But when Virginia, our neighbor on the northern frontier, also withdrew, and Tennessee on the west had taken measures for the same object, when war had been actually begun, no matter by whose rashness or folly, and the only alternatives presented were in the choice of the side we should espouse, considerations of national or State interest, safety and necessity (such as are not unfrequently forced upon the decision of neutrals by the conduct of belligerents not connected under the same government) at once occurred, and were obliged to be weighed with the obligations of constitutional duty. Our borders were surrounded on all sides, except that washed by the ocean, by seceded States. Our youth must go forth to battle with or against these States. The Union we had so long and so sincerely cherished, was a Union in its integrity; and next to that, and as a part of it, was a Union with neighboring States, in which were our kindred and most intimate friends, and identical institutions. Slavery, whatever may be thought of it elsewhere or now, constituted more than one-half of our individual and public wealth. It had paid our taxes, built our railroads, reared our seminaries of education and charity, and was intimately connected with the order and repose of our society. Withal, in the acrimony of a long quarrel, its maintenance had become a point of honor. In the actual posture of affairs, which promised to continue while the war lasted, instead of fifteen States in which slavery existed, whose Representatives were to maintain a common interest in the halls of Congress, there were to be but three, or at most, four, and all these, except our own, with a minor interest in the system. A civil war which threatened to be sanguinary and protracted, kindled avowedly for the protection of slavery, was not likely to end in the defeat of the insurgent States without the destruction of the institution in them, and after no long time, in the adhering States, also. Though far from approving the course of the recusant States, victory on the side of those who held the reins of government could not inure in benefit, nor without serious disaster, to us.
These ties of blood, vicinity, institutions and interests, the desire to avoid internecine strife among our own people (which must have been immediately precipitated by a zealous minority, with the local government, legislative and executive, in their hands) impelled Mr. Badger, and those who acted with him, to decline to take up arms against their own section in favor of the distant authority of the national government, and as a consequence to unite with those whose action they had deprecated and endeavored to prevent, and with whom they had had little sympathy or cooperation in the politics of the past. The support of the undertaking, if concurred in by all the slaveholding States, which was confidently represented to be certain, appeared to afford hope of a safer and better future than its suppression by force. The determination of the question, as I know, occasioned him pain and embarrassment, but when made it was firmly maintained. He accepted a seat in the Convention which passed the ordinance declaring the separation of the State from the Federal Union, and gave to this ordinance his sanction; not, however, without a distinct declaration of his disbelief in the doctrine of secession as a constitutional right. He also sustained measures for the prosecution of a vigorous war, as, in his conception, the surest and shortest way to peace, but was ever vigilant of the dignity and just rights of the State, the encroachments of the military authority, the jurisdiction of the civil tribunals and the protection and liberty of the citizens. He sought no patronage or favor for himself or his family. His sons served in the ranks of the army and bore their part in the perils and adventures of war.
While it yet raged, he was stricken by the hand of disease, which partially obscured his faculties and withdrew him from public view. He survived, however, until after the return of peace, and in the twilight of mind, with which he was yet favored, rejoiced in the deliverance of the country from the calamities of war, and very sincerely acquiesced in a return to his allegiance to the Government of the United States.
These observations on the professional and public life of the subject of our sketch have been so prolonged that the occasion will permit but a few further remarks upon his general attainments, his intellectual and moral character and usefulness as a citizen. It was the remark of Lord Bacon that "Reading makes a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man." Mr. Badger's reading was confined, with the exception of the dead languages, which he had acquired in his youthful studies, to the literature of our own language. With the most approved authors in this he had a familiar acquaintance, and, as already remarked, excelled in the accomplishments of a critic. The field of learning, which next to jurisprudence he most affected, and perhaps even preferred to that, was moral science. Upon the sublime truths of this science, in the conversations with his friends, his remarks and illustrations were often not unworthy of Alexander or Wayland, Butler or Whately. "In it," says one of the most intimate of his friends and contemporaries, "the rapidity of his perception and accuracy of his deductions were marvelous. Place before his mind any proposition of moral science, and instantly he carried it out, either to exact truth, most beautifully enunciated, or reduced it to an absurdity." To his acquisitions in the kindred topic of didactic divinity, or theology as a science, only a professional theologian can do justice. An earnest member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, though but a layman, he ventured on more than one occasion to discuss matters of discipline and doctrine in the character of a pamphleteer, in opposition to clergymen of note, and in a memorable instance with the head of the diocese himself with such signal success that, although the Bishop ultimately united himself with the Romish Church, whither Mr. Badger charged that he was tending, not another member of his denomination left its communion.
