I think I may safely say that there is no member of .
this bar who had the honor to appear before him in this
court, or to know him socially, who does not honor his
memory and deeply regret his loss. He was a great judge
and served his country well, and shed lustre upon the pro-
fession of the law. His name and fame will go down to
posterity with those of Marshall and Story and Taney,
and the other illustrious jurists who have made the Su-
preme Court of the United States the greatest judicial
tribunal in the world.
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 71

REMARKS OF MR. E. G. BRADFORD.

May it please your Honor: After all that has been so well
and eloquently said by way of tribute to the memory of
Mr. Justice Bradley, I feel that any extended remarks on
my part would be superfluous. I may, however, say that
for many years I have entertained a profound admiration
‘for Judge Bradley. In him I have recognized a man of
very great ability, of wide and varied learning, and of pure
and elevated character. I feel his death as in a certain
sense a personal loss to myself, for I knew him personally.
I first met him when my father occupied the position now
so well filled by yourself. I met him socially, and I have
met him as the presiding judge of the Circuit Court for
_ this district, and have argued cases before him ; and I may
say without intending any invidious distinction or discrimi-.
nation that in my experience I have never met a judge whom
I considered his equal. ‘To me Mr. Justice Bradley seemed
not only to have a broad and far-reaching grasp of mind,
but he had the logical faculty developed to the highest de-
gree; he had a most keen intellect. His logical instinct or
faculty led him unetringly to the precise point in any case
before him which it was necessary to solve. I do not think
that I have ever met his equal in that regard. Then, as has
been well said, his varied knowledge, his familiarity not
otily with common law, but the civil law, his extensive
reading and reflection in most of the branches of human
knowledge, enabled him to illuminate and enforce his ar-
guments and decisions in such manner that they were
models, rounded and complete. I think, may it please
your Honor, that it will be impossible for any intelligent
lawyer to look over the many volumes of the United States
Supreme Court reports containing decisions of Mr. Justice
Bradley without being profoundly impressed with his abil-
ity, his breadth, his learning, and his power as a judge.
72 _ IN MEMORIAM.

To err, of course, is human, and I presume that no
judge has ever continued his judicial career for any length
of time without falling into error in one or more respects,
but I believe that Justice Bradley, when his life-work on
the bench is taken as a whole, will be found to have been
singularly accurate and sound in the conclusions at which
he arrived. He hascertainly, as a member of the Supreme
Bench, contributed in the largest degree to the judicial lit-
erature of this country. If, in addition to his attainments
as ajudge, we consider the purity of his life, the elevation
of his views, and his social characteristics, one is forced to
the conclusion that in his death the bar and the people of
the United States have lost a good, great, and illlustrious
man. It is most fitting, sir, in my opinion, that the bar
of this State should, by the presentation of the resolutions
in question, pay its tribute to his memory.

REMARKS OF MR. GEORGE H. BATES.

In the remarks which have been made with respect to
Mr. Justice Bradley it seems to me that there has been laid
before your Honor an unusually discriminating estimate of

‘his character and career. I think, as my memory runs back
over many years to similar occasions, that it has perhaps
never been our lot to have expressed at such a time so fully
and so comprehensively the distinguishing characteristics of
a departed judge. So much do I appreciate that this has
been done that, but for the fact that I have been appointed
upon the committee to present these resolutions to your
Honor, I should say nothing. My only object in speaking
is to express not only my concurrence in the sentiments
which have been expressed, but my great satisfaction at the
manner in which the gentlemen who have been designated
by the committee to address the court have performed the
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. | 43

duty intrusted to them. It has seemed to me in thinking
over the history of the Supreme Court that Judge Bradley
in many of his characteristics, as also in the variety of his
learning, reminds me more of Judge Story than of any
other of his predecessors ; and yet I think there is one very
marked difference in the two men. Judge Bradley seemed
to me to have in a marked degree that universal learning
which has been alluded to, outside of the mere professional
acquirements which distinguished Judge Story and made
both of them ornaments of the bench, but I think that
Judge Story had a larger degree of imagination which en-
abled him often to argue himself into a conclusion which
possibly the extremely logical mind of Judge Bradley
would not have been able to accept. At the same time
_ from what I have heard from the associates of Judge Brad-
ley on the bench who have been brought into close associa-
tion with him, it has seemed to me that he performed on
the Supreme Bench a function which, during Judge Story’s
time, he performed, and that was in bringing into counsel
with his associates a largeness of learning outside of merely
professional requirements.
_ ‘Iam sure that no one who has argued cases before Judge
Bradley would not agree at once with the suggestion al-
teady made here that it would be with a very uncomfortable
feeling that a lawyer would rise to discuss before him a
proposition of law which he had not been able to bring his
own mind to accept clearly and unreservedly.

Then, too, no one who has been brought into social rela-
tions with Judge Bradley during his visits here has been
able to resist the charm of personal contact with him, his
gentleness, and particularly his kindness to men much
younger than himself, even to the youngest member of the
bat who was brought in contact with him. For my own
part I cherish his memory with a feeling of something
more than admiration—with personal regard and affection.
74 IN MEMORIAM.

Of all the justices who have sat upon the bench, at least
within my recollection, coming here from the Supreme
Court, Justice Bradley has always seemed to me to take a
larger interest in the business of the court in this district.
He always came here when requested, if his engagements
would permit, and when here would willingly sit hour after
hour listening patiently to whatever was properly brought
before him. I heartily concur in the request to.your Honor
that these resolutions be entered upon the records of the
court.

REMARKS OF MR. MacALLISTER.

I have listened with a great deal of interest to the re-
markable career and great learning acquired after great
difficulties, the purity of his life, the fond social attractions,
and the integrity and industry which have been related
of Justice Bradley. All these are very gratifying to me,
and I must heartily accord in all that has been said about
him, but I hope I may be permitted a few moments, al-
though not being a member of the committee, in which to
tefer to the valuable lesson that the life of this great judge
gives to the youth of this country. In whatever sphere of
life we move in, certainly a study of this man’s life will be
a most wonderful incentive to industry, integrity, self-con-
scientiousness, persistent and personal purity. How many
of the comparatively young members of the bar will study
the life of this great man without feeling that the record
he has left and the lesson which his life has taught had not
earlier been instilled into their principles, views, and ac-
tion. Therefore the life of this man should be religiously
studied by every young man who aspires to reach a respect-
able position in the pursuit in life to which he concludes
to devote himself.
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 25

A TRIBUTE FROM JUDGE WALES.

Judge Wales said that he received the resolutions with
sincere sympathy and in full accord with the spirit of the
remarks of the gentlemen who had spoken, and they will
be entered upon the record of the court. After speaking
of Judge Bradley’s memory and character as worthy of the
most profound respect, he said :—

His work on the bench of the Supreme Court and in the
Circuit Courts of the Fifth and Third Circuits not only dis-
posed of numerous cases of local and individual interest in
almost every branch of the law, but contributed largely to
the settlement of many questions of national importance ;
and his reported opinions, by their wealth of learning and
lucid reasoning, have enriched the jurisprudence of our
country. For these results we are his grateful debtors.

Judge Bradley possessed the elements of true greatness—
wisdom, integrity of purpose, and simplicity. ‘These ap-
peared in his manner and in his conversation and in the
substance and style of his written judgments; the latter
exhibiting that combination of clearness of statement and
logical order of argument which mark the recorded thoughts
of master minds.

He was a zealous and patient searcher after truth. In-
tellectual labor was congenial to him. What to others
might seem to be a laborious task was to him a delightful
occupation, and constant study was his constant enjoyment.
In the consideration of legal questions his anxious desire
was to arrive at just and right conclusions and not sustain

_any favorite or special theory. To an inquiry where he
found a precedent for one of his opinions, he replied that
the latter was common sense, and it would be a pity if no
authority could be found to support it.

In social intercourse Judge Bradley was at once an en-
tertaining and instructive companion. Like Lord Bacon,
76 IN MEMORIAM.

he seemed to have taken all knowledge for his province,
and there were few subjects pertaining to history, literature,
science, or law which his learning did not embrace, and on
which he could not impart varied and useful information
from the ample storehouse of his memory. With all his
pre-eminence in natural endowments and acquired attain-
ments, he never assumed or affected superiority over others,
but was considerate of the feelings of those who were less
gifted in these respects than himself. Jealous of the purity
of his intentions, he did not lightly criticise the motives of
others, and he indignantly repelled any unjust charge
against his own.

Justice Bradley was a man of tender sympathies, seldom
manifested, but not always suppressed.

For myself, I conceived it to be a privilege to know such
aman, to share in his deliberations, to be enlightened by his °
wisdom, to be aided by his researches and practical expe-
rience, to be honored by his confidence. I knew him only
in his later years, at a period when bodily and mental
vigor begin to yield to the infirmities of age, but with him,
although the physical strength was gently declining, his
mental faculties shone forth clear and bright to the end,
and he was able to perform his judicial duties until within
a very few weeks before his death, thus realizing his oft-
expressed wish that he might ‘‘die in harness.”’

