Personal reminiscences of early days in California, with other sketches

by Stephen J. Field; George C. Gorham

THE CAREER OF JUDGE FIELD ON THE SUPREME BENCH OF CALIFORNIA, BY JUDGE JOSEPH G. BALDWIN, HIS ASSOCIATE FOR THREE YEARS.

[From the Sacramento Union, of May 6, 1863.]

"The resignation by Judge Field of the office of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of California, to take effect on the 20th instant, has been announced. By this event the State has been deprived of the ablest jurist who ever presided over her courts. Judge Field came to California from New York in 1849, and settled in Marysville. He immediately commenced the practice of law and rose at once to a high position at the local bar, and upon the organization of the Supreme Court soon commanded a place in the first class of the counsel practicing in that forum. For many years, and until his promotion to the bench, his practice was as extensive, and probably as remunerative, as that of any lawyer in the State. He served one or two sessions in the Legislature, and the State is indebted to him for very many of the laws which constitute the body of her legislation.[1] In 1857 he was nominated for Judge of the Supreme Court for a full term, and in October of the same year was appointed by Governor Johnson to fill the unexpired term of Justice Heydenfeldt, resigned. He immediately entered upon the office, and has continued ever since to discharge its duties. Recently, as the reader knows, he was appointed, by the unanimous request of our delegation in Congress, to a seat upon the Bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, and was confirmed, without opposition, by the Senate.

"Like most men who have risen to distinction in the United States, Judge Field commenced his career without the advantages of wealth, and he prosecuted it without the factitious aids of family influence or patronage. He had the advantage, however—which served him better than wealth or family influence—of an accomplished education, and careful study and mental discipline. He brought to the practice of his profession a mind stored with professional learning, and embellished with rare scholarly attainments. He was distinguished at the bar for his fidelity to his clients, for untiring industry, great care and accuracy in the preparation of his cases, uncommon legal acumen, and extraordinary solidity of judgment. As an adviser, no man had more the confidence of his clients, for he trusted nothing to chance or accident when certainty could be attained, and felt his way cautiously to his conclusions, which, once reached, rested upon sure foundations, and to which he clung with remarkable pertinacity. Judges soon learned to repose confidence in his opinions, and he always gave them the strongest proofs of the weight justly due to his conclusions.

"When he came to the bench, from various unavoidable causes the calendar was crowded with cases involving immense interests, the most important questions, and various and peculiar litigation. California was then, as now, in the development of her multiform physical resources. The judges were as much pioneers of law as the people of settlement. To be sure something had been done, but much had yet to be accomplished; and something, too, had to be undone of that which had been done in the feverish and anomalous period that had preceded. It is safe to say that, even in the experience of new countries hastily settled by heterogeneous crowds of strangers from all countries, no such example of legal or judicial difficulties was ever before presented as has been illustrated in the history of California. There was no general or common source of jurisprudence. Law was to be administered almost without a standard. There was the civil law, as adulterated or modified by Mexican provincialism, usages, and habitudes, for a great part of the litigation; and there was the common law for another part, but what that was was to be decided from the conflicting decisions of any number of courts in America and England, and the various and diverse considerations of policy arising from local and other facts. And then, contracts made elsewhere, and some of them in semi-civilized countries, had to be interpreted here. Besides all which may be added that large and important interests peculiar to the State existed—mines, ditches, etc.—for which the courts were compelled to frame the law, and make a system out of what was little better than chaos.

"When, in addition, it is considered that an unprecedented number of contracts, and an amount of business without parallel, had been made and done in hot haste, with the utmost carelessness; that legislation was accomplished in the same way, and presented the crudest and most incongruous materials for construction; that the whole scheme and organization of the government, and the relation of the departments to each other, had to be adjusted by judicial construction—it may well be conceived what task even the ablest jurist would take upon himself when he assumed this office. It is no small compliment to say that Judge Field entered upon the duties of this great trust with his usual zeal and energy, and that he leaves the office not only with greatly increased reputation, but that he has raised the character of the jurisprudence of the State. He has more than any other man given tone, consistency, and system to our judicature, and laid broad and deep the foundation of our civil and criminal law. The land titles of the State—the most important and permanent of the interests of a great commonwealth—have received from his hand their permanent protection, and this alone should entitle him to the lasting gratitude of the bar and the people.

