Mr Pickering's days were passed in the performance of all the duties of a wide and various practice, first at Salem, and afterwards at Boston. He resided at the former place till 1827, when he removed to the metropolis, where two years afterwards he became City Solicitor, an office whose arduous labors he continued to discharge until within a few months of his death. There is little worthy of notice in the ordinary incidents of professional life. What Blackstone aptly calls "the pert dispute" renews itself in infinitely varying form. Some new turn of litigation calls forth some new effort of learning or skill, calculated to serve its temporary purpose, and, like the manna which fell in the desert, perishing on the day that beholds it. The unambitious labors of which the world knows nothing, the advice to clients, the drawing of contracts, the perplexities of conveyancing furnish still less of interest than ephemeral displays of the court-room.
The cares of his profession and the cultivation of letters left but little time for the concerns of politics. And yet, at different periods, he filled offices in the Legislature of Massachusetts. He was three times Representative from Salem, twice Senator from Essex, once Senator from Suffolk, and once a member of the Executive Council. In all these places he commended himself by the same diligence, honesty, learning, and ability which marked his course at the bar. The careful student of our legislative history will not fail to perceive his obligations to Mr. Pickering, as the author of important reports and bills. The first bill for the separation of Maine from Massachusetts was reported to the Senate by him in 1816, and though the object failed for the time with the people of Maine, the bill is characterized by the historian of that State as "drawn with great ability and skill."[144] The report and accompanying bill on the jurisdiction and proceedings of the Courts of Probate, discussing and remodelling the whole system, were from his hand.
In 1833 he was appointed to the vacancy, occasioned by the death of Professor Ashmun, in the commission for revising and arranging the statutes of Massachusetts, being associated in this important work with those eminent lawyers, Mr. Jackson and Mr. Stearns. The first part, or that entitled Of the Internal Administration of the Government, corresponding substantially with Blackstone's division Of the Rights of Persons, was executed by him. This alone entitles him to be gratefully remembered, not only by those having occasion to consult the legislation of Massachusetts, but by all who feel an interest in scientific jurisprudence.
His contributions to what may be called the literature of his profession were frequent. The American Jurist was often enriched by articles from his pen. Among these is a review of the valuable work of Williams on the Law of Executors, and of Curtis's Admiralty Digest, where he examined the interesting history of this jurisdiction; also an article on the Study of the Roman Law, where, within a short compass, he presented a lucid history of this system, and the growth in Germany of the historical and didactic schools, "rival houses," as they may be called, in jurisprudence, whose long and unpleasant feud has only recently subsided.
In the Law Reporter for September, 1841, he published an article of singular merit, on National Rights and State Rights, being a review of the case of Alexander McLeod, recently determined in the Supreme Court of New York. This was afterwards republished in a pamphlet, and extensively circulated. It is marked by uncommon learning, clearness, and power. The course of the courts of New York is handled with freedom, and the supremacy of the Government vindicated. Of all the discussions elicited by that interesting question, on which, for a while, seemed to hang the portentous issues of peace and war between the United States and Great Britain, that of Mr. Pickering will be admitted to take the lead, whether we consider its character as an elegant composition, or as a searching review of the juridical questions involved. In dealing with the opinion of Mr. Justice Cowen, renowned for black-letter and the bibliography of the law, he shows himself more than a match for this learned Judge, even in these unfrequented fields, while the spirit of the publicist and jurist gives a refined temper to the whole article, which we vainly seek in the other production.
In the North American Review for October, 1840, is an article by him, illustrative of Conveyancing in Ancient Egypt, being an explanation of an Egyptian deed of a piece of land in hundred-gated Thebes, written on papyrus, more than a century before the Christian era, with the impression of a seal or stamp attached, and a certificate of registry in the margin, in as regular a manner as the keeper of the registry in the County of Suffolk would certify to a deed of land in the City of Boston at this day. Jurisprudence is here adorned by scholarship.
There is another production which, like the preceding, belongs to the department of literature as well as of jurisprudence: his Lecture on the Alleged Uncertainty of the Law, delivered before the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Though written originally for the general mind, which it is calculated to interest and instruct in no common degree, it will be read with equal advantage by the profound lawyer. It is not easy to mention any popular discussion of a juridical character, in our language, deserving of higher regard. It was first published in the American Jurist, at the solicitation of the writer of this sketch, who has never referred to it without fresh admiration of the happy illustrations and quiet reasoning by which it vindicates the science of the law.
In considering what Mr. Pickering accomplished out of his profession, we are led over wide and various fields of learning, where we can only hope to indicate his footprints, without presuming to examine or describe the ground.