WILLIAM GASTON.
[WILLIAM GASTON.]
BY WM. H. BATTLE.
William Gaston, late one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, was born in the town of New Bern on the 19th day of September, A. D. 1778. His paternal ancestors were distinguished French Huguenots, who were driven from their country by the revocation of the famous edict of Nantes, and retired to Ballymore, in Ireland, where they settled, and where Alexander Gaston, the father of the Judge, was born. Alexander, having chosen the profession of medicine and obtained his diploma at the medical college of Edinburgh, entered the British navy as a surgeon. After remaining a few years in this service, he resigned his commission and came to New Bern in this State, where he settled and commenced the regular practice of his profession. In the year 1775 he married Margaret Sharpe, an English lady of the Roman Catholic faith, by whom he had two sons and a daughter, of whom the Judge was the second son. The elder brother died young; and before the subject of this sketch was three years of age he lost his father in a manner deeply tragical. He was shot by a band of Tories, who, in the year 1781, surprised the town of New Bern, and singled out the doctor, who was an ardent and active Whig, as an especial object of their vengeance. It is said that the fatal instrument of death was fired over the head of the agonized wife, while she was imploring, as only a woman can implore, the life of her husband. The Judge was then doubtless too young to appreciate all the horrors of the scene, but that it made a deep impression upon him in subsequent life we are well assured. Many years afterwards, while he was a member of Congress, upon being charged, in an exciting party debate, with a want of proper American feeling, he indignantly repelled the imputation by the eloquent exclamation, "I was baptized an American in the blood of a murdered father." That same incident was alluded to with thrilling effect in the convention called to amend the Constitution in 1835 by the distinguished and venerable president of that body. The death of his father threw upon his mother the entire care and responsibility of rearing and educating her infant children. Her situation was peculiarly beset with difficulties. The death of two brothers, with whom she had come to this country, followed by the loss of her husband, left her without any other relatives in America than her two children. But happily for them, she was a woman of great energy of character, of singular prudence, and of devoted piety. It immediately became a leading object of her life to train up her son to usefulness and honor. We may be well assured from its results, that her course of discipline was eminently judicious. Indeed, the Judge has been heard to declare that whatever success and distinction he had attained in life he owed to her counsels and her admirable management, and that but for her he might have been a vagabond. He was first sent to school in his native town, and while there he was represented as having been "very quick, and apt to learn; of an affectionate temper, and yet volatile and irritable. His mother used every means to correct his infirmities of disposition, and to give an aim to his pursuits—sometimes employing kindness, or mild but solemn admonition, and occasionally still stricter discipline." She kept him under her own immediate supervision and control until the fall of the year 1791, when she sent him to the Roman Catholic college at Georgetown. After remaining at this institution about eighteen months, his failing health compelled him to return home. Soon afterwards his health was reestablished, and he resumed his studies under the tuition of the Rev. Thomas P. Irving, who then had charge of the academy at New Bern. Here he was prepared for admission into the junior class of Princeton College, which he entered in the fall of 1794; and in 1796 was graduated, at the early age of eighteen, with the first honors of the institution.
After completing his collegiate course he selected the law as his profession, and immediately commenced his studies in the office of François Xavier Martin, then a practicing lawyer in this State, but now a Judge of the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana. The same diligent attention to the studies of his profession, which had distinguished his career in college, enabled him to obtain admittance to the bar in the year 1798. In that same year the late Chief Justice Taylor, who had married his sister, was elevated to the bench and gave all his business to his young friend and relative, which put him at once into full practice. This sudden accumulation of business, which would have operated to the disadvantage of a mind less active and cultivated, served only to call forth all his energies, by the necessity it occasioned of a thorough preparation to meet the great responsibility thrown upon him. He very soon acquired distinction in his profession, which steadily increased until he attained, by universal acknowledgment, the proud eminence of being at the head of the bar of this State—a pre-eminence which he never lost until he was raised by his admiring countrymen to a still more exalted station. But while he was thus pursuing, with rare success, the profits and honors of his profession, he never for a moment lost sight of the interests of his country. The very next year after he reached the age of manhood he was elected a member of the State Senate from his native county of Craven; and in 1808 he was elected a member of the House of Commons, and was chosen to preside over its deliberations. The same year he was nominated by the Federal party, to which he was attached, as Presidential Elector for the district in which he resided. The reputation which he had acquired at the bar and in the legislative halls of the State for integrity, patriotism and distinguished ability procured his election in 1813, and again in 1815, to the House of Representatives in the Congress of the United States. Of the elevated stand which he took in that body it is needless for me here to speak. It is a part of the history of the country, that amidst the brilliant constellation of statesmen then seen in the councils of the American nation—a constellation illustrated by the genius and eloquence of a Lowndes, a Randolph, a Calhoun, a Webster, and a Clay, the star of Gaston was far from being the least brilliant. The admirer of parliamentary oratory will find in his speeches upon the Loan Bill and the previous question some of the finest displays of reasoning and eloquence which our country has produced.