Those who were present at the organization of the Cir-
cuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia last summer will
recall the remark made by Judge Bradley on that occasion,
that it would not probably be his lot to continue long in as-
sisting to carry on the business of the court. We did not
then think that this pathetic prediction would be so soon
verified.

I knew him long enough to become warmly attached to
him and to deplore his death.

The court was then adjourned out of respect to Judge
Bradley’s memory. s
Obsequies.

JUSTICE BRADLEY'S FUNERAL,

e

SERVICES AT THE NORTH REFORMED CHURCH.

The body of the late Justice Bradley was brought to Newark from
Washington in a train of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and on its arrival
there was taken to the North Reformed Church, on Broad Street, oppo-
site Washington Park, of which the deceased was for many years a
prominent member during his residence in Newark.

A special train left Washington at 8 A. M., bearing Chief Justice
Fuller, Associate Justices Harlan, Gray, Blatchford, Brewer, and Brown.
Justices Field and Lamar were prevented from attending by illness.
The Clerk of the Supreme Court, Mr. McKenney, and Marshal J. M.
Wright and several of the United States District and Circuit Court
judges, met the party at the depot, and proceeded to the North
Reformed Church, and there awaited the beginning of the funeral
services.

The church was crowded when the funeral services began at two
o'clock. The Rev. Dr. David Waters, pastor of the church, and the
Rev. Dr. Charles E. Hart, of Rutgers College, New Brunswick, a for-
“mer pastor, who was in charge of the church when Judge Bradley at-
tended there, were on the platform.

The following gentlemen were the pall-bearers : George M. Robeson,
of Trenton ; Thomas H. Dudley, of Camden ; George Harding, of Phil-
adelphia ; John P. Stockton, of Trenton ; Amzi Dodd, Cortlandt Parker,
Thomas T. Kinney, and Robert F. Ballentine, of Newark.

The official board of the church was represented by the following
members of the consistory: William Clark, John Duncan, Dr. John L.
Duryee, George Brown, F. R. VanNest, Peter Vanderhoff, Dr.‘ Arthur
“Ward, George Cooper, Robert Cumming, Wilbur Smith, Peter Demerest,
Robert Symington, Peter Campbell, E. E. Rhodes, J. S. Polhemus, John
_ G. Woodruff, John Allison.

(77)
78 IN MEMORIAM.

ADDRESS OF PROF. CHARLES E. HART, D. D.

Respect for the simple, quiet, modest tastes of the great jurist before
us enforces upon us, from those who hold his wishes sacred, the ut-
most brevity and simplicity. .

It is not to make known a character and life which has made itself
known in its own direct power and ‘cannot be hid” that we speak ;
which has recorded itself legibly and indelibly in the history of the
law, justice, and public affairs of our country, which associates at the
bar and on the bench have anticipated in their tributes of just pride
and admiration ; it is not to draw out the lessons of such a character
and life, which force themselves upon us in their inevitable logic; it
is to ease our own minds, if only in mere ejaculation, of the burden of
veneration and affection which vainly struggle with our sorrow as we
commit his body to the ground.

Death, as if lost in the fascination of the marvelously regular, con-
secutive evolution of this life, suspended its stroke till the full rounded,
rich completeness was reached, when it is offered to our view in a
splendid unity.

The native spring and inspiration was an unquenchable thirst for
knowledge, in an intense love of truth, shown in earliest youth ; and
this, active in an acute, analytic, judicial mind, as if by its own fore-
ordination, marshalled all the circumstances and events of that life
into harmony with its supreme aspiration, and, through the triumphs
of his chosen profession, lifted him in direct line of promotion to the
most august and venerable position in the functions of our national
government, which for more than twenty years he has adorned with his
profound wisdom, his vast learning, and his incorruptible integrity.
His life is a rare realization of an ideal.

The restriction to the Law of his devotion to truth was no contrac-
tion of the bounds of his intellectual interest, for it was devotion to law
in the exalted conception of Hooker, ‘‘Of which there can be no less
acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the
harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage,
the very least as feeling her care and the greatest as not exempt from
her power; both angels and men, and creatures of what condition
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 79

soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform
consent admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.” With
this conception of law, the mother of his peace and joy, in the pros-
ecution of his profession of law, he swept almost the entire field of
knowledge. With an indomitable will, not exerted upon others in rule,
but upon himself, upon his own faculties and powers, in the pursuit
of truth, the very diversions of which were found in the solution of
problems and in excursions into new and remote fields, studying in
his old age the Gothic, as Cato in his old age the Greek, he made vast
acquisitions of learning, with which he graced his profession and his
high office. His learning, how recondite! grasped with what thor-
oughness! apprehended with. what exactness! how intimately incor-
porated in his mental structure through his own independent study
and reflection! No frame but the most vigorous could stand the
exactions of such a mind in incessant study and labor to the verge
of eighty years, sinking peacefully to sleep ‘‘in the harness,’ as he
desired, with faculties, clear and unimpaired, even in the article of
death.

Our faith in the immortality of the soul has a struggle to maintain
itself when we consign a body of animalism to its native soil, but that
death should extinguish powers of such pure immaterial intellect, should
extinguish mind, reason, will, at a material touch—never! The mind
of the great jurist lives, and lives with ‘“‘the power of an endless life.”
Death, in the suspension of the action of the brain and heart, has only
liberated into larger life the vast energy of that indomitable will, and
preserved for the exalted communion of the choice spirits of the blessed
“the harvest of that quiet sleepless eye,” gathered in the incessant
study of a lifetime.

This was Justice Bradley’s faith. I had, as his pastor, for several
years, enjoyed a friendship close enough to justify my confidence in the
profession of the Christian faith he made in his youth and maintained
through his long life tothe end. It was firm, intelligent, and learned.
He had, by long study and deep meditation upon the mysteries of faith,
“added to his faith, knowledge.”” He was a student of the Scriptures
in the original tongues. In yonder pew, when a worshiper in this
church, he kept his Greek Testament, with which he followed the read-
ing of the Scriptures, and verified the exposition of the preacher. He
reviewed with his characteristic thoroughness the history of the English
80 IN MEMORIAM.

\

translations of the Scriptures, and, at my suggestion, reduced his studies
to lectures, which were delivered here and elsewhere to the great delight
of those who heard them. He extended his studies to the scriptures
of other religions, and in particular, in which he allowed me to take
part, the translation of the Zend-Avesta. His studies in these scrip-
tures served only to strengthen his faith in Christianity. He was a
no less diligent student of the Confessions and theology and history
of the Reformed Dutch Church, toward whose institutions he never
failed to exhibit the most ardent and intelligent loyalty.

I have the honor to serve, and to represent on this occasion, the ven-
erable institution which trained this jurist, or rather in which he
trained himself, for his great career. I cannot repress in this distin-
guished presence, assembled to do him honor, the sentiments she cher-
ishes for a son who has reflected, especially in his broad and profound
scholarship, such honor upon her as his Alma Mater, and the deep sor-
row she feels in the loss of the presence, counsel, and care of one of
her most faithful and devoted trustees. He has lectured in the profes-
sor’s chair, he has quickened the enthusiasm of the scholar by the
prizes which bear his name, he has served in one of the longest terms
on the board of trustees. Only recently was he in attendance upon
one of its sessions ‘in the transaction of most important business.
But the college comes here as a chief mourner, not like Cambridge, as
introduced by Milton in the elegy of Lycidas, in sorrow over hopes
blighted in the early death of a scholar of great promise, but in joy,
to applaud the fulfillment of her highest ideal in the achievements
of a completed and honored life. For her centennial he wrote her
history; but he did more, he helped in his career to make that history
brilliant.

In the long succession of illustrious graduates, one class is marked for
emiuent distinction as brilliant with a cluster of minds of the first mag-
nitude. Their names are always associated in our thoughts and on our
tongues. The first of that cluster to close his earthly career, which he
did in the high office of Secretary of State of the United States, brought
together in this house of God to do him honor the most distinguished
assemblage over convened in this city—the accomplished, the elo-
quent, the wise, the devout Frelinghuysen. The high office in which
he died was the summit he reached through an ascending succession of
positions of honor and trust.
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 81

And now, for the second time in this house of God, this great assem-
bly is brought together to do honor to the next of ‘that group of ardent
youths to close his career, which he does in the most exalted office of
justice in the Supreme Court of the United States. Their Alma Mater,
whilst a chief mourner, is in this hour the proudest of all in the splen-
did triumphs of these gifted sons. Their honors are hers; their names
her best endowments, the most powerful agencies in the inspiration of
the youth in training within her walls for commanding positions in life.
Judge Bradley’s life is one of the most instructive and stimulating to
noble aspiration.

