Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

of manhood, in relation to the same individual, on a closer inspection, and a different and more arduous theatre of action:

"Among those who, during the late war, have contributed to sustain the character and exalt the glory of the nation, while they have secured for themselves the appro bation and applause of their country, ANDREW JACKSON is pre-eminently conspicuous. Bold and enterprising, to an extraordinary natural sagacity he adds an energy of character which enables him to triumph over every obstacle and find resources in every emergency. Undismayed by difficulties, regardless of reputation, and unawed by clamor, he is influenced alone by his duty to the State, and in the course which that duty is designated, he is indefatigable, vigorous, and successful."

The same pen, set to the same task, would probably employ, at the present day, terms not materially different from the above.

On Mr. Butler's admission to the Bar, in 1817, as an attorney of the Supreme Court and solicitor in Chancery, Mr. Van Buren, then Attorney General of the State, and resident at Albany, received him into partnership in his professional business; which connection subsisted till the appointment of the latter to the Senate of the United States, in December, 1821-with the exception of a interval of a few months in 1819. This temporary separation was caused only by private reasons which it is of no importance to explain, though honorable to both, as evincing the greater solicitude felt by each for the interests of the other than for his own. That interval was spent by Mr. Butler at Sandy Hill, Washington County, when he was induced to accept a flattering and advantageous office of the presidency of a bank, owned by Mr. Barker, of New York, and conducted in connexion with the larger banking institution in the city of New York managed by the latter in person. Mr. Butler, whose recent marriage connected him nearly with Mr. Barker, had already shown himself a decided advocate of free banking; and had written a pamphlet on the subject, in which he urged forcibly the same general views of the true principles of republican freedom and of sound political economy, which are now becoming much more extensively popular in that State. It is rather a remarkable circumstance, that the individual now the most distinguished in that State, as the advocate of those liberal and wise views to which Mr. Butler has been consistently attached from the outset of his career, was at that time the very author of the celebrated Restraining Law, recently repealed, against which the pamphlet here alluded to was directed,though we by no means would imply, in the credit to which this circumstance may entitle the one, any corresponding discredit upon that other, most upright, wise, and honest statesman. His acceptance of the presidency of the Washington County Bank, an incorporated institution, does not in the least impugn the consistency of his views on this subject. By a clause of the Restraining Law, Mr. Barker had been prohibited from maintaining his private bank, two years being allowed him for the settlement of its affairs. The restriction was, however, easily evaded by him by the purchase of nearly

the whole of the stock of the chartered institution referred to; which was thus, when its charge was offered to Mr. Butler, to all intents and purposes, a private one. The failure of Mr. Barker's experiment is well known,-a failure by which those banks of our own day which we see unwisely attempting to combine a mercantile with their proper banking business, would do well to take caution. Mr. Barker failed as a banker, because he combined with that character the incompatible one of a merchant. The fall of his "Exchange Bank" dragged with it, of course, that of its subordinate branch; which, in fact, was already in such a situation on Mr. Butler's first assuming its management as to be compelled to suspend specie payments very shortly afterwards. This event restored Mr. Butler to his profession, though before he left the bank, by great exertions and care, its credit was restored and specie payments resumed.

Immediately on his admission as counsellor, in 1820, Mr. Butler began to appear as an advocate in all the higher courts of the State. Mr. Van Buren, "with a liberality as rare in itself as it was useful to its object," (to quote an expression of the latter) gave him every opportunity of appearing prominently and to advantage in the argument of cases,-sometimes at his own expense; and when his increasing public engagements, on another stage of action, took him from the Bar, much of his professional business naturally devolved upon Mr. Butler.

We have heard the occasion of Mr. Butler's first appearance in the Supreme Court described, (January, 1821,) and it is not undeserving of notice. He was the attorney in the cause, with Colonel Burr and Mr. Van Buren, against the celebrated Mr. Henry, then at the head of the Albany Bar, and one of the most eminent lawyers in the State. The case turned on recondite questions of black-letter learning, and such was the impression made by Mr. Butler's argument, that neither of his distinguished senior counsel thought it worth while to speak in the cause, which was gained singlehanded by the young advocate whose first effort was thus so arduous and so honorable. His first cause in the Court of Errors was also won, in the next year, in a similar single combat with the same powerful antagonist,-Mr. Van Buren, who had argued it in the Supreme Court below, having, on his own withdrawal from practice, advised his client to entrust it to Mr. Butler's hands. This success placed Mr. Butler at once in the front rank of the profession. His practice has ever since been very extensive and important; and in the Court of Errors, especially, has been (with the exception of the period when the Revision of the Laws withdrew him from the courts) perhaps as much as twice or thrice that of any other individual.

