The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 | Page 2

the superiority of mental over physical
force, to see a bully of the school, almost twice his size, and who,

apparently, could have crushed him if he chose, quail under his eagle
gaze, when arraigned at the principal's desk for a misdemeanor. It is
doubtful if ever he flogged a scholar; but he sometimes brought the
ruler down upon the desk with a force that made the schoolroom ring,
and inspired the lawless with a very wholesome respect for his
authority. The fact that from that day to this his office has always been
a kind of Mecca, to which his old pupils, whether dwellers in "Araby
the Blest" or in the sandy wastes of life, have made pious pilgrimages,
shows how deeply he was loved and how highly he was honored as a
teacher.
Immediately after graduation Mr. Paine was appointed a Tutor of
Waterville College, and discharged the duties of that office for a year.
He then began the study of law in the office of his uncle, the late
Samuel S. Warren, of China, Maine, and continued the study in the
office of William Clark, a noted lawyer in Hallowell, Maine, and, for a
year, in the Law School of Harvard University, where he was the
classmate of Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips and B.F. Thomas. In the
autumn of 1834, he was admitted to the bar of Kennebec County,
Maine. Beginning his professional career at Hallowell, he prosecuted it
there with signal success till the summer of 1854, having for twenty
years a practice not surpassed by that of any member of the Maine bar.
During the sessions of 1836, 1837, and again in that of 1853, he
represented the citizens of Hallowell in the lower house of the State
Legislature. He was also for five years Attorney for Kennebec County.
During his stay in Maine, he was repeatedly offered a seat on the bench
of the Supreme Judicial Court of that State; but, having an
unconquerable aversion to office of every kind, civil or political, he
declined to accept the honor pressed upon him. In 1853 he was offered
by his political friends, then the dominant party in the Legislature, a
seat in the United States Senate; but he refused to be nominated. In the
summer of 1854, in accordance with a long cherished resolve, which he
had been prevented from executing before by a promise to his father
that he would not leave Maine during that parent's lifetime, he removed
to Cambridge, Mass., and opened a law-office in Boston. Here he at
once entered upon a large and lucrative practice, both in the State and
Federal courts, which kept steadily increasing for over twenty years, till

declining health and partial deafness compelled him to withdraw from
the courts of justice, and confine himself to office business. During this
period, his opinion on abstruse and knotty points of law was often
solicited by eminent counsel living outside of Massachusetts, and he
sent written opinions to attorneys in nine different states. As Referee
and Master in Chancery, he was called upon to arbitrate in a great
number of difficult and complicated cases, involving the ownership and
disposition of large amounts of property. His decisions in these vexed
cases, which often involved the unravelling of tangled webs of
testimony, and the consideration of the nicest and most delicate
questions of law, were luminous and masterly, and so impartial withal,
that the litigants must have often been convinced of their justness, if
not contented,--_etaim contra quos statuit, aequos placatosque dimisit._
In 1863 and 1864 Mr. Paine was nominated, without his consent, by the
Democratic party of Massachusetts, a candidate for the office of
Governor. With much reluctance he accepted the nomination, but, as he
expected, and doubtless to his joy, failed of an election. In 1867, on the
resignation of Chief Justice Bigelow, the office of Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court of Massachusetts was offered by Governor Bullock to
Mr. Paine, who, not wishing to give up his large and profitable practice
at the bar, declined to accept. This decision, though a natural one, is
much to be regretted by the citizens of this state. Coming from an
eminently judicial mind, his decisions, had he sat on the bench, would
have been models of close, cogent reasoning, clearness, and brevity,
worthy of the best days of the Massachusetts judiciary.
Shortly after his removal to this State Mr. Paine was associated with
Rufus Choate and F.O.J. Smith in the defence of Judge Woodbury
Davis, of Portland, Maine, who had been impeached by the Legislature
of that State for misconduct in his judicial office. In an editorial article
upon the trial, which appeared after its termination, in the Kennebec
Journal, published at Augusta, the Hon. James G. Blaine, the writer,
declared epigrammatically