Lives of Distinguished North Carolinians, with Illustrations and Speeches

by Unknown

He made known to President Dwight the reception of the letter announcing the withdrawal of the patronage by which he had been thus far supported, and the res angusta domi which caused him to bid adieu to Yale when reaching the portion of her curriculum by which his expanding mind would have been most profited, and left with the regrets and kind wishes of that venerable divine and instructor. In after years when he had established a character, his alma mater honored herself by volunteering a degree to her barely risen junior, and enrolling his name among her sons with whom he should have graduated in 1813, as, at a later period, she acknowledged his still higher advancement in liberal learning, by conferring upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws.

He appears to have indulged in no unavailing grief at the freak of fortune which blasted his hopes of a collegiate education, but returning home, though but little over seventeen years of age, betook himself at once to the study of the law. His legal preceptor was his maternal cousin, Hon. John Stanly, of New Bern, who as an advocate, a statesman, a parliamentarian, a wit and adept in conversation, is one of the historical characters of North Carolina; and, who, viewing him as I did, from the gallery of the House of Commons in my boyhood, impressed me as an orator of more graceful and elegant manner and action, according to my conception of the Ciceronian standard, than any public speaker it has ever been my fortune to hear.

Mr. Badger was granted a license to practice law in the County Courts in the summer of 1814, and, according to the usual probation, in the Superior Courts in 1815; the Judges of the Supreme Court consenting to relax the ordinary rule and overlook his nonage, by reason of the narrowness of his fortune and the dependence of his mother and sisters upon his exertions for their support. The war with England raging in the former year, and an invasion of the State being threatened by the British forces under Admiral Cockburn, then hovering on our coasts, Governor Hawkins called out the militia, and himself took the field, in an expedition for the defense of New Bern and Beaufort. In this expedition Mr. Badger served as aid-de-camp to General Calvin Jones, of Wake, with rank of major; but the alarm soon ceasing, with the retirement of the enemy the soldier was again resolved into the youthful barrister. A vacancy occurring in the office of solicitor to prosecute the pleas of the State in that riding, about this time, he was introduced to public notice by the temporary appointment from the judge, and made one circuit in that capacity.

In 1816, the year of his majority, he was returned a member of the House of Commons from the town of New Bern; and whatever advantages he may have lost by his retirement from college (and they were doubtless many and important), it may well be questioned whether any of the more fortunate youths he had left behind in the classic shades of Yale were, by this time, better fitted to play a distinguished part in a deliberative assembly or a court of justice. Profiting by the instruction, the conversation, the intercourse, and the example of that accomplished gentleman, Mr. Stanly, and his compeers, Gaston, Edward Graham, Moses Mordecai, and others, whom he met at the bar or in society, but above all by his own profound study, he not only gained great attainments in the law, but (what is now I fear becoming rare), a familiar acquaintance with the classic authors of English literature, and with the arts of rhetoric and composition. He wrote and spoke our language with a readiness, force, precision, and propriety, the more remarkable because equally as conspicuous in jocose and trifling conversation (in which he freely indulged) as in public address. As a critic, whether under the inspiration of a "good or bad natured muse," he has had few peers among the judges of "English undefiled." His appearance in the Legislature was the advent of a new star above the horizon, somewhat erratic and peculiar in its orbit, but effulgent even in its irregularities, and shining with a splendor not unworthy of the oldest and greatest lights of the firmament.

Tradition furnishes anecdotes of many encounters, during the session, of gladiatorial skill, in which his love of pleasantry and the gaudia certaminis involved him with the late Attorney-General Drew, a son of genius and of Erin, and others, with various success: but it assures us that this, his first and last session in the General Assembly, closed with a profound impression and universal acknowledgment of his genius, culture, and high promise for the future.

The Hon. Thomas Ruffin, the speaker of the House of Commons, who had been first appointed a judge of the Superior Court during this session, discovering in Mr. Badger a congenial spirit, alike emulous with himself of liberal culture and professional distinction, invited him to take his briefs and pursue the practice in Orange. The acceptance of this proposition carried him to Hillsborough as his place of residence for the next two or three years, during which, having married the daughter of Hon. James Turner, of Warren, he transferred his home to Warrenton; thence he moved to Louisburg, where he continued to reside until his retirement from the bench in 1825, when he removed to Raleigh, and there abode during the residue of his life.

