My acquaintance with John Howe Peyton became more intimate in 1828, when I was Attorney for the United States for the Western District of Virginia. He was then prominent as a remarkable man, and as an able and distinguished lawyer. He was a man of that tone and quality of mind, which soft and vacillating natures, or other minds not well grounded in high principles of conduct, might term austere. The logical character of his mind was that of severity of thought, and well trained in historical criticism. From such a mental constitution and from such culture all his motives of conduct, public and private, may well be supposed to have been the convictions of principles. As a statesman such a man could not do otherwise than shape his public life to the loftiest patriotism, as a lawyer to the sternest integrity of public right and justice, and as a man to all that was above what was low, base, or corrupt, or even common-place. Hence as a party leader or defender of right he had no mercy, in the public discussions of his times, for the mere trickster and demagogue, as public prosecutor he had no compromises with crime or guilt, and as a lawyer was inflexible and professionally just in the application of the principles of the law, which he looked upon as a science which tended to secure the rights of men and preserve the purity of the general life. There were not many men who could make such quick and decisive analysis of facts, and generalise from them the principles by which they should be governed, and state the results to which they lead, and this both in the domain of politics and of professional life. Young men, who desired to reach eminence and solid character, would seek his company and find a friend and counsellor, but not a companion in the familiar sense, while those of feeble texture of mind would, in a certain sense, be overawed and repelled. I should say his mind belonged to the Doric order—massive, almost severe in its simplicity, and strong, and in these qualities, conservative.
With great respect and esteem,
Yours truly,
GEO. W. THOMPSON.
PRESENTATION OF MR. PEYTON'S PORTRAIT TO THE COUNTY OF AUGUSTA.
In order to preserve, in a permanent form, the interesting proceedings on the occasion when Mr. Peyton's portrait was presented to the county of Augusta, the little pamphlet containing them and printed at the time, is here reproduced.
The pamphlet was entitled: "John Howe Peyton. Ceremonies attending the presentation of his portrait to the county of Augusta."
"Great men heighten the consciousness of the human race, and it is our grateful duty to magnify him whose genius magnifies mankind."
(Printed for Private Circulation.)