The occasion was quite a notable one. Vice-President Fairbanks delivered an address on Judge Gresham; Judge Kohlsaat, on Chief Justice Marshall; Lawrence Weldon, on David Davis; Judge Creighton, on Samuel H. Treat; Mr. John W. Jewett, on Thomas Drummond; J. C. Allen, on W. J. Allen; Mr. Logan Hay, on John McLean; General Alfred Orendorff, on Nathaniel Pope; and the portraits were accepted in the name of the Court at Springfield by the Hon. J. Otis Humphrey, the District Judge.
There was a very distinguished gathering of lawyers, of Federal and State judges from Illinois and adjacent States, and of many members of the families of the deceased jurists. Judges Kohlsaat, Humphrey, and Anderson occupied the bench. The whole proceeding was a very dignified and appropriate one.
I cannot give a better estimate of my regard for Justice Harlan than by quoting some extracts from the address I delivered on that occasion:
"The Supreme Court to-day is composed on nine eminent justices, of one of whom I have been asked to speak; and I do believe that the Justice of whom I speak, in all that goes to make a noted and able jurist, is second only to that learned Chief Justice, John Marshall, of whom Judge Kohlsaat has so interestingly spoken.
"I speak of John Marshall Harlan, who has been an honored member of the Supreme Court of the United States for more than a quarter of a century.
"Justice Harlan from his youth was the architect of his own fortune; he has been a man of remarkable individuality and force of character; he impressed himself from boyhood upon the community in which he lived. Before he reached his nineteenth year he was made Adjutant- General of the State of Kentucky. Like Lincoln, he performed the obligations of a citizen, both in private and official life, with zeal and faithfulness to duty. . . .
"When Justice Harlan was but a young man, slavery became the paramount issue of the day, and naturally being a staunch Union man, he took an active part in the discussion and struggles that became more or less bitter in his very early manhood. He was one of the first to enlist and lead his regiment in the field in favor of the Union and was assigned a place in that division of the army commanded by the gallant old soldier and patriot, General Thomas. . . .
"Justice Harlan's record as a soldier was a brilliant one. Certain promotion and higher honors were assured him, and he was nominated by President Lincoln to the position of Brigadier-General; but the responsibilities resulting from the death of his father compelled him to abandon what was certain to have been a distinguished military career, and he reluctantly returned to Kentucky. . . .
"Following the struggle in arms came important reconstruction legislation and important Constitutional amendments, necessitating judicial interpretations. These grave questions of state gave opportunity for the development of great statesmen and judges.
"Great crises produce great men. Justice Harlan was at home in the thickest of the struggle, through the period of reconstruction, an able lawyer, an uncompromisingly bold man, asserting his position without fear or favor. While many of the important judicial and Constitutional questions growing out of reconstruction legislation remained unsettled, Justice Harlan took his place on the Supreme Bench, having been appointed by President Hayes in 1877, and an examination of the decisions of the Court since that year will show the prominent part he has taken in the disposition of these Constitutional questions.