GIFT OF 
 Mrs. John B. Casserly 
 

THE LIFE OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
j C /tir 
 
 rti 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 or 
 
 RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL GILMAN B^OWN, 
 
 PRESIDENT OF HAMILTON COLLEGE. 
 
 EiV fjivprov nhaSl TO &$0(; ityopei. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 
 
 1870. 
 
EM-q 
 
 CfB? 
 
 -f s 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, 
 
 in the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON. 
 
TO THE MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 LEMUEL SHAW, LL.D, 
 
 FOR THFRTY YEARS CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF 
 MASSACHUSETTS, 
 
 THIS SECOND EDITION OF THE LIFE OF RUFUS CHOATE 
 IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. 
 
 75G904 
 
PREFACE 
 
 SECOND EDITION OF THE LIFE. 
 
 THE first edition of the Works of Mr. Choate, with the 
 Memoir of his Life, was early disposed of, and for 
 many years it has been almost impossible to obtain a 
 copy. In the mean time the wish has been frequently 
 expressed that the Life might be republished by itself. 
 In accordance with this desire, the present edition has 
 been prepared. Although in the main unchanged, it 
 will be found to contain some additions in the form of 
 letters, reminiscences, and selections from the writings 
 of Mr. Choate. 
 
 While I cannot fail gratefully to recognize the kind 
 ness with which the work, as originally published, was 
 received, especially by those most competent to judge, 
 - the members of the Massachusetts Bar, and those 
 who knew Mr. Choate most familiarly, yet I cannot 
 but feel more than ever how inadequate is any delinea 
 tion to present a complete picture of that subtle, ver- 
 
viii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 satile, and exuberant mind, " to display with psycho 
 logical exactness " (if I may use his own words) " the 
 traits of his nature," to unveil "the secrets the 
 marvellous secrets and sources of that vast power 
 which we shall see no more in action, nor aught in 
 any degree resembling it among men." 
 
 We shall not fail, however, I trust, to learn some 
 lessons of fidelity, and unsparing diligence, and unre 
 mitting labor, for which no genius can prove a substi 
 tute, as well as those other lessons of high purpose, 
 and broad patriotism, which informed his life, and 
 which the new condition of the Republic demands of 
 us even more strenuously than did the old. 
 
 S. G. B. 
 
 HAMILTON COLLEGE, 
 CLINTON, N.Y., Dec. 22, 1869. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 FIRST EDITION OF THE LIFE AND WORKS. 
 
 WHEN first requested to prepare a sketch of the life 
 of Mr. CHOATE, I was not ignorant of the difficulty of 
 writing it so as to present a fair and complete portrait 
 ure the traits of his character were so peculiar, its 
 lights and shades so delicate, various, and evanescent. 
 The difficulty has not grown less as I have proceeded 
 with the work, and no one, I think, can be so well 
 aware as I am, of its insufficiency. 
 
 It may seem singular that none of Mr. Choate s ad 
 dresses to a jury are included in this collection of his 
 speeches, that the department of eloquence in which 
 perhaps he gained his greatest fame should here be 
 unrepresented. In this disappointment, those by 
 whom this selection has been made, certainly share. 
 It was not until the very last, and after making a care 
 ful examination of every accessible report of his legal 
 arguments, that they reluctantly came to the conclu 
 sion that no one remained which, considering the 
 nature of the subject, or of the report itself, would 
 do justice to the advocate, or very much gratify the 
 reader. 
 
X PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 As to Mr. Choate s political sentiments and action 
 during the later years of his life, it did not seem neces 
 sary to do more than to give his opinions as they were 
 honestly formed and frankly expressed. The time 
 has not yet come for treating fully and with entire 
 fairness the questions of those days. One still " walks 
 on ashes thinly covering fires." 
 
 A word should perhaps be said with reference to the 
 fragments of translations from Thucydides and Taci 
 tus, which close these volumes. They were prepared 
 solely as a private exercise and for a personal pleasure 
 and advantage. They were never revised, and are 
 given precisely as found on loose scraps of paper, after 
 Mr. Choate s decease. But they have struck me, as 
 well as others upon whose better judgment I have re 
 lied, as affording examples of felicitous and full ren 
 dering of difficult authors, and as indicating something 
 of the voluntary labors and scholarly discipline of an 
 overtasked lawyer, who, amidst the unceasing and 
 wearisome calls of an exacting profession, never forgot 
 his early love of letters. 
 
 No one unacquainted with Mr. Choate s handwriting 
 can understand the difficulty of preparing his manu 
 scripts for the press. For performing so well this very 
 perplexing labor, the public are chiefly indebted to 
 RUFUS CHOATE, Jr., and EDWARD ELLERTON PRATT, 
 Esqs. 
 
 With a singular and almost unaccountable indiffer 
 ence to fame, Mr. Choate took no pains to preserve his 
 speeches. The manuscript of the lecture, written 
 at first with the most rapid pen, with abbreviations, 
 erasures, and interlineations, had no sooner fulfilled 
 its temporary purpose, than it was thrust among waste 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. XI 
 
 papers and forgotten. He had not the time, or could 
 not bring himself to take the trouble to recall his lost 
 orations or legal arguments. His lecture on the Ro 
 mance of the Sea, one of the most beautiful and popu 
 lar of his lectures, was lost or stolen in New York. 
 He was solicited to rewrite it, and could doubtless, at 
 any time for years afterward, hate reproduced the 
 whole 
 
 " apparell d in more precious habit, 
 
 More moving-delicate, and full of life/ 
 
 than at first, but other matters seemed to him of more 
 importance, and the half promise with which he be 
 guiled his friends was never fulfilled. 
 
 When urged, as he frequently was, to prepare a 
 volume of speeches for the press, he usually quieted 
 the solicitor by seeming to accede to his request, or 
 evaded him by some rare bit of pleasantry. 
 
 It is a matter of congratulation, then, that so much 
 has been rescued from irretrievable loss. It has even 
 been found necessary, in order not to overcrowd the 
 volumes, to omit many lectures and speeches, which 
 all who heard them would doubtless be glad to possess 
 in a permanent form. Among these are several con 
 gressional and political speeches, his speech in the 
 Massachusetts Convention on The Basis of Represen 
 tation, and his lectures on The Influence of Great 
 Cities, on The Mercantile Profession, on Macaulay, on 
 Rogers, on Jefferson, Hamilton, and Burr, and an 
 earlier lecture on Poland. 
 
 The engraving which accompanies this volume, from 
 a photograph by Messrs. SOUTHWORTH & HA WES, is 
 considered the best likeness which exists of Mr. Choate 
 in repose. A very striking portrait by Mr. AMES, 
 
Xll PREFACE TO THE F1KST EDITION. 
 
 the original of which is in Dartmouth College, gives 
 the orator in action. Besides these, Mr. BRACKETT has 
 moulded a spirited head in plaster, and Mr. THOMAS 
 BALL has sculptured one in marble, which for dignity, 
 force, and truthfulness, can hardly be surpassed. 
 
 While I have received aid from many sources, which 
 I should be glad particularly to designate, I cannot 
 help acknowledging my special obligation to the Mem 
 bers of the Bar, especially of Suffolk and of Essex, 
 many of whom I have had occasion to consult, and 
 from all have received every assistance possible with 
 out reserve or hesitation. I am also much indebted 
 to the courtesy of Mr. EVERETT for kindly placing at 
 my disposal books and manuscripts not easily acces 
 sible elsewhere, which were indispensable in preparing 
 the sketch of Mr. Choate s life in Congress ; and to 
 EDWARD G. PARKER, Esq., for a free use of materials 
 which he had collected in preparing his " Reminis 
 cences." 
 
 The publication of these volumes, though ready for 
 the press many months since, has been delayed by 
 causes which will occur to every one. In the great 
 peril of the Republic, what else could be thought 
 of? What eloquence be heard but that of the civil 
 war? But the counsels of the wise will acquire a 
 deeper meaning, and the eloquence of patriotism be 
 listened to with a readier acquiescence, when from the 
 present tumult and strife we shall emerge upon an 
 other era " bright and tranquil." 
 
 S. G. B. 
 HANOVER, N.H., October 13, 1862. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I. 1799-1830 1 
 
 Birth Ancestry Boyhood Account by his Brother 
 Studies Characteristics Enters College Hank Testi 
 mony of Classmates Dartmouth College Case Its In 
 fluence on his Choice of a Profession Extract from Judge 
 Perley s Eulogy Enters Law School in Cambridge Goes 
 to Washington and Studies with Mr. Wirt Death _ of, his 
 Brother Washington Returns to Essex Admission^to 
 the Bar Testimony of Mr. Wirt Opens an Office in 
 Souln Darivers LeTEer to James Marsh Marriage Suc 
 cess Fidelity to Clients Letter from Judge Shaw 
 Testimony of Hon. Asahel Huntington. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 1830-1840 35 
 
 Removal to Salem The Essex Bar Successes Appear 
 ance Counsel in the Knapp Case Studies Ldtters to 
 President Marsh Elected to Congress Commonplace 
 Book Enters Congress Speeches on Revolutionary 
 Pensions and on the Tariff Letter to Dr. Andrew Nich 
 ols Letters to Prol . Ge orge Bush The Second Session 
 Georgia and the Missionaries to the Indians Re-elected 
 to Congress Speech on the Removal of the Deposits 
 Resigns his Seat Removes to Boston Lecture on the 
 
 averjey Novels," and on " The JRomance of the Sjea " 
 oThis Youngest Child. 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 CHAPTER III. 1841-1843 ........ 65 
 
 Professional Advancement Letters to Richard S. Storrs, Jr. 
 Chosen Senator in place of Mr. Webster Death of Gen 
 eral Harrison Eulogy in Faneuil Hall Extra Session of 
 Congress Speech_onthe M Leod Case The Fiscal Bank 
 Bill Collision with~Mr7Clay -^Nomination of Mr. Everett 
 as Minister to England Letter to Mr. Simmer Letters to 
 his Son The next Session Speech on providing furthej 
 Jn^ the United States Courts Letters to 
 
 Mr. Sumner The North Eastern Boundary Quejstion 
 Journal. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 1843-1844 100 
 
 Address before the New England Society of New York 
 
 Letter to Prof. Bush Letters to Charles Sumner 
 
 Letter to his Daughters Sj>ch ftn Orfgnn-^- First Speech 
 
 on the Tariff SecondJJpeech, in Reply to Mr. M/Duffie 
 
 "Journal? 
 
 CHAPTER V. 1844-1845 127 
 
 Political Excitement Speaks for Mr. Clay Meeting of Con 
 gress Diary Annexation of Texas Admission of Iowa 
 and Florida Establishment of the Smithsonian Institution 
 Library Plan Letters to Hon. C. W. Upham Illness 
 of Dr. Sewall Letter to Mrs. Brinley. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 1845-1849 151 
 
 Address before the Law Scliool in Cambridge Argues^the 
 Case" 6t ithode Island ~v. Massachusetts Defence of Tirrell 
 The Oliver Smith s W ill Case -^Speaks in favor of General 
 Taylor Ijrfer of a I rolessorship in the Cambridge _Law 
 School Offer ojj^eatjaiponr the jBench-r-.Tiie Phillips 
 Will Case^ jJojirnal. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 1850 200 
 
 Change of Partnership Voyage to Europe Letters to Mrs. 
 Choate Journal. 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 PAQK 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 1850-1855 231 
 
 Political Excitement Union Meetings Address on Wash 
 ington, February, 1851 The Case of Fairchild v. Adams_z=- 
 Address before the " Story Association " Webster Meet 
 ing in Faneuil Hall, Nov. 1851 Argues an India-Rubber 
 Case in Trenton Baltimore Convention, June, 1852 Ad- 
 dress to the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Burlington, Vt. 
 Journey to Quebec Death of Mr. Webster Letter to E. 
 Jackson Letter to Harvey Jewell, Esq. Letter to Mrs. 
 Eames Offer of the Attorney-Generalship Convention 
 to revise the Constitution of Massachusetts Eulogy on 
 Daniel Webster at Dartmouth College Letter to his 
 Daughter .Letters to Mrs. Eames Letter to Mr. Everett 
 
 Letters to his Son Letters to his Daughter Address 
 at the Dedication of the Peabody Institute, September, 1854 
 
 Letters to Mr. Everett Letter to Mrs. Eames Accident 
 and Illness Letters to Mr. and Mrs. Eames. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 1855-1858 282 
 
 Love of the Union Letter to the Whig Convention at Wor 
 cester, October, 1855 Letter to Rev. Chandler Robbins 
 Lecture on the Early British Poets of this century, March, 
 1856 Sir Walter Scott Political Campaign of 1856 
 Determines to support Mr. Buchanan Letter to the Whigs 
 of Maine Address at Lowell Letter to J. C. Walsh 
 Professional position His Library Lecture on The Elo 
 quence of Revolutionary Periods, February. 1857 Defence 
 ot Mr srT5alton Oration before the Boston Democratic 
 Club, July 4th, 1858. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 1858-1859 . 334 
 
 Failing Health Speech at the Webster Festival, January, 
 1859 Address at the Essex Street Church Last Law Case 
 
 Goes to Dorchester Occupations Decides to go to 
 Europe Letter to Hon. Charles Eames Letter to Alfred 
 Abbott, Esq. Sails in The Europa Illness on Board 
 
 Lands at Halifax Letter from Hon. George S. Hillard 
 
 Sudden Death Proceedings of Public Bodies Meet 
 ing of the Boston Bar Speeches of Hon. C. G. Loring, 
 R. H. Dana, Jr., Judge Curtis, and Judge Sprague Meet 
 ing in Faneuil Hall Speech of Mr. Everett Funeral. 
 
xvi CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGK 
 
 CHAPTER XI 388 
 
 Letter from Hon. John H. Clifford Reminiscences of Mr. 
 rjinntp s TTahits in his Office Thorough Preparation of 
 Cases Manner of Legal Study -^Intercourse with tlie 
 younger MemBers of tiie Bar^ Manner to~tTTe CourFancTthe 
 Jury Charges and Income Vocabulary Wit and Humor 
 
 Anecdotes Eloquence Style Note from Kev. Joseph 
 Tracy Memory Quotations Fondness for Books 
 Reminiscences~by a .Friend Life at Home Conversation 
 
 Religious Feeling and BeHeFT" 
 
 APPENDIX 459 
 
 INDEX 465 
 
MEMOIR 
 
 II U F U S C H O A T E, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1799-1830. 
 
 Birth of Rufus Choate Ancestry Boyhood Account by his 
 Brother Studies Characteristics Enters College Rank 
 Testimony of Classmates Dartmouth College Case Its Influence 
 on his Choice of a Profession Extract from Judge Perley s 
 Eulogy Enters Law School in Cambridge Goes to Washington 
 and studies with Mr. Wirt Death of his Brother Washington 
 Returns to Essex Admission to the Bar Testimony of Mr. 
 Wirt Opens an Office in South Danvers Letter to James 
 Marsh Marriage Success Fidelity to Clients Letter from 
 Judge Shaw Testimony of Hon. Asahel Huntington. 
 
 IN the south-eastern part of the old town of Ipswich, 
 Mass., on an island which rises in its centre to a con 
 siderable elevation and commands a view of the open 
 ocean and the neighboring villages, RUFUS CHOATE was 
 born, as his father, with ancient precision, recorded 
 the event in the Family Bible, " Tuesday, Oct. 1, 1799, 
 at 3 o clock, P.M." He was the second son, and the 
 fourth of six children. The district was then called 
 Chebacco : it has since been formed into a separate 
 town bearing the name of Essex. The inhabitants, for 
 the most part devoted to agriculture, were enterprising, 
 
2 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. I. 
 
 frugal, thrifty, and intelligent. The earliest ancestor 
 of-Mv . C nbate in tins country was John Choate, who 
 took the oath of allegiance in 1067. From him, the 
 subject of this biographical sketch is of the fifth gener 
 ation by direct descent. The family spread widely in 
 Essex County, and several members of it attained to 
 considerable distinction. 1 
 
 The paternal grandmother of Mr. Choate, whose 
 maiden name was Mary Giddings, was a matron 
 worthy of the best days of New England. 2 His 
 father was David Choate, a man of uncommon intel 
 lectual endowments, of sound and independent judg 
 ment, a wise counsellor, sociable, sagacious, modest, 
 keen, and witty. He was held in high estimation as 
 a man of stability, unswerving integrity, and weight 
 of character, and was often chosen to fill places of 
 responsibility and trust. 
 
 On one occasion, as administrator on the estate of 
 his uncle, John Choate, he was obliged to go to Boston 
 to look after a case in court. At the trial, the counsel 
 upon whom he had relied failed to appear. Mr. Choate 
 thereupon asked that the cause might be continued. 
 
 1 In 1741, John Choate, Esq., was a member of the House of 
 Representatives for Ipswich, and was elected Speaker ; but the election 
 was negatived by Governor Belcher. He continued a prominent 
 member of the House his name appearing on many important com 
 mittees till 1761, when he was elected into the Board of Councillors, 
 (who were then what both the Senate and Council now are in Mas 
 sachusetts), to which responsible position he was re-elected every suc 
 cessive year till 1766. 
 
 2 Her courage is indicated by an anecdote told of her, that in the 
 war of the Revolution, when all the men left the island, driving to 
 the uplands the herds of cattle which would otherwise have offered a 
 tempting prize to the British cruisers, she, with her two small chil 
 dren, remained fearless upon the farm. 
 
1799-1830.] EARLY LIFE. O 
 
 On stating the matter as clearly as lie could, the 
 judge, after a little consultation, said to him, "I think 
 you understand the case, Mr. Choate, and we can 
 manage it together. You had better conduct it your 
 self." Thus unexpectedly summoned to the bar, after 
 some hesitation he called his witnesses, made his ar 
 gument, and obtained a verdict. 
 
 There is a report, which seems to rest on good au 
 thority, that at the time of the ratification of the Fed 
 eral Constitution in Massachusetts he wrote several 
 articles for a Boston newspaper in favor of that meas 
 ure, under the signature of " Farmer," some of which 
 were currently ascribed to Theophilus Parsons, already 
 an eminent lawyer, and afterwards Chief Justice of 
 the State. Mr. Choate died in 1808, before his son 
 had attained his ninth year. 
 
 The mother of Rufus was Miriam Foster, a quiet, 
 sedate, but cheerful woman, dignified in manner, quick 
 in perception, of strong sense and ready wit. Her 
 son was said to resemble her in many characteristics 
 of mind and person. She lived to see his success and 
 enjoy his fame, and died in 1853, at the venerable age 
 of eighty-one. 
 
 When his son was about six months old, Mr. David 
 Choate removed from the island to the village on the 
 mainland, about three miles distant, but still retained 
 the old homestead. It had been in possession of the 
 family for four generations, and for more than a hun 
 dred years, and is still owned by an older brother of 
 Mr. Choate. 1 An arm of the sea flows pleasantly 
 about it, and a little creek runs up to within twenty 
 rods of the old dwelling, which stands on the hill- 
 
 1 Hon. David Choate. 
 
MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. I. 
 
 side, hardly changed from what it was sixty years 
 since, of two stories, heavy-timbered, low-roomed, 
 with beams across the ceiling, bare and weather- 
 beaten, but with a cheerful southerly outlook towards 
 the marshes, the sea, and the far-off rocky shore of 
 Cape Ann. 
 
 The new residence still commanded a view of the 
 ocean. The little village was the head of navigation for 
 a species of fishing-craft much built there, known along 
 the coast as " Chebacco boats." Frequent excursions 
 to the old farm were, of course, necessary ; and these 
 little voyages down the river which forces its crooked 
 way through the salt marshes, were generally made in 
 a canoe dug out of a solid log. During the war of 
 1812, the English and American cruisers were fre 
 quently seen in the bay. On one occasion especially, 
 the " Tenedos " and " Shannon," tall and beautiful, 
 " sitting like two swans upon the water," were watched 
 from the shore with great interest, and by none with 
 more concentrated gaze than by the boy Rufus. All 
 these circumstances, the murmur of the sea which 
 lulled him to sleep, the rage of the ocean in a storm, 
 the white sails in the distant harbor, the boats which 
 went out of the river and never returned, the stories 
 of adventures and perils, naturally tended to stimu 
 late his imagination, to cherish that love of the sea 
 which became almost a passion, and which so often 
 shows itself in his speeches and writings. To the 
 last, he thought that to be a sea-captain was " emi 
 nently respectable." Accounts of naval battles he 
 read with the greatest eagerness ; and many were the 
 mimic contests on land to which they gave birth. 
 " I well remeunber," says his brother, " his acting over 
 
1799-1830.] EARLY LIFE. 5 
 
 certain parts of a sea-fight with other boys, he telling 
 them what to do, how to load, at what to aim, not how 
 to strike a flag (that never seemed to come into the 
 category), but how to nail one to the mast, with orders 
 to let it wave while he lived. Many of his chimney- 
 corner sports had relation to either naval or land 
 engagements. I remember that while he and Wash 
 ington 1 were waiting for the family to breakfast, dine, 
 or sup (that was the way the children were then 
 taught to do), one would have the dog and the other 
 the cat, each holding it fast; and, at the signal, bring 
 ing them suddenly together, in imitation of two hostile 
 ships or armies, Rufus, in the mean time, repeating the 
 story of a real or imagined fight witli as much volubility 
 as he ever afterwards used in court, and with such an 
 arrangement of the plan of the fight as made all seem 
 wonderfully real." 
 
 Scenes of military and naval life fastened strongly 
 upon his imagination. He often said that nothing ever 
 made a deeper impression upon his boyish mind than 
 the burial of an officer with military honors, and the 
 volleys fired over his grave. In August, 1813, he went 
 to Salem to witness the ceremony of the reinterment 
 of the bodies of Capt. James Lawrence and Lieut. 
 Augustus C. Ludlow, who were killed on board the 
 " Chesapeake," and were at first buried at Halifax. 
 Although he could not hear Judge Story s Eulogy, he 
 made his brother repeat to him all that he could 
 remember of it. The opening sentence, " Welcome 
 to their native shores be the remains of our departed 
 heroes, " especially filled him with ecstasy. It is not 
 surprising, then, that the dreams of his early ambition 
 
 1 His younger brother. 
 
6 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. I. 
 
 should have been of braving the perils of the sea, or 
 commanding a man-of-war. 
 
 His constitution was vigorous, and in all the sports 
 of boyhood he was more than a match for his com 
 panions, spending as many hours as any one upon the 
 play-ground, and tiring out almost all his competitors 
 by his activity and skill. In the necessary labor of the 
 farm he was equally diligent and faithful. A man is 
 now living with whom lie once worked in laying a 
 stone wall, and who thought it a pity that so strong 
 and active a lad should be sent to college, but par 
 doned it, when really determined upon, because he 
 worked so well. 
 
 " Even in doing field-work," says his brother, " if the 
 nature of the employment could possibly admit of it, 
 he would get up some excitement to enliven the hour. 
 Thus, in the laborious occupation of building the wall, 
 or digging and hauling stone preparatory to it, he was 
 the favorite of the master-workmen. Although no part 
 of the labor was such as admitted of much haste, yet 
 the wall-builder would often refer to these occasions 
 after my brother began to figure a little in life, to tell 
 how springy he was about his work; how he would 
 jump to hook or unhook the chain, to start or stop the 
 team, hand a crowbar, clap a bait (as it is called in 
 New England) under the lever ; and how he would 
 shout when the rock started from its bed and reached 
 the surface, or its place in the wall. A single remark 
 once made by him, while at work as above, goes to show 
 that even then, as he had just got under way in Latin, 
 he sometimes glanced a thought forward to the future : 
 thus, Mr. N. (to the wall-builder), if ever Tin a 
 lawyer, I ll plead all your cases for nothing. 
 
