Lives of Distinguished North Carolinians, with Illustrations and Speeches

by Unknown

Duncan Cameron, at the early age of twenty-three, was the clerk, and immediately after the close of the trial reported and published the decisions of the court in an octavo of one hundred and eight pages. As I have the only copy I have ever seen of this brochure, the earliest, with the exception of Martin and 1 Haywood, in the entire series of North Carolina Reports, I give for the benefit of legal antiquarians an exact copy of the title-page: "Reports of cases determined by the Judges of the Superior Courts of law and Court of Equity of the State of North Carolina, at their meeting on 10th of June, A. D. 1800, held pursuant to an act of the General Assembly for settling questions of law and equity arising on the circuit, by Duncan Cameron, attorney at law, Raleigh. From the press of Hodge & Boylan, printers to the State, 1800."

In 1800 an act was passed to continue in force the Act of 1799, three years longer. The sessions of the court by the former act were limited to ten days; they were now extended to fifteen days (Sundays excepted) if the business of the court should so require. The third section of the act is in the following words: "And be it further enacted that no attorney shall be allowed to speak or be admitted as counsel in the aforesaid court." The General Assembly must have entertained a high opinion of the ability and purity of the bench, and serious misgivings in relation to the cunning and crafty bar of which John Haywood was the leader.

The late Judge Hall told me that he was present when Joshua Williams, senator from Buncombe, called upon Governor Turner for advice in relation to the extension of the lease of life to this high tribunal. The Governor urged the continuance of the court until the other offenders could be arrested and tried, and the remaining questions of doubt and difficulty in the law be put finally at rest. My good senator, and there were few as good men as he in any age of the commonwealth, assented, under the entire conviction that a little longer time was necessary to enable the judges to render the law so clear and certain, that no perplexing questions would arise in the future. He was probably more confident of a consummation so devoutly to be wished, since the court was neither to be annoyed nor perplexed by the arguments of such lawyers as Haywood.

Iredell, the greatest of Haywood's compeers was in his grave. Moore was Iredell's successor on the Supreme Court Bench of the United States, and Davie had on the 24th of December, 1799, been appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to the French Republic as successor of Patrick Henry, who had been compelled to decline on account of bodily infirmity.

In 1804, the court, which since 1801 had been styled the Court of Conference, was made a court of record, the judges required to reduce their opinions to writing, to file them "and deliver the same viva voce in open court." In the following year (1805) the name was changed from the Court of Conference to the Supreme Court of North Carolina, and converted from a temporary to a permanent, I hope immortal, tribunal, in fame as in duration.

The senator from Buncombe, and the great advocate Haywood, removed to Tennessee no great while afterwards. The former lived long enough in the midst of the legal strife which abounded in that young and rising commonwealth to find that the end of controversy, like the end of the rainbow, was not easily reached; and the latter to reap golden harvests of fame and fortune from the "glorious uncertainty of the common law."

When I first saw the Supreme Court in session in June, 1822, Chief Justice Taylor, the Mansfield of North Carolina jurisprudence, Judge Hall, proverbial for integrity, amiability and sound common sense, and Judge Henderson, who in genius, judgment and power of fascination in social intercourse, was without his peer, were the three judges. William Drew, standing on the thin partition which divides great wit and frenzy, was the Attorney-General. Francis L. Hawks, who had not yet attained the 25th year of his age had already given favorable promise of future eminence as a member of the New Bern bar, the representative of that town in the General Assembly, was the reporter. Hawks was destined however to a much wider celebrity in a very different sphere, and for many years previous to his death, as a brilliant writer and eloquent speaker, had a higher transatlantic reputation than any other American divine.

The bar in attendance in those days was much less numerous than at present. He was a young man of rare self-complacency, who would imperil a rising reputation in a contest with the sages of the profession before that tribunal. I well remember the remark of a gentleman, second as an advocate in the Superior Courts to no one of his contemporaries, that he never rose in the Supreme Court without trembling, and never ventured to do more than simply to suggest the principles, and give the names of the cases and authorities upon which he relied.

Of those in attendance, Gaston, from the east, was facile princeps, Archibald Henderson, probably the most eloquent and successful advocate in criminal defenses who ever appeared at the bar in North Carolina, was the great representative of the middle, and Joseph Wilson of the extreme west, Judge Murphy and Judge Ruffin represented Hillsborough, and Judge Seawell, Gavin Hogg and Moses Mordecai, the Raleigh circuit. Mr. Badger was just attaining the fulness of fame while the youngest of the Superior Court judges, and Peter Browne, the head of the bar, before Mr. Gaston assumed his position, was deciding cases with unprecedented facility and despatch as chairman of Wake County Court.

Mr. Devereux was the District Attorney for the United States. James F. Taylor, with the most brilliant prospects, died six years afterwards, Attorney-General of North Carolina at the early age of 37.