[At a meeting of the Suffolk Bar, held in the Circuit Court Room,
Boston, on the morning of the 12th of September, the day of the funeral
of Mr. Justice Story, Chief Justice Shaw having taken the chair and
announced the object of the meeting, Mr. Webster rose and spoke
substantially as follows.]
Your solemn announcement, Mr. Chief Justice, has confirmed the sad
intelligence which had already reached us, through the public channels
of information, and deeply afflicted us all.
JOSEPH STORY, one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the
United States, and for many years the presiding judge of this Circuit,
died on Wednesday evening last, at his house in Cambridge, wanting only
a few days for the completion of the sixty-sixth year of his age.
This most mournful and lamentable event has called together the whole
Bar of Suffolk, and all connected with the courts of law or the
profession. It has brought you, Mr. Chief Justice, and your associates
of the Bench of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, into the midst of
us; and you have done us the honor, out of respect to the occasion, to
consent to preside over us, while we deliberate on what is due, as well
to our own afflicted and smitten feelings, as to the exalted character
and eminent distinction of the deceased judge. The occasion has drawn
from his retirement, also, that venerable man, whom we all so much
respect and honor, (Judge Davis,) who was, for thirty years, the
associate of the deceased upon the same Bench. It has called hither
another judicial personage, now in retirement, (Judge Putnam,) but long
an ornament of that Bench of which you are now the head, and whose
marked good fortune it is to have been the professional teacher of Mr.
Justice Story, and the director of his early studies. He also is present
to whom this blow comes near; I mean, the learned judge (Judge Sprague)
from whose side it has struck away a friend and a highly venerated
official associate. The members of the Law School at Cambridge, to which
the deceased was so much attached, and who returned that attachment with
all the ingenuousness and enthusiasm of educated and ardent youthful
minds, are here also, to manifest their sense of their own severe
deprivation, as well as their admiration of the bright and shining
professional example which they have so loved to contemplate,--an
example, let me say to them, and let me say to all, as a solace in the
midst of their sorrows, which death hath not touched and which time
cannot obscure.
Mr. Chief Justice, one sentiment pervades us all. It is that of the most
profound and penetrating grief, mixed, nevertheless, with an assured
conviction, that the great man whom we deplore is yet with us and in the
midst of us. He hath not wholly died. He lives in the affections of
friends and kindred, and in the high regard of the community. He lives
in our remembrance of his social virtues, his warm and steady
friendships, and the vivacity and richness of his conversation. He
lives, and will live still more permanently, by his words of written
wisdom, by the results of his vast researches and attainments, by his
imperishable legal judgments, and by those juridical disquisitions which
have stamped his name, all over the civilized world, with the character
of a commanding authority. "Vivit, enim, vivetque semper; atque etiam
latius in memoria hominum et sermone versabitur, postquam ab oculis
recessit."
Mr. Chief Justice, there are consolations which arise to mitigate our
loss, and shed the influence of resignation over unfeigned and
heart-felt sorrow. We are all penetrated with gratitude to God that the
deceased lived so long; that he did so much for himself, his friends,
the country, and the world; that his lamp went out, at last, without
unsteadiness or flickering. He continued to exercise every power of his
mind without dimness or obscuration, and every affection of his heart
with no abatement of energy or warmth, till death drew an impenetrable
veil between us and him. Indeed, he seems to us now, as in truth he is,
not extinguished or ceasing to be, but only withdrawn; as the clear sun
goes down at its setting, not darkened, but only no longer seen.
This calamity, Mr. Chief Justice, is not confined to the bar or the
courts of this Commonwealth. It will be felt by every bar throughout the
land, by every court, and indeed by every intelligent and well-informed
man in or out of the profession. It will be felt still more widely, for
his reputation had a still wider range. In the High Court of Parliament,
in every tribunal in Westminster Hall, in the judicatories of Paris and
Berlin, of Stockholm and St. Petersburg, in the learned universities of
Germany, Italy, and Spain, by every eminent jurist in the civilized
world, it will be acknowledged that a great luminary has fallen from the
firmament of public jurisprudence.
Sir, there is no purer pride of country than that in which we may
indulge when we see America paying back the great debt of civilization,
learning, and science to Europe. In this high return of light for light
and mind for mind, in this august reckoning and accounting between the
intellects of nations, Joseph Story was destined by Providence to act,
and did act, an important part. Acknowledging, as we all acknowledge,
our obligations to the original sources of English law, as well as of
civil liberty, we have seen in our generation copious and salutary
streams turning and running backward, replenishing their original
fountains, and giving a fresher and a brighter green to the fields of
English jurisprudence. By a sort of reversed hereditary transmission,
the mother, without envy or humiliation, acknowledges that she has
received a valuable and cherished inheritance from the daughter. The
profession in England admits with frankness and candor, and with no
feeling but that of respect and admiration, that he whose voice we have
so recently heard within these walls, but shall now hear no more, was,
of all men who have yet appeared, most fitted by the comprehensiveness
of his mind, and the vast extent and accuracy of his attainments, to
compare the codes of nations, to trace their differences to difference
of origin, climate, or religious or political institutions, and to
exhibit, nevertheless, their concurrence in those great principles upon
which the system of human civilization rests.