"His opinions, whether for their learning, logic, or diction, will compare favorably, in the judgment of some of our best lawyers, with those of any judge upon the Supreme Bench of the Union. It is true what he has accomplished has been done with labor; but this is so much more to his praise, for such work was not to be hastily done, and it was proper that the time spent in perfecting the work should bear some little proportion to the time it should last. We know it has been said of Judge Field that he is too much of a 'case lawyer,' and not sufficiently broad and comprehensive in his views. This criticism is not just. It is true he is reverent of authority, and likes to be sustained by precedent; but an examination of his opinions will show that, so far from being a timid copyist, or the passive slave of authority, his rulings rest upon clearly defined principles and strong common sense.

"He retires from office without a stain upon his ermine. Millions might have been amassed by venality. He retires as poor as when he entered, owing nothing and owning little, except the title to the respect of good men, which malignant mendacity cannot wrest from a public officer who has deserved, by a long and useful career, the grateful appreciation of his fellow-citizens. We think that we may safely predict that, in his new place, Justice Field will fulfill the sanguine expectations of his friends."

J.G.B.

SAN FRANCISCO, May 1, 1863.

[1] He was in the Legislature only one session.

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In 1855 a circuit court for California was created by Congress, and clothed with the ordinary jurisdiction of the several circuit courts of the United States. Hon. M. Hall McAllister was appointed its judge. In January, 1863, he resigned and my appointment as his successor was recommended by our Senators. They telegraphed me what they had done, and I replied that I could not accept the place, that I preferred to remain Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State than to be a judge of an inferior federal court, but that if a new justice were added to the Supreme Court of the United States, I would accept the office if tendered to me. Notwithstanding this reply my appointment was urged, and I was nominated by the President. The Senators have since told me that they pressed my nomination from a belief that another justice would soon be added to the Supreme Court, and that the appointment would be made from the Pacific States, and that if I were circuit judge it would more likely be tendered to me than to any one else. The interests of those States were so great, and from the character of their land titles, and their mines of gold and silver, were in some respects so different from those of the Eastern States, that it was deemed important to have some one familiar with them on the Supreme Bench of the United States. Accordingly, while my nomination for circuit judge was pending before the Senate, a bill providing for an additional justice of the Supreme Court, and making the Pacific States a new circuit, was introduced into both Houses of Congress, and on the last day of the session, March 3d, 1863, it became a law. Soon after the adjournment of Congress, the entire delegation from the Pacific States united in recommending my appointment to the new office. The delegation then consisted of four Senators and four Members of the House, of whom five were Democrats and three Republicans; all of them were Union men. I was accordingly nominated by the President, and the nomination was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. My commission was signed on the 10th of March, 1863, and forwarded to me. I did not, however, take the oath of office and enter upon its duties until the 20th of May following. At the time I received the commission there were many important cases pending in the Supreme Court of California, which had been argued when only myself and one of the associate justices were present. I thought that these cases should be disposed of before I resigned, as otherwise a re-argument of them would be required, imposing increased expense and delay upon the parties. I therefore sent my resignation as Chief Justice to the Governor, to take effect on the 20th of May. I selected that day, as I believed the cases argued could be decided by that time, and because it was the birthday of my father. I thought it would be gratifying to him to know that on the eighty-second anniversary of his birth his son had become a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Accordingly on that day I took the oath of office.[1]

[1] Although I had informed the Attorney-General of my action and delay in taking the oath of office, the salary of the office was sent to me from the date of my commission, March 10th, 1863. I immediately deposited with the sub-treasurer at San Francisco, to the credit of the United States, the proportion for the time between that date and the 20th of May, and informed the Secretary of the Treasury of the deposit, enclosing to him the sub-treasurer's receipt.

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