1799-1830.J EARLY LIFE. f 
 
 An intense love of reading and of knowledge in 
 general was early developed. Before be was six years 
 old, he had devoured the " Pilgrim s Progress," and 
 used afterwards to gather his companions and rehearse 
 it to them from memory. Bunyan was always a great 
 favorite. But a few years before he died, he borrowed 
 from his brother the old volume, with its quaint pic 
 tures and soiled pages, which brought back so much 
 of his childhood. Another book, of a different kind, 
 which he used to read with the greatest avidity, was a 
 worn and well-thumbed copy of the u Life of Maurice, 
 Count Saxe," from which a year or two since he 
 repeated page after page, to the surprise and amuse 
 ment of some of his family by whom a question had 
 been started with reference to the battle of Fontenoy. 
 " Marshal Saxe at the Opera " (accenting the second 
 syllable according to his boyish habit) used long to be 
 one of the playful phrases in use between himself and 
 his children. 
 
 The apparent ease with which he mastered the con 
 tents of a book has been the subject of remark. This 
 characteristic was as noticeable, perhaps, in childhood 
 as any other. Dr. Sewall, his brother-in-law, took the 
 numbers of the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, which came 
 uncut and half-bound. Rufus used to offer to cut the 
 leaves, and even begged to do it. The truth was, that 
 while doing it, and even while conversing with others, 
 he would run his eye over the articles which interested 
 him ; and, as the doctor said, " he knew more about the 
 book by the time the leaves were cut, than he (the 
 doctor) was likely to know for a long time." 
 
 His tenacity of memory was equally remarkable, so 
 that to his friends he seemed to remejoaber about all 
 
8 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. I. 
 
 that he read. Years after indeed, while a member 
 of* college, he would take a book into his sleeping- 
 chamber and look over a chapter the last thing before 
 retiring, and then on awakening in the morning, with 
 out looking at the page, would repeat it to his brother, 
 handing him the book to look over and see if he re 
 peated correctly. Nor were these voluntary trials 
 selected from poetry or fiction or narratives merely, but 
 sometimes, at least as his brother remembers, from 
 such condensed and weighty writings as John Foster s 
 essay on " Decision of Character." 
 
 The village library of a few hundred volumes, con 
 taining such works as " Rollings Ancient History," 
 " Joseplms," " Plutarch," " Telemachus," and " Hutch- 
 inson s History of .Massachusetts," he had pretty nearly 
 exhausted before he was ten years old. During all 
 these early years the Bible was read and re-read 
 with more than ordinary thoughtfulness ; and early in 
 the war of 1812, he made what he thought was the 
 great discovery of an undoubted prophecy of Napoleon 
 Bonaparte, in the Book of Daniel. He was, at the 
 same time, an attentive and critical hearer of ser 
 mons, even if the minister was dull. " When about 
 nine years old," says his brother, " he took us all 
 
 by surprise one Sabbath noon, by saying Mr. 
 
 (naming the preacher) had better mind what he says 
 about James (the apostle), even James, repeating the 
 words emphatically. The minister had been quoting 
 Paul, and added, even James says, For what is your 
 life? The remark went to show us the family 
 not only that he had attended to what had been said 
 (which we had not done), but that he saw an objec 
 tion to the comparison, implied at least, between the 
 
1799-1830.] EARLY LIFE. 9 
 
 two apostles, both of whom were inspired, and conse 
 quently that the inspiration of James must have been 
 as good as that of Paul, because of the same origin in 
 both." 
 
 He was remarkable during his youth for the same 
 sweetness of temper, and quick sense of the ludicrous, 
 which he carried with him through life. He was easily 
 persuaded to a particular course of conduct, by his 
 mother or sisters, and could not bear to grieve them, 
 and so in all differences between them, if he could not 
 carry his point by good-natured pleasantry, he would 
 yield with the best grace in the world. By the same 
 humor, he sometimes warded off reproof, even when 
 justly merited. An older sister was once beginning to 
 admonish him for something which he had done, which 
 was clearly wrong. He saw it coming and was de 
 termined to break the force of it. While she was 
 bestowing the rebuke with the earnestness which the 
 offence seemed to deserve, happening to raise her eyes, 
 she saw him standing with his right hand up by the 
 side of his head, in the attitude of a person to whom an 
 oath is administered, and with a face of extraordinary 
 demureness and solemnity. The sight of him in this 
 roguish position put an end at once to the lecture and 
 to the feeling which prompted it. The loudest of 
 laughs ended the scene. 
 
 In all boyish sports and studies, his companions 
 were few : the most intimate of them all was his brother 
 Washington, a little- more than three years younger 
 than himself. Although during his early youth neither 
 of his parents were members of the church, the moral 
 discipline of the family was careful and exact. A por 
 tion of the " Assembly s Catechism " was recited every 
 
10 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. I. 
 
 Sabbath, and the lessons thus learned were so deeply 
 engraven on his memory as never to be forgotten. On 
 one occasion in later life, in commenting upon the 
 testimony of a witness who professed his willingness 
 to do any job that might offer on Sunday, just as he 
 would on any other day, Mr. Choate repeated, word for 
 word, one of the long answers of that venerable symbol 
 on the import of the fourth commandment, and then 
 turning to the Court, said, " May it please your Honor, 
 my mother taught me this in my earliest childhood, 
 and I trust I shall not forget it in my age." 
 
 Mr. Choate was favored in his childhood with some 
 excellent friends beyond the circle of his own relatives. 
 Among these was the now venerable Dr. R. D. Mussey, 
 who commenced the practice of the profession in which 
 he afterwards became so eminent, in Essex, and for 
 several years resided in the family of Mr. David Choate. 
 At the age of ten years, Rufus began the study of 
 Latin, under the instruction of Dr. Thomas Sewall, 1 
 who had taken Dr. Mussey s place. He continued his 
 studies for a few months, yearly, during the next six 
 years, under the clergyman of the parish, Rev. Mr. 
 Holt, or the teachers of the district school. Among 
 these should be mentioned Rev. Dr. William Cogswell, 
 who taught the school during the successive winters of 
 his Junior and Senior years in college. 
 
 These opportunities, of course, afforded the young 
 student a very imperfect discipline, but they served in 
 some degree to stimulate his mind, while teaching him 
 the necessity of self-reliance and independent exertion. 
 
 1 Dr. Sewall afterward married Mr. Choate s oldest sister, and sub 
 sequently removed to Washington, D.C., where he was long known as 
 an eminent physician. 
 
1799-1830.] EARLY LIFE. 
 
 Certain it is that with his poor chances he accomplished 
 more than most others with the best. He meditated 
 upon what he read, and treasured up the fruits in a 
 retentive memory. His imagination even then pic 
 tured the scenes of ancient story, and transferred the 
 fictions of Homer and Virgil to the shores of Essex. 
 " There," said he, pointing out a rocky, cavernous 
 knoll to his son-in-law, as they were riding a few years 
 since from Ipswich to Essex, " there is the descent to 
 Avernus." This habit of making the scenes of poetry 
 and history real, of vivifying them through his imagi 
 nation, was one which followed him through life, and 
 contributed largely to his power as an orator. Some 
 thing allied to this is that touch of human sympathy 
 for inanimate objects, of which Dr. Adams speaks in 
 his Funeral Address. When as a boy he drove his 
 father s cow, " he has said that more than once, when 
 he had thrown away his switch, he has returned to find 
 it, and has carried it back, and thrown it under the 
 tree from which he took it, for, he said, Perhaps there 
 is, after all, some yearning of nature between them 
 still. " 
 
 By way of completing his preparation for college he 
 was sent, in January, 1815, to the academy in Hamp 
 ton, N.H., of which James Adams was then the princi 
 pal. Here he remained till summer when he entered 
 the Freshman class in Dartmouth College, near the 
 close of his sixteenth year. His classmates remember 
 him as a diffident, modest, beautiful boy, the youngest 
 in the class with two exceptions, singularly attractive 
 in person and manner, of a delicate frame, with dark 
 curling hair, a fresh, ruddy complexion, a beautifully 
 ingenuous countenance, his movements marked with a 
 
12 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. I. 
 
 natural grace and vivacity, and his mind from the first 
 betraying the spirit of a scholar. 
 
 " There he brought," says one of his eulogists, 1 " a 
 mind burning with a thirst for knowledge, which death 
 alone had power to quench, kindled with aspirations 
 lofty, but as yet undefined and vague, and stocked with 
 an amount of general information quite remarkable for 
 his years ; a physical constitution somewhat yielding 
 and pliant, of great nervous sensibility, but equalled 
 by few for endurance and elastic strength. He came 
 pure from every taint of vice, generous, enthusiastic, 
 established in good principles, good habits, and good 
 health." The necessary imperfection of his fitting for 
 college, and his own modesty, prevented, in a measure, 
 the full recognition of his ability during the first term 
 of his residence at Dartmouth. But the deficiency, if 
 it were one, was soon supplied. He acquired knowl 
 edge with extraordinary rapidity. His memory was 
 very retentive ; the command of his faculties, and his 
 power of concentration, perfect. " His perception of 
 the truths of a new lesson," says one of his class 
 mates, " and their connection and relation to other 
 truths already familiar to him, was so intuitive and 
 rapid, that I have yet to learn of the first man who 
 could study a new subject in company with him, and 
 not prove a clog and an incumbrance." At the same 
 time he was a most diligent and faithful student. 
 
 " I entered the class," writes another member of it, 2 
 " in the spring of the Freshman year, when its mem- 
 
 1 Hon. Ira Perley, lately Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New 
 Hampshire, in a eulogy pronounced at Dartmouth College, July 25, 
 I860. 
 
 2 E. C. Tracy, for many years editor of the " Vermont Chronicle." 
 
1799-1830.] COLLEGE LIFE. 13 
 
 bers had already joined the societies and found their 
 affinities. ... I was acquainted with some members of 
 the class before I entered college, and remember mak 
 ing natural inquiries in the winter vacation, about the 
 associates I should find in it. Several were named as 
 having taken high rank during the fall term, but 
 Choate was not mentioned. I was the more struck 
 therefore, at the first recitation, as I watched each suc 
 cessive voice with the keen curiosity of a new-comer, 
 when Choate got up, and in those clear musical tones 
 put Livy s Latin into such exquisitely fit and sweet 
 English, as I had not dreamed of, and in comparison 
 with which all the other construing of that morning 
 .seemed the roughest of unlicked babble. After the 
 first sentence or two, I had no doubt who was the first 
 classical scholar among us, or who had the best com 
 mand of English. I was on one side of the room and 
 he on the other, and I remember as if but yesterday, 
 his fresh, personal beauty, and all the graceful charm 
 of modest, deferential look -and tone that accompanied 
 the honeyed words. . . . The impression that his first 
 words made upon me was peculiar ; and nothing, lit 
 erally nothing, while in college or since, ever came 
 from him to disturb the affectionate admiration, with 
 which in the old recitation-room, in the presence of 
 Tutor Bond, I first heard his voice, his words, his sen 
 tences, all, even then, so exquisite in their expres 
 sion of genius and scholarly accomplishments. I have 
 always felt my connection with that class as a peculiar 
 felicity of my college life ; and to us all Choate s com 
 panionship through the four years was a blessing and 
 an honor." 
 
 What was thus begun, he carried through to the end. 
 
14 MEMOIR OF KUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. I. 
 
 As early as his Sophomore year he entered upon a 
 course of thorough, systematic study, not with the ob 
 ject of excelling his classmates, but to satisfy the ideal 
 of excellence which filled his own mind. He never, 
 while in college, mingled very freely in the sports of 
 the play-ground, and yet was never a recluse. His 
 door was always open to any one who called to see 
 him. But his example did much to set the standard 
 of scholarship, and to impart a noble and generousv 
 
 spirit to the class and the college. ) 
 
 The years that Mr. Choate spent at Dartmouth were 
 among the most critical in the history of that institu 
 tion. A difficulty of many years standing, between 
 President John Wheelock and the Board of Trustees, 
 culminated in 1815 in his deposition from office, and 
 the election of another President in his place. The 
 question soon became involved in the politics of the 
 State, and the legislature, in June, 1816, passed an 
 act incorporating an adverse institution, called the 
 Dartmouth University, and granting to it the seal, the 
 libraries, the buildings, and the revenues of the college. 
 New officers were appointed, and a small number of 
 students collected. The trustees denied the constitu 
 tional power of the legislature to pass such an act, and 
 carried the case before the legal tribunals. In Novem 
 ber, 1817, the Supreme Court of the State decided 
 against them. The college was without buildings, 
 without libraries, without apparatus, without resources. 
 The recitations were held wherever rooms could be 
 found in the village. A President, two Professors, 
 and one or two Tutors, performed the whole duty of 
 instruction and government. The public mind was 
 profoundly agitated with hopes and fears, in which the 
 
1799-1830.] COLLEGE LIFE. 15 
 
 students largely shared. From the decision of the 
 State Court, an appeal was taken to the Supreme Court 
 at Washington. A question of local interest spread 
 itself to dimensions of national importance. Jeremiah 
 Mason, Jeremiah Smith, Daniel Webster, and Francis 
 Hopkinson were counsel for the College. John Holmes 
 and William Wirt, for the University. The minds of 
 the students were stimulated by the unusual circum 
 stances, and probably there never was a time in the 
 history of the college, when a spirit of study, of order, 
 and of fidelity to every duty, more thoroughly pervaded 
 the whole body, than when there were hardly any 
 means of enforcing obedience, and the very existence 
 of the institution depended upon the doubtful decision 
 of a legal question. The contest itself imparted a 
 sense of reality and practicalness to the college life, 
 and a desire of high attainment and honorable action 
 seemed to be the pervading spirit of the community of 
 students. It was during this period that Mr. Choate s 
 mind was, by several circumstances, decisively turned 
 to the law as a profession. He probably heard Judge 
 Smith, Mr. Mason, and Mr. Webster in their defence 
 of the college at Exeter in September, 1817. " He cer 
 tainly heard Webster in the celebrated trial of the 
 Kennistons at Ipswich, in the autumn of the same 
 year." In the college, there existed at this time two 
 rival literary societies, The Social Friends and The 
 United Fraternity, each possessing a small but valuable 
 library. On the plea of preserving these libraries, 
 some of the officers of the University determined to 
 remove them from the college building. Not having 
 the keys, the door of The Social Friends was broken 
 in by a number of persons, headed and directed by an 
 
16 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. I. 
 
 officer of the University, and preparations made for 
 carrying away the books. They had hardly entered 
 before the students of both societies, exasperated at 
 the unexpected attack, rallied for a defence of their 
 property. The band which had entered the room was 
 at once imprisoned in it, and finally disarmed and con 
 ducted to their several homes. Mr. Choate was then 
 librarian of the society whose property was invaded, 
 and as a result of the proceedings in which he bore 
 some share, found himself with several fellow-students, 
 summoned the next day before a pliant justice of the 
 peace, who bound them all over to take their trial be 
 fore a superior court on the charge of riot. Their ac 
 cusers were also arraigned before another justice, and 
 bound over to answer to the same tribunal. To the 
 court they went at Haverhill. The most eminent law 
 yers iu the State then practised in Grafton County. 
 The case never came to a hearing, the Grand Jury 
 finding no bill against the parties ; but the appearance 
 of the court, Chief Justice Richardson, Judge Bell, 
 and Judge Woodbury upon the bench, and the emi 
 nent legal ability of the bar, where were such lawyers 
 as George Sullivan, Jeremiah Mason, Jeremiah Smith, 
 Richard Fletcher, Ichabod Bartlett, Ezekiel Webster, 
 and Joseph Bell, might be presumed to impress a mind 
 much less susceptible of such influences than was Mr. 
 Choate s. 
 
 In the mean time, Mr. Webster made his great 
 argument for the college, on the 10th of March, 1818. 
 All these circumstances, and perhaps especially the 
 laurels won by Mr. W T ebster in that effort, directed 
 the young student s attention to the advantages, the 
 attractions, and the grandeur of that profession in 
 
1799-1830.] COLLEGE LIFE. 17 
 
 which he was destined to attain such eminence. 
 " The victory of Miltiades would not suffer him to 
 sleep." " The Dartmouth College case," says a dis 
 tinguished statesman, 1 " was almost the first legal 
 controversy which brought into view the relations of 
 the judiciary and the bar to the great interests of 
 American learning. The questions involved in it were 
 generally thought vitally important to the cause of edu 
 cation in its highest and most liberal aspects, and the 
 discussion of them established a harmony and excited 
 a sympathy between two vocations before thought 
 almost antagonistic, the academic and the forensic, 
 which was not without favorable results to both of 
 them." 
 
 While Mr. Choate was a member of college, there 
 were in the classes a larger number of students than 
 usual distinguished for breadth and thoroughness of 
 scholarship, as they have been since for honorable 
 positions in literature and in society. With some of 
 these he formed friendships which terminated only 
 with their lives. By all who knew him then he was 
 ever remembered for his warm and generous sensi 
 bilities, his open, balmy kindness, as well as for his 
 influence over the younger students, and his readiness 
 to help them. After having decided upon his pro 
 fession, his desire was to become a national man. The 
 Country, the Union of the States, the Fathers of the 
 Republic, these words were frequently in his mouth. 
 General literature, which before had been an end with 
 him, now became but the means for the accomplish 
 ment of the purpose to which he had consecrated his 
 life. All pursuits, whether of elegant learning or of 
 
 1 Hon. George P. Marsh. 
 2 
 
18 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CIIOATE. [CHAP. I. 
 
 graver non-professional knowledge, were made but 
 adjuncts and auxiliaries. Nor was it in scholarship 
 more than in the power of using his acquisitions that 
 he excelled. In the classics, in history, and general 
 literature, he read far beyond the requirements of the 
 curriculum, but knowledge never outran the power 
 of thought. His intellectual growth was sound and 
 healthful. Chief Justice Perley says of him (in his 
 eulogy), with reference to this and some kindred 
 points : 
 
 " It was not merely in scholarship, in knowledge of 
 books, and literary attainments that he then stood 
 high above all competition and rivalry. He was even 
 then far less distinguished for the amount of his ac 
 quisitions, than for vigor and grasp of mind, for the 
 discipline and training w r hich gave him complete com 
 mand of himself and all that he knew. He was already 
 remarkable for the same brilliant qualities which dis 
 tinguished him in his subsequent career. To those 
 who knew him then, and watched his onward course, 
 little change was observable in his style of writing, 
 or in his manner of speaking, except such as would 
 naturally be required by subjects of a wider range and 
 more exciting occasions. His judgment seemed already 
 manly and mature. He comprehended his subject 
 then, as he did afterwards, in all its bearings and 
 relations ; looked all through it with the same deep 
 and searching glance, had the same richness and 
 fulness of style, and the same felicitous command of 
 the most beautiful and expressive language, the same 
 contagious fervor of manner, and the same strange 
 fascination of eye and voice, which on a wider stage 
 made him in later life one of the most powerful and 
 persuasive orators which our country has produced. 
 
1799-1830.] COLLEGE LIFE. 19 
 
 " I entered college at the commencement of his 
 Senior year, and can myself bear witness to the su 
 premacy which he then held here, in the unanimous 
 judgment of his fellow-students. No other man was 
 ever mentioned in comparison with him. His public 
 college exercises were of a very uncommon character. 
 Unless I was greatly misled by a boyish judgment at 
 the time, or am strangely deceived by looking at them 
 through the recollections of forty years, no college 
 exercises of an undergraduate that I have ever heard 
 are at all worthy to be compared with them, for beauty 
 of style, for extent and variety of illustration, for 
 breadth and scope, and for manly comprehension of the 
 subject. At this distance of time, I well remember 
 every public exercise performed by him while I was a 
 member. I have heard him often since, and on some 
 of the occasions when he is understood to have made 
 the most successful displays of his eloquence ; I heard 
 him when he stood upon this spot to pronounce his 
 eulogy on Webster, which has been considered, on 
 authority from which, on such a question, there lies no 
 appeal, to be unequalled among the performances of its 
 class in this country, and I can sincerely say that 
 nothing I have ever heard from him in the maturity 
 and full growth of his powers, has produced upon me 
 a deeper impression, or filled me at the time witli a 
 more absorbing and rapt sensation of delight, than 
 those college exercises. 
 
 " His Honor, Mr. Justice Nesmith, in his remarks 
 made here at the last Commencement, spoke of Mr. 
 Choate s address as President of the Social Friends, to 
 certain Freshmen who were admitted to the Society in 
 the first term of the year 1818. I was one of those 
 
20 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CIIOATE. [CHAP. I. 
 
 Freshmen, and shall never forget the effect produced 
 by that address. I remember, too, what Mr. Nesmith 
 is more likely to have forgotten, that on the same 
 evening there was a high discussion in the Society 
 between two members of Mr. Choate s class, on a very 
 large question, not then entirely new, nor yet, that I 
 have heard, finally decided, whether ancient or modern 
 poetry had the superiority. Mr. Choate was required, 
 as President, by the rules of the Society, to give his 
 decision upon the question. As might be expected 
 from the general bias of his mind, he took strong 
 ground for the ancients, and I well remember, at this 
 distance of time, the general course of his remarks 
 upon the subject." 
 
 But though the position of Mr. Choate among his 
 classmates was early determined, and never for one 
 moment afterwards in doubt, no student ever bore his 
 academic honors with greater modesty, or was regarded 
 by his classmates with a more sincere affection. Envy 
 was swallowed up in admiration. The influence of so 
 distinguished a scholar was not confined to his own 
 class, but was diffused throughout college. In all mat 
 ters of literature he was the oracle from which there 
 was no appeal. With sensibilities warm and generous, 
 never showing an unkind emotion, or doing a dis 
 honorable act, it is not surprising that his influence 
 should have been great, or that his memory should be 
 affectionately cherished by many who have hardly seen 
 him for forty years. " Meeting him one day about the 
 last of November," writes one who was in college with 
 him, 1 " something was said about the manner of spend 
 ing the winter vacation, and I frankly told him that 
 
 1 Rev. A. Converse, D.D. 
 
1799-1830.1 
 
 COLLEGE LIFE. 21 
 
 the want of funds required me to teach a school the 
 next quarter. In reply he said, You had better hire 
 money and pay ten per cent interest, and remain here 
 and study and read, than to lose any part of your col 
 lege life. . . . Being the word of a Senior to a Fresh 
 man who had no personal claims to his friendly regards, 
 and of a Senior who stood head and shoulders above 
 his coevals, it made a deep impression on my mind. 
 It was a word not to be forgotten." 
 
 Mr. Choate closed his college course in 1819, with 
 the valedictory. The six weeks Senior vacation, which 
 then preceded Commencement, he had passed upon a 
 sick-bed, from which he returned with hardly strength 
 to perform his part. He was pale, feeble, and could 
 only deliver the strictly valedictory address. But there 
 was in it so much of manliness and beauty, a tone so 
 high, so pure, so vigorous, that every eye was fixed ; 
 and when he alluded to his own feeble health, his 
 appearance and manner gave deep solemnity and almost 
 a prophetic force to his words. The effect is said to 
 have been unexampled. Not only his classmates, but 
 half the audience, and not a few among the grave 
 trustees, used to such occasions, were dissolved in 
 tears. 
 
