Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase | Page 9

Mr. Lincoln appointed Mr. Chase to the vacant seat,
and the general voice recognized the great fitness of the selection.
I may be permitted to borrow from the well-considered and sober
words of an eminent judge, the senior Associate on the bench of the
Supreme Court--words that will carry weight with the country which
mine could not--a judicial estimate of this selection. Mr. Justice
Clifford says: "Appointed, as it were, by common consent, he seated
himself easily and naturally in the chair of justice, and gracefully
answered every demand upon the station, whether it had respect to the
dignity of the office, or to the elevation of the individual character of
the incumbent, or to his firmness, purity, or vigor of mind. From the
first moment he drew the judicial robes around him he viewed all
questions submitted to him as a judge in the calm atmosphere of the
bench, and with the deliberate consideration of one who feels that he is
determining issues for the remote and unknown future of a great
people."
Magistratus ostendit virum--the magistracy shows out the man. A great
office, by its great requirements and great opportunities, calls out and
displays the great powers and rare qualities which, presumably, have
raised the man to the place. Let us consider this last public service and
last great station, as they exhibit Mr. Chase to a candid estimate.
And, first, I notice the conspicuous fitness for judicial service of the
mental and moral constitution of the man. All through the heady
contests of the vehement politics of his times, his share in them had

embodied decision, moderation, serenity, and inflexible submission to
reason as the master and ruler of all controversies. Force, fraud,
cunning, and all lubric arts and artifices, even the beguilements of
rhetoric, found no favor with him, as modes of warfare or means of
victory. So far, then, from needing to lay down any weapons, or disuse
any methods in which he was practised, or learn or assume new habits
of mind or strange modes of reasoning, Mr. Chase, in the working of
his intellect and the frame of his spirit, was always judicial.
It was not less fortunate for the prompt authority of his new station, so
dependent upon the opinion of the country, that his credit for great
abilities and capacity for large responsibilities was already established.
Great repute, as well as essential character, is justly demanded for all
elevated public stations, and especially for judicial office, whose
prosperous service, in capital junctures, turns mainly on moral power
with the community at large.
Both these preparations easily furnished the Chief-Justice with the
requisite aptitude for the three relations, of prime importance, upon
which his adequacy must finally be tested; I mean, his relation to the
court as its presiding head, his relation to the profession as masters of
the reason and debate over which the court is the arbiter, and his
relation to the people and the State in the exercise of the critical
constitutional duties of the court, as a coördinate department of the
Government.
In a numerous court, that the Chief-Justice should have a prevalent and
gracious authority, as first among equals, to adjust, arrange, and
facilitate the coöperative working of its members, will not be doubted.
For more than sixty years, at least, this court had felt this
authority--potens et lenis dominatio--in the presence of the two
celebrated Chief-Justices who filled out this long service. Their great
experience and great age had supported, and general conformity of
political feeling, if not opinion, on the bench, had assisted, this relation
of the Chief-Justice to the court.
When Mr. Chase was called to this station, he found the bench filled
with men of mark and credit, and his accession made an exactly equal

division of the court between the creations of the old and of the new
politics. In these circumstances the proper maintenance of the
traditional relation of the Chief-Justice to the court was of much
importance to its unbroken authority with the public. That it was so
maintained was apparent to observation, and Mr. Justice Clifford,
speaking for the court, has shown it in a most amiable light:
"Throughout his judicial career he always maintained that dignity of
carriage and that calm, noble, and unostentatious presence that
uniformly characterized his manners and deportment in the social circle;
and, in his intercourse with his brethren, his suggestions were always
couched in friendly terms, and were never marred by severity or
harshness."
As for the judgment of the bar of the country, while it gave its full
assent to the appointment of Mr. Chase, as an elevated and wise
selection by the President, upon the general and public grounds which
should always control, there was some hesitancy, on the part of the
lawyers,