In 1817, Judge Gaston voluntarily retired from Congress, and never returned to the national councils. The residue of his days he devoted to the duties of domestic and professional life, and to the service of his native State. He was frequently chosen, sometimes by the freemen of the county of Craven, and sometimes by those of the town of New Bern, to represent them in the General Assembly. Of the value of his services in this more limited, but still very important sphere of usefulness, it is difficult to speak in adequate terms without the appearance of exaggeration. I have not the materials, if I had the time and opportunity, for stating in detail all the measures which he accomplished, or assisted in accomplishing, for the good of the State. I can point only to a few monuments in the course of our legislative history, to show that the hand of a master-workman has been there. In the year 1808 he drew up the "Act regulating the descent of inheritances," which, with scarcely any alteration or addition, remains the law on that subject to this day. In 1818 he was mainly instrumental in the establishment of our present Supreme Court system; and in 1828 all his varied powers of eloquence and argumentation were exerted to their utmost to prevent the success of a measure in relation to the banks, which would have spread ruin and dismay throughout the length and breadth of our State. His last appearance in the Legislature was as a member of the House of Commons in 1831 when he made a splendid effort, but all in vain, in favor of rebuilding the capitol, which had been destroyed by fire the preceding summer.
In the summer of 1833 a vacancy upon the bench of the Supreme Court occurred by the death of Chief Justice Henderson. From various causes, of which I know too little to attempt an explanation, the Supreme Court had at that time by no means so strong a hold upon the confidence of the people as it has since obtained. It was very desirable, therefore, on the part of the friends of the system to fill the vacancy by a man of commanding talents and great influence, in order to give it strength. All eyes were at once turned towards Judge Gaston. But there were supposed to be two very serious obstacles to his acceptance of the office. It was known that his practice at the bar was extensive and very lucrative, and it was also known that a prudent regard to his private affairs would dictate that his professional income should not be exchanged for a judge's salary. It was also believed by many that the thirty-second article of our State Constitution forbade his accepting the office, in that clause which declared that "no person who shall deny the truth of the Protestant religion shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit, in the civil department, within this State." The friends of the Judge nevertheless urged him to become a candidate for the office. After a full and fair explanation of the latter and most important objection, he became satisfied that it was not tenable; and as to the former, that his duty to his country required him to make the sacrifice. His name was accordingly brought before the Legislature in the winter of 1833, and he was elected by a large majority on the first ballot. At the ensuing term of the Court he took his seat upon the bench, and from that time until the very day of his death he continued to discharge the duties of his office with an ability and devotion seldom equaled and never surpassed. When a Convention of the people of the State was called in 1835, to amend the Constitution, he took a seat in it as one of the members from the county of Craven. Of the manner in which he performed the peculiarly delicate and important duties of assisting to revise and amend our fundamental law, I know it is needless for me to speak in this presence. The distinguished President of this Institution, who was then Governor of the State and a member of the Convention, can tell the extent of his labors and the value of his services in that body. Suffice it for me to say that he was placed on almost every important committee; that he took a leading part in every important debate; that he, in a great measure, guided and directed the whole business of the Convention. And when its labors were at last brought to a successful conclusion, it was from his hand that the amendments to the Constitution received the form and dress in which they now appear. Excepting his judicial duties, this was the last public service in which he was engaged. It is true that when our Senators in Congress resigned in 1840, the Whig party, which had then the ascendency in the Legislature, tendered him the nomination for one of the vacancies; but he declined it, preferring to remain on the bench, where he thought he could do the State better service. Nor need we regret his determination; for though none could have represented the State in the Senate with more dignity, fidelity, and ability, yet his profound legal attainments, his extensive and varied information, his severe and patient habits of thought, and a style of composition at once dignified and elegant, so admirably fitted him for the high tribunal on which he was placed that we could not have wished to see him transferred to any other station, however exalted. But it is needless for me to enlarge upon his judicial fitness and ability. The Chief Justice of the Court, the associate of his labors and his duties, himself one of the ablest judges and most profound lawyers of his day, has emphatically pronounced from the judgment-seat that he was a "great judge." In confirmation of this sentence, if it needed confirmation, I would refer to all his reported judicial opinions; and particularly to the opinion of the Court as delivered by him in the case of the State vs. Will, 1 Dev. and Bat. Rep., 121; and his dissenting opinion in the State vs. Miller, ibid., 500; the latter of which has been pronounced by a very competent judge one of the finest judicial arguments to be found in this country.