 The next year Mr. Choate spent in the then re 
 sponsible office, of tutor in the college, a year to him, 
 and almost equally to his pupils, all sunshine. " He 
 entered upon his duties," writes one who then became 
 his pupil, 1 " with such a reputation for scholarship, and 
 with such high commendations freely expressed by 
 classmates and the College Faculty, that the class came 
 to him with what in almost any case would be extrava- 
 
 1 Rev. Paul Couch. 
 
22 MEMOIR OF ItUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. I. 
 
 gant expectations ; but in the trial there was no abate 
 ment of their first love and admiration. Mr. Choate s 
 first appearance in the recitation-room, and his brief 
 address to the class, won their confidence, and inspired 
 them with purposes of noble emulation. And in a like 
 manner he influenced them through the whole of his 
 tutorship. He threw a charm over the services of the 
 recitation-room, mingling enjoyment with labor in such 
 a way that his pupils loved to be there, and with him. 
 How much time and labor he expended in preparation 
 we of course did not know ; but we did know that he 
 was wholly in his business, that he was ready at all 
 points, that he was most exact and severe in the class- 
 drill, while, at the same time, every thing was done 
 with such urbanity and generous familiarity, and with 
 such affluence of auxiliary suggestions, that weariness 
 was unknown in the recitation-room. He was a master 
 in Latin : he revelled in Greek. 
 
 " Mr. Choate had such power over his class, and used 
 his power with such consummate skill, with such natural 
 adroitness, that they were enthusiastic in their esteem 
 of his admirable gifts, and in their attachment to his 
 person. In whatever circumstances he met them, he 
 caused them to feel easy and gratified. They were 
 proud of his friendship, and of his familiar though 
 dignified intercourse with him. He had no pedagogical 
 airs, no tutorial affectation of wisdom and dignity ; but 
 he had authority, and received the willing tribute of 
 respect. In his own room especially, they found him 
 teacher and companion so happily combined, that every 
 visit created a desire for its repetition. When his one 
 year s service was closed, he left the class undivided in 
 their attachment to him, and expressing the deepest 
 
1799-1830.] STUDIES WITH MR. WIRT. 23 
 
 regret that they could not be favored longer with his 
 instructions." 
 
 After leaving Dartmouth, he entered upon the study 
 of his profession in the Law School at Cambridge, 
 presided over, at that time, b^ Chief Justice Parker, 
 and Asahel Stearns. From them he gained his first 
 insight into the methods, objects, and morality of the 
 law. Still yearning, however, for a wider view of affairs, 
 and influenced perhaps by the fact that his brother-in- 
 law, Dr. Sewall,had removed to Washington, he entered, 
 in 1821, the office of Mr. Wirt, then Attorney-General 
 of the United States, and in the ripeness of his powers 
 and fame. The year at Washington, although he did 
 not see so much as he wished of Mr. Wirt, who was 
 confined for a considerable portion of the time by indis 
 position, was not without considerable advantage. It 
 enlarged his knowledge of public men and of affairs. 
 He became familiar with the public administration. He 
 spent some hours almost daily in the library of Con 
 gress. He began to comprehend still more fully the 
 dignity of his chosen profession. He saw Marshall 
 upon the bench, and heard Pinkney in the Senate, and 
 in his last speech in court, and thenceforth became 
 more than ever an admirer of the genius of those 
 eminent men. Pinkney, he thought the most con 
 summate master of a manly and exuberant spoken 
 English that he ever heard, and he always kept him in 
 view as a sort of model advocate. 
 
 Among the college friends of Mr. Choate, to whom 
 he was strongly attached, was James Marsh, whose 
 early attainments and wide culture gave promise of his 
 future eminence, and who already had pushed his 
 studies into the then almost unknown regions of Ger- 
 
24 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cn.xp I. 
 
 man metaphysics. To him Mr. Choate writes from 
 Washington : 
 
 To Mr. JAMES MARSH, Theological Seminary, Anclover, Mass. 
 
 "Aug. 11, 1821. 
 
 " I tke great shame to myself for neglecting so long to 
 answer your letter, and beg you will explain it anyhow but 
 oil the supposition that I have meant to requite your own 
 remissness in kind. My remissness, you might kuow, if you 
 would think a moment, is never so intentional a matter as 
 that comes to ; idleness and irresolution will account for it 
 always; and since you, whose fine habits are the envy of all 
 your literary friends, set the example, 4 idleness and irreso 
 lution I shall plead without evasion and without remorse 
 now and henceforward for ever. But I wonder if I shall act 
 quite as wisely in pleading, too, other matters of apology? 
 in telling you for instance, that your letter and my own 
 reflections, since I read it, have assured me of what I was 
 suspicious of before, though I never owned it to myself, and 
 pretended not to believe it, that I can really walk no longer 
 k within that magic circle, where we used to disport ourselves. 
 . . . This I own I am ashamed of, but that ocean of German 
 theology and metaphysics (not to say criticism). ah. Marsh, 
 yon may swim on alone in that if you will, and much good 
 may it do you ! I never could swim in it myself at any rate 
 (it was like being a yard behind a cuttle-fish), and have long 
 since made up my mind that any smaller fry than a leviathan 
 stand no sort of chance in its disturbed, muddy, unfathomable 
 waters. On the whole, however, this is no reason at all why 
 we should cease to be very warm friends, and in our way, 
 very punctual correspondents, and so let me thank you at last 
 heartily, for writing >nch a full and interesting letter, and beg 
 you to repeat your kindness very frequently till we shake 
 hands again in your own cell at Andover, or in some one of 
 the gay halls of our endeared Hanover. Our correspondence 
 will certainly answer one end, and that I hope we both think, 
 no inconsiderable one, it will bring us often into each 
 other s thoughts and presence, and keep green in our memories 
 the days, well spent and happy and dear to us both, of our 
 literary intimacy. We go ou together no longer; our paths 
 are widely asunder already, to diverge still more at every 
 
1799-1830.] DEATH OF HIS BROTHER. 25 
 
 step. But for this very reason let us carefully cherish a 
 kindly remembrance of each other, and of the time when our 
 studies, tastes, and objects of ambition were one ; and the 
 same intense first love of a new and fascinating department 
 of literature burned in both our bosoms. I darkly gather 
 from what you tell me, that you are plunging still more and 
 more deeply into that incomprehensible science in which you 
 are to live and to be remembered, and are contriving every day 
 to detect in it some before-unsuspected relation to those other 
 branches of learning with which a less acute, or less enthu 
 siastic eye would never see it to have the loosest connection. 
 ... I am sadly at a loss for books here, but I sit three days 
 every week in the large Congressional library, and am study 
 ing our o\vn extensive ante-revolutionary history, and reading 
 your favorite Gibbon. The only classic I can get is Ovid ; 
 arid while I am about it, let me say, too, that I read every 
 day some chapters in an English Bible. I miss extremely 
 the rich opportunities we enjoyed formerly, and which you 
 still enjoy, but I hope I shall at last begin to think. 
 
 " Most truly yours, R. CHOATE." 
 
 From his residence at the capital, and the abundant 
 advantages which it offered to a mind so observant as 
 his, he was suddenly called away before fully complet 
 ing his first year, by an event which affected him with 
 the deepest sorrow. His brother Washington, his 
 early playmate and fellow-student, younger than him 
 self by nearly four years, entered Dartmouth College 
 the year that Rufus graduated. Unlike his older 
 brother in personal appearance, he resembled him in 
 many intellectual and moral qualities, and gave prom 
 ise of equal distinction. He was a tall and slender 
 young man, of a fair complexion, with light hair and 
 light blue eyes. Entering college with a comparatively 
 thorough preparation, he at once became, by universal 
 and cheerful acknowledgment, the leader of his class, 
 and yet he was the most gentle, modest, and unobtru 
 sive of them all. The few papers which he left behind 
 
20 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CIIOATE. [CHAP. I. 
 
 him, to which I have had access, indicate unusual 
 scholarship and a remarkable extent of attainment in 
 languages and modern literature. They show also 
 uncommonly pure and deep religious sensibilities. 
 Kind, companionable, and true, loving and beloved, he 
 had already consecrated his life to a service in which 
 none could have fairer hopes of eminence and useful 
 ness, but upon which he was not permitted to enter. 
 Having taught school near home during the winter of 
 his Junior year, he was attacked by the scarlet fever on 
 the very day of his proposed return to college, and 
 after a brief illness, died February 27, 1822, at the age 
 of nineteen. During his sickness his thoughts turned 
 with unwavering and intense affection towards his ab 
 sent brother. He began to dictate a letter to him on 
 the morning of the day on which he died. " There is 
 one subject, Rufus," he said, " upon which we must 
 not be dumb so that we speak not, nor deaf so that we 
 hear not, nor blind so that we may not see. It is not 
 
 a subject upon which " The sentence was never 
 
 completed. Not the letter, but the news of his death, 
 was borne to Washington, and it proved almost too 
 much for the elder brother to endure. He sought out 
 and re-read the old books which they had studied to 
 gether, while the floodgates of grief were opened, and 
 he refused to be comforted. His studies at Washing 
 ton were abandoned, and he returned for a while to 
 the seclusion of Essex. Some time afterwards he re 
 ceived the following testimonial from Mr. Wirt, the 
 italics being his: 
 
 " WASHINGTON, November 2, 1822. 
 
 " Mr. Rufus Choate read law in my office and under my 
 direction for about twelve months. He evinced great power 
 
1799-1830.] ADMISSION TO THE BAR. 27 
 
 of application, and displayed a force and discrimination of 
 mind from which I formed the most favorable presages of his 
 future distinction in his profession. His deportment was in 
 all respects so correct as to entitle him to respect, aiid lie car 
 ried with him my best wishes for his professional eminence, 
 prosperity, and happiness. WM. WIRT." 
 
 After remaining for a time at home, he entered his 
 name in the office of Mr. Asa Andrews, of Ipswich, and 
 subsequently continued his studies with Judge Cum 
 mins, a distinguished lawyer of Salem. He was finally 
 admitted an Attorney of the Court of Common Pleas, 
 in September, 1823, and two years later was enrolled 
 as Attorney of the Supreme Court. 
 
 It has been generally stated that Mr. Choate first 
 opened his office in South Danvers, and this is sub 
 stantially true. But in fact, he first put up his sign 
 in Salem. It remained up, however, but one night, 
 when his natural modesty, or self-distrust, led him to 
 remove it to Danvers, a little farther from the courts 
 and from direct rivalry with the eminent lawyers who 
 engrossed the business and controlled the opinions of 
 that distinguished bar. 
 
 The four or five years that he spent in Danvers were 
 the years of solicitude and hope which can never come 
 twice to a professional man, and which endear to him 
 the place wkere his first successes are achieved, and 
 the men from whom he receives his first encourage 
 ment. He regarded no other place with exactly the 
 feelings which he entertained for Danvers ; and the 
 kindness seemed to be fully reciprocated. During his 
 short residence there he twice represented the town in 
 the Legislature, and for one year was a member of 
 the Senate. 
 
 Not long after opening his office, and perhaps when 
 
28 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. I. 
 
 under some feeling of discouragement, he thus closes 
 a letter to his friend Mr. Marsh, then tutor in Hamp- 
 den Sydney College, Virginia : 
 
 " There is a new novel by the author of Valerius, that a 
 friend of mine here says is very clever, but I haven t got it 
 yet. He seems, from that specimen, at any rate, to be a man 
 of elegant and thorough studies, and, without any such fertility 
 and versatility as that other, our Shakspeare, might hit 
 out a single performance of pretty formidable pretensions to 
 equality in some great features. How wretchedly adapted is 
 our American liberal education and our subsequent course of 
 life, to form and mature a mind of so much depth, taste, and 
 beautiful enlargement. How vulgar and untaught we gen 
 erally are with all our unquestionable natural capacity. ... I 
 don t remember to have ever looked upon the coming in of the 
 first month of winter, with a more prostrating sense of mis- 
 erab/eness, than presses upon me every moment that I am not 
 hard at study. Cold is itself an intolerable evil, and it conies 
 with such a dreary accompaniment of whistling wind and fall 
 ing leaf, that I would not live alway if these were the 
 terms on which we were to hold out. I really think that the 
 time of life, when the nakedness and desolation of a fast 
 darkening November could be softened and relieved by blend 
 ing in it fancy, romance, association, and hope, is gone by 
 with me, and I actually tremble to see lifting up from one 
 season of the year after another, from one character after 
 another, and from life itself, even a life of study, ambition, 
 and social intercourse, that fair woven cover, which is spread 
 upon so much blackness, hollowness, and commonplace. But 
 towards you my feelings change not, and so of about five more 
 persons only whom I have ever known. Begging you to 
 excuse every thing amiss, Yours, R. C. 
 
 " DANVEKS, Nov. 23, 1823." 
 
 Mr. Choate s immediate success, although as great 
 as could be anticipated, was not particularly striking, 
 and during the first two or three years, in some seasons 
 of despondency, he seriously debated whether he should 
 not throw up his profession, and seek some other 
 method of support. In the mean time, in 1825, he was 
 
1799-1830.] HIS MARRIAGE. 29 
 
 united in marriage with Helen Olcott, daughter of 
 Mills Olcott, Esq., of Hanover, N.H. Few men have 
 been more widely known in New Hampshire, or more 
 deeply respected than Mr. Olcott. He was a person of 
 remarkable sagacity, of great wisdom in the conduct of 
 affairs, magnanimous and generous, eminently cour 
 teous, dignified and kind, one of the few to whom the 
 old-fashioned name of gentleman could be applied with 
 out restriction or reserve. This congenial alliance 
 was one of the many felicitous circumstances of Mr. 
 Choate s early career. It brought him sympathy, en 
 couragement, and support. It not only gave him a 
 new stimulus to labor, but proved in all respects most 
 congenial with his tastes, and favorabj 
 aspirations. /Although he did not at first escape the 
 fate of most young lawyers, the number of whose 
 clients is not always equal to their wishes, yet his 
 unwearied diligence, his fidelity, and the fame of his 
 eloquence and skill, soon brought to him a full share 
 of the business of the town and country. He early 
 formed the habit of doing for his client every thing that 
 the case required irrespective of reward. Before a 
 justice of the peace, in an office not larger than a shoe 
 maker s shop, in defence of some petty offender, he 
 poured forth the same wealth of words and illustra 
 tions, of humor and wit, and in its measure, of learn 
 ing and argument, which afterwards delighted the 
 Supreme Court and the Senate. Indeed, throughout 
 his life, he never reserved his brilliant arguments for a 
 suitable audience. He early made it a rule, for the 
 sake of increasing his power as an advocate, to argue 
 at full length every case he tried, and to do his best on 
 every occasion. He as resolutely determined to shrink 
 
30 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. I 
 
 from no labor which might be necessary to the perfect 
 completion of whatever he undertook. In a famous 
 dog case at Beverly, it was said that " he treated the 
 dog as though he were a lion or an elephant, and the 
 crabbed old squire witli the compliment and considera 
 tion of a chief justice ! " 
 
 On one very stormy night during his residence in 
 Danvers, he was called upon, at a late hour, to draw 
 the will of a dying man who lived several miles dis 
 tant. He went, performed the service, and returned 
 home. But after going to bed, as he lay revolving in 
 his mind each provision of the paper he had so rapidly 
 prepared, there flashed across his memory an omission 
 that might possibly cause the testator s intention to be 
 misunderstood. He sprang from his bed and began 
 dressing himself rapidly, to the great surprise of his 
 wife, only answering her inquiries by saying that he 
 had done what must be undone, and in the thick of 
 the storm, rode again to his dying client, explained the 
 reason of his return, and drew a codicil to the will 
 which made every thing sure. He related this in after 
 life in illustration of a remark, that sometimes, years 
 after a case had been tried, he would feel a pang of 
 reproach that he had not urged some argument which 
 at that moment flashed across his mind. He always 
 fought his lost cases over again, to see if lie could find 
 any argument whereby he might have gained them. 
 Nor did he at this time neglect his purely literary 
 studies. A literary society, already existing in the 
 town, found in him an active and valuable member. 
 The lecture on " The Waverley Novels " was then pre 
 pared. He also delivered two 4th of July orations, one 
 before the Danvers Light Infantry, of which corps he 
 became a member, and one before the citizens at large. 
 
1799-1830.] OPINION OF JUDGE SHAW. 31 
 
 Iii the mean time his professional fame was spread 
 ing. His unique and vigorous eloquence, his assiduity, 
 care, and fidelity to his clients, adorned with a modesty 
 as singular as it was beautiful, gained him many 
 friends and more admirers. 
 
 An extract from a letter of Chief Justice Shaw will 
 show how his reputation gradually increased at the 
 bar : "I had an opportunity to see Mr. Choate, and wit 
 ness his powers as an advocate very early, when he first 
 opened an office in Danvers, and when I had scarcely 
 heard his name mentioned. It happened, that in con 
 sequence of one or more large failures in Danvers, a 
 number of litigated suits were commenced between 
 various parties, all of which to avoid delay and ob 
 tain a more early decision I suppose were referred 
 to the late Hon. Samuel Hoar, of Concord, and myself, 
 as arbitrators. We attended at the court-house 
 in Salem and heard them, I think, in June, 1826. 
 Mr. Choate appeared as counsel in several of them. 
 As he was previously unknown to us by reputation, 
 and regarding him as we did, as a young lawyer just 
 commencing practice in a country town, we were much 
 and very agreeably surprised at the display of his 
 powers. It appeared to me that he then manifested 
 much of that keen, legal discrimination, of the acute- 
 ness, skill, and comprehensive view of the requirements 
 of his case, in the examination of witnesses, and that 
 clearness and force in presenting questions both of 
 fact and law, by which he was so much distinguished 
 in his subsequent brilliant professional career. He 
 soon after this removed to Salem, and in a short time 
 became extensively and favorably known, as a jurist 
 and advocate." 
 
32 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. I. 
 
 Salem and Danvers were then, as now, closely con 
 nected. The first case in which he professionally ap 
 peared in the former city was in defence of a number 
 of young men of respectable families, charged with 
 riotous proceedings at a low dance-house. I cannot 
 do so well as to take the account furnished to the 
 " Salem Register" by one of the distinguished mem 
 bers of the Essex bar. 1 " The case excited much in 
 terest from the character and position of some of the 
 parties implicated, and especially from the fame, even 
 then, of the young advocate. He had before that time, 
 I believe, appeared before some of the magistrates of 
 Danvers. . . . Under these circumstances it is not 
 strange that when the 4 Mumibrd Case, as it was 
 called, came up in Salem, a somewhat larger and 
 broader theatre, a more diversified audience, ship 
 masters, old salts, supercargoes, clerks, merchants, and 
 the various men of the various callings of the chief 
 town of the county, -an interest and a feeling alto 
 gether unusual should have been excited on the oc 
 casion. It was so. The place where Justice Savage 
 held his court was a large room on the second floor of 
 a substantial building, in one of the principal streets, 
 and it was immediately densely packed with all the 
 varieties of the population. The trial commenced and 
 proceeded ; witness after witness was called, and all 
 subjected to the severest and most rigid cross-examina 
 tion by the young counsel. Now and then a passage 
 at arms with the counsel for the government (a gen 
 tleman of very considerable experience in criminal 
 courts, and of some fifteen or twenty years standing 
 at the bar) would come up to give variety to the 
 
 1 Hon. Asahel Huntington. 
 
1799-1830.] REMINISCENCES BY MR. HUNTINGTON. 33 
 
 scene ; and now and then a gentle, most gracious and 
 reverential rencontre with the honorable court would 
 intervene, and again a hard contest with some perverse 
 and obstinate witness would relieve the tedium of the 
 protracted examination. Some of the immediate audi 
 tors would get overheated, and then work themselves 
 out into the fresh air, and report the proceedings, the 
 sayings and doings of the young lawyer, what he said 
 to his antagonist, Esq. T., or to the honorable court, or 
 this or that fugitive comment on the witness, or case, 
 as the trial proceeded (an inveterate habit of Mr. 
 Choate s, in all his early practice, and no court or 
 counsel were or could be quick enough to prevent it, 
 it would breathe out, this or that comment, or word, 
 or suggestion). 
 
 " In this way, and by such means, the fame of the 
 case extended, while the trial was in progress, some 
 two or three days, in the office of a police justice ! 
 Men of the various classes would assemble around the 
 court-room, in the entry, on the stairs, outside, to hear 
 the fresh reports, and so things continued till the argu 
 ment came, and then there was a rush for every avail 
 able point and spot within or without the compass of 
 the speaker s voice, and the people literally hung with 
 delighted and most absorbed attention on his lips. It 
 was a new revelation to this audience. They had 
 heard able and eloquent men before in courts of jus 
 tice and elsewhere. Essex had had for years and gen 
 erations an able, learned, and eloquent bar ; there had 
 been many giants among us, some of national fame 
 and standing, but no such giant as this had appeared 
 before, such words, such epithets, such involutions, 
 such close and powerful logic all the while, such 
 
34 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CIIOATE. [CHAP. I. 
 
 grace and dignity, such profusion and waste even of 
 every thing beautiful and lovely ! No, not waste, he 
 never wasted a word. How he dignified that Court, 
 how he elevated its high functions, with what deference 
 did he presume to say a word, under the protection, 
 and, as he hoped, with the approving sanction of that 
 high tribunal of justice, in behalf of his unfortunate 
 (infelicitous, from the circumstances in which they 
 were placed) clients ! I could give no word or sen 
 tence of this speech. I did not even hear it, but I 
 heard much about it, and all accounts agreed in repre 
 senting it as an extraordinary and wholly matchless 
 performance. They had never heard the like before, 
 or any thing even approaching it, for manner and sub 
 stance. It was a new school of rhetoric, oratory, and 
 logic, and of all manner of diverse forces, working, 
 however, steadily and irresistibly in one direction to 
 accomplish the speaker s purpose and object. The 
 feeling excited by this first speech of Mr. Choate in 
 Salem was one of great admiration and delight. All 
 felt lifted up by his themes. . . . And all were pre 
 pared to welcome him, when, a few years afterwards, 
 he took up his abode here, after the elevation of his old 
 friend and teacher, Judge Cummins, to the bench of 
 the Court of Common Pleas." 
 
1830-1840.] REMOVAL TO SALEM. 35 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 1830-1840. 
 
 Removal to Salem The Essex Bar Successes Appearance 
 Counsel in the Knapp Case Studies Letter to President Marsh 
 Elected to_Congf ess Commonplace Book Letter to President 
 Marsh Enters Congress Speeches on Revolutionary Pensions, 
 and on the Tariff Letter to Dr. Andrew Nichols Letters to 
 Professor George Bush The Second Session Georgia, and the 
 Missionaries to the Indians Letter to Professor Bush Re-elected 
 to Congress Speech on Jhj_R.ejrjiKaLof the Deposits Resigns 
 his Seat Removes to Boston Lecture on the " Waverley Nov- 
 eTs7 r and on " The Romance of the Sea " Death of Ins Youngest 
 Child. 
 
 IN 1828, Mr. Choate removed to Salem. The Essex 
 bar was then, as it had long been, distinguished for 
 learning and skill. The memory of Dane and Parsons, 
 and Story and Putnam, was fresh and fragrant ; John 
 Pickering, Leverett Saltonstall, Eben Mosely, .David 
 Cummins, and John Varnum, were still in full prac 
 tice ; Caleb Gushing, Robert C. Rantoul, and others 
 like them, were making their influence felt as young 
 men of ability and ambition. Mr. Choate was already 
 known for the qualities by which he was afterwards 
 distinguished, learning, assiduity, a judgment almost 
 unerring, an ornate and exuberant style, and remark 
 able powers of advocacy. Without assumption, modest, 
 deferential, he yet rose at once to a high position 
 through the combined force of eminent talents and 
 professional fidelity. 
 
