[Footnote 2: The effect of this remark was almost electric, and some one in the court-room broke out in applause.]
[Footnote 3: 2 Pickering, p. 433.]
[Footnote 4: 11 Sergeant & Rawle, p. 394.]
MR. JUSTICE STORY.[1]
[At a meeting of the Suffolk Bar, held in the Circuit Court Room, Boston, on the morning of the 12th of September, the day of the funeral of Mr. Justice Story, Chief Justice Shaw having taken the chair and announced the object of the meeting, Mr. Webster rose and spoke substantially as follows.]
Your solemn announcement, Mr. Chief Justice, has confirmed the sad intelligence which had already reached us, through the public channels of information, and deeply afflicted us all.
JOSEPH STORY, one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, and for many years the presiding judge of this Circuit, died on Wednesday evening last, at his house in Cambridge, wanting only a few days for the completion of the sixty-sixth year of his age.
This most mournful and lamentable event has called together the whole Bar of Suffolk, and all connected with the courts of law or the profession. It has brought you, Mr. Chief Justice, and your associates of the Bench of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, into the midst of us; and you have done us the honor, out of respect to the occasion, to consent to preside over us, while we deliberate on what is due, as well to our own afflicted and smitten feelings, as to the exalted character and eminent distinction of the deceased judge. The occasion has drawn from his retirement, also, that venerable man, whom we all so much respect and honor, (Judge Davis,) who was, for thirty years, the associate of the deceased upon the same Bench. It has called hither another judicial personage, now in retirement, (Judge Putnam,) but long an ornament of that Bench of which you are now the head, and whose marked good fortune it is to have been the professional teacher of Mr. Justice Story, and the director of his early studies. He also is present to whom this blow comes near; I mean, the learned judge (Judge Sprague) from whose side it has struck away a friend and a highly venerated official associate. The members of the Law School at Cambridge, to which the deceased was so much attached, and who returned that attachment with all the ingenuousness and enthusiasm of educated and ardent youthful minds, are here also, to manifest their sense of their own severe deprivation, as well as their admiration of the bright and shining professional example which they have so loved to contemplate,—an example, let me say to them, and let me say to all, as a solace in the midst of their sorrows, which death hath not touched and which time cannot obscure.
Mr. Chief Justice, one sentiment pervades us all. It is that of the most profound and penetrating grief, mixed, nevertheless, with an assured conviction, that the great man whom we deplore is yet with us and in the midst of us. He hath not wholly died. He lives in the affections of friends and kindred, and in the high regard of the community. He lives in our remembrance of his social virtues, his warm and steady friendships, and the vivacity and richness of his conversation. He lives, and will live still more permanently, by his words of written wisdom, by the results of his vast researches and attainments, by his imperishable legal judgments, and by those juridical disquisitions which have stamped his name, all over the civilized world, with the character of a commanding authority. "Vivit, enim, vivetque semper; atque etiam latius in memoria hominum et sermone versabitur, postquam ab oculis recessit."
Mr. Chief Justice, there are consolations which arise to mitigate our loss, and shed the influence of resignation over unfeigned and heart-felt sorrow. We are all penetrated with gratitude to God that the deceased lived so long; that he did so much for himself, his friends, the country, and the world; that his lamp went out, at last, without unsteadiness or flickering. He continued to exercise every power of his mind without dimness or obscuration, and every affection of his heart with no abatement of energy or warmth, till death drew an impenetrable veil between us and him. Indeed, he seems to us now, as in truth he is, not extinguished or ceasing to be, but only withdrawn; as the clear sun goes down at its setting, not darkened, but only no longer seen.