I have said that Judge Gaston continued in the faithful discharge of his official duties until the very day of his death. This is literally true. On Tuesday, the 23d of January past, not quite a fortnight ago, he took his seat in the Court as usual, though he had felt for several days a sensation of chilliness and a difficulty of breathing. He remained on the bench until about two o'clock P. M., giving strict attention to a case then under discussion, when he was attacked with faintness and other symptoms of violent sickness. He was taken to his room and a physician called in, who very soon relieved him. He revived, became cheerful and engaged in an interesting conversation with some of his friends who had called to see him. In the course of the evening he told several anecdotes, at which they laughed heartily. "He then related" (says a published account) "the particulars of a convivial party at Washington City, many years ago, and spoke of one who, on that occasion, avowed himself a freethinker in religion. 'From that day,' said Judge Gaston, 'I always looked on that man with distrust. I do not say that a freethinker may not be an honorable man; that he may not, from high motives, scorn to do a mean act; but I dare not trust him. A belief in an All-ruling Divinity, who shapes our ends, whose eye is upon us, and who will reward us according to our deeds, is necessary. We must believe and feel that there is a God—All wise and Almighty." As he was pronouncing the last word, he rose to give it greater emphasis. The moment after there was a sudden rush of blood to the brain, when he immediately fell back and expired.
In reviewing the life of this eminent man, which has been thus hastily and imperfectly sketched, we see that though left an orphan in earliest infancy in a country where he had no kindred, save a widowed mother and an infant sister, though professing a religious faith almost proscribed, and attached to a political party always in the minority, he yet rose to the highest summit of professional distinction, acquired, during a brief career in the Legislature of his State, a preponderating influence in its councils, was among the foremost of the great in the national assembly, was selected by almost general acclamation to preside in the highest judicial tribunal known to our law, and, more than all, won and maintained to the day of his death, the confidence, the admiration, and the affection of his countrymen. It is interesting, and it must be profitable to all, particularly to you, young gentlemen, who are just entering upon the career of life, to inquire what were the qualities and what the talents which enabled their possessor, under such circumstances, to achieve such great results. In the very outset of his life, we discover one trait to which much, if not all, of his success was owing—his love and veneration for his mother.
An early attention to all his duties, and a desire to excel in everything useful, was another distinctive trait in the character of Judge Gaston. We discover this in the rapid progress made in his studies and the distinction which he acquired at college. I am aware that college honors are often decried, at least by those who never obtained them, and that it has been frequently said that they afford no presage of excellence in after-life. I beg leave to dissent from that opinion. Judge Gaston himself thought far otherwise. Long after he had left the walls of his alma mater, when his mind was enlarged by observation and corrected by experience, he expressed himself in an address to the young men who then occupied the seats now filled by you in the following glowing words: "True it is that it sometimes, though very rarely, happens that those who have been idle during their academical course have by extraordinary exertions retrieved their early neglect and in the end outstripped others who started in the race far ahead. These are exceptions—they furnish cause to humble arrogance, check presumption, banish despair and encourage reformation. But as surely as a virtuous life usually precedes a happy death so surely will it be found that within the college precincts is laid the groundwork of that pre-eminence afterwards acquired in the strife of men; and that college distinctions are not only good testimony of the fidelity with which college duties have been performed, but the best presages and pledges of excellence on a more extended and elevated field of action."