 He became the leading counsel in criminal practice, 
 
36 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. II. 
 
 and it was said that during his residence in Salem 
 " no man was convicted whom he defended." It was 
 however true that he was not eager to assume a defence 
 unless there appeared to be a good legal ground for it. 
 Many stories were current of his ingenuity and success. 
 One of the most characteristic was that told of a man 
 by the name of Jefferds, indicted for stealing a flock of 
 turkeys. " We had this case," says a distinguished 
 member of the bar, to whose reminiscences I am 
 already indebted, 1 " at every term of the court for a 
 year or more, and the inquiry used to be When are 
 the turkeys coming on ? The proofs accumulated on 
 the part of the government at each successive trial. 
 The County Attorney, a man of experience and ability, 
 fortified himself on every point, and piled proof upon 
 proof at each successive trial, but all without success. 
 The voice of the charnier was too powerful for his 
 proofs, and at each trial three or four in all, I forget 
 which there was one dissenting juror. The case at 
 last became famous in the county, and in the vacations 
 of the court the inquiry was often heard, When is the 
 turkey case coming on again ? and persons would 
 come from different parts of the county on purpose to 
 hear that trial. Here the theatre was still larger. It 
 was the county, the native county, of the already dis 
 tinguished advocate. I heard those trials. One was 
 in old Ipswich in December, I think a leisure season 
 within four miles of the spot where the orator was 
 born. They came up from Essex, old Chebacco, 
 the old and the young men of the town. Kepresent- 
 atives, more or less, from the whole body of the county, 
 were present, and the court-house was crowded with 
 
 1 Hon. Asahel Huntintjton. 
 
1830-1840.] THE TURKEY CASE. 37 
 
 delighted and astonished listeners. I remember how 
 they all hung upon him, spellbound by his eloquence, 
 and I verily believe these by-standers would have 
 acquitted by a majority vote ; but the jury, bound by 
 their oaths to return a true verdict according to the 
 evidence, would not do so ; but still there was one dis 
 senting juror ; and finally the prosecuting officer, in 
 utter despair, after the third or fourth trial, entered a 
 nolle prosequi, and thus the turkeys were turned or 
 driven out of court. I have heard that this alleged 
 turkey-thief years afterward called on Mr. Choate at 
 his office in Boston. Mr. Choate did not recollect him, 
 which greatly surprised the old client, and he said, 
 6 Why, Mr. Choate, I m the man you plead so for in 
 the turkey case, when they couldn t find any thing agin 
 me. There had been only forty-four good and true 
 men against him (if there were four trials, and I 
 believe there were), without including twenty-three 
 more of the grand jury ! " 
 
 The power of presenting things in a ludicrous aspect, 
 by an odd turn of expression or a laughable exagger 
 ation, was exhibited at this early period no less decid 
 edly than in later life, and was equally effective in 
 attracting attention. A mischievous boy had proved 
 very troublesome to a man by the name of Adams, by 
 letting down the bars of his pasture, destroying the 
 fences, and similar misdeeds. Adams one day caught 
 him at his tricks, and not being in a very humane or 
 careful mood, seized and swung him round by the hair 
 of his head. The father of the boy prosecuted Adams, 
 and Mr. Choate defended him. In the course of the 
 argument, he characterized the act as " a little paternal 
 stretching of the neck, which perchance may save this 
 
38 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. II. 
 
 froward lad from a final and more eventful stretching." 
 The jury seem to have thought so too, for Adams was 
 acquitted. 
 
 One Philip Finnigan was charged with stealing grease 
 and ashes from a Mr. Nichols. Finnigan, on getting 
 the articles, said they were for Mr. Winchester, a noted 
 soap-manufacturer, but Mr. Winchester coming up at 
 the moment, exposed the falsehood, and the articles were 
 returned. Mr. Choate, in the defence, contended that 
 it was only a trick to defraud Mr. Winchester out of a 
 customer, not to steal from Mr. Nichols ; " a shabby 
 and ungentlemanly affair, to be sure, but not the crime 
 he is charged with." I believe the defence was suc 
 cessful. 
 
 Mr. Choate was at this time in full health, muscular 
 and vigorous, of a pale or nearly colorless complexion, 
 with a remarkably intellectual countenance. A gentle 
 man, then a boy, who lived very near him, has told me 
 that he often stopped to look at him through the win 
 dow, as he passed by the house early in the evening, 
 thinking him the handsomest person he had ever 
 seen. 
 
 It would be a mistake to suppose that during these 
 years at Salem he was mainly occupied with inferior 
 cases, or interested in the criminal law to the neglect 
 of other branches of the profession. Dependent as he 
 was upon his own exertions, he probably, like other 
 young lawyers, felt obliged to accept such cases as 
 were offered to him. But few, perhaps, so early in 
 their career, have had a wider range of clients. One 
 of the most important trials in which he was engaged, 
 although his name does not appear on the record, was 
 that of Knapp, for the murder of Capt. Joseph White. 
 
1830-1840.] THE KNAPP CASE. 39 
 
 That celebrated case is familiarly known. Capt. White 
 was found dead in his bed on the morning of April 7th, 
 1830. Richard Crovvninshield, Jr., Joseph J. Knapp, 
 Jr., and John Francis Knapp, were arrested and charged 
 with the murder. Crowninshield committed suicide 
 in prison, and Frank Knapp was put on trial as prin 
 cipal, the law then requiring that some one should be 
 convicted as principal, before any one could be tried as 
 accessory. He was defended by Franklin Dexter and 
 William H. Gardiner. Mr. Webster was employed, by 
 the relatives of Capt. White, to assist the attorney for 
 the government, and besides him were retained several 
 other lawyers, who were prevented by professional 
 etiquette from publicly acting in the case. Among 
 these was Mr. Choate. The trial came on at a special 
 term of the Supreme Court held at Salem, July 20th. 
 It continued with some intermission till the 20th of 
 August. The community was profoundly shocked by 
 the crime, and watched the course of the trial with the 
 deepest interest. The counsel for the government were 
 fully aware of the responsibility resting on them, and 
 shared the agitation pervading the town and county. 
 Every evening they deliberated together, and I have 
 been told by ono of them, that Mr. Webster obviously 
 gave great heed to the suggestions of Mr. Choate, who 
 was always present and a prominent adviser. On one 
 occasion during the trial, an obscure but important fact 
 was denied by the counsel for the defence. They had 
 omitted to record it, and it was found to have escaped 
 the attention of every one except Mr. Webster and 
 Mr. Choate, who were thus able to corroborate each 
 other. 
 During his entire residence in Salem, Mr. Choate 
 
40 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. II. 
 
 was a diligent and untiring student not only of law, 
 but of the whole circle of literature, and especially of 
 mental and political philosophy. He had laid a broad 
 foundation, and was erecting a lofty and beautiful su 
 perstructure. He complained sometimes of his desul 
 tory habits, but his friends saw how carefully he 
 methodized his knowledge, and how entirely he had it 
 at command. His habit was to study standing at a 
 high desk, with pen in hand, and a manuscript book 
 open before him. These little volumes, or brochures, 
 for they are generally a quire or two of letter-paper 
 stitched together, are crowded with facts, incidents, 
 principles, and reflections, which demonstrate both big 
 diligence and thoughtfulness. The equity practice of 
 Massachusetts was then in an unsettled and confused 
 state. He devoted himself for a while to gathering up 
 the statutes and reducing the decisions to a regular 
 code. The words with which, many years afterward, 
 he briefly delineated the character and attainments of 
 a brother lawyer, may even at this time describe his 
 own. 
 
 " His knowledge of the jurisprudence of chancery, 
 and his fondness for it, were very remarkable. Few 
 men of any time of life had studied it so thoroughly, 
 discerned so well how it rose above, and how it supplied 
 the deficiencies of the common law, or loved it as truly 
 and intelligently. To such a mind and such tastes as 
 his, its comparative freedom from technicalities, its 
 regulated discretion, and its efforts to accomplish exact 
 justice and effectual relief, possessed a charm and had 
 a value far beyond that of the more artificial science, 
 whose incompleteness and rigidity it supplies and 
 ameliorates, and whose certainty at last reposes on the 
 learning, or the ignorance, or the humors of man. 
 
1830-1840.] STUDIES. 41 
 
 " Beyond his profession he read and he speculated 
 more variously and more independently than most men 
 of any profession. Elegant general literature, politics, 
 theology, in its relation to the religion revealed in the 
 Bible, and to that philosophy which performs its main 
 achievements in conciliating faith with reason, these 
 were his recreations." 
 
 With special care he studied again the philosophy 
 of the Mind, making Dr. Reid s Essays his text-book, 
 and during a considerable part of one summer devoted 
 himself to the study of theology, in preparation of a 
 case, which finally he did not argue, in defence of 
 a person charged before an association of ministers, 
 with error in doctrine. 
 
 His literary pursuits, and the increasing demands of 
 his profession, compelled him to keep somewhat se 
 cluded from society, but there were a few college 
 acquaintance of kindred tastes, with whom he main 
 tained a correspondence, and in whose welfare he ever 
 had a deep interest. Foremost among these was his 
 old friend Rev. Dr. James Marsh, then President of 
 the University of Vermont, through whose efforts the 
 American public were first introduced to a knowledge 
 of the philosophical writings of Coleridge, and whose 
 early death took from us one of the most thorough 
 scholars, and one of the profoundest Christian phi 
 losophers, which our country has produced. There 
 were few men for whom Mr. Choate had such un 
 qualified respect and affection. 
 
 The following letter is in reply to one from Dr. 
 Marsh asking him to review the forthcoming edition 
 of the " Aids to Reflection : " 
 
42 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. II. 
 
 To PRESIDENT JAMES MARSH. 
 
 " SALEM, November 14, 1829. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, I thought it due to the respect and love 
 I bear you, and to the kindness and delicacy of the terms in 
 which you make it, to give your suggestion one week s con 
 sideration before trusting myself to act upon it. The result 
 is that I feel it will be wholly impossible for me to execute 
 this duty of friendship and literature in a manner worthy of 
 the book or its editor, or of the elevated and important pur 
 poses at which you aim in this high enterprise. I know you 
 believe me to be witting to do every thing in such circum 
 stances which the relation we sustain to each other gives a 
 right to expect, and it is with very real regret that I feel 
 myself unable adequately to do this great thing. My habits 
 have become almost exclusively professional, and my time, 
 I don t very well know how, seems to be just about as com 
 pletely engrossed by the cases of business, as if, like Henry 
 Brougham, I was habitually arguing my five causes a. day. 
 But there are obstacles in the way which lie deeper, such as 
 the difficulty of gathering up the faculties which are now scat 
 tered over the barren technicalities and frivolous controversies 
 of my profession, and concentrating them fixedly upon a great 
 moral and philosophical conception, like this of yours, worthily 
 to write, edit, or review such a book. Though I never saw 
 it I may say so. One should sit whole weeks and months, 
 still, alone, in a study, with the Apollo Belvedere in marble 
 to look upon, and Plato, Cicero, Bacon, Milton, and 4 all those 
 to converse with. I could no more raise myself into the mood 
 for this achievement than I could make a better epic poem 
 than the Iliad. But I rejoice that you have taken this matter 
 in hand, and I firmly believe you will produce a glorious 
 book most nobly edited. The employment of preparing it 
 must be elevating and salutary, and I sincerely hope its 
 general public success may be brilliant beyond the hopes of 
 literary ambition. I shall buy the book, though I dare not 
 undertake to review it. 
 
 u I had no suspicion that the Orthodoxy of Andover * looked 
 askance at you or yours, and I suspect the matter has been 
 overstated to you. But it may be so, since very much nar 
 rowness of mind and very great soundness of faith do some 
 times go together, and the Professors have all a sort of strange 
 
1830-1840.] NOMINATION TO CONGRESS. 43 
 
 horror of speculation, however regulated by a general orthodox 
 belief, and a sincere love of truth and of man. But nitor in 
 adversumj says Burke, is the motto for a man like me. 
 I should no more stop to consider how a volume of matured 
 and brilliant thoughts would be received at Andover, than 
 how it would be received by the Pope or President Jackson. 
 Tit ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito." 1 Such was 
 George Canning s self-exhortation, when he went forth morn 
 ing and evening to fight the great battles of liberty and eman 
 cipation with the armed and mailed champions of old abuse, 
 error, and political orthodoxy, and a thrilling and sustaining 
 scripture it is. 
 
 " And now I shall insist upon your being perfectly satisfied 
 with my declining this honor. If a more specific reason were 
 necessary, I might add that the principal term of our S. J. C. 
 is now holding here, has been for a fortnight, and will be till 
 the last of December. Then I have to go to Boston for our 
 winter s session. Nay, before that is over, I hope the country 
 will ring from side to side with the fame of your book. 
 
 " With best regards and wishes, and Mrs. Choate s respects, 
 " I am yours affectionately, 
 
 "R. CHOATE." 
 
 In 1830, Mr. Choate was nominated by the National 
 Republicans of Essex as Representative to Congress. 
 The result of the Convention was communicated to him 
 in the following characteristic letter : 
 
 " SALEM, 10th Mo. 18, 1830. 
 
 " RUFUS CHOATE, ESQ., The Convention have deter 
 mined, after several ballotings, to support thee for Repre 
 sentative to Congress for this district ; the last ballot, wliich 
 produced this result, stood twenty-three to twelve. I called 
 at thy office previous to the balloting to ascertain whether the 
 nomination would be agreeable, and after the vote was deter 
 mined I informed the Convention of thy absence, and a com 
 mittee was appointed to inform thee of the result, and obtain 
 an answer of acceptance or otherwise. I can now say that I 
 believe no other name would run as well in Lynn, Chelsea, 
 Saugus, and Lynnfield, and I have no doubt of an election 
 at the first meeting, provided thy acceptance is seasonably 
 announced. If consistent with thy interest and inclination, 
 
44 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. II. 
 
 it would be gratifying to me to hear of thy acceptance. When 
 we find the right man in all other respects, we are willing to 
 waive the Masonic objection, believing the time is coming 
 when all men of talents and respectability will leave that mere 
 shadow for things more substantial. 
 
 " Thy friend, 
 
 " STEPHEN OLIVER." 
 
 Mr. Choate was then thirty-one years old and had 
 already, as we have seen, passed through the usual 
 initiatory steps of public life, by serving in the State 
 Legislature. The old district of Essex South, as it 
 was called, had been represented in Congress for eight 
 years by Hon. Benj. "W. Crowninshield, a gentleman 
 of great respectability, wealth, and family distinction, 
 who had been Secretary of the Navy under Madison 
 and Monroe. A good deal of feeling was naturally 
 expressed by his friends, that a young and untried 
 man, whose political opinions were not widely known, 
 and whose acquaintance with the great commercial 
 interests of the district could not be presumed to equal 
 that of the veterans in politics, should be nominated in 
 place of their tried and proved representative, and Mr. 
 Crowninshield was supported as an independent can 
 didate. Strong influences were of course brought to 
 bear against the young lawyer, who had little to sustain 
 him in the conflict besides his own character and merits. 
 He was charged with being ambitious ; and one young 
 politician, then a student at law in the office of Mr. Sal- 
 tonstall, in a vehement declamation, declared, that so 
 far from being a substantial and permanent citizen, 
 like Mr. Crowninshield, he was only stopping in Salem 
 for a short time " while he oated his horse," as he was 
 on his way to Boston. 
 
 In all the contest, however, it was remarked that no 
 
1830-1840.] PLAN OF STUDY. 45 
 
 unkindness seemed to be felt towards Mr. Choate per 
 sonally. His name had been brought forward without 
 his own knowledge, mainly through the agency of his 
 old friends in Danvers, and he was, with some difficulty, 
 prevailed on to accept the honor. About the severest 
 thing said of him, politically, during an active canvass, 
 was a remark in one of the papers that " Mr. Choate 
 is a gentleman of distinguished talents, but we regret 
 to state that he is suspected of Jacksonism ! " Sus 
 pected or not, however, he was chosen, after an hon 
 orable and exciting contest, by a majority of more 
 than five hundred votes over all opposing candidates. 
 Although not ambitious of political life, he was not 
 insensible to its honors, nor untouched, by its fasci 
 nations. He regarded it, however, as a means rather 
 than as an end. The opportunities it gave for acquaint 
 ance with distinguished men, for wide observation of 
 affairs, and study of great national questions, he cer 
 tainly thought much of, but his heart was fixed upon 
 his profession, both as a necessity, and as offering large 
 opportunities for attainment and eminence. The new 
 position brought with it new duties and responsibilities 
 from which he did not shrink, and which he did not 
 undervalue. He at once endeavored to prepare for 
 them. No sooner was he elected than he laid out a 
 plan of study which should best fit him honorably to 
 represent his constituents. I have before me a com 
 monplace book, one of the small manuscript folios 
 spoken of before, which shows both the subjects to 
 which he devoted himself, and his methods of study. 
 The first page is as follows ; the words are often 
 abbreviated, and in his peculiar handwriting, difficult 
 to decipher. 
 
46 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. II. 
 
 " Nov. 4, 1830. 
 " FACIENDA AD MUNUS NUPER IMPOSITUM. 
 
 "1. Pers. quah. [personal qualities]. Memory, Daily 
 Food and Cowper dum ambulo. Voice, Manner, Exerci- 
 tationes diurnoe. 
 
 "*2. Current Politics in papers. 1. Cum Notulis, daily, 
 Geog. &c. 2. Annual Regr., Past Intelligencers, &c. 
 
 " 3. District S. E. [i.e. Essex South], Pop. Occs., [Popu 
 lation, Occupations]. Modes of living. Commerce, The 
 Treaties, and principles on which it depends. 
 
 "4. Civil History of U. States in Pitkin and [original] 
 Sources. 
 
 " 5. Exam, of Pending Questions : Tariff, Pub. Lands, 
 Indians, Nullification. 
 
 " 6. Am. and Brit. Eloquence, Writing, Practice." 
 
 Then follow more than twenty pages of the closest 
 writing, with abbreviated and condensed statements of 
 results drawn from many volumes, newspapers, mes 
 sages, and speeches, with propositions and arguments 
 for and against, methodically arranged under topics, 
 with minute divisions and subdivisions. Some of 
 these heads, under which he endeavors to compress the 
 most essential political knowledge, are these : 
 
 1. Public Lands, giving the number of acres in the 
 whole country, the States where they lie, the sources 
 whence derived, the progress and system of sales, <fcc., 
 &c.. 
 
 2. Politics of 1831, brought down to the beginning 
 of the session in December, an analysis of the. Presi 
 dent s Message, and notes upon the subjects which it 
 suggests ; the measures and policy of the government. 
 
 3. The Tariff, beginning with an analysis of Hamil 
 ton s Report in 1790 ; History of Legislation respect 
 ing it ; Internal Improvements, their cost and the Con 
 stitutional power of making them. 
 
1830-1840.J LETTER TO PRESIDENT MARSH. 47 
 
 Then follow three or four closely written pages on 
 particular articles : wool, cotton, flax, hemp, iron, as 
 affected by the tariff. 
 
 4. Analysis of British opinions. 
 
 5. Cause of the Excitement in the Southern States. 
 
 6. Commerce of the United States in 1831. 
 
 These are but a sample of the subjects which occupied 
 his attention, but they may serve to indicate the thor 
 oughness with which he prepared for his new position. 
 A letter to President Marsh will in some measure show 
 his feeling and views respecting political life : 
 
 To PRESIDENT JAMES MARSH. 
 
 " SALEM, November 14, 1830. 
 
 "My DEAR SIR, I am extremely obliged to you for the 
 very kind notice which you have taken of what has lately 
 befallen, a new and most pleasant indication how far and 
 how high in life you have carried with you the generosity 
 and friendliness of our earlier intimacy. Your letter was 
 handed me in court, in the very middle of the agony of 
 the trial of a man for his life, but I opened it straightway, 
 and read it with the keenest pleasure, and forgetting for a 
 moment your glances at the future, mused for an hour over 
 the sweet and bitter fancies that are spread over the recol 
 lections of the days of our personal studious intercourse, so 
 long past. Then I just showed the outside of the letter to a 
 brother lawyer who knows a little literature, as being a letter 
 from JAMES MARSH, of Burlington, and having thus sac 
 rificed to vanity a trifle, roused myself up to hear Webster 
 argue a great question of law, on which the life of the worst 
 of the murderers of Captain White depended. 
 
 " The matter of my election I do suppose rather a foolish 
 one on my part, but the nomination was so made that I 
 could not avoid it without wilfully shutting myself out of Con 
 gress for life, since my declining would undoubtedly have 
 brought forward some other new candidate, who if elected, 
 would go ten years at least, long before which time, if liv 
 ing, I might have removed from the District. The opposi- 
 
48 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. II. 
 
 tion which was got up was a good deal formidable, for noise 
 and anger at least, and the wonder is that so little came of it. 
 I, more than once, while it was raging about me, wished my- 
 s^f a tutor in the Indian Charity School, upon $350 per 
 annum, teaching the first book of Livy to the class, and study 
 ing with you that dreadful chapter in Mitford about the Dia 
 lects. The responsibilities of the new place I appreciate 
 fully ; pro parte virili, I shall try to meet them. I have a 
 whole year yet, you know, before me, before I take my seat, 
 quite short time enough for me to mature and enter on a 
 course of study and thought adapted to this sphere of duty. I 
 hardly dare yet look the matter in the face. Political life 
 between us is no part of my plan, although I trust I shall 
 aim in good faith to perform the duties temporarily and inci 
 dentally thus assigned. 
 
 "Why don t you let me know your daily literary employ 
 ments, how you divide your hours, what you read, thiuk, 
 or write. I should dearly love to know just where you are 
 on the ocean of knowledge, and what are at any given moment 
 the great objects with you of intellectual interest, or active or 
 official pursuit. Have you read a little book called the * Nat 
 ural History of Enthusiasm ? I approve its religious charac 
 ter entirely, and should think it the book of a noble and 
 full mind. . . . Please to present my respects to Mrs. Marsh, 
 and believe me ever, 
 
 " Respectfully yours, 
 
 " R. CHOATE." 
 
 Mr. Choate took his seat in Congress in December, 
 1831, and soon acquired from all parties that involun 
 tary respect which a vigorous and well-stored mind is 
 sure to receive. He was modest and retiring, seldom 
 obtruding upon the House by a formal speech, was not 
 very tolerant of committees, but eagerly watched the 
 course of events, carefully examined public questions^- 
 and made free use of the Library of Congress. f^Ias- 
 sachusetts was then represented by men of whom any 
 State might be proud. In the Senate were Nathaniel 
 Silsbee and Daniel Webster, then in the fulness of his 
 strength and fame. In the House were John Quincy 
 
1830-1840.] SPEECHES IN CONGRESS. 49 
 
 Adams, Nathan Appleton, George N. Briggs, Edward 
 Everett, and John Davis. The Congress itself was 
 composed of an unusual number of statesmen. Among 
 the Senators were Peleg Sprague, Samuel Prentiss, 
 William L. Marcy, George M. Dallas, John M. Clayton, 
 Henry Clay, and Thomas H. Benton. The House 
 had such men as James M. Wayne, George M Duffie, 
 George Evans, James K. Polk, Thomas Corwin, and 
 G. C. Verplanck. In this body Mr. Choate took his 
 seat, as it soon proved, an equal among equals. It 
 was a period of great political excitement. General 
 Jackson was drawing near the close of the first term 
 of his Presidency, sustained by warm friends, yet op 
 posed by some of the ablest statesmen in the country. 
 Mr. Choate made but two speeches during the session, 
 one on Revolutionary Pensions, the other on the Tariff, 
 but these gave him a position at once among the most 
 able and persuasive speakers of the House. One of 
 these speeches was made under unusual circumstances. 
 The subject of the Tariff had been hanging for some 
 time in the Committee, when one afternoon Mr. Choate 
 obtained the floor. There were but few members pres 
 ent when he rose, but as he continued to speak, one 
 after another came from the lobbies to the door, stood 
 a moment to listen, were caught and drawn to their 
 seats by the irresistible charm of his mellifluous utter 
 ance, till gradually the hall became full, and all, for 
 convenience of hearing, gathered in a circle about the 
 speaker. He had a nervous dread of thunder, and 
 was never quite at ease in a severe storm. Before he 
 had half finished his speech a dark thunder-cloud 
 rolled up and suddenly burst over the Capitol. Mr. 
 Choate was standing directly under the central sky- 
 
50 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. II. 
 
 light ; his face pale with a blackish paleness, and 
 his whole frame tremulous with unusual excitement. 
 The hearers caught his emotion and listened intently 
 as he went on. At the same time the increasing dark 
 ness, the rushing wind and rain, the lurid light through 
 the distant windows, the red and searching gleams of 
 the lightning, the rattling peals of thunder, the circle 
 of upturned white faces, lighted from above, gazing 
 earnestly on the speaker, all made it a scene not 
 easily to be forgotten. He spoke in the modest, defer 
 ential manner natural to him, with the same delicious, 
 uninterrupted flow of choice words, and with hardly a 
 gesture except the lifting and settling of the upper 
 part of the body, and he sat down amidst the enthusi 
 asm of those who heard him, members of all parties 
 rushing to offer their congratulations. His position as 
 a parliamentary orator was established. 
 