It is fitting that in this church we assemble to pay the last honors to
these eminent men. In this pulpit, in which I once served as pastor, I
cannot forget the service they rendered, when, in the dawn of their bril-
liant careers, they consecrated themselves to the Redeemer, and united
in the foundation of this house of God, It was in the home of Justice
Bradley they met for its organization ; in its highest offices they served ;
to its welfare they devoted their best energies, and under their guidance
the church was raised to its present position of power. Justice Bradley,
although for twenty years past absent in Washington, died in its com-
munion. At the celebration of its first decade he read the historic
sketch of its past, assigned him to prepare, and Secretary Frelinghuysen,
in an eloquent address, enkindled our enthusiasm for the future. Their
names were not erased from its roll during their enforced absence
in the public service; they will abide in the remembrance of this
church as long as it lasts, a monument to them and their godly asso-
ciates.

The imposing aspects of such exalted characters are apt to over-
shadow and conceal the gentler elements of the heart; but these ele-
ments were there and in active play in the circle of home and friend-
ship. Water from the rock is the purest and sweetest, beauty in the
sublime poetry of Milton is the most delicate and graceful in our lit-
erature, and the tenderness of great natures is the most benignant.
The sweetest recollections in the life of this great jurist belong to the
privacy of his home and the circle of his friendships, and most of all
to the heart which has been his stay and support through his long
career.

Death has indeed deprived us of his living, personal presence, but _
death cannot deprive us of what he has left in the history of the
82 IN MEMORIAM.

country, in the example he has held up to the members of his own
profession, and to those who were associated with him in the high
office he adorned; and death cannot deprive this bereaved family of
the memories left in the sacred circle, which will be cherished as a
delight in all the years to come.

His name is the synonym for learning, wisdom, and uprightness. It
will be honor enough for any man to have it said of himself that he is
as learned or as upright or as wise as Justice Bradley.
LAW,

ITs
NATURE AND OFFICE

AS THE

BOND AND BASIS OF CIVIL SOCIETY.

\

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE
TO THE

LAw DEPARTMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
By JOSEPH P. BRADLEY.

1884.
ADDENDA.

ADDRESS OF JUSTICE BRADLEY BEFORE THE Law SCHOOL
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

Younc GENTLEMEN: An introductory lecture toa course
of law is not unnaturally directed to a general view of the
subject, its nature, the principles on which it is founded,
its relations to other departments of knowledge, the proper
methods of its study, and the aims which the student
should have in view. ‘To these heads, or some of them, I
shall endeavor to direct your attention on this occasiozri. .

First of all, we ought to have a clear conception of the
subject itseli—law—what it is, and what is its office and
_ use in human affairs. Perhaps the imagination would be
more impressed by picturing to ourselves the absence of
law than by attempting to describe its operation and effect.
Suppose that an omnipotent edict should presently go forth,
abolishing all law; what would be the condition of things
in this city? A. would walk into B.’s banking-house and
take from his box or safe.any amount of money that his
fancy dictated, unless B., by superior strength, could pro-
tect his possessions. In like manner C. would enter D.’s
store, and take such articles as he chose, unless D. could
prevent him by force. Your neighbor, being in want of
books for his library, could take from yours whatever he
needed, and any clothes from your wardrobe which might
strike his fancy. The first bully you might meet on the
sidewalk could strike you down with impunity, either for
the purpose of indulging in sheer malice and wickedness,

_ (85)
86 LECTURE BY

or of possessing himself of any valuables about your person.
You might, at any moment, be turned out of house and
home bya stronger person, who fancied your luxurious and
elegant surroundings. ‘There would be no such thing as
property, or debts, or securities. Everything would lie in
possession, and that would go to the strongest. Any asso-
ciation of good men, entered into for mutual protection,
would be so far the establishment of law, and would be
contrary to the supposed edict abolishing it. Society
would be dissolved and ended. Society cannot exist with-
out law. Law is the bond of society ; that which makes
it ; that which preserves itand keeps it together. It is, in
fact, the essence of civil society.

DEFINITION OF Law. Wuat IT Is.

And now that we see what law acomplishes, and what
would be the effect of its abolition, we may proceed to a
definition of it. Blackstone says that municipal or civil
law is a rule of civil conduct, prescribed by the supreme
power in a State, commanding what is right and prohib-
iting what is wrong. I would rather say that it is those
rules and regulations which the inhabitants of a particular
country or territory adopt and enforce for the establishment
and maintenance of civil government, the preservation of
social order, the distribution of justice, and the advance-
ment of the general good ; or, it is that body of rules which
a political society enforces by physical power for the pro-
tection of its members, in their persons and property, and
the promotion of their happiness. Whatsoever rule of con-
duct is not enforced by the physical power of society is not
law. It may be a rule of morals, or of courtesy, or of
honor ; but it is not law. That conduct which the State
requires of its citizens, or those within its jurisdiction (who
are guasz citizens for the time being), and which it regards
as of sufficient consequence to enforce by its physical power,
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 87

is civil conduct, and the rules by which it is prescribed
constitute the law of that State. It matters not how it
came to be the law, whether it was prescribed by an auto-
crat or a legislative body, or arose from mere custom and
usage, or the decrees of the courts—if the physical power
of society, that is, the State, is put forth forits vindication,
itis law ; if not, it is not law. Sometimes popular oppo-
sition to a law may prevent its execution and paralyze the
power of the State. ‘This produces, so far as it extends, a
relaxation of the bonds of society and a return to a lawless
condition, but as soon as the public power can be restored,
the reign of law returns. .

With the exception of omitting that distinguishing char-
acteristic of law, its enforcement by the physical power of
the State, Blackstone’s definition may be logically correct.
The law-making power is necessarily the supreme power
in a State ; the rules it enforces are presumed to be known,
and may therefore be said to be prescribed ; and that they
command what is right and prohibit what is wrong is a
legal truism, though it is also true in a moral sense, inas-
much as the laws of a State are the final expression of the
nation’s sense of justice and political wisdom, developed
from its history and experience, and formulated by its
highest intelligence. So much, at least, may be said of
the law, viewed in its most mundane and prosaic aspect, as
practically exhibited in human affairs, without attempting
to scale those sublime heights from which philosophy may
take even a more ennobling view of the subject. Ulpian
defines justice (or law in its essence) as ‘‘ Constans et per-
petua voluntas jus suum curgue tribuendt.”’ And Richard
Hooker, a writer of great power and elegance, sums up his
conclusion on the subject as follows: ‘‘Of law there can
be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of
God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things in
heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling
88 ‘LECTURE BY

her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power ;
both angels and men, and creatures of what condition so-
ever, though in different sort and manner, yet all with
uniform consent admiring her as the mother of their peace
and joy.”

GENERAL DIVISION OF Law.

The law extends not only to the relations and conduct
of individuals toward each other, but to the organization of
society itself, its form of government, its public institutions
and works, and even to the mutual relations between the
State and other States. The different subjects to which it
is thus extended renders its division natural into public
law and private law ; and that of public law into interna-
tional law and constitutional law.

The laws relating to crimes are generally regarded as
public law; but it seems to me that they might properly
be considered as belonging respectively to that branch of
the laws, public or private, which is violated by the com-
mission of the crimes. A man who takes my property
may be a mere trespasser or a thief, according to the man-
ner and intent with which he takes it, but it is equally a
private injury to me ; punishable in the one case by dam-
ages for the injury, and in the other by imprisonment or
corporal chastisement, with a return of the goods, if they
can be found. ‘The reason for calling the crime a public
offense, committed against society itself, has always seemed
to me too metaphysical. It is said that a crime, especially
if it reaches the grade of felony, is a violation of the social
compact, and terids to dissolve society ; or that it is an in-
sult to the majesty of the sovereign; but this is only in
degree; every violation of law may be characterized in the
same manner, and the statement would be true to a certain
extent.

International law consists of those rules dictated by
natural justice, by long usage, or by treaties, which form
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 89

the law of intercourse between the State or nation, and
other States or nations: Though international, it is en-
forced by each individual nation as its own law, there
being no common judge to enforce it. And each nation,
on its own responsibility, puts its own construction upon
the law, at the risk of a conflict with other nations, if they
should construe it differently. This law is to be found in
the works of those sages of the law who have made inter-
national law their special study, and who have become
generally recognized as authorities. They are sometimes
called publicists, because international law is regarded as
public law par excellence. Of this class are Grotius,
Puffendorff, Bynkershock, Vattel, Wheaton, Phillimore,
and others.

There is a branch of international law which is called
private international law, which has respect to the rights
and duties of persons who have relations personal, or by
means of property or contract with different countries,
whose laws conflict with each other in reference to the
matter in hand ; and it is the office of private international
law to determine, according to the principles of justice,
what rule should be followed. Ordinarily every man’s
rights and duties are determined by the law of the place
where he resides. But he may be the subject of some other
sovereign claiming his allegiance, or he may own property
located in another country, or he may have contracts made
or to be performed there ; and it is the province of private
international law to determine his rights and duties in all
these cases. The validity and effect which shall be ac-
corded in one country to acts done in another, such as
transferring property, recovering judgments, constituting
executors, guardians, &c., is a matter of comity between
the two countries and their tribunals; and private inter-
national law determines when this comity should be exer-
cised. A number of eminent writers have treated of this
go LECTURE BY

subject, sometimes under the title of Conflict of Laws, arid
sometimes under that of Private International Law; such
as Savigny, Story, and your own learned townsman, Mr.
Wharton. Chancellor Kent, in his Commentaries, touches
briefly, but with masterly precision, the subject of inter-
national law in both of its aspects.