He was averse to the labor of writing, and beyond an address before the Literary Societies of the University, the reports, by his own hand, of some of his speeches in Congress, and other pamphlets on subjects political or religious, has left few written performances. But he had the accuracy in thought and speech of a practiced writer.
In conversation he realized in the fullest sense Bacon's idea of readiness, and shone with a lustre rarely equaled. The activity and playfulness of his thoughts and the gayety of his disposition inclined him to paradox and repartee to such a degree that his conversation was oftentimes but amusing levity. But in a moment it rose to the profoundest reflection and most fascinating eloquence. His knowledge was ever at instantaneous command, as it was far more the result of his own meditations than of acquisition from others, and fancy lent her aid in giving a grandeur to his conceptions on all the subjects of his grave discourse. After all the public displays in which he enchained the attention of judges, jurors, senators, and promiscuous assemblies with equal admiration and delight, it is a matter for doubt, among those who knew him well, whether his brightest thoughts and most felicitous utterances, the versatility of his genius, and the vast range of his contemplations were not oftener witnessed in his boon and social hours, in the converse of friends, around his own hospitable board, or at the village inn, or on a public highway—all without pedantry or apparent effort, "as if he stooped to touch the loftiest thought"—than in these elaborate and studied exhibitions. He affected no mystery, and wore no mask, and stood ready in familiar colloquy to make good, by new and apt illustrations, any sentiment advanced in formal argument, or to abandon it as untenable if satisfied of error.
His reverence for truth, to which allusion has been already made in the course of these observations, was even above his intellectual powers, his most striking characteristic. He was accustomed to speak of it "as the most distinguished attribute of God himself, and the love of it as giving to one moral being an eminence above another." To its discovery he delighted to apply the powers of his remarkable intellect, to its influence he was ready to surrender his most cherished convictions whenever found to be erroneous.
The fruits of this were seen in the crowning virtues of his character: he was a Christian of humble and intelligent piety without intolerance toward others, a lawyer without chicanery or artifice, a statesman without being a factionist, a party man above the low arts of the demagogue, a gentleman and citizen enlightened, social, charitable, liberal, impressing his character upon the manners and morals of his times, ready to render aid in every good and noble work, and prompt to resist and repel any evil influence, no matter by what array of numbers, power or vitiated public opinion supported. I have known no man to whose moral courage may be more fitly applied the ideal of the Latin poet, as rendered in free translation:
"The man whose mind on virtue bent,
Pursues some greatly good intent
With undiverted aim,
Serene beholds the angry crowd,
Nor can their clamors fierce and loud
His stubborn honor tame.
Not the proud tyrant's fiercest threat,
Nor storms, that from their dark retreat
The rolling surges wake;
Not Jove's dread bolt that shakes the pole,
The firmer purpose of his soul
With all its power can shake."
In the latter years of his life, actuated by a desire to be useful in his day and generation, wherever opportunity and his ability might allow, he accepted the office of justice of the peace, an office which, to the honor of those who have filled it in North Carolina from the first organization of civil government until now, has ever been performed without pecuniary reward, and took considerable interest in administering justice in the County Courts of Wake, giving to this inferior tribunal the dignity and value of a Superior Court, to the great satisfaction of the bar and the public.