[ARCHIBALD D. MURPHY.]
BY WM. A. GRAHAM.

Archibald D. Murphy was, in the generation immediately preceding our own, one of the most eminent characters in North Carolina. In many of the attributes of a statesman and philosopher he excelled all his contemporaries in the State, and, in every department of exertion to which his mind was applied, he had few equals or seconds. As an advocate at the bar, a judge on the bench, a reporter of the decisions of the highest court of justice, a legislator of comprehensive intelligence, enterprise and patriotism, a literary man of classic taste, attainments and style in composition, his fame is a source of just pride to his friends and his country. But for the paucity of our information, and the pressure of time and circumstances in the preparation of this sketch, it would be a labor of love to review his earlier years and trace the development and progress of his career in youth. Neither materials nor leisure for this topic, however, are now at our command.

His father, Colonel Archibald Murphy, was a conspicuous citizen of the county of Caswell, and bore a part in the military service in the war of the Revolution, for which the citizens of that county, and especially of his vicinity, were greatly distinguished. The residence of his father was about two miles from Red House, in the congregation of Rev. Mr. McAden, a Presbyterian minister, whose son, the late Dr. John McAden, married the daughter of Colonel Murphy, by whom he left descendants who still survive. At this place, some seven miles from Milton, Archibald DeBow Murphy, the subject of our memoir, was born, we believe, in the year 1777. Of the other children of his parents there were two brothers and four sisters. His education, preparatory to admission into the infant University of the State at Chapel Hill, was received in the school of the Rev. Dr. David Caldwell, of Guilford county. Of the opportunities for education during his youth, Mr. Murphy himself informs us that before the University went into operation, in 1795, there were not more than three schools in the State in which the rudiments of a classical education could be acquired, and that the most prominent and useful of these was that of Dr. Caldwell; that the deficiency of books for literary instruction, except in the libraries of a few lawyers in the commercial towns, was still greater, and by way of illustration he relates that after completing his course of studies under Dr. Caldwell he spent nearly two years without finding any books to read except some old works on theological subjects, and that then chance threw in his way Voltaire's history of Charles XII. of Sweden, an odd volume of Roderick Random and an abridgment of Don Quixote. These constituted his whole stock of literary furniture when he entered college in 1796. When we remember that he afterwards became capable of writing like Goldsmith, and with an ease and rapidity that Goldsmith could not have equaled, we can but recall these reminiscences of earlier times and encourage the diligent student by his example. With a mind delighted by a consciousness of advancement in knowledge, and spirit of emulation, he profited greatly by three years of study in the University, and graduated with the highest distinction in 1799.

Such was the reputation acquired by him in this period that he was at once appointed Professor of Ancient Languages in his alma mater—a situation in which he continued the three succeeding years, and in which he matured that scholarship and taste for liberal studies which so much distinguished him among his professional brethren and the educated gentlemen of the State. His admission to the bar took place in 1802, after a course of professional reading so limited that the first judge to whom he applied (the signatures of two being then necessary for a license) refused to examine him; and (as he was accustomed to amuse his friends by relating) his success, only a few months later, in gaining admission to the practice in all the courts at once, was owing to the good fortune of bearing a letter from a friend, at the succeeding term of the Court of Conference, to one of the judges, a gentleman of proverbial benevolence and kindness, who conducted the examination, or interview, in his own chamber, and procured the signatures of his brethren without so much having been requested or expected—so little strictness was observed towards the few applicants then entering the profession.

But if he was allowed admission ex gratia, and without the requisite amount of learning, he was not long in supplying the deficiency. The powers of mind and eagerness in quest of knowledge which had been exhibited in his scholastic studies enabled him to make rapid progress in the law. His professional studies were directed by William Duffy, Esq., an eminent lawyer, then residing in Hillsborough, to whom he was ever afterwards affectionately attached, and to whose memory he paid a grateful tribute among his sketches of public and professional men of North Carolina, in an oration before the Literary Societies of the University in his latter years. Mr. Murphy advanced rapidly to the first rank of the advocates of his day, and notwithstanding his turning aside, to the indulgence of his tastes for general literature, his enlightened labors and bright career in legislation, his promotion and service on the bench for two years, his decayed health and irregular attendance on the courts in his latter days, he maintained his position in the public estimation, even to the end of his life. When it is remembered that among his competitors at one time or another, for more than a quarter of a century, were Archibald Henderson, Cameron, Norwood, Nash, Seawell, Yancey, Ruffin, Badger, Hawks, Mangum, and Morehead, it must be admitted that he was at a bar where the remark of Pinkney that "it was not a place where a false and fraudulent reputation for talents can be maintained," was fully justified. His practice for many years was not exceeded by that of any gentleman in the State, and his success corresponded with its extent. Both his examination of witnesses and argument of causes before juries on the circuit could not be excelled in skillfulness. He had a Quaker-like plainness of aspect, a scrupulous cleanness and neatness in an equally plain attire, an habitual politeness and a subdued simplicity of manner which at once won his way to the hearts of juries, while no Greek dialectician had a more ready and refined ingenuity or was more fertile in every resource of forensic gladiatorship. His manner of speaking was never declamatory or in any sense boisterous, but in the style of earnest and emphatic conversation, so simple and apparently undesigning that he seemed to the jury to be but interpreting their thoughts rather than enunciating his own, yet with a correctness and often elegance of diction which no severity of criticism could improve. A pattern of politeness in all his intercourse, public and private, he could torture an unwilling or corrupt witness into a full exposure of his falsehood, and often had him impaled before he was aware of his design; no advocate had at his command more effective raillery, wit, and ridicule to mingle with his arguments.