In this age, when the Atlantic Ocean has become a mere
ferry, and foreign intercourse is so common, and in this
country, where forty independent communities are so
closely related by business connections of every kind, this
branch of international law is of the greatest importance,
and should be carefully studied by every American lawyer.

Constitutional law prescribes the form of government
of a State, its general departments and their functions ;
the political divisions of its territory, and the duties and ~
powers assigned to each; the various kinds of delegates
and officers to consult for the public good and execute the
public will, and the modes of appointing them ; in other
words, the frame-work of civil society, and the functions of
its several parts. The constitutional law of a country is
sometimes written, sometimes unwritten, and sometimes
partly the one and partly the other. In this country it is
mostly written, partly in a direct and formal act of the
people, under the name of a Constitution, and partly in
organic laws passed by the legislature. The general grant
of legislative power is deemed sufficient to authorize the
legislative department to extend the organization of civil
society to details which are not provided for in the outline
drawn by the Constitution itself. Whatever law relates to
a public function is constitutional in its character, whether
it defines the powers of a governor or a constable, or directs
the mode of passing laws or of exercising the elective
franchise. It touches the organization of the body politic,
and that organization is, subjectively, the Constitution of
the State.
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. gI

An appendix to constitutional law, not. generally re-
garded as belonging to it, though relating to the duties
and powers of public functionaries, is administrative law,
which presides over the establishment and execution of
those public institutions and works which are created or
carried on for the benefit and protection of society, such as
armies, navies, fortresses, sea~walls, light-houses, harbors,
piers, bridges, highways, railroads, canals, mails, prisons,
hospitals, poor-houses, asylums, universities, schools, and
benevolent corporations, all of which, when emanating
from public authority (as they mostly do), exhibit the
majesty of the body politic in the energy of beneficent
action, aiding, protecting, and benfiting all its members,
and advancing human civilization. This subject is largely
discussed by the French lawyers as a separate branch of
public law, and some of their works are well worth the
student’s consideration. Ferriere’s Treatise on Public and
Administrative Law is a model of clear. analysis, and is
well worthy of being done into English, and studied in
our legal institutions.

Private law consists of those civil rules and regulations
which govern the private actions and mutual relations and
dealings of all citizens, and of all other persons subject to
the jurisdiction of the State. When we consider the in-
numerable relations and transactions which take place
_ amongst men in society, it is apparent that the laws must
necessarily be extensive and voluminous. In the simple
times of old a few rules might have been sufficient, but in
the present complex state of society, having so many in-
dustries, occupations, and interests, and presenting so many
phases of human life, all requiring the protection of the
laws, it is indeed wonderful that the civil law can be so all-
embracing and omnipresent as to reach and provide for
every exigency that can arise. But it does this and does
it perfectly. It does it by means of a rigid and accurate
92 _ LECTURE BY

classification of human relations and acts—a classification
based partly on nature, partly on custom, and partly on in-
stituted or voluntary conditions. ‘The most striking nat-
ural relations are those of husband and wife and parent
and child; custom early established those of master and
servant and guardian and ward, and that of magistrate and
people grows out of the very construction of society. But
there are innumerable relations which men voluntarily or
involuntarily assume towards each other, either by conduct
or by contract. If one injures another in person, reputa-
tion, or property, the relation of injurer and injured is es-
tablished between them, imposing upon one the duty of
satisfaction for the injury, and giving to the other the
right to demand it. If two or more enter into a contract
(permitted by the law) they mutually assume a contractual
relation towards each other, binding each to the other, for
the performance of his part of the contract, and a failure
to perform involving the duty of satisfaction and the right
to demand it. This is a mere general statement of what
occurs every moment ; but the variations of right and duty
growing out of the infinite variety of facts and shades of
difference in the many cases that occur, render the com-
plicated mass of rules and principles necessary to meet
and provide for all forbidding to the beginner. He must
learn well the great principles of justice, and the system of
legal analysis and classification, and then light will begin
to break in upon the chaos, and all things will at last be-
come easy and plain.

THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF LAW AND THE PLACE WHICH
ITS STUDY OCCUPIES AMONG THE SCIENCES.

Having now described, in a general way, what law is,
and what are its objects and uses, and its general divisions,
let us stop a moment and take a little more accurate sur-
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 93

vey of it as a whole, as:a subject of learned study, and as
to the place it holds amongst the other studies to which
men devote themselves, particularly those of a professional
character.

Every science, or branch of human knowledge, has a
subject-matter which it scrutinizes, studies, analyzes, and
expounds, as to its substance, its accidents, its relations,
causes, and effects, and the natural laws which govern its
manifestations. ‘The subject-matter of mathematical science
is number and figure ; the subject-matter of astronomy is
the heavenly bodies, and it explores their nature, their ap-
pearances, their positions, their motions, and the relations
which they have to each other; the subject-matter of
geology is the structure of the earth, which is explored in
its various strata of rocks, their relative super-position and
age, their composition and contents, the remains of ancient
vegetable and animal life imbedded in them, and the
causes which have led to their production ; the subject-
matter of natural philosophy is the mechanical forces of
nature and the phenomena which they produce ; of botany,
the vegetable kingdom ; of natural history, the animal
kingdom. Man himself formsa subject of profound study ;
his body, with its sustentation and preservation, forms the
subject of physiology and medical science ; his mind and
its operations form the subject of mental philosophy, in-
cluding metaphysics ; his language forms the subject of
philology, grammar, and rhetoric; his relations to his
Maker and the unseen world, including his moral relations
to his fellow-men, form the subject of religion, or religious
philosophy and ethics. All these subjects present vast and
important fields of inquiry, worthy of profound study ; but
none of them exceeds in importance the subject-matter of
the science of law—civil society—that highest phase and
outgrowth of humanity, without which men would be but
savages; without which, unless hedged about by divine
94 LECTURE BY

influences in some garden of Eden, none of the sweet
ahd beautiful manifestations of human life could possibly
exist.

Crvi, SocieETY FORMED AND SUSTAINED BY Law :
WHICH IS ITS REAL OFFICE AND PURPOSE.

No doubt man is naturally a social being. Certain indi-
viduals, it is true, for the sake of wild freedom, or for some
acquired disgust, may prefer to wander away from their
fellows and lead isolated lives; but take thei as a race,
men love company, and the mutual support and aid, sym-
pathy, affection, and communication by language which
company gives. They possess, however, selfish passions,
which are often fierce and ungovernable ; and, under the
most favorable circumstances in which they can be placed,
society could not, for any length of time, be maintained on
the voluntary principle, or under the influence of mere
moral restraints. There must be government, there must
be force, there must be a civil organization of some kind—
that is, the organization of a c/vztas or State, wielding the
concentrated power of the community. To this, if not
naturally led by their instincts, men are compelled by
necessity, as soon as they increase in numbers and _posses-
sions. They cannot separate. They must remain together,
not only in obedience to their instincts of affection, com-
munication, and sympathy, but for their mutual protection
against other bodies of men who would otherwise drive
them from their seats, or make them captives to their will.
So that civil society is a necessity of our nature and of the
conditions by which we are surrounded. And this is the
subject-matter of our science, taken in its broadest sense.
It is true that the political philosopher, the political econo-
mist, the statesman, and the legislator, as well as the
lawyer, find in civil society the subject of their studies and
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 95

investigations ; but what, after all, is the object of their
studies, but to ascertain what are the best and most bene-
ficial laws, and how the existing laws may be improved for
better promoting human happiness? and what is this but
taking a more lofty and extended view of the law itself?
looking at it in reference to its objects and uses, and thereby
comprehending more perfectly its spirit, its essence, and
its application. In other words, it shows us that the pro-
found student of law can never feel satisfied with his ac-
quirements in the science until he is able to take philo-
sophic and statesmanlike views of the subject to which it
relates—the order of civil soos of its ome on
human happiness.

We see, then, that in approaching tg study of the law
we approach a stibject of living interest and importance,
independently of its attractions as a professional calling.
It is not merely dead books, and their contents, that we set
about to learn, but a living thing—civil society—in its
organization and its rules, under all phases of human ex-
perience, human intercourse, human activity, and oman
interest.

The student of medicine examines with minutest care
the subject-matter of his science, namely, the human body ;
he scrutinizes it in all its parts; the functions of each part
and its relations to the other parts; the things that affect it
beneficially, and those that affect it hurtfully. It is his
study from morning to night to ascertain its functions, its
needs, its dangers, its injuries, and the modes and means of
repairing them. So the student of law, in order to obtain
a profound conception of his science, must, in like manner,
study deeply the subject-matter of it—civil society—in its
construction, its workings, its rules ; in the solution of all
questions of civil right or duty that arise in every situation
in which a man can be placed, in every transaction in which
he may be concerned ; in the prescription of the proper
96 , LECTURE BY

remedy for the assertion of every right, and for the pre-
vention or redress of every wrong. For the law is every-
where, and extends to everything of human interest.

