Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

by George Frisbie Hoar

Mr. Chapin was nominated by the Republicans for Congress and accepted and would have had a useful and distinguished public life. But he became alarmed by the opposition of the Know- Nothings and withdrew from the canvass much to the dissatisfaction of his political friends. That ended his political aspirations. But he was soon after appointed to the more congenial office of Judge of Probate, which he discharged to great public satisfaction until his lamented death.

CHAPTER XXXVIII SOME JUDGES I HAVE KNOWN

Unquestionably the most important character in the legal history of Massachusetts is Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw. He was a great lawyer before he came to the Bench. He had written one or two very able articles for the North American Review, one of them a vigorous statement of the opinion of Massachusetts upon slavery. He was the author of a petition signed by many of the leading men of Massachusetts in opposition to the high tariff of 1828. No more powerful statement of the argument against high protection can be found. I have been surprised that the modern free-traders have not long ago discovered it, and brought it to light. He was one of the managers of the impeachment of Judge Prescott, securing a conviction against a powerful array of counsel for the defendant, which included Daniel Webster. He was consulted in difficult and important matters by eminent counsel in other counties than Suffolk.

But all these titles to distinction have been forgotten in his great service as Chief Justice of Massachusetts for thirty years. No other judicial fame in the country can rival his, with the single exception of Marshall. He was induced to undertake the office of Chief Justice very reluctantly, by the strong personal urgency of Mr. Webster. Mr. Webster used to give a humorous account of the difficulty he had in overcoming the morbid scruples of the great simple-hearted intellectual giant. He found Mr. Shaw in his office in a cloud of tobacco-smoke. Mr. Webster did not himself smoke, and was at some disadvantage during the interview for that reason.

Mr. Shaw was rather short in stature and, in the latter part of his life, somewhat corpulent. He had a massive head, a low forehead, and strong and rather coarse features. He reminded you of the statues of Gog and Magog in the Guildhall in London. His hair came down over his forehead, and when he had been away from home for a week or two, so that his head got no combing but his own, it was in a sadly tangled mass. His eye was dull, except when it kindled in discussion, or when he was stirred to some utterance of grave displeasure.

There is an anecdote of Mr. Choate which occasionally goes the rounds of the papers, and which is often repeated quite inaccurately. The true version is this. I heard it within a few hours after it happened, and have heard it at first hand more than once since.

Mr. Choate was sitting next to Judge Hoar in the bar when the Chief Justice was presiding, and the Suffolk docket was being called. The Chief Justice said something which led Mr. Choate to make a half-humorous and half-displeased remark about Shaw's roughness of look and manner, to which Judge Hoar replied: "After all, I feel a reverence for the old Chief Justice."

"A reverence for him, my dear fellow?" said Choate. "So do I. I bow down to him as the wild Indian does before his wooden idol. I know he's ugly; but I bow to a superior intelligence."

Judge Shaw's mind moved very slowly. When a case was argued, it took him a good while to get the statement of facts into his mind. It was hard for him to deal readily with unimportant matters, or with things which, to other people, were matters of course. If the simplest motion were made, he had to unlimber the heavy artillery of his mind, go down to the roots of the question, consider the matter in all possible relations, and deal with it as if he were besieging a fortress. When he was intent upon a subject, he was exceedingly impatient of anything that interrupted the current of his thought. So he was a hard person for young advocates, or for any other unless he were strong, self-possessed, and had the respect of the Judge. My old friend and partner, Judge Washburn, once told me that he dreaded the Law term of the Court as it approached, and sometimes felt that he would rather lay his head down on the rail, and let a train of cars pass over it, than argue a case before Shaw. The old man was probably unconscious of this failing. He had the kindest heart in the world, was extremely fond of little children and beautiful young women, and especially desirous to care for the rights of persons who were feeble and defenceless.

I was myself counsel before him in a case where the question was whether a heifer calf, worth six or seven dollars, the offspring of the one cow which our law reserves to a poor debtor against attachment, was also exempt. My opponent undertook to make some merriment about the question, and there was some laughter at the Bar. The old Chief Justice interposed with great emotion: "Gentlemen, remember that this is a matter of great interest to a great many poor families." There was no laughter after that, and that heifer calf did duty in many a trial afterward, when the young advocates at the Worcester Bar had some poor client to defend.