 The tariff and nullification were the great subjects 
 which interested the public mind during this session. 
 A single letter to a constituent will give an insight into 
 the political hopes and fears of the writer, and of those 
 who belonged to the same party with him. 
 
 To DR. ANDREW NICHOLS, Danvers, Mass. 
 
 " WASHINGTON, 14th Jan. 1832. 
 
 "DEAR SIR, I have just received your favor of the 9th, 
 and assure you that I have read it with interest and pleasure. 
 You will have seen before this reaches you, that the battle 
 is already begun, and that Clay has presented to the Senate 
 and the country a clear and explicit outline of the principles 
 on which the friends of the tariff are willing to meet the crisis 
 occasioned by the extinguishment of the debt. This exposi 
 tion of his is undoubtedly the result of the combined wisdom 
 of the whole tariff party as here represented, and the com 
 mittees in each branch will report bills carrying the principle 
 into details. It is considered here a sound, just, and saving 
 
1830-1840.] COLLEGE FRIENDS. 51 
 
 creed ; and I should think the system in its great features per 
 fectly safe. It is the all-engrossing topic. I cannot help 
 thinking that the excitement at the South is to a considerable 
 degree artificial. Certain it is, the injurious effects of the tariff 
 on them are greatly overrated. To the cotton manufacture, 
 I should say they are very much reconciled, and consid 
 ering what avast market it creates for their cotton, tak 
 ing a sixth perhaps of the whole crop, it would be strange if 
 they were not. Coarse woollens are the special objects of their 
 hostility. Then they hate New England, and they think, or 
 affect to think, that the tariff raises the prices of their pur 
 chases, for the sole benefit of the New England manufac 
 turer. But all is safe and sure, and fifty years more will 
 probably satu-fy South Carolina herself that the New Eng 
 land cotton market, the increased value of slaves, diminished 
 quantity and higher price of cotton from the sugar culture of 
 Louisiana, the fall of prices from the competition of American 
 and foreign manufactures in our own market, afford even her 
 some compensation for the prosperity of the North and East. 
 The article in the last American Quarterly is by Senator 
 Johnston, of Louisiana, a State of great importance to the 
 friends of the system. All the West, the Middle States, and 
 East, except Maine and New Hampshire, are sound, and have 
 just as little fancy for slow poison, and being cut up in detail, 
 as they have for violent instantaneous death, or a general 
 rout. Clay s presence in the Senate this winter is providen 
 tial. Surely he is needed more than in 1824, if possible, 
 and he has cordial, most able, and sufficient support in the 
 Senate. His speech was not showy, nor vehement, but cool, 
 plain, paternal, grave, conciliatory. 
 
 " With great respect, &c., 
 
 " R. CHOATE." 
 
 Among the college friends of Mr. Choate, sympathiz 
 ing with him in love of learning, and carrying his 
 pursuits into fields at that time not much cultivated 
 in this country, was Rev. George Bush, a thorough 
 scholar, and an eloquent writer. He had been giving 
 a careful attention to Oriental literature, and sowing 
 the seed which afterwards grew into the " Life of Mo 
 hammed," Hebrew Grammars, and Commentaries on 
 
52 
 
 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. II. 
 
 several books of the Old Testament. Many years 
 afterwards he adopted the opinions of Swedenborg, and 
 deservedly obtained great respect and influence among 
 the followers of that mystic philosopher and religious 
 apostle. A correspondence with Mr. Bush was revived 
 by Mr. Choate during this his first session at Washing 
 ton. 
 
 To REV. GEORGE BUSH. 
 
 " WASHINGTON, 21 Jan. 1832. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, I received a few days since a portion 
 of a work on which 1 heard you were engaged, addressed to 
 me in a handwriting which I could not fail to recognize as 
 yours, although the most recent specimen of it in my posses 
 sion is now about eleven years old. I embrace the generous 
 intimation conveyed in this notice, to present to you my re 
 spects, and to extend to you, in the language of ordination, 
 the right hand of that old and cherished fellowship to which I 
 owe so much. . . . How have these eleven years, twelve 
 years is it not ? how has time * which changes every thing, 
 man more than any thing, dealt with you ? What a curiosity 
 one feels to see if he can find the traces of that imperceptible, 
 busy, and really awful touch under which temple and tower 
 at length fall down, upon the countenance and person, in the 
 eye, tones, and feelings of an old friend long absent ! In one 
 re.-pect, this long interval has been to both of us alike i ull of 
 short joy and enduring sorrow, each having possessed and 
 lost an object of dearest love which the other never saw. But 
 I forgot that perhaps you never heard that 1 have buried 
 within two years a most sweet and bright child of four years 
 old, whom I would have given a right arm to save. It must 
 be a vast alleviation of your far greater bereavement that 
 your child is spared. 
 
 " A hundred thousand recollections come over me as I 
 write to you, which stop me, make me lay down my pen, and 
 rest my head on my hand. Dismissing them all, 1 beg to 
 know why you will not come on here a little while this win 
 ter ? Besides your friends at Dr. Lindsley s, you will find at 
 least one old pupil, besides myself, a Mrs. II., the wife of 
 a member who remembers your term of service at Mr. D. s 
 seminary with respect and affection, and some few other ob- 
 
1830-1840.] LETTER TO REV. GEORGE BUSH. 
 
 53 
 
 jects of interest. Let go the pains and pleasures of authorship 
 for a month ; come and see with how little wisdom the world is 
 governed, and return with a lighter heart to Mohammed and 
 Joseph, Arabia, Egypt, and the waters of Israel. I have a 
 chamber in the third story by myself; a long table, perhaps 
 the most desirable of luxuries, with two windows looking 
 out upon the shores of Virginia, the setting sun, and the grave 
 of Washington, and here you shall sit if you will, and we 
 will sacrifice to renewed friendship and auld lang syne. But 
 I forget all proprieties, like the Dominie upon the recovery of 
 Bertram. I stop short therefore, first earnestly hoping to 
 hear from you immediately. 
 
 " With great regard and affection, yours, 
 
 " R. CHOATE." 
 
 To REV. GEORGE BUSH. 
 
 t " WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 1832. 
 
 "Mr DEAR SIR, I hardly can get time, so strenuous 
 and full of incident is the idleness of our life here, to write 
 a letter, except of a Sunday afternoon, after a morning at 
 church. Last Sunday I began to write you, was interrupted, 
 and, like a resolution offered the last month of the session, it 
 has stood over one week. ... I shall send you what I write 
 to-day, though it be no more than a bare expression of thanks 
 for your letter, and a hope to have many more like it. I 
 learn from Dr. C. that your brother s health compels him to 
 take a voyage, which of course puts it out of your power to 
 continue your personal attentions. If this leaves you so 
 much disengaged that you can come, I hope to see you here 
 yet. You will be driven from that great city by the cholera 
 I am afraid, before long, an awful scourge of national and 
 personal sins, which we can no more escape in this country, 
 than we can turn back the east wind to his sources in the 
 caves of the sea. I board with a physician, and have, there 
 fore, an instructed and reasonable dread of this business. 
 But whoso best knows Washington, will be least disposed to 
 recommend it as a city of refuge. I was surprised at the rea 
 sons you suggest for withdrawing from the pulpit. But it 
 little matters what the vocation is, if it be suited to the meas 
 ure, fulness, and desires of the mind which it attaches to it 
 self. I think educated, tasteful, and knowing men, however, 
 
54 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. II. 
 
 should remember that great parts are a great trust, and that 
 there is responsibleness connected as well with the proper 
 selection of employment, as with the discharge of its duties 
 when selected. I hold a good book and good sermon to be 
 not only well per se, but to be worthy, fitting, and adequate 
 achievements of good minds. Authorship and the business 
 of instruction go well together, however, or else the introduc 
 tion to Old Mortality is as much a fiction as the main story. 
 
 " I should think, quocunque nomine gaudes, however em 
 ployed, New York would be a pleasant residence for you. 
 To be sure, as in duty bound, I hold Boston, with its Univer 
 sity society, rather the best place to live in, in all North 
 America, but I cannot but see its inferiority in some respects 
 to New York. You are so near to England, and so central 
 to all the art, enterprise, science, mind, and politics of the 
 Republic, that you have great advantage over the more pro 
 vincial portions of the country, so much farther from which 
 the sun drives his chariot. There must be a wide circle of 
 fine minds in that city, Verplanck here is such an one I 
 should think, a thing that s most uncommon, an honest, 
 learned, modest, reasonable man, yet a Van Buren Jack- 
 souian, credite posteri ! 
 
 " What do you think now, I have the Shakspeare here 
 which you gave me, and I read a few lines of Greek and Latin 
 every morning, and I trust, if we should meet, we could take 
 each other up just where we were set down twelve years ago, 
 even in the humanities. In all love and honor, respect and 
 affection, I am sure we could. I wish you would write me 
 very often, assured always that you wriie to a constant, as 
 well as old friend. Yours ever, 
 
 " R. CHOATE." 
 
 Congress adjourned July 14, 1832. The summer 
 and autumn were full of political excitement. The 
 result of the elections was the renewed choice of An 
 drew Jackson for President (over Henry Clay), by an 
 immense majority. The result was not unexpected. 
 " The news from the voting States," wrote Mr. Choate 
 to Mr. Everett on the 10th of November, u blows over 
 us like a great cold storm. I suppose all is lost, and 
 that the map may be rolled up for twelve years to come. 
 
1830-1840.] MISSIONARIES TO THE INDIANS. 55 
 
 Happy if when it is opened again, no State shall be 
 missing." 
 
 Among the subjects which deeply agitated the popu 
 lar mind of the North, especially of the religious com 
 munities, was the treatment of the Southern Indians, 
 by the States within whose boundaries they existed. 
 
 In legislating against the Cherokees, Georgia had 
 passed a law that no white man should reside within 
 the limits of the Cherokee nation, without permission 
 from the governor of the State, and after having taken 
 an oath to support and defend the laws of Georgia, on 
 penalty of imprisonment at hard labor for a term not 
 exceeding four years. Under this law Eev. Messrs. 
 Worcester and Butler, missionaries of the American 
 Board to the Indians, and five others, were tried and 
 sentenced in September, 1831. After conviction, par 
 don was offered on condition of obedience to the State 
 law. Five persons accepted the offer, but Messrs. 
 Worcester and Butler refused, and appealed to the 
 U. S. Supreme Court. Mr. Wirt and Mr. Sergeant 
 argued their cause. Georgia did not appear, but the 
 court, in March, 1832, pronounced the law of the State 
 unconstitutional. Georgia refused to obey the man 
 date or reverse her decision. The missionaries, how 
 ever, after about eighteen months imprisonment, were 
 pardoned and released on the 16th of January, 1833. 
 In the mean time nullification, as it was called, had 
 assumed a portentous magnitude in South Carolina. 
 A convention had been holden ; the State bristled with 
 bayonets ; defiance was upon every lip. At the head 
 of the general government was a man, who, whatever 
 were his faults, never lacked courage, or resolution, or 
 patriotism. In January, 1833, General Jackson issued 
 
56 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. II. 
 
 his famous proclamation against South Carolina. It 
 was honest, weighty, and irresistible. Party feeling 
 for a while was quelled. The moral sentiment of the 
 country sustained the President. A letter from Mr. 
 Choate to his friend, Prof. Bush, who seems for the 
 moment to have taken a view opposed to the President, 
 will indicate his own feeling and that of many others 
 with him. 
 
 To PROFESSOR GEORGE BUSH. 
 
 " WASHINGTON, Jan. 29, 1833. 
 
 "My DEAR FRIEND, Your letter finds me swallowing 
 lots of wormwood tea, not to sweeten my imagination, but to 
 check a furious sick headache, a poor mood for answering 
 deep questions, though an excellent one for appreciating a let 
 ter from a loved and honored friend. Did I not talk about you 
 an hour to Dr. Bond, Tutor Bond, last Sunday evening? 
 The Doctor stands against time like an obelisk fronting the 
 sun. He reminds me of Livy s pictured page, I warrant me, 
 of Consuls, Lictors, axes, and especially Tarpeian rocks, 
 down which all nullifiers and states-rights men except you 
 
 ought to be precipitated, Senatus consulto, edicto, plebiscite, 
 
 Latin or no Latin, under the grammar or against it. 
 How the missionaries settled the matter with their cause and 
 consciences I have never heard. Speaking as a politician, I 
 rejoice that Georgia has been thus detached from South Caro 
 lina, and harnessed into the great car of the Constitution. It 
 needs tali auxilio et defensoribus istis even. My dear friend, 
 there is no more danger of consolidation (that is, until the 
 States first go apart, snapping these ties of gauze) thau there 
 is of an invasion by the real Xerxes of Herodotus. One 
 single mistake now, any yielding, any thing short of a dead 
 march up to the whole outermost limit of Constitutional 
 power, and the Federal Government is contemptible for ever. 
 The Georgia case is, to be sure, a bad business. It is a clear 
 case of nullification by the State. But so far as the mission 
 aries are concerned, the Federal Government has not declined 
 any duty. The Judiciary performed its part. The President 
 is called on for nothing, until another application to the Fed 
 eral Judiciary, and that, you see, the pardon interposes to 
 
1830-1840.J RE-ELECTION TO CONGRESS. 57 
 
 render unnecessary. The two systems have not directly 
 clashed though they bit their thumbs. The Indians, the 
 treaties, the whole code of intercourse law, all go over 
 board of course. The moral guilt of the S. C. case is less. 
 The constitutional enormity of the thing is more palpable 
 and more tangible, and the precedent, pejoris exempli pessi- 
 mi indeed. . . . 
 
 " The session is now one of thrilling interest. Calhoun is 
 drunk with disappointment ; the image of an ardent, imagina 
 tive, intellectual man, who once thought it as easy to set the 
 stars of glory on his brow as to put his hat on ; now ruined, 
 dishonored. He has to defend the most contemptible untruth 
 in the whole history of human opinion, and no ability will 
 save him from contempt mentally. Then he hoped to recover 
 himself by a brilliant stroke, permanently inserting nullifica 
 tion into our polity, and putting himself at the head of a great 
 Convention of the States, a great midnight thunder-storm, 
 hail-storm, meeting of witches and demons, round a caldron 
 big enough to receive the disjecta membra of the Constitution, 
 thence never to come a whole, still less a blooming, young 
 and vigorous form. Wherefore pereat. I am somewhat 
 weak from medicine, and must bid you farewell. Write me 
 daily, and reconsider the point of Consolidation. I say that 
 will come with Xerxes. Truly yours, 
 
 "R. CHOATE." 
 
 In April, 1833, having been again nominated by the 
 National Republicans, Mr. Choate was re-elected to 
 Congress by an increased majority. Opposition from 
 the friends of Mr. Crowninshield had nearly died away, 
 and from many of them he received a cordial support. 
 Tliejnost, exciting subject of the^next session was the 
 Bank of the United States. The President had already 
 refused assent to a bill re-chartering this institution, 
 and soon after determined to remove the public moneys 
 deposited in its vaults. After the adjournment of 
 Congress, in March, 1833, William J. Duane, of Penn 
 sylvania, was appointed Secretary of the Treasury, 
 Mr. M Lane having been transferred to the Department 
 
58 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. II. 
 
 of State. The President at once urged the new Secre 
 tary to remove the deposits, which, not being convinced 
 of the wisdom of the measure, he declined to do. 
 Upon this President Jackson removed him from office, 
 and appointed in his place Roger B. Taney, who im 
 mediately carried out the wishes of the Executive. 
 Great commercial distress followed this proceeding. 
 The act was condemned by many of the friends of the 
 administration as well as by the opposition. Confidence 
 was destroyed, business interrupted, industry checked, 
 and all moneyed institutions deranged, where but a few 
 months before every thing was active and prosperous. 
 The Senate was opposed to the President, and passed a 
 resolution censuring his conduct ; but the House had 
 a large majority in his favor. Memorials were ad 
 dressed to Congress from various cities and public 
 bodies. The Committee of Ways and Means having 
 submitted a report with reference to the removal of the 
 deposits, Mr. Choaie_a^kl)ss_ej^^ 28th 
 
 March, 1834. He had prepared himself to consider the 
 whole subject in its constitutional relations as well as 
 financial, but at the suggestion of Mr. Webster, con- 
 lined himself to the latter branch of the subject. JThe_ 
 speech is direct, earnest, persuasive, and conciliatory. 
 It was with relation to this speech that the anecdote is 
 told of Benjamin Hardin, " Old Ben Hardin" - 
 as he was called, of Kentucky, who then heard Mr. 
 Choate for the first time. I give it in the words of one 
 who was present. " Mr. Hardin was an old stager in 
 politics, a strong-minded, though somewhat rough indi 
 vidual, who was not disposed to much leniency in his 
 criticisms of the efforts of younger members. He was, 
 like Mr. Choate, Whig in politics ; and several days, or 
 
1830-1840.] FIRST FEW YEARS IN BOSTON. 59 
 
 perhaps weeks, after the speech of Mr. Choate, he 
 made an elaborate argument on the same question, 
 and on the same side. At the outset of his remarks 
 he stated that it was his uniform rule not to listen to 
 speeches upon the same side of a question that he 
 intended to discuss, as he wished to be conscious of 
 feeling that no part of his argument had been antici 
 pated by others, but, said he, I was compelled to 
 depart from this rule once during this debate. The 
 member from Massachusetts rose to speak, and, in ac 
 cordance with my custom, I took my hat to leave, lin 
 gering a moment just to notice the tone of his voice 
 and the manner of his speech. But that moment was 
 fatal to my resolution. I became charmed by the music 
 of his voice, and was captivated by the power of his 
 eloquence, and found myself wholly unable to move 
 until the last word of his beautiful speech had been \f 
 uttered. " 
 
 At the close of this session, having determined 
 remove to Boston, Mr. Choate resigned his place in 
 Congress. While at Salem he had continued his studies 
 in literature, always with him second only in interest 
 to the profession on which he depended for daily bread. 
 Besides the lecture on the " Waverley Novels," he had 
 delivered another on Poland, taking the occasion from 
 the revolution in that country to present a well-con 
 sidered and careful picture of her government, re 
 sources, and people, in a style fervid, yet moderate 
 and sustained. He also delivered an address at the 
 centennial celebration of the settlement of Ipswich. 
 
 In removing to Boston Mr. Choate felt that the ex 
 periment was doubtful. Some judicious friends advised 
 against the change. He left an established position, and 
 
60 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. II. 
 
 a growing practice, for severer contests and a sharper 
 rivalship. But generous rivalry he never feared, and 
 the result showed how truly he estimated his own 
 powers. He had now a family two daughters and a 
 son to stimulate his labor. Two older children he 
 had lost. They now lie in the graveyard at Essex. 
 
 Not long after he came to Boston, as early perhaps 
 as 1836, he gave a lecture on " The Romance of the 
 Sea." The subject was one in which he could revel. 
 The mystery, the power of the ocean, the achievements 
 upon its many waters, all that poets have sung, all that 
 history or fiction has told, went to form the substance 
 or illustration of the theme. It was one of the most 
 fascinating of his many lectures. He afterwards lost 
 it, or it was stolen from him, in New York. But if 
 stolen it is really pleasant to think of the disappoint 
 ment of the thief. A Coptic manuscript would have 
 been to him quite as legible. 
 
 The first six or seven years in Boston were marked 
 mainly by a steady growth in his profession. Every 
 young man who enters such a community, bringing a 
 reputation earned in a different field, is necessarily 
 subjected to close scrutiny. His ability is judged by 
 a new, and perhaps severer standard. He is a stranger 
 until he has proved himself worthy of the fellowship of 
 a citizen. The pride of the bar, generous, but neces 
 sarily exclusive, grants its honors to him only who can 
 fairly win them. Mr. Choate whose appearance and 
 manner were unique, whose eloquence then was as 
 exuberant, fervid, and rich as it ever became ; who, 
 however modest for himself, was bold almost to rash 
 ness for his client ; who startled court and jury by his 
 vehemence, and confounded the commonplace and 
 
1830-1840.] FIRST FEW YEARS IN BOSTON. 61 
 
 routine lawyer by the novelty and brilliancy of his 
 tactics ; who, free from vulgar tricks, was yet full of 
 surprises, and though perpetually delighting by the 
 novelty and beauty of his argument, was yet without 
 conceit or vanity could not at once be fully under 
 stood and appreciated. He fairly fought his way to 
 eminence ; created the taste which he gratified ; and 
 demonstrated the possibility of almost a new variety 
 of eloquence. It would have been surprising, if he had 
 not to contend with prejudices which time only could 
 fully melt away. For several years it was rather the 
 fashion to laugh at his excessive vehemence of gesture, 
 and playful exaggerations, but when it was found that 
 the flowers and myrtle concealed a blade of perfect 
 temper, and as keen as any that the dryest logician 
 could forge, that the fervent gesticulator never for one 
 moment lost command of himself or his subject, nor 
 failed to hold the thought and interest of the jury, as 
 the ancient mariner held the wedding-guest, till con 
 vinced, delighted, entranced, they were eager to find a 
 verdict for his client, doubt gave place to confidence, 
 and disparagement to admiration. During these six 
 or seven years he was steadily growing in knowledge 
 and in influence. He made the more familiar ac 
 quaintance with the leaders of the Suffolk bar, then 
 unsurpassed in the whole land for ability and learning. 
 There he met (not to speak of the living) the polished 
 rhetoric of Franklin Dexter, the subtle and powerful 
 logic of Jeremiah Mason, and the tremendous weight 
 and authority of Webster. He heard the law ex 
 pounded and declared by the integrity and learning 
 and wisdom of Samuel Hubbard and Samuel Sumner 
 Wilde and Lemuel Shaw. To meet such competitors, 
 
62 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. II. 
 
 to stand unharmed before the judgments of such a 
 tribunal, compelled the most diligent and unremitting 
 study. Distinction could be attained only by merit. 
 Eminence was itself proof of high abilities and of strenu 
 ous labor. Preserving his interest in letters, he still 
 found time to deliver a number of lectures before 
 associations of young men, and with ever increasing 
 popularity. He suffered also a severe domestic calamity. 
 Two daughters were born to him in Boston. Of these 
 the younger, Caroline, was in 1840 three years old. 
 To all his children he was tenderly attached, and to 
 her, perhaps as being the youngest, especially. She 
 was a beautiful child, and he never failed, coming home 
 late from the labors of his office, to go up to the room 
 where she was sleeping, to give her an evening kiss. 
 The following account of her last hours, in the words 
 of a clergyman, who, in the absence of Mr. Choate s 
 pastor, Rev. Dr. Adams, was called to be present, will 
 show the extreme tenderness and affection of the father. 
 On the day of her death Mr. Choate had sent him the 
 following note : 
 
 "BOSTON, Saturday morning. 
 " To Rev. Hulbard Winslow : 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, I am apprehensive that I am about 
 losing my youngest child, and I take the liberty to ask you, 
 if not very inconvenient, to do us the great kindness of bap 
 tizing her. Her mother is a member of a church, and this 
 ordinance has been accidentally delayed. 
 