In February, 1821, he was appointed the District Attorney of the city and county of Albany. This office, involving the duties of criminal prosecutor, was an laborious though useful school, as he had

constantly to appear against many of the ablest members of the profession, and never (with the exception, we believe, of but a single instance) associated with himself any other assistance. With respect to his manner of discharging the delicate functions of this office, which he resigned in March, 1825, we feel at liberty to transfer from the minutes of the Court of Common Pleas, to the publicity of the present notice, the following extract from the letter in which the court accepted his resignation:

"We accept your resignation, but at the same time regret that the occurrence of events has rendered it necessary for you to tender it.

"And as you are now about to retire from an office you have held with so much honor to yourself and satisfaction to the community; we avail ourselves of this opportunity of expressing the pleasure we derive from the reflection, that the trust reposed in you, as public prosecutor, has been so faithfully discharged. And were we permitted to indulge in the gratifying reflection that we also had been successful in any effort to discharge our official duties, we yield it to you, as a just tribute, to say, that it is to your candor and ability we are indebted for much of that success. "From the opportunity we have had of correctly estimating your services for the citizens of this county, we take the liberty to say, on their behalf, that their laws have been fully supported, and in you, their taste, their morals, and their reputation have had a zealous advocate.

"But, sir, more especially are you enabled to congratulate yourself, that those whom your duty has required you to conduct to the bar of justice, have reason to be grateful to you for the opportunities you have afforded them for a fair and impartial trial. This reflection must be peculiarly gratifying inasmuch as it is not enjoyed by all. For the desire to succeed in a cause, regardless of the means, appears to be the strongest passion in the heart of an advocate, and the last and most difficult one, in the whole progress of refinement, to subdue. But in no one does this appear more odious than in a public prosecutor. This great moral conquest it appears you have accomplished at a very early period of your life. We have witnessed, with pleasure, the scrupulous regard you have always had to the means—that they should be no less worthy than the end. While on the part of the people your end and aim were justice, except that, you surrendered all to the unfortunate prisoner.”

In November, 1824, Mr. Butler was appointed, together with two other distinguished lawyers, to the arduous charge of the revision and codification of all the statutes of the State of New York. In this duty, of which Mr. Butler performed the largest part, he was engaged more or less nearly five years; two of which were so exclusively devoted to it as to compel him to discontinue his appearance in court, as well as his other professional labors. With what signal ability this colossal task was discharged, has long been considered established by the almost unanimous opinion of the bar, the bench, and the public at large, of that State.

Chiefly with reference to this work Mr. Butler allowed himself to be nominated by his political friends, in 1827, for the office of a Member of the Assembly from Albany, and after a sharp contest was elected. In this capacity an immense labor devolved on him, of explaining and advocating the different sections of the new code; in which he had, of course, to encounter single-handed all the objections to be urged from different directions against separate

portions. A similar charge was performed in the Senate by his colleague in the Revision, Judge Spencer. In this position Mr. Butler gained very high honor. The Statutes, as offered by the Revisers, were in very rare instances altered by the Legislature, except on their own motion, to adopt amendments suggested by themselves; and it was computed that at the regular session, in January, and an extra session which was held for the exclusive purpose of discussing this subject, Mr. Butler had to make not less than five or six hundred speeches, in encounter with the ablest antagonists, embracing the widest scope of inquiry into all the principles of law and practice necessarily involved in so extensive a system of codification.

In 1829 he was appointed by the Legislature one of the Regents of the University; which, however, he resigned in 1832. In 1833 he acted as a commissioner on the part of the State of New York, to settle the long disputed controversy between that State and New Jersey in relation to their boundary line, which was thus after a dispute of half a century brought to a satisfactory termination.