At first view, when we walk about amongst our fellow-
men, we may not observe the omnipotent influence and
controlling effect of the law. Its power is so subtle and
all-pervading that everything seems to take place as the
spontaneous result of existing conditions and circumstances.
It is like gravitation in the natural world, which, whilst
it governs and controls every movement, and produces all
the order of the Universe, is itself unseen. It must be
studied in its effects in order to understand its power. So
with law in civil society. It is over, under, in, and around
every action that takes place. Its silent reign is seen in the
order preserved, the persons and property protected, the
sense of security manifested ; in the freedom of intercourse,
in the cheerful performance of labor, in the confidence with
which business is transacted, and trust is reposed by one
man in another; in the peaceful and contented pursuit of —
trades and occupations, and the bestowal of services: all
goes on cheerfully and smoothly, working out and inter:
working the constant evolution of human happiness—be-
cause of the ever-existing (though generally unrecognized)
consciousness of the presence, the watchfulness, and the
all-sufficient protection of the law. In ordinary conduct,
conformity to its rules and requirements is pursued almost
as a second nature ; but in transactions requiring authentic
evidence, greater knowledge, perhaps professional skill, is
required ; and when questions of ambiguity, complexity,
and difficulty arise, which the parties themselves cannot
amicably solve, then, of course, the skill of the lawyer,
and perhaps the wisdom and authority of the judge, must
be resorted to. But compared with the millions of trans-
actions which take place, these ripples on the surface do
uot often occur. The mighty river of things generally
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 97

“moves on with an undisturbed current ; but only because

it is kept in its banks and regulated in its course by the
power of law.

THE ANALYSIS OF CIVIL SOCIETY AND OF THE TRANS-
ACTIONS THAT TAKE PLACE THEREIN FURNISHES THE
Most PRACTICAL GROUND OF ANALYSIS OF THE Laws.

Since law is the bond and basis of civil society, and the
platform on which, and according to which, all civil trans-
actions are conducted and regulated, it follows that the only
analytical division of the science which is practically useful
is, and must be, largely based upon an analysis of civil
society, the transactions that take place in it, and the rela-
tions of its various members to the whole and to each other.

Law itself, in its essence, cannot be analyzed ; it is simply
the dictate of justice in the varied circumstances and rela-
tions of life. Those circumstances and relations may be
analyzed and classified, and the dictates of justice in each
case or class of cases may be ascertained and enunciated.
In other words, not the law, but the subjects to which it is
applied, are arranged into classes and under heads, and,
having found the law applicable to each class or head, we
speak as if we had analyzed the law itself.

Ulpian, the great Roman lawyer, said (as Cicero had,
substantially, said before him) that the law itself has only
three commands, ‘‘ honeste vivere, alterum non ledere,
suum cuigue tribuere ;’? ‘live rightly, do no wrong to.
another, give to every one his own ;’’ leaving it to be in-
ferred that all the rest consists in the application of these
fundamental principles to particular cases.

True, there are certain general rules or maxims of ex-
tensive application, each of which may furnish the subject
of a chapter of law, showing how and in what cases and
circumstances it is to be applied. Thus, the rule ‘ szc
98 LECTURE BY

utere tuo, ut non alienum laedas,” is constantly applied to —
hundreds of cases which it would be tedious to enumerate,
‘but the nature of which could be indicated by a few ex-
amples, such as this: If you conduct a stream on to your
own land for the purpose of irrigation, you have no right
to allow it to wet and injure the land of your neighbor
lying below yours. The ruleis a rule of justice, and may
be treated of under a head. or chapter of its own. But a
collection of such general rules or maxims would not pre-
sent a scientific arrangement of the law. They would
‘stand isolated from each other, without completeness or
symmetry, or any proper relation to, or connection with,
each other. Several authors, as Noy, Wyngate, Francis,
and Broom, have made collections of these maxims, and
have commented upon them by showing the manner in
which, and the kind of cases to which, they are severally
applied ; and these books are very useful in their way, and
worthy of study ; but they exhibit no analysis or arrange-
ment of the law, or the science of the law. To make such
an analysis or arrangement, we must resort, as before
stated, to the subject-matter of the laws, civil society, and
the various relations and transactions which it exhibits.
There is one general division, however, which runs
through all the departments and branches of the law,
which is not based on the subject-matter, but rather on the
nature of things ; it is that which considers the law under
the three heads of Jura, Injurie, Remedia—Rights, In-
juries, and Remedies. They might be considered together,
for every injury is a violation of some right, and has its
appropriate remedy, or choice of remedies. But there are
many injuries, or wrongs, which are deprivations of mere
negative rights, and the injuries themselves assume a dis-
tinctive and prominent importance, making it desirable to
subject them to a separate consideration ; such as most
forts, including trespasses, assaults, libels, slander, &c.
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 99

And again, the remedies of the law have such a general
similitude, and are governed by such peculiar regulations,
that they need to be distinctly and separately considered.

Another division, independent of the subject-matter, is
that between law and equity—the latter being a particular
modification of the law in many cases where its strict gen-
eral rules would. be inadequate to the purposes of justice.
The system of rules and proceedings which are adopted by
courts of equity for effecting the desired modification is
treated of separately from the general system of the law.

With these exceptions, and perhaps one or two others
that have escaped me, the study and science of the law is
divided and subdivided, according to the subjects to which
it is applied, and these embrace all the transactions and
relations of society.

In the consideration of rights the principle of analysis
to which I have referred is at once rendered manifest.
First comes the Constitution and order of the Common-
wealth itself; then, proceeding to private law, we first
take up the personal rights and duties of individuals, their’
status as free or servile, as husbands and wives, parents
and children, guardian and ward, corporations, &c; then
comes up the consideration of property, and this we di-
vide into, first, real or immovable, as land, and, second,
personal, including chattels and contracts ; and every con-
tract furnishes a distinct head of law, so that we have the
law of sale, of loan, of partnership, of bills of exchange,
of promissory notes, of suretyship, of insurance, &c.
And when we come to the department of injuties, or
wrongs, we find it divided in like manner into many
different heads, according to the nature of the wrong com-
mitted, each of which furnishes a distinct subject of in-
vestigation, and is treated of in separate books, as the law
of libel, the law of slander, the law of assault and battery
and trespass, the law of collisions, &c. In other words,
100 LECTURE BY

we find (what, from the nature of law, as we have con-
sidered it, we should naturally expect to find) that the an-
alysis of the laws is based upon an analysis of civil society,
and the transactions which take place in it.

Is THE KNOWLEDGE OF Law, OR JURISPRUDENCE, A
SCIENCE ?

A question often mooted is whether law (meaning, of
course, the knowledge of law or jurisprudence) is a science.
If it isa science, it must have some necessary and fixed
principles, different from the mere arbitrary regulations of
a despotic will, which may be one thing or another, ac-
cording to the legislator’s whim. The knowledge of such
an accidental set of rules could certainly never be elevated —
to the dignity of science. And if law is of that arbitrary
and empirical character, jurisprudence, or the knowledge of
law, is clearly not a science. But law is not arbitrary
and empirical any more than justice itself is so. Ulpian
declares jurisprudence to be ‘‘divinarum atque humanarum
rerum notitia ; juste atque tnjusti screntia.”?

JURISPRUDENCE A SCIENCE, BECAUSE LAw IS A NATURAL
OUTGROWTH OF HUMANITY, AND NOT A MERE ARBI-
TRARY SET OF RULES.

In view of what has already been said with regard to
the nature of law, it seems to me clear that it is one of the
natural and inevitable outgrowths of humanity, like lan-
guage, like the family relation, like clanship ; I do not say
like society, because society and law are so intimately con-
nected that the hypothesis of one is the hypothesis of the
other. Justice and right, like truth, are the same in all
countries and amongst all peoples; and as law is the
expression by any particular people of its sense of justice,
it must have a natural law of origin and growth similar in
all States. Civil society is substantially the same thing in
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. IOI

all countries, and law, being the basis and exponent of civil
society, must exhibit substantially the same general prin-
ciples and the same features.in all States. Each people
may have some peculiar institutions of. its own, arising
from its peculiar circumstances or genius ; as, amongst the
warlike tribes of Europe, in the middle ages, land was dis-
tributed and held upon the tenure of military service, and
was made to descend to the eldest son as the person most
capable of performing the service required. Of course, it
will be expected that the peculiar genius of a people will
find expression in their laws; but human nature and the
great mass of human actions are essentially the same amongst
all peoples ; and the dictates of justice under like circum-
stances are ever the same. ‘Therefore a system of laws
growing out of the experience and exigencies of one people
may be adopted, with but slight alterations, to the experi-
ence and exigencies of another. The laws of any State in
this confederacy might easily be adapted to the’ wants of
the people of any other State. As a matter of fact, the
laws of England were adopted by all the old States and by
most of the new ones, subject to such slight alterations as
their condition and circumstances rendered necessary. And
also, as a matter of fact, the laws of the Roman empire
have again and again been drawn upon for supplying the
imperfect system of English law with those rules of justice
and right which had been educed and sanctioned by ages
of Roman civilization. If we once concede that law is
the voice of Justice, regulating the affairs of men in civil
society, we cannot deny that it is, and must be, based upon
uniform and permanent principles, and that it will be
evolved in substantially the same manner, and in similar
formulas, in every community. And such is, indeed, the
fact. In hardly any community on the face of the earth is
it necessary for a person to be learned in its laws in order
to live a peaceable and quiet life; all he has to do is to
102 LECTURE BY

follow the dictates of his conscience, and endeavor to do
right, and he will be pretty sure to commit no offense against
the laws. If there is one thing that mankind will have it is
just laws. Society can no more subsist with unjust laws
than it can without any laws. Even arbitrary and despotic
sovereigns, however lawless themselves, generally take good
care that the people shall have the benefit of good laws for
the regulation of their domestic affairs.