 " I am aware of the freedom of this request, but I hope the 
 severity and peculiarity of our trying circumstances will 
 excuse it. It seems to us that 3 o clock P.M., or a little after, 
 may be as late as we shall desire to delay, perhaps too 
 late. 
 
 " If you can consent to do us this favor, and will apprise 
 me of the decision, I will send a carriage for you. 
 " Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 " RUFUS CHOATE." 
 
1830-1840.] DEATH OF HIS YOUNGEST CHILD. 63 
 
 " Entering the chamber, says Dr. Winslow, " at the 
 appointed time, I found the family all assembled. The 
 beautiful little girl of perhaps three years lay dying. 
 Mr. Choate said, I hope you will pardon this liberty. 
 We have given our dear child to God, and we think 
 He is about to take her ; but we have neglected her 
 baptism. I said a few words of the ordinance as not 
 essential to the salvation of the child, but the answer 
 of a good conscience on the part of the parents. He 
 assented, and said he desired to do his duty in that 
 particular. All kneeled in prayer, and after the ordi 
 nance and a few remarks, I was about to retire, to 
 leave the weeping family to the sacredness of their 
 domestic sorrow, when Mr. Choate took my hand and 
 besought me to remain with them while the child lived. 
 I consented to remain till evening, when I had another 
 engagement. He stood by the fireplace, resting his 
 elbows on the marble, burying his face in his hands, 
 evidently absorbed in prayer. Mrs. Choate was bend 
 ing over the pillow, with the yearning tenderness of a 
 mother, and the older children and servants stood 
 around in silent grief; while I sat by the bedside ob 
 serving the child s symptoms, and sometimes repeating 
 a passage of Scripture or a pertinent stanza of poetry. 
 And thus a full hour passed in silence, in prayer, in tears, 
 in communion with death and eternity, Mr. Choate re 
 maining motionless as a statue during the whole time. 
 Perceiving the pulse failing and the breath becoming 
 very short and difficult, I said, Mr. Choate, I fear the 
 dear child is just leaving us. He then came to the 
 bedside, embraced her, kissed her three times, and then 
 returned and resumed his position as before. All 
 the family followed him in the parting kiss. A few 
 
64 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. II. 
 
 moments after, the angel spirit fled. I closed the 
 sightless eyes, and said, My dear Mr. Choate, your 
 sweet child is in heaven ! He burst instantly into a 
 flood of tears, and sobbed aloud. He did not change 
 his position, but remained with his face buried in his 
 hands, and the tears pouring like rain-drops upon the 
 hearth-stone. And thus he continued, until duty com 
 pelled me to leave the chamber of death. He then 
 came and thanked me, and said with deep emotion, 
 I feel greatly comforted ; my dear child has gone 
 home. It was God s will to take her, and that is 
 enough. " 
 
1841-1843.] PROFESSIONAL ADVANCEMENT. 65 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1841-1843. 
 
 Professional Advan^pmpnt Letters to Richard S. Storrs, Jr. Chosen_ 
 Senator in place of Mr. Webster Death of General Harrison 
 Eulogy in Faneni] Hall Extra Session of Congress Spf^pnh on ^ 
 the M Leod Case The Fiscal Bank Bill Collision with ML 
 Clay NbriiTnation of Mr. -Evereft as Minister to England Letter 
 to Mr. Sumner Letters to his Son The next Session j>peech_ 
 on, providing further Remprlinl .TnstiW in thn TTnitnrl Stitnr Ctmrta 
 Letters to Mr. Sumner The North Eastern Bnundnry Qnc*i 
 tion Journal. 
 
 MR. CHOATE S professional advancement in Boston was 
 no accident, nor the result of peculiarly favoring cir 
 cumstances. It was the reward of untiring diligence 
 as well as of great ability. Every day he was gaining 
 ground, enlarging and consolidating his knowledge, 
 and invigorating his faculties. A few years served to 
 give him a position second to none except the ac 
 knowledged and long-tried leaders of the bar. His 
 consummate judgment in the conduct of a cause, no 
 less than his brilliant power as an advocate, commanded 
 respect from the most able. He knew when to speak, 
 and, what is more difficult, when to be silent. In the 
 most intricate and doubtful case, when fairly engaged, 
 he did not allow himself to despair, and was often suc 
 cessful against the greatest odds. In defeat he was 
 never sullen, and in victory he bore himself with so 
 much modesty and gentleness, that few envied his suc- 
 
 5 
 
66 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. III. 
 
 cess. He especially attached to himself the younger 
 members of the profession by unvarying kindness. 
 He had great sympathy for a young lawyer. His 
 advice and aid were always ready ; voluntarily offered 
 if he thought they were needed ; and if sought, cheer 
 fully and freely bestowed. He assumed no superiority 
 in this intercourse, but by a kind suggestion or a few 
 words of encouragement, insured success by inspiring 
 confidence. 
 
 The following letter is in answer to one asking his 
 advice as to a course of reading. The gentleman to 
 whom it was written, had entered his office as a student, 
 but subsequently, on account of Mr. Choate s probable 
 absence from Boston, went to spend a year in general 
 studies at Andover. 
 
 To RICHARD S. STORKS, Jn. 
 
 " BOSTON, 2d Jan. 1841. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, I should have been very happy to Answer 
 your letter before this, but a succession of engagements, some 
 of them of a painful kind, have made it impossible. Kven 
 now I can do very little more than congratulate you on being 
 able to spend a year at such a place, and to suggest that very 
 general macte virtute] which serves only to express good 
 wishes without doing any thing to help realize them. I should 
 be embarrassed, if I were in your situation, to know exactly 
 what to do. The study of a profession is a prescribed and 
 necessary course, that of general literature, or of literature 
 preparatory to our, or to any profession, is, on the other hand, 
 so limitless, so indeterminate, so -much a matter of taste, 
 it depends so much on the intellectual and moral traits of 
 the student, what he needs and what he ought to shun, that an 
 educated young man can really judge better for himself than 
 another for him. 
 
 " As immediately preparatory to the study of the Law, 
 I should follow the usual suggestion, to review thoroughly 
 English history, Constitutional history in Hallam particu 
 larly, and American Constitutional and Civil history in Pitkin 
 
1841-1843.] LETTERS TO R. S. STORRS, JR. 67 
 
 and Story. Rutherford s Institutes, and the best course of 
 Moral Philosophy you can find, will be very valuable intro 
 ductory consolidating matter. Aristotle s Politics, and all of 
 Edmund Burke s works, and all of Cicero s works, would 
 form an admirable course of reading, a library of eloquence 
 and reason, to form the sentiments and polish the tastes, and 
 fertilize and enlarge the mind of a young man aspiring to be 
 a lawyer and statesman. Cicero and Burke I would know 
 by heart ; both superlatively great the latter the greatest, 
 living in a later age, belonging to the modern mind and 
 genius, though the former had more power over an audience, 
 both knew every thing. 
 
 " I would read every day one page at least, more if you 
 can, in some fine English writer, solely for elegant style 
 and expression. William Pinkney said to a friend of mine 
 he never read a fine sentence in any author without com 
 mitting it to memory. The result was decidedly the most 
 splendid and most powerful English spoken style I ever 
 heard. 
 
 " I am ashamed to have written so hurriedly in the midst 
 of a trial, but I preferred it to longer silence. Accept my 
 best wishes, and assure yourself I am 
 
 " Very truly yours, R. CHOATE." 
 
 Subsequently, when Mr. Storrs decided to abandon 
 the study of law for a theological course, Mr. Choate 
 wrote him : 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, I have just received your letter and 
 hasten to say that I have been much interested by it. The 
 entire result has been much as I anticipated ; and, all con 
 siderations of duty apart, I am inclined to think as a mere 
 matter of rational happiness, happiness from books, culture, 
 the social affections, the estimation of others, and a sense of 
 general usefulness and of consideration, you have chosen 
 wisely. Duty, however, I think was clear, and when it is 
 clear it is peremptory. 
 
 " I should not accept a fee, of course, under such circum 
 stances, but shall expect you to send me all the sermons you 
 print, and that they be good ones. 
 k I am very truly 
 
 " Your friend and serv t, 
 
 " RUFUS CHOATE. 
 " SENATE CHAMBER, 
 " 30th March." 
 
68 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. III. 
 
 Iii 1841, Mr. Webster having accepted the office of 
 Secretary of State under General Harrison, it became 
 necessary for the Legislature of Massachusetts to elect 
 another Senator to till his place. The position was 
 both delicate and difficult. The public wishes soon 
 pointed to Mr. Choate, and his friends proceeded to 
 consult him about the matter. The offer was at first 
 met by a decided refusal, nor was it until after re 
 peated interviews, and the greatest urgency, that he 
 finally permitted his name to be brought before the 
 Legislature, and then only with the express under 
 standing that he should be allowed to resign the place 
 within two or three years. The causes of this re 
 luctance to accept so high and honorable and attractive 
 an office were probably many and complicated. His 
 natural modesty, a distaste for the annoyances of public 
 life, a loathing of political schemers, plans of study 
 and achievement with which public duties would inter 
 fere, the necessity of an income, the love of personal 
 independence, all these undoubtedly influenced his 
 judgment. 
 
 Before taking his seat, the new Senator was called 
 upon to deliver a eulogium upon the lamented Presi 
 dent, in Faneuil Hall. It was a sincere and eloquent 
 tribute to one whom the nation loved as a man even 
 more than it respected as a President. General Har 
 rison was inaugurated on the 4th of March, 1841. He 
 died on the 4th of April, before having had time to 
 establish distinctly the policy of the administration, 
 but having summoned an extra session of Congress to 
 meet on the 81st of May. The Vice-President, Mr. 
 Tyler, immediately assumed the duties of the Presi 
 dency, not without solicitude on the part of the Whigs, 
 
1841-1813.] FIRST SPEECH IN THE SENATE. 69 
 
 with whom he had not always been identified, but yet 
 with prevailing hopes. "The President," says Mr. 
 Choate in a letter shortly after reaching Washington, 
 " is in high spirits, making a good impression. He 
 will stand by Mr. Webster, and the talk of an un 
 friendly conservative action is true, but not terrifying." 
 Mr. Choate s first speech in the Senate was upon a 
 subject on which the public mind in some parts of the 
 country had been deeply agitated, and which involved 
 difficult questions of international law. It was the 
 case of Alexander M Leod, charged with burning the 
 Steamer Caroline. This forward and boastful person, 
 who seems not to have been engaged at all in the 
 exploit in which he had professed to be a prominent 
 actor, having ventured into the State of New York, 
 was arrested on an indictment found against him 
 shortly after the destruction of the boat, and held for 
 trial by the State Courts. The British Government 
 assumed the act, by whomsoever done, as its own, and 
 through its minister, Mr. Fox, demanded the release 
 of the prisoner. This demand could not be complied 
 with, since the prisoner was arraigned before the State 
 Courts ; but the Attorney-General of the United States, 
 Mr. Crittenden, under the direction of Mr. Webster, 
 then Secretary of State, was sent to observe the trial 
 and render such assistance as should be proper and 
 necessary. The subject was brought before Congress 
 by the message of the President, when the policy of the 
 Government, and especially the instructions and letter 
 of Mr. Webster, were severely censured by Mr. Benton, 
 Mr. Buchanan, and Mr. Calhoun, and defended by Mr. 
 Rives, Mr. Choate, Mr. Huntington, and Mr. Preston. 
 In the House, the administration was sustained with 
 
TO MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. III. 
 
 great ability by John Quincy Adams and Mr. Cashing. 
 The speech of Mr. Choate called forth warm commen 
 dations from all parties. " It was the first appearance 
 of the Senator in debate here," said Mr. Buchanan, in 
 his reply, " and, judging of others by myself, I must 
 say, that those who have listened to him once will be 
 anxious to hear him again." 
 
 It was during this extra session, when Mr. Choate 
 was quite new to the Senate, that a slight collision 
 took place between himself and Mr. Clay, the nature 
 and importance of which were, perhaps intentionally, 
 exaggerated by the party newspapers. Mr. Clay was 
 the leader of the Whigs in the Senate, flushed with 
 success, urgent of favorite measures, somewhat dis 
 trustful of the new President, Mr. Tyler, and excited 
 by a report of the formation of a new party in opposition 
 to his interests. The finances of the country had, for 
 several years, been much deranged, and the great 
 immediate objects of the Whigs, on coming into power, 
 were the repeal of the Independent Treasury Acts, the 
 re-establishing, in some form, of a National Bank, and 
 an adequate provision for the public revenue. The 
 first of these objects was accomplished without difficulty 
 or delay. The bill for the purpose passed the Senate 
 and the House by large majorities, and was at once 
 approved by the President. The second object, the 
 incorporation of a bank, was a more delicate and 
 difficult matter. Mr. Tyler was known to be opposed 
 to the old United States Bank, though it was thought 
 that a charter might be framed to which he would have 
 no objection. Accordingly Mr. Clay, early in the ses 
 sion, moved a call upon the Secretary of the Treasury, 
 Mr. Ewing, for the plan of a bank. It was given, and 
 
1841-1843.] SPEECH ON BANK BILL. 71 
 
 coming from such a source, was presumed to be in ac 
 cordance with the ideas of the President. Upon this 
 report a bill was modelled. To this bill Mr. Rives of 
 Virginia offered an amendment, which he supported 
 by an able argument, making the assent of the States 
 necessary for the establishment of branches within their 
 limits. Mr. Clay earnestly opposed the proposition, 
 and Mr. Preston with equal earnestness sustained it. 
 On the next day Mr. Choate made a short speech 
 in favor of Mr. Rives s amendment, not because he 
 doubted the constitutionality of the bill as reported 
 by the committee, but mainly from considerations of 
 policy. 
 
 " I do not vote for the bill," he said, " from any 
 doubt of the constitutional power of Congress to es 
 tablish branches all over the States, possessing the dis 
 counting function, directly and adversely against their 
 united assent. I differ in this particular wholly from 
 the Senator who moves the amendment. I have no 
 more doubt of your power to make such a bank and 
 such branches anywhere, than of your power to build 
 a post-office or a custom-house anywhere. This ques 
 tion for me is settled, and settled rightly. I have the 
 honor and happiness to concur on it with all, or almost 
 all, our greatest names ; with our national judicial 
 tribunal, and with both the two great original political 
 parties ; with Washington, Hamilton, Marshall, Story, 
 Madison, Monroe, Crawford, and with the entire Re 
 publican administration and organization of 1816 and 
 1817. 
 
 " Bat it does not follow, because we possess this or 
 any other power, that it is wise or needful, in any given 
 case, to attempt to exert it. We may find ourselves 
 
72 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. III. 
 
 so situated that we cannot do it if we would, for want 
 of the concurrence of other judgments ; and therefore 
 a struggle might be as unavailing as it would be mis 
 chievous and unseemly. We may find ourselves so 
 situated that we ought not to do it if we could. All 
 things which are lawful are not convenient, are not 
 practicable, are not wise, are not safe, are not kind. 
 A sound and healing discretion, therefore, the moral 
 coercion of irresistible circumstances, may fitly temper 
 and even wholly restrain the exercise of the clearest 
 power ever belonging to human government." 
 
 He then proceeded to state his reasons for voting 
 for the amendment. The first was, that the country 
 greatly needed the bank, and in his opinion that result 
 would be much sooner and more surely reached by 
 admitting the bill as amended. " By uniting here on 
 this amendment," he said, " you put an effective bank 
 in operation, to some useful and substantial extent, by 
 the first of January. Turn now to the other alter 
 native. Sir, if you adhere to the bill reported by the 
 Committee, I fully believe you pass no bank charter 
 this session. I doubt whether you carry it through 
 Congress. If you can, I do not believe you can make 
 it a law. I have no doubt you will fail to do so. I do 
 not enter on the reasons of my belief. The rules of 
 orderly proceeding here, decorum, pride, regret, would 
 all prevent my doing it. I have no personal or private 
 grounds for the conviction which holds me fast ; but I 
 judge on notorious, and to my mind, decisive indi 
 cations ; and I know that it is my duty to act on my 
 belief, whether well or ill founded, and however con- 
 jecturally derived." 
 
 Another reason assigned for his vote was, that it 
 would lead to united counsels and actions. 
 
1841-1843.] SPEECH ON BANK BILL. 73 
 
 " In a larger view of the matter," he went on to say, 
 " is it not in a high degree desirable to make such a 
 charter, that while it secures to the people all that such 
 kind of instrumentality as a bank can secure, we may 
 still, in the mode and details of the thing, respect the 
 scruples and spare the feelings of those who, just as 
 meritoriously, usefully, and conspicuously as your 
 selves, are members of our political association, but 
 who differ with you on the question of constitutional 
 power ? If I can improve the local currency, diffuse a 
 sound and uniform national one, facilitate, cheapen, 
 and systematize the exchanges, secure the safe-keeping 
 and transmission of the public money, promote com 
 merce, and deepen and multiply the springs of a 
 healthful credit by a bank, and can at the same time 
 so do it as to retain the cordial constant co-operation, 
 and prolong the public usefulness of friends who hold 
 a different theory of the Constitution, is it not just so 
 much clear gain ? I was struck, in listening to the 
 senator from Virginia yesterday, with the thought, how 
 idle, how senseless it is to spend time in deploring or 
 being peevish about the inveterate constitutional opin 
 ions of the community he so ably represents. There 
 the opinions are. What will you do with them ? You 
 cannot change them. You cannot stride over or dis 
 regard them. There they are ; what will you do with 
 them ? Compromise the matter. Adjust it, if you 
 can, in such sort that they shall neither yield their 
 opinions, nor you yield yours. Give to the people all 
 the practical good which a bank can give, and let the 
 constitutional question, whether Congress can make a 
 bank by its own power or not, stand over for argument 
 on the last day of the Greek Kalends, when the dis- 
 
74 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. III. 
 
 putants may have the world all to themselves to wrangle 
 it out in ! Yes, Sir, compromise it. Our whole his 
 tory is but a history of compromises. You have com 
 promised in larger things ; do it in less, do it in this. 
 You have done it for the sake of the Union ; do it for 
 the sake of the party which is doing it for the sake of 
 the Union. You never made one which was received 
 with wider and sincerer joy than this would he. Do it 
 then. Do as your fathers did when they came together, 
 delegates from the slave States, and delegates from the 
 free, representatives of planters, of mechanics, of manu 
 facturers, and the owners of ships, the cool and slow 
 New England men, and the mercurial children of the 
 sun, and sat down side by side in the presence of 
 Washington, to frame this more perfect Union. Ad 
 minister the Constitution in the temper that created it. 
 Do as you have yourselves done in more than one great 
 crisis of your affairs, when questions of power and of 
 administration have shaken these halls and this whole 
 country, and an enlarged and commanding spirit, not 
 yet passed away from our counsels, assisted you to rule 
 the uproar, and to pour seasonable oil on the rising sea. 
 Happy, thrice happy, for us all, if the senator from 
 Kentucky would allow himself to-day to win another 
 victory of conciliation." 
 
 " Let me say, Sir," he went on after a brief inter 
 vening statement on the nature of the amendment, 
 " that to administer the contested powers of the Con 
 stitution is, for those of you who believe that they exist, 
 at all times a trust of difficulty and delicacy. I do 
 not know that I should not venture to suggest this 
 general direction for the performance of that grave duty. 
 
1841-1843.] SPEECH ON BANK BILL. 75 
 
 Steadily and strongly assent their existence ; do not 
 surrender them ; retain them with a provident forecast ; 
 for the time may come when you will need to enforce 
 them by the whole moral and physical strength of the 
 Union ; but do not exert them at all so long as you can, 
 by other less offensive expedients of wisdom, effectually 
 secure to the people all the practical benefits which 
 you believe they were inserted into the Constitution to 
 secure. Thus will the Union last longest, and do most 
 good. To exercise a contested power without neces 
 sity, on a notion of keeping up the tone of government, 
 is not much better than tyranny, and very improvident 
 and impolitic tyranny, too. It is turning i extreme 
 medicine into daily bread. It forgets that the final 
 end of government is not to exert restraint, but to do 
 good. 
 
 " Within this general view of the true mode of ad 
 ministering contested powers, I think the measure we 
 propose is as wise as it is conciliatory ; wise because it 
 is conciliatory ; wise because it reconciles a strong 
 theory of the Constitution with a discreet and kind 
 administration of it. I desire to give the country a 
 bank. Well, here is a mode in which I can do it. 
 Shall I refuse to do it in that mode because I cannot at 
 the same time and by the same operation gain a victory 
 over the settled constitutional opinions, and show my 
 contempt for the ancient and unappeasable jealousy 
 and prejudices of not far from half of the American 
 people ? Shall I refuse to do it in that mode because 
 I cannot at the same time and by the same operation 
 win a triumph of constitutional law over political 
 associates who agree with me on nine in ten of all the 
 questions which divide the parties of the country ; 
 
76 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. III. 
 
 whose energies and eloquence, under many an October 
 and many an August sun, have contributed so much 
 to the transcendent reformation which has brought you 
 into power ? 
 
 " There is one consideration more which has had 
 some influence in determining my vote. I confess that 
 I think that a bank established in the manner contem 
 plated by this amendment stands, in the actual cir 
 cumstances of our time, a chance to lead a quieter and 
 more secure life, so to speak, than a bank established 
 by the bill. I think it worth our while to try to make, 
 what never yet was seen, a popular National Bank. 
 Judging from the past and the present, from the last 
 years of the last bank, and the manner in which its 
 existence was terminated ; from the tone of debate and 
 of the press, and the general indications of public 
 opinion, I acknowledge an apprehension that such an 
 institution, created by a direct exertion of your 
 power, throwing off its branches without regard to the 
 wishes or wants of the States, as judged of by them 
 selves, and without any attempt to engage their aux 
 iliary co-operation, diminishing the business and 
 reducing the profits of the local banks, and exempted 
 from their burdens, that such an institution may not 
 find so quiet and safe a field of operation as is desir 
 able for usefulness and profit. I do not wish to see it 
 standing like a fortified post on a foreign border, 
 never wholly at peace, always assailed, always belli 
 gerent; not falling perhaps, but never safe, the nurse 
 and the prize of unappeasable hostility. No, Sir. Even 
 such an institution, under conceivable circumstances, 
 it might be our duty to establish and maintain in the 
 face of all opposition and to the last gasp. But so 
 
1841-1843.] COLLISION WITH MR. CLAY. 77 
 
 much evil attends such a state of things, so much in 
 security, so much excitement ; it would be exposed to 
 the pelting of such a pitiless storm of the press and 
 public speech ; so many demagogues would get good 
 livings by railing at it ; so many honest men would 
 really regard it as unconstitutional, and as dangerous 
 to business and liberty, that it is worth an exertion 
 to avoid it. ... Sir, I desire to see the Bank of the 
 United States become a cherished domestic institution, 
 reposing in the bosom of our law and of our attachments. 
 Established by the concurrent action or on the applica 
 tion of the States, such might be its character. There 
 will be a struggle on the question of admitting the dis 
 count power into the States ; much good sense and 
 much nonsense will be spoken and written ; but such 
 a struggle will be harmless and brief, and when that 
 is over, all is over. The States which exclude it will 
 hardly exasperate themselves farther about it. Those 
 which admit it will soothe themselves with the consid 
 eration that the act is their own, and that the existence 
 of this power of the branch is a perpetual recognition of 
 their sovereignty. Thus might it sooner cease to wear 
 the alien, aggressive, and privileged aspect which has 
 rendered it offensive, and become sooner blended with 
 the mass of domestic interests, cherished by the same 
 regards, protected by the same and by a higher law." : 
 It was during this speech that Mr. Clay, who had 
 left his ow T n seat, and, through the courtesy of a younger 
 member, had taken another nearer Mr. Choate, rose 
 and interrupted the speaker with an inquiry as to the 
 grounds of his knowledge that the Bank Bill would not 
 pass without the amendment. The intimacy of Mr. 
 