How well he maintained his professional character in the new field of his practice is observed in the fact that, with but little of what is known as personal popularity, he was elected a judge of the Superior Court by the Legislature in its session of 1820, at the age of twenty-five. In this office he rode the circuits four years with admitted ability, candor and impartiality, evading no question and no duty; but he was sometimes thought to err from quickness of temper and too great readiness to assume responsibility. His courtesy to the profession won him general esteem. The people, though sometimes murmuring at the severity of a sentence or a supposed arbitrary or whimsical order, regarded with equal wonder the promptness and force with which he discussed questions of law with the veterans of the bar, and the intelligent, amusing and instructive conversation with which he habitually entertained his acquaintances and associates.

I mention a single case in his administration of the law as illustrative both of the firm and impartial hand with which he dealt out justice and the jealous care with which the judiciary of North Carolina has ever protected and maintained the rights of the weak against the strong and influential. A citizen of great fortune, and advanced age, who had represented his county in earlier years in both Houses of the Legislature, having also numerous and influential connections, charged a free-negro with larceny of his property, had him brought by warrant before a justice of the peace, prevailed on the justice to try and convict him of the offense charged, and to sentence him to punishment by stripes, which were inflicted—a proceeding allowable by law, provided the offender had been a slave. But here the culprit was a freeman, and by the Constitution entitled to public trial in open court before a jury of the country. The prosecutor, with the justice and constable, was arraigned before the Superior Court for this violation of law, and their guilt being established, Judge Badger, who happened to preside at this term, was strongly inclined to imprison the principal defendant, and was only deterred by reason of his (said defendant's) age and state of health; but, announcing that this was omitted from that cause only, sentenced him to a fine of twelve hundred dollars, the justice of the peace to fifty, and the constable to ten dollars, the differences being made on account of their several grades of intelligence and consequent criminality, as well as of ability to pay.

From the time of his return to the bar and location at Raleigh, until the access of disease which suddenly, and, as it proved, finally arrested his course, he devoted his time to the practice of his profession, with the exception of a few months, occasioned by his appointment by Harrison and his continuation by Tyler as Secretary of the Navy, and such further interruption as was produced by his occupation of a seat in the Senate of the United States from 1846 to 1855. During his forensic career he was, at different times, proposed by executive nomination for the bench of the Supreme Court, both of his own State and of the United States; but the spirit of party exacted a denial of his confirmation, though no man doubted his eminent qualification.

If it be true, as remarked by Pinkney, in one of his familiar letters, published by Wheaton, that "the bar is not a place to acquire or preserve a false or a fraudulent reputation for talents," it was eminently so in his case. He had an intrepid and self-reliant mind, which, disdaining artifice, timidity or caution, struck out into the open field of controversy with the daring of conscious power, and shunned no adversary not clad in the panoply of truth; was as ready to challenge the authority of Mansfield or Denman, Rosyln or Eldon, if found deflecting from the paths of principle or precedent, as that of meaner names. If, from want of opportunity or inclination, he had failed to master the mathematics of numbers, he made himself proficient in the mathematics of life (as our law, from the exactness of rule at which it aims, has been not inaptly denominated), and by a rigorous logic was prompt to expose whatever could not bear the test of reason. Yet, it was a logic free from the pedantry of the schools, apparently not derived from books, and accompanied by a rapidity of mental action, which gave to it the appearance of intuition. Whether in analysis or synthetical reasoning, in dealing with facts before juries or the most intricate questions of law before courts, these faculties were equally conspicuous, and attended, when occasion called for their use, with powers of humor, sarcasm, and ridicule hardly inferior to those of ratiocination. Added to all this, there was a lucidness of arrangement, an exact grammatical accuracy in every sentence, a forcible and graceful style which, independent of a clear and distinct enunciation, a melodious voice and engaging manner, imparted even to his extemporaneous arguments the charms of polished composition.