Law, then, being the expression of man’s sense of justice
in the regulation of civil society, is not an arbitrary or
empirical set of rules, but is founded upon immutable and
eternal principles—the immutable and eternal principles of
justice and right. It may differ in mere form and detail
in different countries, but it is essentially the same in all
wherever civilization prevails.

It seems to me, therefore, that there cannot be a doubt
that jurisprudence is a science, and one of the grandest
sciences upon which the human mind can be employed.
At the same time, it must be acknowledged that the light
of that science is but faintly revealed, and only in obscure —
glimmerings, to those who do not gaze profoundly into its
depths, and acquire that legal insight which only deep
study and reflection can give.

THE ELASTICITY AND EXPANSIBILITY OF LAW TO MEET
THE GROWING WANTS OF SOCIETY, ANOTHER PROOF
THAT JURISPRUDENCE Is A SCIENCE. |

Another proof that law is not an arbitrary set of rules,
but is an emanation of human nature, and subject to im-
mutable laws of development, is the fact that it keeps pace
with the growth and advancement of society, and expands
and adapts itself to every phase of social progress, whether
in amoral or a material direction. The law of to-day is
as adequate to the wants of our advanced social and ma-
terial condition as the law of five centuries ago was to the
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. I03

restricted life and simpler habits of that period. And this ~
principle of adaptation and expansion is inherent in the
nature of law, and does not depend upon, and does not
generally wait for specific legislation, though often aided
and supported by legislation. It arises from the fact that
law is the expression of justice as applied to the transac-
tions of society. As those’ transactions increase and mul-
tiply they constantly demand the application of the rules
of justice, or, as it is sometimes termed, the extension of
old principles (which are nothing but the principles of jus-
tice) to their peculiar conditions, and hence arises a new
expression of justice, and a new rule of law. For it is a
primary and fundamental rule that law is founded on
reason and justice, and that if no exact precedent can be
found for deciding a case, it must be decided according to
reason and justice. and the analogy of previous cases most
nearly resembling it. Ifa new instrument of trade comes
into vogue, for example, a promissory note, it will not be
long before general usage and convenience will originate
tules and regulations as to its use and as to the rights and
obligations arising upon it, which the courts (if wise and
liberal in their views) will sanction as just and equitable,
and which will soon acquire the force of law. If a new
mode of conveyance and transportation is invented, for ex-
ample, a railroad, with its steam locomotives and cars, it
will not be many years before, by the judicial application
of the principles of justice, already to some degree exem-
plified in other modes of travel and transportation, a code of
railroad law will be built up answerable to all the re-
quirements of the new circumstances. We elder members
of the profession have seen this very thing take place in
our own time, and could now exhibit to the astonished eyes
of our great predecessors, Coke and Hale and Holt, if
they were permitted to revisit the earth, almost entire sys-
tems of law which they never dreamed of as lying in unde-
104 LECTURE BY

veloped germ in the bosom of that common law which they
loved so well; undeveloped then, because the exigencies
of society had not yet. arisen which required their elimina-
tion and announcement. And this is the way that the
common law of any country arises and is developed. It is
the intellectual form, the specific idea and counterpart of
the progress of society. ‘To stop this expansion of the law
would be equivalent to stopping the growth and advance-
ment of society, and the very pulse of humanity.

When this judicial adaptation and expansion of the law
becomes too slow for the progress of events, or would re-
quire too violent a change, the legislature interposes and
enacts a new law amendatory of or additional to the old.
Statute law and the natural growth of the common. law go
hand in hand to meet the new exigencies of life and busi-
ness that are constantly manifesting themselves.

THE GRrowTH oF LAW NOT TO BE SUPPRESSED BY
CopES—USE OF CODES.

This law of development is universal. No matter what
codes may be devised for the purpose of fixing the law,
and making it unalterable, in the nature of things it can-
not stay fixed. Frederick the Great, of Prussia, was the
originator of codes in modern Europe. He supposed that
he could settle the law as easily as he could control his
legions. He had a contemptuous regard for lawyers and
civilians ; and he directed his chancellor to draw up a
code in which the whole law should be expressed in plain
and terse propositions, which might be understood by all,
and which would need no lawyer to explain them. Such
a code he intended to establish as the perpetual and un-
changeable law of Prussia. Accordingly, a code was pre-
pared; but its imperfections prevented its adoption in
Frederick’s' day. It was only adopted in the reign of his
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 105

successor, after providing for the application of the prin-
ciples of justice to new cases that might arise. This is the
famous Landrecht of Prussia, which has produced innu-
merable commentaries for its explanation and application,
and which, with all its pretensions, could not stop the
progress of law, any more than it could stop the progress
of human affairs.

The Civil Code of France was adopted in 1804, and at
this day there are probably a thousand volumes of adjudged
cases and commentaries on the code, which have all to be
consulted in order to know what the law really is.

Codes are undoubtedly useful for the purpose of settling
disputed and doubtful points, and giving to the citizens the
ordinary rules of law in a compact and intelligible form ;
but they should not be allowed to usurp the prerogatives
of justice itself, seated in man’s bosom, by giving to the
letter of the code the inexorable fixity of a statute, and
thus reducing the exposition of the law to a question of
philology and verbal criticism, instead of a question of
reason and justice. Used asa statement of principles and
rules applicable to cases clearly within their scope, and not
as restraints upon the judge in reference to other cases
which are not provided for, and which require a new appli-
cation of principles, z. ¢., the principles of right and justice
governing analogous cases, codes may not only be admis-
sible, but may be of great service in systematizing and
perfecting the law. ‘They should never be employed for
the purpose of giving to the law a cast-iron fixity of form,
and thereby repressing all progress and imposing a dele-
terious and smothering restraint upon society itself.

Tue Roman LAw NOT A CODE, AS OFTEN SUPPOSED.

It has been supposed by some that the Roman law, as it
has been transmitted to us, being in writing, is in the form
of a code; but this is a mistake. The Roman, like the
-106 LECTURE BY

English and our own, law consisted of common and
statute law. The former was a growth of time, exactly
like that of England, with small beginnings, and gradually
expanding to meet the wants of civilization. It was
founded on old constitutions, on the Twelve Tables, on
Plebiscita, Senatus Consulta, edicts of the Preetors, re-
sponses of the juris-consults, Imperial rescripts, and long
usage and custom. ‘The only codes ever adopted in Rome
were the Twelve Tables, adopted about four hundred and
fifty years before Christ, and the Perpetual Edict of
Hadrian, adopted one hundred and thirty-one years after
Christ, four hundred years before the time of Justinian.
The Edict, like the French Code, was the occasion of in-
numerable books of commentaries; and it was in these
commentaries, and other treatises on the law composed by
the great juris-consults of Rome, that the common law of
Rome was to be found. A great body of statute law grew
up at the same time, consisting mostly of Imperial Consti-
tutions. , The two made up the whole law of Rome. Jus-
tinian appointed a commission of able lawyers, with Tri-
bonian, his Minister of Justice, at its head, to make, not a
code, but a digest of the writings of the juris-consults,
which had much the same authority as our volumes of ad-
judged cases. This was done by making extracts from the
best writers, and arranging them into a system, under
different heads or titles, and dividing the whole into fifty
books. This is the Digest, or Pandect, equal in bulk, if
translated, to about three volumes of Bacon’s Abridgment,
which it resembles more in character than any other book
of our law. It contains the common law of Rome in the
very words of her great jurists, with all their reasonings
and illustrations ; and if we except the Holy Scriptures, it
is the greatest monument of wisdom which antiquity has
bequeathed to us. .
The next work of Justinian’s Commissioners was what
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. ~ 107

is called the Code (Codex); but it is not a code in our
sense of the word ; it is a mere compilation of the existing
statutes of the empire, arranged in systematic order, ac-
cording to the plan of the Digest, and divided into twelve
books.