 1 Appendix to Congressional Globe, ITuly, 1841, pp. 355, 356. 
 
78 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. III. 
 
 Choate with Mr. Webster, then Secretary of State, 
 gave a weight to his words, and the implication in Mr. 
 Clay s question evidently was, that he had derived his 
 knowledge, directly or indirectly, from the President 
 himself. In a subsequent part of the discussion, 
 Mr. Archer, in opposing the amendment of Mr. Rives, 
 took occasion to express his regret that the Senator 
 from Kentucky had endeavored to draw from Mr. 
 Choate the opinions of the Executive. Mr. Clay rose 
 to explain, and this led to a sharp interlocutory debate 
 between himself and Mr. Choate, which ended by Mr. 
 Clay s interrupting Mr. Choate in the midst of an ex 
 planation, and saying, 4k That, Sir, is not the thing. 
 Did you not say that you could not, without breach of 
 privilege and violation of parliamentary rule, disclose 
 your authority ? " " Sir," replied Mr. Choate, " I in 
 sist on my right to explain what I did say in my own 
 words." Mr. Clay persisted in requesting a direct an 
 swer, and Mr. Choate replied again, " that he would 
 have to take the answer as he chose to give it to him." 
 The parties were here called to order, and the Presi 
 dent requested both gentlemen to take their seats. 
 That Mr. Clay in this, bringing all the weight of his 
 experience, age, character, and long public life to bear 
 upon a member of his own party, new to the Senate, 
 and not yet practically familiar with its usages, 
 should have seemed overbearing and arrogant, was 
 unavoidable, and it might have justified a sharper re 
 tort than was given. I have been informed by those 
 who were present that the impression in the senate 
 chamber was much less than it was represented by the 
 newspapers, especially by those opposed to Mr. Clay 
 and the Whig party. But whatever may have been 
 
1841-1843.] DEBATE ON EVERETT. 79 
 
 the feeling of the moment, at the meeting of the Senate 
 on the next day, Mr. Clay with great magnanimity 
 and earnestness denied the intention which had been 
 imputed to him, and disclaimed entirely the design of 
 placing the Senator from Massachusetts in a question 
 able position. Those who were present were struck 
 with the nobleness of the apology, and Mr. Choate, of 
 all men the most gentle and placable, went round to 
 Mr. Clay who sat on the opposite side of the chamber, 
 and made open demonstration of reconciliation. 
 
 Another matter which interested Mr. Choate very 
 much during this session was the confirmation of Mr. 
 Everett as Minister to England. The nomination, 
 which was regarded by all right-minded people as one 
 of the most appropriate that could be made, was fiercely 
 assailed on account of an opinion which Mr. Everett 
 had once given in favor of the right and duty of Con 
 gress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. 
 He was charged with being an " abolitionist," a word 
 of indefinite but fearful import. Mr. Choate felt that 
 the rejection of a minister on grounds so intangible, so 
 untenable, and so inadequate, would be for the disgrace 
 of the country, and he exerted himself to the utmost 
 to prevent such a result. Those who heard his princi 
 pal speech in favor of the nomination considered it one 
 of the most brilliant and eloquent ever delivered within 
 the walls of the senate chamber. 1 
 
 A member of the Senate who was present during the 
 debate, in a letter written to Mr. Choate many years 
 afterwards, thus recalls the scene : " My dear Sir, Mr. 
 Buchanan s nomination brings up some reminiscences 
 
 1 There are no remains of this speech, which was delivered in 
 executive session, with closed doors. 
 
80 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. III. 
 
 of you and of him, which are by no means pleasant 
 to me, now that there is a possibility he may be Presi 
 dent. I refer, of course, to the lead he took on one 
 side and you on the other, in the debate which pre 
 ceded Mr. Everett s confirmation as Minister to Lon 
 don. I well remember the cogency and splendor of 
 your argument, and the emotion it raised in Preston, 
 who, completely overpowered by the conviction to which 
 you brought him, exclaimed, boiling with excitement, 
 
 I shall have to vote " No," but by HE SHALL NOT 
 
 BE REJECTED. l With all my admiration for your effort, 
 the whole scene was deeply painful and humiliating 
 to me, more so probably than to any man in the cham 
 ber. I was indignant beyond the power of language 
 at the requirement of the South, that the nomination 
 should be voted down, and the nominee branded as un 
 fit to represent his country at the British Court, siinply 
 and solely because he had replied to the question put 
 to him, that Congress might and ought to abolish slav 
 ery in the District of Columbia. B. s hostility was 
 vindictive and savage. He distinctly and emphatically 
 denounced Mr. E. as an abolitionist, for this and this 
 only, disclaiming all opposition to him as a Whig, or 
 as otherwise objectionable." 
 
 Mr. Clay made a powerful speech in favor of the 
 nomination, and said that if it was rejected, there 
 would never be another President of the United States. 
 A familiar letter to Mr. Sumner, then prominent among 
 the younger members of the Whig party, alludes to 
 this among other things. Though without date (for 
 
 1 I have understood that Colonel Preston, when afterwards on a 
 visit to Boston, told a friend that he never regretted any vote he hud 
 given as he did that against Mr. Everett. 
 
1841-1843.] LETTER TO CHARLES SUMNER. 81 
 
 this was one of the points of a letter about which Mr. 
 Choate was habitually careless), it must have been 
 written in September, 1841, Congress adjourning on 
 the 13th of that month, and the Senate not confirming 
 the nomination till very near the close of the session. 
 
 To CHARLES SUMNER, ESQ. 
 
 " WASHINGTON. 
 
 " MY DEAR SUMNER, I have just received the memoran 
 dum, and will turn it nocturna et diurna manu, to quote 
 obscure and unusual Latin words. I hope it will do your 
 friend s business, and the Pope s, and England s, and the lone 
 Imperial mother s as you say. 
 
 " Mr. Webster is so much excited (and confidentially, 
 gratified) with the squaboshment of the Whigs l that he will 
 talk of nothing else. He thinks he can seal better with Sir 
 Robert Peel et id genus. Can he ? Your acquaintance was 
 made with so whiggish a set, that I suppose you mourn as for 
 the flight of liberty. But mark you, how much more peace 
 ably, purely, intellectually, did this roaring democracy of ours 
 change its whole government and whole policy, last fall, than 
 England has done it now. 
 
 " Yes, Everett s is a good appointment. Ask me when I 
 get home, if we did not come near losing him in the Senate 
 from Abolitionism ; entre nous, if we do, the Union goes 
 to pieces like a potter s vessel. But as Ercles vein is not 
 lightly nor often to be indulged in, (nee Deus intersit nisi, 
 &c.), I give love to Hillard, salute you, and am very truly 
 " Yours, RUFUS CHOATE." 
 
 " P. S. We shall have a veto after all, ut timeo" 
 
 The veto, the second veto, was sent in September 9, 
 and Congress adjourned the 13th. 
 
 A few letters to his son, then about seven years old, 
 arid at school in Essex, will show the affectionate, play 
 ful, yet earnest character of his intercourse with his 
 children. 
 
 1 Lord Melbourne s ministry. 
 6 
 
MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. III. 
 
 To RUFUS CHOATE, JR. 
 
 "WASHINGTON, 30 May, 1841. 
 
 "Mr DEAR SON, It is just a week to-day since I kissed 
 you a good-by, and now I am five hundred miles, or nearly 
 so, from you. 1 feel quite sad to think of it ; and if I did not 
 suppose you were a good boy, and at the head, and going on 
 fast with the Latin, I should feel still worse. But I hope 
 you love books better and better every day. You will learn 
 one of these days who it is that says, * Come, my best friends, 
 my books. I suppose you have no roses yet at Essex, or 
 green peas, or mown grass, though you used to say that 
 you saw every thing there nearly. Here, the whole city. is in 
 blossom. They are making hay ; and rose-bushes bend under 
 their loads of red and white roses. Can you tell now, by 
 your geography, why the season is so much earlier here than 
 at Essex, especially considering what a handsome place 
 Essex is, and what a good school you go to, and how much 
 
 pains cousin M takes with you ? You must answer this 
 
 question in your letter to me, and think all about it yourself. 
 
 " I hope you will write to your mother and the girls often. 
 They all love you dearly, and want to hear from you every 
 day. Besides, it does one good to sit down and write home. 
 It fills his heart full of affection and of pleasant recollections. 
 . . . Write me soon. 
 
 " Your affectionate father, 
 
 " RUFUS CHOATE." 
 
 To RUFUS CHOATE, JR. 
 
 "My DEAR RUFUS, Your mother and dear sisters have 
 you so far away, that I want to put my own arm around your 
 neck, and having whispered a little in your ear, give you a 
 kiss. I hope, first, that you are good ; and next that you are 
 well and studious, and among the best scholars. If that is so, 
 I am willing you should play every day, after, or out of, 
 school, till the blood is ready to burst from your cheeks. 
 There is a place or two, according to my recollections of your 
 time of life, in the lane, where real, good, solid satisfaction, in 
 the way of play, may be had. But I do earnestly hope to 
 hear a great account of your books and* progress when I get 
 
1841-1843.J LETTERS TO HIS CHILDREN. 83 
 
 home. Love cousin M , and all your school and play 
 mates, and love the studies which will make you wise, useful, 
 and happy, when there shall be no blood at all to be seen in 
 your cheeks or lips. 
 
 " Your explanation of the greater warmth of weather here 
 than at P^ssex is all right. Give me the sun of Essex, how 
 ever, I say, for all this. One half-hour, tell grandmother, 
 under those cherished button-woods, is worth a month under 
 these insufferable fervors. ... I hope I shall get home in a 
 month. Be busy, affectionate, obedient, my dear, only boy. 
 
 " Your father, RUFUS CHOATE." 
 
 Every letter to liis children at this period is replete 
 with affection, and kind suggestions and hopes. " Do 
 not play with bad boys. Love good ones. Love your 
 teacher, and see if you cannot go to the head of your 
 own age of boys. ... I expect to find all of you 
 grown. If I find the beautiful feelings and bright 
 minds grown too, I shall leap for joy. . . . Give my 
 love to all. Tell only truth ; and be just, kind, and 
 courageous. Good-by, my darling boy." 
 
 And again to two of his children : " I hope you are 
 well, obedient, affectionate, and studious. You must 
 learn to take care of yourselves alone, your clothes, 
 books, the place you sleep in, and of all your ways. 
 Be pleasant, brave, and fond of books. I want to hear 
 that you are both good scholars, but chiefly that you 
 are true, honest, and kind. . . . Give best love to all 
 at Essex. Go, especially, and give my love to grand 
 mother, who was the best of mothers to your father, 
 and help her all you can." 
 
 The next session of Congress opened with consider 
 able apprehension and distrust in all minds. The 
 Whigs had broken with the President, and, though 
 powerful, were disheartened, and unable to accomplish 
 
84 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CIIOATE. [CHAP. III. 
 
 their cherished purposes. At the same time, questions 
 of great public importance were pressing upon the at 
 tention of the government. During the session Mr. 
 Choate spoke on the Bankrupt Law, in favor of Mr. 
 Clay s Resolution for Retrenchment and Reform, on 
 the Naval Appropriation Bill, on the Tariff, and on the 
 Bill to provide further Remedial Justice in the Courts 
 of the United States. This last-named hill was intro 
 duced by Mr. Berrien, then Chairman of the Judiciary 
 Committee, in order to meet such cases as that of 
 McLeod s, by extending the jurisdiction of the United 
 States Courts. It was regarded as of very great con 
 sequence, so "nearly had the nation been plunged into 
 war by proceedings for which the general government 
 could have no responsibility. The bill was supported 
 by the Whigs generally, and opposed by the Democrats, 
 under the lead of Mr. Buchanan. Mr. Choate sup 
 ported it on the two grounds of constitutionality and 
 of expediency, and closed a generous and statesman 
 like yet severe argument in these words : " The hon 
 orable senator is against your jurisdiction in all forms 
 and in all stages. Sir, I cannot concur with him. I 
 would assert the jurisdiction, on the contrary, on the 
 same grand, general reason for which it was given to 
 you. It was given as a means of enabling you to pre 
 serve honorable peace, or to secure the next best thing, 
 a just war, a war into which we may carry the sym 
 pathies, and the praise, and the assistance of the world. 
 Accept and exert it for these great ends. Do not be 
 deterred from doing so, and from doing so now, by 
 what the honorable senator so many times repeated to 
 you, that negotiations are pending with England ; that 
 she has insulted and menaced you, and withheld rep- 
 
1841-1843.] SPEECH ON THE BANK BILL. 85 
 
 aration, and withheld apology ; and that, therefore, the 
 passage of the bill, at this moment, would be an un 
 manly and unseasonable courtesy or concession to her. 
 How much England knows or cares about the passage 
 of this bill ; what new reason it may afford to the 
 4 Foreign Quarterly Review for predicting the approach 
 of his monarchical millennium in America, we need 
 not, I believe no one here need, know or care. But 
 does it mark unmanly fear of England, an unmanly 
 haste to propitiate her good-will, because I would com 
 mit the quiet and the glory of my country to you ? 
 Where should the peace of the nation repose but be 
 neath the folds of the nation s flag ? Do not fear either, 
 that you are about to undervalue the learning, abilities, 
 and integrity of the State tribunals. Sir, my whole 
 life has been a constant experience of their learning, 
 abilities, and integrity ; but I do not conceive that I 
 distrust or disparage them, when I have the honor to 
 agree with the Constitution itself, that yours are the 
 hands to hold the mighty issues of peace and war. 
 
 " Mr. President, how strikingly all tilings, and every 
 passing hour, illustrate the wisdom of those great men 
 who looked to the Union, the Union under a general 
 government, for the preservation of peace, at home 
 and abroad, between us and the world, among the States 
 and in each State. Turn your eyes eastward and 
 northward, and see how this vast but restrained and 
 parental central power holds at rest a thousand spirits, 
 a thousand elements of strife ! There is Maine. How 
 long would it be, if she were independent, before her 
 hardy and gallant children would pour themselves over 
 the disputed territory like the flakes of her own snow 
 storms ? How long, if New York were so, before 
 
86 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CIIOATE. [ CHAP. III. 
 
 that tumultuous frontier would blaze with ten thou 
 sand bale-fires ? Our own beautiful and beloved 
 Rhode Island herself, with which the Senator rebukes 
 you for interfering, is it not happy even for her that 
 her star, instead of shining alone and apart in the sky, 
 blends its light with so many kindred rays, whose in 
 fluence may save it from shooting madly from its 
 sphere ? 
 
 " The aspect which our United America turns upon 
 foreign nations, the aspect which the Constitution 
 designs she shall turn on them, the guardian of our 
 honor, the guardian of our peace, is, after all, her 
 grandest and her fairest aspect. We have a right to 
 be proud when we look on that. Happy and free em 
 press mother of States themselves free, unagitated by 
 the passions, unmoved by the dissensions of any one 
 of them, she watches the rights and fame of all, and 
 reposing, secure and serene, among the mountain sum 
 mits of her freedom she holds in one hand the fair 
 olive-branch of peace, and in the other the thunderbolt 
 and meteor flag of reluctant and rightful war. There 
 may she sit for ever ; the stars of union upon her brow, 
 the rock of independence beneath her feet ! Mr. 
 President, it is because this bill seems to me well cal 
 culated to accomplish one of the chief original ends of 
 the Constitution that it has my hearty support." 
 
 A few extracts from private letters will indicate 
 some of the other topics which interested him during 
 the session. January 24th he wrote to Mr. Sumner : 
 " Lord Morpeth is come and pleases universally. He 
 attends our atrocious spectacles in the House with pro 
 fessional relish. " And a little later : 
 
1841-1843.] LETTERS TO CHARLES SUMNER. 87 
 
 " I have received and transmitted your papers for Lieber ; 
 and read the D. A. 1 with edification and assent. We are wrong. 
 Lieber sent me a strong paper on the same subject. He is 
 the most fertile, indomitable, unsleeping, combative, and pro 
 pagandizing person of his race. I have bought Longfellow, 
 and am glad to hear of his run. Politics are unpromising, 
 but better than last session. The juste milieu will vindicate 
 itself. With much love to G. S. H. 
 
 " Yours faithfully, 
 
 " R. CHOATE." 
 
 On the 19th of February he writes again : 
 
 "Mr DEAR SUMNER, I hoped to be able before now to 
 tell you what can be done for that elegant and tuneful Profes 
 sor. No certain thing do I get yet, but I trust soon to have. 
 It is the age of patronage of genius you see. Regnat Apollo, 
 as one may say. . . . That was a most rich speech of Hillard s, 
 as is all his speaking, whether to listening crowds, or to ap 
 preciating circles of you and me. 2 . . . How cheerful, genial, 
 and fragrant, as it wer$, are our politics ! What serried files 
 of armed men, shoulder to shoulder, keeping time to the 
 music of duty and glory, animated by a single soul, are the 
 Whigs ! But this delicious winter bears us swiftly through it 
 all, and the sun of to-day lights up the Potomac and burns 
 with the flush and glory of June. Dexter says this city re 
 minds one of Rome. I suppose he meant in its spaces, soli 
 tudes, quiet, vices, etc., though the surrounding country is 
 undoubtedly beautiful. Love to Hillard. Lieber writes in 
 Latin. I mean to answer him in any tongue whatever he 
 chooses to speak, and for that purpose must break off and go 
 at him. Truly yours, 
 
 R. CHOATE." 
 
 1 The subject of searching vessels on the high seas was then widely 
 discussed, and this refers to some articles in the " Boston Daily Ad 
 vertiser," on the right and necessity, in certain cases, of verifying a 
 suspected flag. 
 
 2 A speech of Mr. Hillard s at a dinner given to Mr. Dickens. 
 
88 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. III. 
 
 To CHARLES SUMNER, ESQ. 
 
 " WASHINGTON, June 5, 1842. 
 
 "Mr DEAR SIR, I mourn that I cannot get you yet a 
 copy of the Opinions, otherwise called Old Fields. 1 I am in 
 collusion with Tims, however ; if man can do it, Tims is he. 
 I have never got one for myself, or I would send that. I 
 send you my speech, so that if you do not get Ann Page, you 
 however have the great lubberly boy. . . . Lord Ashburton 
 is a most interesting man, quick, cheerful, graceful-minded, 
 keen, and prudent. The three young men [his suite] are 
 also clever; young rather ; one a whig, all lovers of Lord 
 Morpeth. Maine comes with such exacting purposes, that 
 between us, I doubt. . . . Yours truly, 
 
 " R. CHOATE." 
 
 Later in the summer he writes again in the vein of 
 humor and playfulness which so generally characterized 
 his familiar intercourse : 
 
 " WASHINGTON, 10 P.M. 
 
 " DEAR SUMNER AND HILLARD, I have addressed my 
 self with tears of entreaty to the Secretary, and if no hidden 
 snag, or planter, lies under the muddy flood, we shall scull the 
 Dr. into port. There, as Dr. Watts says, he may 
 
 Sit and sing himself away/ 
 
 or exclaim 
 
 Spes et fortuna, valetc inveni mine portum, 
 Lusistis me satis ludite nunc alios 
 
 which is from the Greek, you know, in DalzelFs Gra?c. Ma- 
 jora, vol. 2d, and closes some editions of Gil Bias ! 
 
 " The voting on the Ashburton Treaty at 9 at night seats 
 full, lights lighted, hall as still as death was not with 
 out grandness. But why speak of this to the poco-curantes 
 of that denationalized Boston and Massachusetts ? 
 
 " Yours truly, R. CIIOATE." 
 
 1 Opinions of the Attorney-General, with reference to which Mr. 
 Sumner had quoted the verses of Chaucer, 
 
 " Out of the old fields cometh all this new corn, &c. 
 
1841-1843.] NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY QUESTION. 
 
 89 
 
 Of all the questions of foreign policy none were more 
 pressing, on the accession of the Whigs to the govern 
 ment, than the North-Eastern boundary. Collisions 
 had already taken place on the border. British regi 
 ments had been sent into Canada ; volunteers were 
 enrolled in Maine. The question seemed hopelessly 
 complicated, and both parties were apparently immov 
 able in their opinions. On assuming the Department 
 of State, Mr. Webster at once informed the British 
 government of our willingness to renew negotiations, 
 and shortly after the accession of Sir Robert Peel and 
 Lord Aberdeen to power, Lord Ashburton was sent as 
 a special envoy to the United States, with the hope of 
 settling the dangerous dispute. On both sides were 
 high purposes, a willing mind, and a determination, 
 if possible, to settle the difficulty to the advantage of 
 both parties. This purpose was finally accomplished ; 
 the treaty was made and signed by the respective 
 Plenipotentiaries on the 9th August, 1842. It was 
 submitted to the Senate on the llth of August, and 
 finally ratified on the 20th of the same month by a 
 vote of 39 to 9. It determined the North-Eastern 
 boundary ; settled the mode of proceeding for the sup 
 pression of the African Slave-Trade ; and agreed to the 
 extradition of criminals fugitive from justice, in certain 
 well-defined cases. At the same time the irritating 
 questions connected with the destruction of The Caro 
 line, the mutiny and final liberation of the slaves on 
 board The Creole, and the right of impressment, were 
 put at rest by correspondence and mutual understand 
 ing. Harmony was thus restored between two great 
 nations ; the possibility of border forces along the 
 Canadian boundary greatly diminished ; and the rights 
 
90 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. III. 
 
 of the flag upon the high-seas rendered more exact and 
 definite. The question of the boundary of Oregon was 
 left undetermined, because the arrangement of that 
 question seemed not to be practicable. That a treaty 
 of so much consequence, affecting questions that had so 
 long interested and irritated the nations, should meet 
 the approbation of every senator, was not to be ex 
 pected. It was assailed at great length, and with what 
 might be thought intemperate violence, by Mr. Benton, 
 when discussed in secret session, and subsequently 
 during the next session of Congress, when the bill for 
 the occupation of Oregon was under debate. He found 
 fault with what it did and with what it omitted to do, 
 with the spirit and patriotism of its American negoti 
 ator, Mr. Webster, and with his resoluteness and intel 
 ligence. The treaty was defended with a spirit and 
 ability equal to the occasion. Mr. Choate spoke three 
 times. One only of these speeches has been preserved, 
 that delivered on the 3d February, 1843, during the 
 debate on the bill for the occupation and settlement of 
 the Oregon Territory. 
 
 Congress adjourned on the 3d of March, and Mr. 
 Choate returned to the labors of his profession in 
 Boston. 
 
 Since Mr. Choate s death there have been found 
 among his papers fragments of journals and transla 
 tions of portions of the ancient classics. Although 
 these were prepared solely for his own benefit, and the 
 translations seem never to have been revised, it has 
 been thought that no means accessible to us can so 
 fully exhibit some of his mental traits, the methods by 
 which he wrought, and the results which he gained. 
 Parts of the journals are accordingly inserted in their 
 
1841-1843.] JOURNAL OF READINGS AND ACTIONS. 91 
 
 chronological order, and extracts from the translations, 
 if this volume is not too crowded, will be found in the 
 appendix. 
 
 " LEAVES OF AN IMPERFECT JOURNAL OF READINGS AND ACTIONS. 
 
