Many people suppose Congress to be an assemblage of orators. This is a great mistake. In point of ability its members are eminently respectable, and many of them distinguished in their particular line of business, profession or thought. Most of the set speeches are delivered from manuscript. The matter is well considered and in most cases clearly stated; but the delivery is often dull, listless and without animation. This is particularly true of speeches founded on a dreary array of facts and statistics. While the logic of such facts or figures may be very convincing, yet in the hands of most men their presentation is very uninteresting. Few men can present statistics in an interesting and captivating manner. Garfield must be considered as pre-eminent among that class of men. I have heard him make a speech of over an hour in length on financial questions in which he not only presented a formidable array of statistics, but held his auditors spell-bound to its conclusion. It may be said of the orators of the House that though they are great advocates, they are not constructive statesmen; they are orators and nothing more; they are good to show the reason for a provision and skillful in their defense of it from attack. Conkling, one of the most brilliant speakers in the Senate, although a member of that distinguished body for many years, is not the author of any beneficial act of legislation. The career of such a man will be brilliant, but it will be brief. It is the constructive statesman who succeeds in writing his name permanently in the legislative history of his country. Most of the legislation benefiting the people, or putting their rights on deeper or broader foundations, has originated with the silent workers in either House of Congress.
To show the listless and inanimate manner in which some speeches, truly great in their logic and in their facts, are delivered in the House, let me state an incident. A gentleman from New York, who came to Congress with an established reputation as a public man, arose to address the House on the necessity of a more liberal and reciprocal trade-treaty and tariff, with the Dominion of Canada. In the expectation that he would address the House on the evening that was set for general debate, the House was full when he arose, and every eye was turned towards him. He read his address from manuscript. His voice was indistinct and it lacked in volume. After reading two or three pages from the manuscript before him, he seemed to be unable readily to decipher it—it having been reduced to writing by his clerk. He halted, stumbled and misread portions of it, and then re-read it to correct his mistakes. The members commenced quietly to leave their seats and to retire to the cloak-rooms. As he was a member of the Committee on Commerce, and had shown me many favors, I took a vacant seat near him. When the chairman announced that his time had expired, I arose and moved the chairman for the extension of his time for twenty minutes. The chairman said he heard no objection, and he extended the time of the gentleman from New York for twenty minutes more. While on my feet I looked around and saw there were not over eight members in the House, that they were all engaged in writing at their desks, and that the chairman was reading a newspaper. The next morning the speech appeared in the Congressional Record, and every one spoke of it as a very fine argument in favor of the policy advocated by him.
My judicial career may be briefly stated. My district was the Third. It was bounded on the south by the southern boundary of Pierce and Kitsap Counties; on the east by the dividing ridge of the Cascade Mountains; on the north by the northern line of the Territory, which was the International boundary line; and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. I held two terms of Court annually at Seattle, Port Townsend, and Steilacoom. There was quite a volume of admiralty business. This was attended to whenever it arose, in term-time and out of term-time, in order to meet the convenience of suitors. No appeal was ever taken from my decrees in this class of business. I made it a point to clear the docket of all accumulated cases at each term. Homicides were quite frequent in the district, and I rarely held a term of Court without trying some person accused of murder in the first degree. There were frequent convictions for manslaughter, and for murder in the second degree, and sentences were imposed by me in accordance therewith. There were four convictions for murder in the first degree, and three executions. The facts and circumstances attending the fourth case deserve a more extensive statement. Before I make such a statement let me say, that while many appeals were taken from my judgments and rulings in criminal cases, I had but two reversals charged against me in a period of between six and seven years on the Territorial Bench. I hope no one will detract by implication from the honor of that record, by the insinuation that I was Chief Justice of the appellate tribunal for most of that time.
After the furor of "fifty four, Forty or Fight," had somewhat subsided, the Treaty of Washington, entered into between the United States of America and Great Britain, adopted and extended the line of division between the Dominion of Canada and the United States along the 49th degree of North Latitude to the waters of the Pacific Ocean, as the northern land boundary of the United States; thence west by the principal channel or waterway to the center of the Strait of Juan de Fuca; thence along said center line to the Pacific Ocean. Now, it was found that there were two principal channels or waterways from the 49th degree to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. These waterways were the Canal de Haro and the Rosario Straits. The Canal de Haro was the most western and northern waterway; the Rosario Strait was the most eastern and southern waterway. San Juan Island and other smaller islands were situated between the two. If the Rosario Straits were adopted as the true line, these intervening islands belonged to Great Britain; if, on the other hand, the Canal de Haro was the true line, the islands belonged to the United States. By agreement of the high-contracting parties, the German Emperor was chosen as arbitrator to determine the location of the true line mentioned in the Treaty.
In 1859 an informal convention was entered into between the high-contracting parties by which the laws and civil officers of both nations were excluded from the territory in dispute; the islands in the meantime were to remain in the joint military occupation of the two nations. Hence, there was a British military post, and also an American military post, on San Juan Island, fully garrisoned. This informal understanding had not the dignity or force of a treaty, and was therefore binding on the courts only as a matter of policy and comity. It was binding only in the court of honor. Such being the facts, a man by the name of Charles Watts, an American citizen, foully murdered another American citizen near the military post of the United States. Watts was arrested by the Federal military authorities and held in confinement. There was a good deal of feeling and excitement over the matter. When I went to Port Townsend to hold Court, I issued a warrant, directed to the United States Marshal, to arrest said Watts and to bring him to Port Townsend for indictment and trial. He was readily delivered by the United States military authorities to the United States Marshal, and brought to Port Townsend. He was indicted by the grand jury for murder in the first degree, and tried and convicted at that term. He was sentenced by me to be hanged until he was dead. An appeal was taken from the final judgment in the case to the Supreme Court of the Territory; and, upon hearing, a majority of the Supreme Court, consisting of Judges Greene and Kennedy, reversed the judgment on the ground that the Federal side of the Court had no jurisdiction. To the general reader, it may be well to state that the Territorial Court had all the jurisdiction of the District and Circuit Courts of the United States, and such jurisdiction constituted what was called, the Federal side of the Court. It also had all the jurisdiction arising under the Territorial laws, and the common law suited to the conditions; and this constituted the Territorial side. Watts was indicted and tried on the Federal side of the Court, and the Supreme Court held that he ought to have been indicted and tried on the Territorial side of the Court—hence the reversal. I delivered a dissenting opinion which, as the case assumed a national importance, I give in full:
"As I cannot assent to the conclusion reached by the majority of the Court in this case, I will state as briefly as possible the conclusion of my own mind upon the question of jurisdiction involved in the case, with my reasons therefor.
"I have come to the conclusion that the United States side of the Court had jurisdiction, and for the following reasons:—
"1. We all agree that the phrase 'sole and exclusive jurisdiction,' as used in the Crime Act of A. D. 1790, 1 Stat. 113, has no reference to a claim of jurisdiction made by any foreign power, but to State and Federal jurisdiction, or, as we are situated, to Federal, as contra-distinguished from Territorial jurisdiction. We also agree that it is the duty of the judiciary to extend the jurisdiction of the laws of the United States as far as the political department of the government extends the territorial area.
"2. In my judgment it is the duty of the courts to construe all such conventions as that entered into between the government of the United States and Great Britain, with reference to the Island of San Juan, so as to avert the evil apprehended, and sought to be prevented.