The Institutes is a small book, altered from the Insti-
tutes of Gaius (which had been in use for four hundred
years), and prepared for the use of students. It is divided
into four books, and contains a summary of the law ex-
hibited in the Digest and Code.

The Novels, or Novellae Constitutiones, are later statutes,
mostly adopted during the reign of Justinian, for supply-
ing deficiencies found to exist in the Digest and Code, or
making amendments in the law. One of these novels, the
118th, is celebrated as being the law from which our
statute of distribution of the personal estates of deceased
persons was taken.

These four works, the Digest, Code, Institutes, and
Novels, constitute the Corpus Juris Civilis of Rome. They
exhibit precisely the same characteristics presented by our
own laws as regards the gradual growth and progress of
the law, and its adaptation to the changing circumstances
and condition of society.

It is to be hoped that you will some day make the ac-
quaintance of this splendid system of law, not merely as
a matter of curiosity, but as the source and fountain from
which much of the common law has been drawn, as well
as an inexhaustible storehouse of principles, rules, and
distinctions, which are susceptible of constant application
- to the circumstances of modern society, and the knowledge
of which will be of signal advantage in the pursuit of
your profession. Hitherto these magnificent monuments,
except the Institutes, have remained untranslated into
English, although the civilians of Oxford and Cambridge
are now beginning the herculean task. But to read them
r08 LECTURE BY

in their original terse and forcible Latin will, of itself, be
accompanied with the great advantage of perfecting your
familiarity with that tongue, which an accomplished law-
yer cannot well be without.

But my object in referring to the Roman law is to show
that it is not, as some have supposed, an exception to the
general rule, that law is an outgrowth of human nature,
and is subject to immutable laws of development according
to the progress and necessities of civil society. From this
general character of law, as before stated, I deduce an ad-
ditional argument to those already advanced, that the
knowledge of law, or jurisprudence, may justly be called
a science.

AS A SCIENCE THE LAW CAN ONLY BE ACQUIRED BY
LONG AND PATIENT STUDY.

But it is necessary to warn you that as a science it is not
to be acquired in a day, nor in a year, but only by the
“ lucubrationes vigintt annorum.’ As in the creation, we
may suppose that the light of the stars did not all burst
upon man at a single moment, but came upon him from
their distant chambers in successive beams one after another,
according to their recondite stations in space, so in the study
of law, one great principle after another comes to the yearn-
ing mind and overspreads it with light and gladness ; and
many long years inay elapse before one can feel that he has
really mastered the law, and fully obtained that ‘‘ gladsome
light of jurisprudence,’’ spoken of by Lord Coke. There
may be one or two men in a generation of startling genius,
who, by some natural inspiration or instinct, become great
lawyers at a bound and achieve a glorious career without
any great study or seeming effort. But they appear like
the summer tornado, without observation or premonition.
They are a law unto themselves alone, and furnish no guide
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 109

or example for others. Ordinary men are not thus inspired ;
it will not be safe for you to hope for any such inspiration.
You must calculate on traveling the old dusty road which
we have all traveled before you. You must look forward to
hard toil and slow and steady acquirement. Unless you
can make up your mind to this, you had better undertake
some other pursuit. I do not wish to discourage you, but
to set before you the truth. The reward of perseverance is
sufficiently splendid to give you courage and hope; but
you cannot expect to realize it for many years to come, and
those must be years of labor and study and patient expec-
tation.

SOME SUGGESTIONS ON THE MODE OF STUDYING Law.

It would be out of place for me to attempt to prescribe
for you a routine of studies; your learned and able pro-
fessors are much more competent to do this than I am.
But I may, without impropriety, make a suggestion or two
as to the mode and manner of study, which seem to. be
entitled to your consideration.

Of course the matter and substance of your text-books
are to be fully mastered and impressed upon the memory.
This is taken for granted. ‘The best mode of doing this
undoubtedly is the constant use of the pen in making full
abstracts, and often reviewing what is thus written, as well
for the purpose of aiding the memory as for that of getting
a clear view of the subject in all its relations. But what I
would particularly impress upon you is the habit of master-
ing the language and forms of expression of your author.
In mathematics a mental conception of signs and diagrams
is chiefly important in the acquisition of geometrical truth ;
the exact language of the propositions and demonstrations
is not of vital importance. A mathematical professor will
be satisfied with his student if he finds that he comprehends
the mathematical ideas, without scrutinizing his style of
‘IO LECTURE BY

expression. But it is not so in the law. Here it is not
only necessary to know the rule, but to know how to ex-
press it in appropriate language. There is no science in -
which the words and forms of expression are more impor-
tant than the law. Precision of definition and statement is
a sine gua non. Possessing it, you possess the law ; not
possessing it, you do not possess the law, but only the
power of vainly beating the air with uncertain words which
impress nobody, instruct nobody, convince nobody. In
the law all the knowledge in the world without the power
of expressing it in apt formulas and correct diction is use-
less to the possessor. This language may seem hyper-
bolical, but it is true. A lawyer without the power of
clear and accurate expression is like a seventy-four gun
ship grounded on a sand-bar, unwieldy, unmanageable,
and the easy victim of any small craft of the enemy that
happens to be abroad. I wish this sentence could be
deeply lodged in your minds, to wit : It is of the utmost
importance to a student of the laws to acquire, besides a
knowledge of the law itself, the power of expressing it in
correct and appropriate language, such asis found in books
of authority. For correct and appropriate diction is as.
necessary to the lawyer as a knowledge of the law.

Some men have a natural gift of recalling the exact lan-
guage of the books they read and master. Their word
memory is exceptional, sometimes almost miraculous. But
there, are few. who are thus gifted, and to most persons it
is a laborious task to store up in their minds the accurate
terms, phrases, and definitions of the law. ‘The treasure
to be secured, however, is worthy of the greatest pains.

Perhaps one of the best aids to the accomplishment of
which I speak is to choose some author of pure and accu-
rate diction, and make his work a vade mecum, until you
have become so familiar with its contents that, although
not absolutely committed to memory, the words and forms
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. IIlI

of expression will spontaneously suggest themselves. when-
ever you begin to speak or write on the subject. Of course,
there can be no doubt what book should be chosen for this
purpose. ‘There is nothing to compare with the Commen-
taries of Sir William Blackstone in completeness of scope,
purity, and elegance of diction and appositeness, if not
always absolute accuracy of definition and statement. One
of the greatest, if not the greatest, of forensic speakers, as
well as lawyers, that I ever knew was the late Mr. George
Wood, of New York—in his early days a leader of the bar
of New Jersey. His discourse to the court was always grave,
dignified, and commanding; his diction was chaste and
pure, and his style was rich in correct legal phraseology ;
so that he seemed, when speaking, to be the personification
of the law itself. He made no gestures, and but few ref-
erences to authorities; he did not need authorities; you
knew as he spoke that what he spoke was the law. All
was reduced to such plain and simple principles, and en-
forced with such logical clearness of argument, in the
chastest, as well as the richest and most appropriate legal
diction, that he compelled the closest attention and carried
conviction along with him to the end. I have often hung
upon his lips with chained attention, even when opposed
to him in the case, and can truly say that I never enjoyed
a greater intellectual treat than in listening to his argu-
ments. Now, I happen to have heard from one of Mr.
Wood’s contemporaries an account of the method which
he pursued for acquiring his wonderful command of choice
juridical diction.

It was his custom for many years in the earlier part of
his professional life, when not over-burdened with busi-
ness, to read a chapter of Blackstone of a morning and
then to take a long walk, and repeat to himself all that he
could remember of what he had read, even to the very
words and phrases in those parts that were important, such
II2 LECTURE BY

as definitions and the like. If not satisfied with the first
trial, he would repeat the process on the succeeding day,
and in this manner, chapter after chapter, he went through
the Commentaries, until they were so perfectly mastered,
both in matter and form, that he became almost a walking
commentary himself.

His case illustrates the oft-repeated injunction, to ‘‘ Be-
ware of the man of one book.’’ ‘This injunction is based
on a truth of much importance to the professional student.
Perfect familiarity, perfect mastery, of any one good book
is a mine of intellectual wealth, not merely, not so much,
for the matter which is thus made one’s own, as for the
vocabulary, the diction, the style and manner of expression
which is mastered and indelibly fixed in the mind. How
many pulpit orators, and even secular speakers, have be-
come noted for their eloquence by their familiarity with,
and ready use of, the language of sacred Scripture. And
when the one book mastered in this way is such a book as
Blackstone’s Commentaries, it is easy to comprehend what
power and beauty may be acquired and laid by for future
use in the display of forensic eloquence.