Many of his speeches in the nisi prius courts are still recollected by the profession and the people of middle age in the Fourth Circuit, and are spoken of with great admiration. One of the last of these in which, though he was then broken down by misfortune and enfeebled by disease, the fires of his genius and eloquence shone out in the lustre of his palmiest days, was made in the case of Burrow vs. Worth, in the Superior Court of Randolph in 1830 or 1831. It was an action for malicious prosecution against Dr. David Worth, a prominent physician, charging him with having falsely and maliciously caused the plaintiff, Burrow, to be presented for the murder of one Carter, of whose wife it was pretended he was the paramour. The plaintiff sought to show that not only was the accusation against him false, but that Worth was himself accessory to the murder which he alleged had been committed by the wife of Carter, by poison, which he (Worth) had furnished to her for that purpose, and he supported his complaint with a well-combined scheme of perjury and fraud which it required no ordinary skill and courage to baffle. His chief witness was a married woman who was found to be a member of a church, whose general character was vouched by her acquaintances to be good, and who deposed to a conversation between Worth and the wife of Carter, in which it was agreed that for a base motive he would provide her with arsenic with which she was to poison her husband. It was further shown, and this was true, that Worth had attended the deceased as a physician at the time of the alleged conspiracy against his life, so that the opportunity, at least, was not wanting. Such was the aspect worn by the case when this witness was tendered to Mr. Murphy, the defendant's counsel, for cross-examination. By a series of questions as to the time, place and circumstances, the furniture in the room in which the conversation was located, the relative positions of the parties and the witness, their previous acquaintanceship, the course of the dialogue between them, et cetera, he involved her in such a maze of inconsistencies, contradictions, and improbabilities as to expose the whole story as a base fabrication. The privilege of cross-examination is often abused, though there is a consistency in truth and incongruity in falsehood which, even in the case of the least resolute witnesses, rarely allows such abuse to do much harm. All perceived, in the case in question, that it was one of the great tests of truth which cannot safely be dispensed with in judicial proceedings. The evidence, as usually happens in such cases, was quite voluminous; we have but delineated its most prominent feature. Having for his client a personal friend, threatened to be victimized by a foul conspiracy for daring to perform one of the highest duties of a citizen, in bringing at least a supposed murderer to justice, Mr. Murphy in his defense, inspired by the theme, is said to have delivered a speech which has never been surpassed in the forensic displays of the State. Analysis, denunciation, wit, ridicule, pathos, invective were in turn poured forth with such telling effect that not only was the defendant triumphantly acquitted, but it would have been dangerous for the plaintiff had the question of his life or death been in the hands of the jury. The audience alternately convulsed with laughter, bathed in tears, or burning with indignation, were enraptured with his eloquence, and could not be restrained from demonstrations of applause.

Mr. Murphy delighted in the equity practice of his profession, and was accustomed to speak of this branch of our jurisprudence as the application of the rules of moral philosophy to the practical affairs of men. More of the pleadings in equity causes within the sphere and time of his practice will be found in his handwriting than in that of any other solicitor, and, with two or three exceptions, among those named above, he was by far the most adept as an equity pleader. He wrote with facility and accuracy, even amid the crowd of courts and confusion of clients, and his neat and peculiar chirography, to those a little accustomed to it, was as legible as print.

In the year 1818 he was elected by the General Assembly a judge of the Superior Courts, and rode the circuits in that capacity for two years, when he resigned and returned to the practice of his profession. Under a clause in the criminal law establishing the present Supreme Court system, passed that session, which authorized the Governor by special commission to detail a judge of the Superior Court to sit in stead of a judge of the Supreme Court, in causes where any one of their number had been of counsel or had an interest in the result, he was commissioned by the Governor for this service, and presided in the Supreme Court in several causes, in place of Judge Henderson, who had been recently elected from the bar. This provision of the law, being afterwards thought to be in conflict with that clause of the Constitution which requires the judges of the Supreme Court to be elected by the General Assembly, was repealed. In his office as a judge he well sustained his reputation for learning and ability, which had been so well established at the bar, and attracted the admiration of the profession and the people by the courtesy, patience, dignity and justice which characterized his administration of the laws. Before taking leave of his career as a lawyer it is proper to mention his tribute to his profession in three volumes of reports of the Supreme Court of the State, embracing the decisions of cases of interest from 1804 to 1819.