In November of the same year, 1833, he accepted, at General Jackson's very urgent request, the office of Attorney General of the United States, though he had before declined all the previous very honorable offers that had been made to induce him to come to Washington. This office was so directly connected with his pro

* We cannot omit in this place quoting the following letter addressed to Mr. Butler, on the occasion of his leaving Albany to assume the office of Attorney General at the seat of government, by a large number of the most respectable and eminent citizens of the former place, not only of all ages and professions but of all parties. A volunteer tribute of such a kind, proceeding from such a source,—and not usual on similar occasions, constitutes a higher testimonial to the elevated purity of character and life which could alone have elicited it, than any other public honor could ever afford :

ALBANY, November 26, 1833.

"SIR: Your friends and fellow citizens have heard with much concern that you are about to leave a city in which you have resided many years, and in which you commenced an honorable career of professional distinction and public service, to fill a highly important office in the General Government. We cannot suffer you to depart from us, without expressing to you our high estimation of your character and talents, and our regret for the loss of our personal intercourse with you, and your valuable services in our benevolent institutions, and in relation to the interests of our city and the State.

"Yet it is grateful to us to say, that our regret is mitigated by the reflection that you are to be removed to a sphere of wider usefulness, and greater distinction, in which we hope the moral qualities and intellectual powers the developement of which we have witnessed with interest and pleasure, will prove beneficial to our common country, and promote your own reputation and welfare.

"With the solicitude for you naturally produced by the change you have made, is mingled a confidence that your public life will ever be characterized by that love of justice and truth, that moderation and prudence, which have won our esteem and regard, and which we hope will safely guide you through the uncertain future. "We part with you with the warmest wishes for your public usefulness and personal happiness."

fession, and was pressed upon him in a manner so flattering, that he did not feel at liberty to obey his own inclination and his own interests, which would alike have prompted him to decline it. It involved very considerable pecuniary sacrifices; but in the struggle in which General Jackson was then engaged with the Bank of the United States, he considered the President entitled to the support and assistance of all who concurred with him in his opposition to the attempts of that institution to defeat the expressed will of the people, and to overthrow the Administration of their choice. This office he continued to hold from November, 1833, till the first of September, 1838. With respect to his discharge of its duties, in preference to giving our own impressions, we will quote the follow. ing testimony of a very distinguished member of the Bar, than whom no one could be better qualified to judge, both by constant practice in the Supreme Court, and by all the personal requisites to give authority to his opinions:

"Mr. Butler appeared in the Supreme Court with a high professional character acquired at the Bar of New York, among competitors as numerous, able, and learned as any of the tribunals of our country afford.

"He fully sustained this character: and although the cases of the Government were generally, while he was in office, numerous and important, and his political duties, in those raging times, as a member of the Cabinet, such as to occupy a large share of his time and labor, his efforts in every cause showed a clear conception and thorough investigation of all the points in controversy, and a familiar acquaintance with the legal principles by which they were to be resolved.

"It was universally allowed that no man ever adapted his manner and style of speaking more appropriately to the high tribunal which he addressed. His course of argument, calm, clear, and strong, with no passionate appeals, no vehemence of voice or gesture, no wordy declamation, made its way directly to the understanding and showed a speaker who felt himself above all the arts of the rhetorician, and all desire of display.

"He had gained much reputation for eloquence not only at the Bar, but by those efforts which a man of public spirit and of high moral and religious feeling is continually called upon to make, in the prosecution of the various benevolent objects that engage the attention of an enlightened community. However warm and earnest and impressive his addresses had been to the feelings of his hearers on such occasions, be had the good sense to see, what seems not always to be perceived by gentlemen on such occasions, that law questions are not thus to be argued before a

court.

"One thing was always observed in him-that he spoke and reasoned from his own convictions, with more or less confidence in the positions he maintained, according to his belief of their correctness; and no one doubted that, in the important constitutional questions he was called on to discuss, he mentioned no doctrines but such as he conscientiously believed were consistent with the great charter of our rights, and necessary to preserve and perpetuate the blessings it was designed to confer. His doctrines were such as became an American Jurist, equally remote from the wild speculations of the latitudinarian, and the narrow and impracticable limitations of the close construer of words.

"For another quality he will (as he deserves) be long remembered his nevervarying courtesy to the Bench and Bar, the result of no studied art, but the evident impulse of the kindest feelings. His opponents in discussion always found themselves and their opinions treated with respect, and their arguments met with the utmost candor and fairness."

« ZurückWeiter »