This method of constant and repeated study of a few
good books gives one also a firm grasp of the principles of
the law, as well as of the forms of expression. The par-
ticular books are not essential, if they are good books, and
by authors of original authority. When a student at law I
took up, out of the regular course, Gilbert on Evidence,
the original edition, a small book, but full of principles
and grounds of the law, after the manner of the great Chief
Baron. I studied it carefully over and again, and I believe
that I derived as much benefit from that little old book as
from any I ever read, except, perhaps, Stephens on Plead-
ing, which I studied in much the same manner. I con-
clude that it was not so much the particular books, as the
manner of study, which produced a beneficial result.
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 113

Another branch of reading not comprised in the-regu-
lar course, and which is productive of the greatest benefit,
is that of great leading cases in the reports—here and
there one—like that of Twyne’s Case and Shelly’s Case
in Coke, Coggs vs. Bernard in Lord Raymond, Miller vs.
Race in Burrow, &c., not forgetting the great constitu-
tional cases decided in this country, in which Chief Justice
Marshall delivered those profound opinions which have im-
mortalized his name. The careful reading of a case—
the whole of it, including the arguments of counsel—will
enlarge one’s knowledge of the law, strengthen the un-
derstanding, and furnish a key to the methods of juridical
discussion in the courts.

THE STUDENT OF LAW MUST BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH
THE STRUCTURE OF Civil SOCIETY, AND WITH HUMAN
AFFAIRS AND BUSINESS. 7

But if I have succeeded in my object, I have impressed
upon you the conviction that the law is not to be studied
and learnt like a dead language, in books only ; but that itis
aliving object, embodied in and sustaining that civil society
of which you are members, and manifested in its organic
form, and in the rules and regulations by which it is or-
dered and made harmonious and conducive to the greatest
human happiness.

All this may seem to be very common knowledge—
almost home-spun truth. But home-spun truths often need
to be impressed upon the attention. ‘Their importance is
frequently overlooked. One deduction to be drawn from
the truth which I have endeavored to present is the im-
portance, to a student at law, of having a knowledge of
affiairs, a knowledge of civil society, its constitution and
doings ; a knowledge of what is taking place around him.
He should know, as far as possible, the reason of every-
thing. In other words, he should be wide awake, and,
II4 LECTURE BY

with open eyes should watch this great drama of human
life which is being acted in his presence, and not go dream-
ing around, with his head down, dwelling only and always
upon the metaphysical quiddities of thelaw. These quiddi-
ties may be very good in their place ; but they should not
be allowed to absorb the whole attention of the student,
and entirely divert it from the fresh, green views presented
by that living law which he is to apply to actual life around
him, and which he can only understand in its true spirit
by a wide and varied knowledge of that life as the material
and groundwork of civil society. Of what use will it be
to him to know all about the British Constitution, for ex-
ample, if he does not understand our own Constitution,
Federal and State? Of what use, to know the organiza-
tion of the government and the courts of England, if he
does not know that of our own government and courts?
Probably you all know the number, the names, and bound-
aries of the counties in your own State ; but do you know .
who are the officers of each county, and what are their
powers? Can you tell by what authority roads are laid
out and bridges are built ? Can you tell by what authority
a telegraph pole is erected in front of your door? Are you
acquainted with the powers of the Common Council of the
city in which you live? A man of ordinary good intelligence
finds out many of these things without suspecting that
he is learning something of the law. He picks them up
from the newspapers, from conversation, from everything
that affords him information. He is wide awake to what
is going on around him. His eyes are open. He takes in
knowledge at every pore. So the law student should be.
‘To put it in a homely manner, he should have “an in-
quiring mind.’’ Ulpian, as before stated, says that juris-
prudence is the knowledge of things human and divine, as
well as the science of what is just and what is unjust.
This is a broad definition, but it is suggestive. The
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. II5

lawyer ought, indeed, to know almost everything, for there
is nothing in human affairs that he may not, some time or
other, have to do with. At least he ought to be acquainted
with all those things which go to make up the form and
body, the life and order of the society in which he lives. ©
He ought to know its civil institutions and their several
functions. He ought to know all those things about his
country and his State which would enable him to speak
intelligently of their institutions, their policy, and their
public proceedings. He ought to know how ordinary
matters of business are transacted ; the forms and meaning
of bonds, promissory notes, bills of exchange, bank checks,
drafts, leases, releases, ordinary deeds, policies of insurance,
agreements. He ought to interest himself to learn the
actual methods of doing business, not only in private
counting-houses, in the market, and in the exchange, but
also in the halls of city, State, and Federal legislation. A
great mass of this sort of general knowledge and informa-
tion can be acquired by one anxious to learn without in-
terfering with the general course of his studies ; and it will
throw great light on his studies. It will often enable him
to understand and apply them when otherwise their use
and application would not be recognized. The sort of
knowledge to which I refer is largely to be found in the
statute-book, and that, however much despised, is a book
which ought always to be within the student’s reach. It
should be his vade mecum, not to the exclusion of scientific
text-books, but as an adjunct and interpreter of them.
The statute-book exhibits the actual institutions and regu-
lations prevailing in the State at the present time.

One of the advantages of studying law in the office of a
practitioner is the acquisition, to some extent, of the kind
of knowledge to which I have referred. The student is
there brought in contact with the business world, and the
practical application of the law to actual cases. He copies
116 LECTURE BY .

deeds, agreements, documents of every kind, as well as
legal papers, and is often charged with business transac-
tions that increase his general knowledge.

I do not underrate the study of law by scientific meth-
ods as it is pursued in this and other schools. This method
of study is of the greatest value. It makes scientific law-
yers. It gives general and harmonious views of the law.
It awakens an interest for its profound depths. But whilst
the science is studied here, its application to the status, the
exigencies, and the wants of society may be learned, and
best learned, by a study of the living subject itself—civil
society—and the transactions that prevail in it ; everything
that exists and everything that passes about one in the
social state.

I have urged this view upon your attention because I
have often seen young men settle down into mere book-
worms of the law, losing their interest in passing events
and what is going on around them, and thereby becoming
unadapted to the active professional duties of the lawyer,
which exhibit him in his most useful character, and bring
him the richest rewards.

THE LAWYER’S STUDIES FIT HIM TO TAKE A LEADING
PART IN THE STATE.

These considerations lead us to another interesting view
of our profession. The subject of the lawyer’s studies
necessarily makes him intimately acquainted with all the
duties of the magistrate, as well as all the duties of the
citizen ; with the rules.of conduct that actually prevail,
and with the wants and necessities of the body politic re-
quiring any change or modification of these rules. Of
course, with this species of study and training, no class of
the community is so well qualified as the lawyer to take a
‘eading part in the affairs of the community, in the making
JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. 117

and in the administration of its laws, and in the execution
of the powers of government. It is the legitimate and
proper result of his studies and training. This is only
true, however, when the lawyer takes a broad and liberal
view of his profession, and regards it, as it should be re-
garded, as ancillary to the promotion of justice and right
amongst men, and the general good of the State. The
merely technical pettifogger, the Jegulezus cautus, is more
unfitted than other men to counsel and govern the State,
because the narrow and incorrect views which he takes of
his profession rather lead him astray, to the promotion of
mischievous devices and expedients, than to wise and pru-
dent measures. He knows both too much and too little;
too much to be modest, prudent, and conservative ; too
little to take wise and enlightened views. Hence it often
happens, as the result of such unfortunate examples, that
a popular jealousy and distrust of lawyers prevail in keep-
ing them out of places of public trust.

How important, therefore, it is to themselves as a class,
as well as to society at large, that the students of justice
and right should be imbued with the principles of justice
and right, so that the profession may take that high and
noble position in the community which, when it is faithful
to itself, is its just prerogative.

CONCLUSION.

The few suggestions that I have made with regard to the
range of inquiry desirable in the study of law must not be
taken as complete. In a single lecture I can only set forth
a few things to be acquired or done that strike me as im-
portant, and that may not be obvious to the student. ‘There
are, of course, many others which I cannot dwell upon,
such as general history, the history of the law, legal
biography, political philosophy, political economy, and
118 LECTURE BY JOSEPH P. BRADLEY.

many more, which the student must in time acquire in
order to become an accomplished lawyer. To sum up all
in one word, in order to be an accomplished lawyer it is
necessary, besides having a knowledge of the law, to be an
accomplished man, graced with at least a general knowledge
of history, of science, of philosophy, of the useful arts, of
the modes of business, and of everything that concerns the .
well-being and intercourse of men in society. He ought
to be a man of large understanding ; he must be a man of
large acquirements and rich in general information ; for
he is a priest of the law, which is the bond and support of
civil society, and which extends to and regulates every re-
lation of one man to another in that society, and every
transaction that takes place in it.

Trained in such a profession, and having these acquire-
ments, and two things more (which can never be omitted
from the category of qualifications), incorruptible integrity
and a high sense of honor, the true lawyer cannot but be
the highest style of a man, fit for any position of trust,
public or private; one to whom the community can look
up as to a leader and guide ; fit to judge and to rule in the
highest places of magistracy and government ; an honor to
himself, an honor to his kind.
Sh ARRON PAT Re

 

 

 

 

KF 368 B81

Author Vol.

In memoriam. Joseph P Bradley

Title Copy
Date Borrower's Name