Justice, Sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament
which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together. Wherever
her temple stands, and so long as it is duly honored, there is a
foundation for social security, general happiness, and the improvement
and progress of our race. And whoever labors on this edifice with
usefulness and distinction, whoever clears its foundations, strengthens
its pillars, adorns its entablatures, or contributes to raise its august
dome still higher in the skies, connects himself, in name, and fame, and
character, with that which is and must be as durable as the frame of
human society.
All know, Mr. Chief Justice, the pure love of country which animated the
deceased, and the zeal, as well as the talent, with which he explained
and defended her institutions. His work on the Constitution of the
United States is one of his most eminently successful labors. But all
his writings, and all his judgments, all his opinions, and the whole
influence of his character, public and private, leaned strongly and
always to the support of sound principles, to the restraint of illegal
power, and to the discouragement and rebuke of licentious and
disorganizing sentiments. "Ad rempublicam firmandam, et ad stabiliendas
vires, et sanandum populum, omnis ejus pergebat institutio."
But this is not the occasion, Sir, nor is it for me to consider and
discuss at length the character and merits of Mr. Justice Story, as a
writer or a judge. The performance of that duty, with which this Bar
will no doubt charge itself, must be deferred to another opportunity,
and will be committed to abler hands. But in the homage paid to his
memory, one part may come with peculiar propriety and emphasis from
ourselves. We have known him in private life. We have seen him descend
from the bench, and mingle in our friendly circles. We have known his
manner of life, from his youth up. We can bear witness to the strict
uprightness and purity of his character, his simplicity and
unostentatious habits, the ease and affability of his intercourse, his
remarkable vivacity amidst severe labors, the cheerful and animating
tones of his conversation, and his fast fidelity to friends. Some of us,
also, can testify to his large and liberal charities, not ostentatious
or casual, but systematic and silent,--dispensed almost without showing
the hand, and falling and distilling comfort and happiness, like the
dews of heaven. But we can testify, also, that in all his pursuits and
employments, in all his recreations, in all his commerce with the world,
and in his intercourse with the circle of his friends, the predominance
of his judicial character was manifest. He never forgot the ermine which
he wore. The judge, the judge, the useful and distinguished judge, was
the great picture which he kept constantly before his eyes, and to a
resemblance of which all his efforts, all his thoughts, all his life,
were devoted. We may go the world over, without finding a man who shall
present a more striking realization of the beautiful conception of
D'Aguesseau: "C'est en vain que l'on cherche à distinguer en lui la
personne privée et la personne publique; un même esprit les anime, un
même objet les réunit; l'homme, le père de famille, le citoyen, tout est
en lui consacré à la gloire du magistrat."
Mr. Chief Justice, one may live as a conqueror, a king, or a magistrate;
but he must die as a man. The bed of death brings every human being to
his pure individuality; to the intense contemplation of that deepest and
most solemn of all relations, the relation between the creature and his
Creator. Here it is that fame and renown cannot assist us; that all
external things must fail to aid us; that even friends, affection, and
human love and devotedness, cannot succor us. This relation, the true
foundation of all duty, a relation perceived and felt by conscience and
confirmed by revelation, our illustrious friend, now deceased, always
acknowledged. He reverenced the Scriptures of truth, honored the pure
morality which they teach, and clung to the hopes of future life which
they impart. He beheld enough in nature, in himself, and in all that can
be known of things seen, to feel assured that there is a Supreme Power,
without whose providence not a sparrow falleth to the ground. To this
gracious being he trusted himself for time and for eternity; and the
last words of his lips ever heard by mortal ears were a fervent
supplication to his Maker to take him to himself.
[Footnote 1: The following letter of dedication to the mother of Judge
Story accompanied these remarks in the original edition:--
"_Boston, September 15, 1845._
"VENERABLE MADAM,--I pray you to allow me to present to you the brief
remarks which I made before the Suffolk Bar, on the 12th instant, at a
meeting occasioned by the sudden and afflicting death of your
distinguished son. I trust, dear Madam, that as you enjoyed through his
whole life constant proofs of his profound respect and ardent filial
affection, so you may yet live long to enjoy the remembrance of his
virtues and his exalted reputation.
"I am, with very great regard,
"Your obedient servant,
"DANIEL WEBSTER.
"TO MADAM STORY."]