 "May, 1843. I can see very clearly, that an hour a day 
 might with manifold and rich usefulness be employed upon a 
 journal. Such a journal, written with attention to language 
 and style, would be a very tolerable substitute for the most 
 stimulating and most improving of the disciplinary and edu 
 cational exercises, careful composition. It should not merely 
 enumerate the books looked into, and the professional and 
 other labors performed ; but it should embrace a digest, or at 
 least an index of subjects of what I read ; some thoughts sug 
 gested by my reading ; something to evince that an acquisition 
 has been made, a hint communicated ; a step taken in the 
 culture of the immortal, intellectual, and moral nature ; a 
 translation perhaps, or other effort of laborious writing ; a faith 
 ful and severe judgment on the intellectual and the moral 
 quality of all I shall have done ; the failure, the success, and 
 the lessons of both. Thus conducted, it would surely be 
 greatly useful. Can I keep such an one? Prorsus ignoro 
 prorsus dubito. Spero tamen. The difficulty has been here 
 tofore that I took too little time for it. I regarded it less as 
 an agent, and a labor of useful influence, in and by itself, 
 in and by what it exacted, of introspection, memory, revisal 
 of knowledge and of trains of thought ; less by the incumbent 
 work of taste, expression,* accuracy, which it itself imposed 
 and constituted, than as a mere bald and shrewd enumera 
 tion of labors, processes, and other useful or influential 
 things somewhere else, and before, undergone. Better write 
 on it but once a week, than so misconceive and impair its 
 uses. 
 
 "I do not know any other method of beginning to realize 
 what I somewhat vaguely, yet sanguinely, hope from my 
 improved journal, than by proceeding to work on it at once, 
 and regularly for every hour, for every half-hour of reading 
 which I can snatch from business and the law. I have a little 
 course for instance of authors whom I read for English words 
 and thoughts, and to keep up my Greek, Latin, and French. 
 Let me after finishing my day s little work of each, record 
 
92 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. III. 
 
 here what I have read, with some observation or some version. 
 I am sure the time I iiow give to one would be better spent, 
 if equally divided between him and this journal. I am not 
 to forget, that I am, and must be, if I would live, a student of 
 professional forensic rhetoric. I grow old. My fate requires, 
 appoints, that I do so &#CMTXOf4WO arte rhetorica. 1 A wide 
 and anxious survey of that art and that science teaches me 
 that careful constant writing is the parent of ripe speech. It 
 has no other. But that writing must be always rhetorical 
 writing, that is, such as might in some parts of some speech 
 be uttered to a listening audience. It is to be composed as 
 in and for the presence of an audience. So it is to be intel 
 ligible, perspicuous, pointed, terse, with image, epithet, turn, 
 advancing and impulsive, full of generalization s, maxims, illus 
 trating the sayings of the wise. I have written enough to 
 satisfy me I cannot keep this journal ; yet seriously do I mean 
 to try. Those I love best may read, smile, or weep when I 
 am dead, at such a record of lofty design and meagre achieve 
 ment ! yet they will recognize a spirit that endeavored well. 
 
 " 13th May. Read in Bloom. G. T. Matth. 3 c. 11-17, 
 and notes, carefully verifying the references. I believe I 
 concur with him in every observation. Qu. tamen 1. If fte is 
 not the object of acft^ as avrov is of ucfujan and of diexoMtv* ? 
 2. Why does not evOvg qualify np // ? Yet I think the sense 
 is, that the whole series of incidents the ascent from the 
 water, and the opening of the heavens, and the vision, and 
 the voice followed in the order I have enumerated fast and 
 close upon the consummation of the Baptism. 
 
 " 3. That a miracle is described, the apparent opening of 
 the heavens, so as to bring to the eye of some one, as from 
 above, beyond, within, the image, form, symbol, the Holy 
 Spirit, descending, with the hovering morion of the dove ; and 
 that an articulate proclamation of the Sonship, and the love 
 and the complacency indulged towards that son, by the Invis 
 ible speaking from on high, is asserted by the evangelist, no 
 one can doubt. 
 
 " Does JEn. 5, 216-17, describe a descent or a hovering at 
 all, or only contrast a progressive horizontal motion, caused 
 and attended by the moving of the wings, and a similar motion 
 with the wi nc/s at rest ? Semble the latter only. 
 
 " I read the French of the same verses, and the German, 
 but the latter without profit. 
 
 1 Trjodaitu 6 alet TroAAu ddaoKopevoc, a fragment from Solon, 
 
1841-1843.] JOURNAL OF READINGS AND ACTIONS. 93 
 
 "I reviewed for I will not confess I had never read 
 Quintilian s first chap, of book 10, de copia verborum, Rollin s 
 Latin edition. I think I do not over-estimate the transcendent 
 value and power, as an instrument of persuasive speech, of 
 what may be comprehensively described as the best language 
 that which is the very best suited to the exact demand 
 of the discourse just where it is employed. Every word in 
 the language, by turns, and in the circle of revolving oratorical 
 exigencies and tasks, becomes precisely the right one word, 
 and must be used, with one exception, that of immodest ones. 
 This is Quintilian s remark, [ 9] exaggerated modo eorum 
 qui art. prcec. tradnnt yet asserting a general truth of great 
 value, the immense importance of a strong hold, and a capacity 
 of easy employment of all the parts of the language the 
 homely, the colloquial, the trite, as well as the lofty, the refined, 
 the ornamented, and the artistical propriety of a resolute inter 
 change or transition from one to another. 
 
 " How such a language such an English is to be 
 attained, is plain. It is by reading and by hearing, reading 
 the best books, hearing the must accomplished speakers. 
 Some useful hints how to read and how to hear, I gather from 
 this excellent teacher, and verify by my own experience, and 
 accommodate to my own case. 
 
 " I have been long in the practice of reading daily some 
 first-class English writer, chiefly for the copia verborum, to 
 avoid sinking into cheap and bald fluency, to give elevation, 
 energy, sonorousness, and refinement, to my vocabulary. Yet 
 with this object I would unite other and higher objects, the 
 acquisition of things, taste, criticism, facts of biography, 
 images, sentiments. Johnson s Poets happens just now to 
 be my book, and I have just read his life and judgment of 
 Waller. 
 
 " llth May. The review of this arduous and responsible 
 professional labor suggests a reflection or two. I am not con 
 scious of having pressed any consideration farther than I 
 ought to have done, although the entire effort may have 
 seemed an intense and overwrought one. Guilty, she cer 
 tainly appears, upon the proof to have been ; and I can discern 
 no trace of subornation or manufacture of evidence. God 
 forgive the suborner and the perjured, if it be so ! I could 
 and should have prepared my argument beforehand and with 
 more allusion, illustration, and finish. Topics, principles of 
 evidence, standards of probability, quotations, might have 
 
94 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. III. 
 
 been much more copiously accumulated and distributed. There 
 should have been less said, a better peroration, more dignity, 
 and a general better phraseology. 
 
 " I remark a disinclination to cross-examine, which I must 
 at once check. More discussion of the importance of guarding 
 the purity of married life the sufferings of the husband 
 a passHge or two from Erskine should have been set off 
 against the passionate clamor for pity to the respondent. 
 Whole days of opportunity of preparation stupidly lost. 
 
 " I have read nothing since Sunday until to-day ; and to-day 
 only a page of Greenleaf on Evidence, and a half-dozen lines 
 of Greek, Latin, and French. But I prepared the case of the 
 Ipswich Man. Co. My Greek was the fifth book of the 
 Odyssey 163-170 the extorted, unanticipated, and mys 
 terious communication unanticipated by, and mysterious to, 
 him of Calypso to Ulysses on the seashore, in which she 
 bids him dry his tears, and cease to consume his life ; for at 
 length she will consent to assist his departure from the endear 
 ments and the charms whose spell on his passions was for ever 
 broken. There is no peevishness or pettishuess in her words 
 or manner; but pity, and the bestowment generously of what 
 she knows and feels he will receive as the one most compre 
 hensive and precious object of desire. 
 
 " Saturday, 3d June. The week, which closes to-day, has 
 not been one of great labor or of much improvement. I dis 
 cussed the case of Allen and the Corporation of Essex, under 
 the pressure of ill health ; and I have read and digested a 
 half-dozen pages of Greenleaf on Evidence, and as many of 
 Story on the Dissolution of Partnership. Other studies of 
 easier pursuit, nor wholly useless, if studies 1 may denomi 
 nate them, I have remembered in those spaces of time which 
 one can always command, though few employ. The preg 
 nant pages in which Tacitus reports the conflicting judgments 
 expressed by the Romans concerning Augustus, upon the day 
 of his funeral ; and paints the scene in the Senate, when that 
 body solicited Tiberius to assume the imperial name and 
 power ; the timid or politic urgency of the solicitation ; the 
 solicitation of prayers ; the dignified, distrusted, unintelligible 
 terms of the dissembler s reply ; his proposition to consent to 
 undertake a part of the imperial function, and the incautious 
 or the subtle inquiry with which Gallus for a moment spoiled 
 the acting of the player in the iron mask what part he 
 would take I have read for Latin. They include pp. 
 
1841-1843.] JOURNAL OF READINGS AND ACTIONS. 95 
 
 14-17, in the edition of Ernesti and Oberlin. Observe, 
 Tacitus in his own person paints no character of Augustus. 
 More dramatically he supposes a multitude to witness the 
 funeral, and then to speak among themselves of his character 
 and actions. By the intelligent, he says, a divided opinion of 
 his life was expressed. It was applauded by some ; it was 
 arraigned by others. The former found in filial piety, and in 
 those necessities of state which silenced and displaced and 
 superseded the laws, the only motives that compelled him to 
 take up the arms of civil war ; arms which can neither be 
 acquired nor wielded by the exercise of the purer and nobler 
 arts of policy. While he had his father s murderers to pun 
 ish, he conceded a large measure of supreme power to Antony 
 and to Lepidus ; but after the latter had grown an old man 
 by sloth, and the former had become debauched and ruined by 
 self-indulgence, there remained.no remedy for his distracted 
 country but the government of one man. Yet that govern 
 ment was wielded, not under the name of king or of dictator, but 
 under that of prince. It had been illustrated, too, by policy 
 and fortune. The empire had been fenced and guarded on all 
 sides by great rivers and the sea. Legions, fleets, provinces, 
 however widely separated from each other, were connected by 
 a system and order of intercommunication and correspondence. 
 The rights of citizens had been guarded by the law ; moder 
 ation and indulgence had been observed towards the allies. 
 Rome itself had been decorated with taste and splendor. 
 Here and there only, military force had been interposed, to 
 the end that everywhere else there might be rest. 
 
 " I cannot to-day pursue the version farther. In Greek 
 I have reached the two hundred and fifty-first line of the fifth 
 Odyssey. Without preaching and talk by the poet, as in 
 Fenelon s celebrated work, how the actions and speech of 
 Ulysses show forth his tried, sagacious character. His sus 
 picion of Calypso, and his exaction of an oath that she means 
 fair in thus suddenly permitting him to go ; his address in 
 allowing the superiority of her charms to Penelope s, and 
 putting forward rather the general passion for getting home, 
 as his motive of action ; his avowal that he is prepared to 
 endure still more of the anger of God, having endured to 
 much, mark the wary, much-suffering, and wise man, sailor, 
 and soldier. I read in French a dissertation in the Memoirs 
 of the Academic of Inscriptions, vol. 2, on the Chronology of 
 the Odyssey ; began one on Cicero s Discovery of the Tomb 
 
96 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. III. 
 
 of Archimedes. For English I have read Johnson s Lives 
 to the beginning of Dryden ; Alison, a little ; Antony and 
 Cleopatra, a little ; Quintilian s Chapters on Writing, and on 
 Extempore Speech, I have read and re-read ; but mean to 
 morrow to abridge and judge. I need a Facciolatus and a 
 Stephens. Preserve me from such temptation. The first 
 I must get; and so I close this Saturday. 
 
 " I propose now to present in a condensed view all the good 
 sense in Quintilian s Chapters on Writing, and on Extempore 
 Speech. [Ch. I.] He is treating of the means of acquiring 
 copiousness of speech, and has disposed of the first of these 
 means the reading of good books of authors or of orators. 
 [Ch. 111., 1.] This is a help from without. But of all 
 the parts of self-education, the most laborious, most useful, is 
 writing. This, says Cicero, not extravagantly, best produces, 
 and is emphatically the master of speech. [ 2.] Write 
 then with as much pains as possible, and write as much as 
 possible. In mental culture, as in the culture of the earth, 
 the seed sown in the deepest furrow finds a more fruitful soil, 
 is more securely cherished, and springs up in his time to more 
 exuberant and healthful harvests. Without this discipline, 
 the power and practice of extemporaneous speech will yield 
 only an empty loquacity only words born on the lips. 
 [ 3-] I" tms discipline, deep down there are the roots, there 
 the foundations ; thence must the harvest shoot, thence the 
 structure ascend ; there is garnered up, as in a more sacred 
 treasury, wealth for the supply of even unanticipated ex 
 actions. Thus, first of all, must we accumulate resources 
 sufficient for the contests to which we are summoned, and 
 inexhaustible by them. [ 4.] Nature herself will have no 
 great things hastily formed; in the direct path to all beautiful 
 and conspicuous achievement she heaps up difficulty ; to the 
 largest animal she appoints the longest sleep in the parent 
 womb. 
 
 " k Two inquiries there are then : first how, next what we 
 shall write. [ 5.] I begin with the first, and urge that you 
 compose with care, even if you compose ever so slowly. Seek 
 for the best ; do not eagerly and gladly lay hold on that which 
 first offers itself; apply judgment to the crowd of thoughts 
 and words with which your faculties of invention supply you ; 
 retain and set in their places those only which thus you delib 
 erately approve. For of words and of things a choice is to 
 be made, and to that end the weight of every one to be 
 exactly ascertained. 
 
1841-1843.] JOURNAL OF READINGS AND ACTIONS. 97 
 
 " Tuesday, ^th June. The taste of selection accomplished, 
 that of collocation follows. Do not leave every word to occupy 
 as a matter of course the exact spot where the order of time 
 in which it occurs to you would place it ; do not let the suc 
 cession of their birth necessarily determine their relative 
 position. Seek rather by variety of experiment and arrange 
 ment to attain the utmost power, and the utmost harmony of 
 style. [ 6.] The more successfully to accomplish this, prac 
 tise the repeated reading over of what you have last written 
 before you write another sentence. By this means a more 
 perfect coherence of what follows with what precedes ; a more 
 coherent and connected succession of thought and of periods 
 will be expected ; and by this means, too, the glow of mental 
 conception, which the labor of writing has cooled, will be 
 kindled anew ; and will, as it were, acquire fresh impetus by 
 taking a few steps backward ; as in the contest of leaping we 
 frequently remark the competitors setting out to run at an 
 increased distance from the point where they begin to leap, 
 and thus precipitating themselves by the impulse of the race 
 towards the bound at which they aim ; as in darting the 
 javelin we draw back the arm ; and in shooting with the bow 
 draw back its string. 
 
 " I have written only this translation of Quintilian since 
 Saturday. Professional engagements have hindered me. But 
 I have carefully read a page or two of Johnson s Dryden, and 
 a scene or two of Antony and Cleopatra every morning 
 marking any felicity or available peculiarity of phrase have 
 launched Ulysses from the isle of Calypso, and brought him 
 in sight of Phasacia. Kept along in Tacitus, and am reading 
 a pretty paper in the " Memoirs " on the old men of Homer. 
 I read Homer more easily and with more appreciation, though 
 with no helps but Cowper and Donnegan s Lexicon. Fox and 
 Canning s Speeches are a more professional study, not useless, 
 not negligently pursued. Alas, alas ! there is no time to 
 realize the dilating and burning idea of excellence and elo 
 quence inspired by the great gallery of the immortals in 
 which I walk ! 
 
 " 24th June. I respire more freely in this pure air of a 
 day of rest. Let me record a most happy method of legal 
 study, by which I believe and feel that I am reviving my love 
 of the law ; enlarging my knowledge of it ; and fitting myself, 
 according to the precepts of the masters, for its forensic dis 
 cussions. I can find, and have generally been able to find, 
 
 7 
 
98 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. III. 
 
 an hour or two for legal reading beyond and beside cases 
 already under investigation. That time and that reading 
 I have lost, no matter how. I have adopted the plan of taking 
 a volume, the last volume of Massachusetts Reports, and of 
 making a fulP brief of an argument on every question in every 
 case, examining all the authorities, finding others, and care 
 fully composing an argument as well reasoned, as well ex 
 pressed, as if I were going to-morrow to submit it to a bench 
 of the first of jurists. 1 At the completion of each argument, 
 I arrange the propositions investigated in my legal common 
 place book, and index them. Already I remark renewed 
 interest in legal investigations ; renewed power of recalling, 
 arranging, and adding to old acquisitions ; increased activity 
 and attention of mind ; more thought ; more effort ; a deeper 
 image on the memory ; growing facility of expression. I 
 confess delight, too, in adapting thus the lessons of the great 
 teachers of rhetoric to the study of the law and of legal 
 eloquence. 
 
 " I resume Quintilian, p. 399. [ 7.] Yet I deny not if 
 the fair wind freshly blows, that the sails may all be spread to 
 catch it. But have a care lest this surrender of yourself to 
 the spontaneous and headlong course of your conceptions do 
 not lead you astray. All our first thoughts, in the moment 
 of their birth, please us, or we should never write. [ 8.] 
 But we must come to our critical senses again ; and coolly 
 revise and reconstruct the productions of this suspicious and 
 deceitful facility. Thus we have heard that Sallust wrote ; 
 and indeed his work itself reveals the labor. Varius tells us 
 that Virgil, too, composed but very few verses in a day. 
 
 " [ 9.] The condition of the speaker is a different one 
 from that of the author. It is therefore that I prescribe, for 
 the first, preparatory written exercises of the future speaker, 
 that he dwell so long and so solicitously upon his task. Con 
 sider that the first great attainment to be achieved is excel 
 lence of writing. Use will confer celerity. By slow degrees 
 matter will more easily present itself; words will answer to it ; 
 style will follow ; all things as in a well-ordered household, 
 will know, will perform their functions. [ 10.] It is not by 
 writing rapidly that you come to write well, but by writing 
 well you come to write rapidly. Thus far Quiutilian. 
 
 " I read, besides my lessons, the Temptation in Matthew, 
 
 1 This plan lie continued down to the end of his life. 
 
1841-1843.] JOURNAL OF READINGS AND ACTIONS. 99 
 
 Mark, and Luke, in the Greek ; and then that grand and 
 grave poem which Milton has built upon those few and awful 
 verses, Paradise Regained. I recognize and profoundly 
 venerate the vast poetical luminary in this more pleasing 
 light, shadowy. Epic sublimity the subject excludes ; the 
 anxious and changeful interests of the drama are not there ; 
 it suggests an occasional recollection of the Book of Job, but 
 how far short of its pathos, its agencies, its voices of human 
 sorrow and doubt and curiosity ; and its occasional unap 
 proachable grandeur ; yet it is of the most sustained elegance 
 of expression ; it is strewn and burning with the pearl and 
 gold of the richest and loftiest and best-instructed of human 
 imaginations; it is a mine a magazine, horrent, blazing 
 with all weapons of the most exquisite rhetoric ; with all the 
 celestial panoply of truth, reason, wisdom, duty." 
 
100 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cutr. IV. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1843-1844. 
 
 Address before the New England Society of New York Letter to 
 Professor Bush Letters to Charles Sumner Letter to his Dauglr 
 ters Speech on Oregon Tii>t Speech on the Tariff Second 
 Speech in reply to Mr. M Duffie Journal. 
 
 THE twenty-eighth Congress met on the 4th of De 
 cember, 1843, and Mr. Choate removed to Washington 
 for the winter. In the latter part of the month he 
 visited New York for the purpose of delivering the an 
 nual oration before the New England Society of that 
 city. The theme suggested by the occasion was one 
 which seemed always to have a fresh interest for him. 
 He loved to dwell upon it. In lectures and addresses 
 he had many times spoken on the Puritan character 
 and history, and never without the deepest sympathy 
 and heart-stirring emotion. On this occasion he pre 
 sented the Pilgrims, their Age and their Acts, as con 
 stituting a real and true heroic period in the history of 
 this republic. " We have," he said, " a specific duty 
 to perform. We would speak of certain valiant, good, 
 and peculiar men, our fathers. We would wipe the 
 dust from a few old, plain, noble urns. We would 
 shun husky disquisitions, irrelevant novelties, and 
 small display ; would recall rather and merely the 
 forms and lineaments of the heroic dead, forms and 
 features which the grave has not changed, over 
 
1843-1844.] ADDRESS IN NEW YORK. 101 
 
 which the grave has no power rob^d with the vest 
 ments and radiant with the hues of an ,asf)ur<i iiapiqri > 
 tality." During his discussion of the general subje et 
 he spoke of the influences affecting the minds of the 
 disciples of the Reformation in England, during the 
 residence of many of them in Geneva. Touching 
 lightly upon the impression of the material grandeur 
 and beauty of Switzerland, he turned to the moral 
 agents, the politics, and the ecclesiastical influences to 
 which the exiles were exposed. " In the giant hand 
 of guardian mountains, on the banks of a lake lovelier 
 than a dream of the Faery land; in a valley which 
 might seem hollowed out to enclose the last home of 
 liberty, there smiled an independent, peaceful, law- 
 abiding, well-governed, and prosperous Commonwealth. 
 There was a State without king or nobles ; there was a 
 church without a bishop ; there was a people governed 
 by grave magistrates which it had elected, and equal 
 laws which it had framed." These phrases, " a State 
 without a king," " a church without a bishop," were 
 at once caught up and spread through the land. They 
 became the burden of popular songs, and led to a note 
 worthy discussion of the principles of church govern 
 ment between two eminent divines, an Episcopalian 
 and a Presbyterian, of New York. 
 
 The entire address was received with the greatest 
 delight and enthusiasm. A member of the New York 
 bar, somewhat advanced in years, and cool in his tem 
 perament, said " that it was different in kind from any 
 thing they ever heard in New York before. It came 
 upon them like a series of electric shocks, and they 
 could not keep their seats, but kept clapping and ap 
 plauding without being conscious of it." 
 
102 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 On returning to Washington he wrote to his friend 
 Professor Bush, who had recently adopted the views of 
 Swedenborg. Although of decided theological opinions 
 himself, Mr. Choate rarely entered upon a polemical 
 discussion of religious topics, never indeed but with 
 those intimate friends with whom he sympathized most 
 closely. About himself he never chose to talk, and 
 those who indiscreetly tried to probe his feelings, would 
 generally find themselves turned aside with what would 
 seem the most consummate art, were it not done so 
 naturally, and with such suavity and gentleness. 
 Hence in declining a discussion, and in saying a kind 
 word of the opinions of others, he sometimes seemed 
 to those who did not know him, indifferent as to his 
 own. 
 
 To PROFESSOR GEORGE BUSH. 
 
 " WASHINGTON, January 7, 1844. 
 
 "MY DEAR MR. BUSH, I grieve that I did not see you 
 at New York, were it but to have united in a momentary ob 
 jurgation of all celebrations on wet days ; though I should have 
 been still more delighted to sit down and charm out of their 
 cells of sleep about a million of memories. But it did not 
 occur to me that you could possibly be present, 1 and I had 
 not an instant to go out to call on you. I have known, say 
 half a dozen very able men, who hold Swedenborg just as you 
 do. Theophilus Parsons, of Boston, is one, who is a man of 
 genius. For*ny part, I know him not, and have a timorous 
 disinclination to being shocked, waked, or stunned out of the 
 trivial fond prejudices and implicit takings up of a whole 
 life. But it is your privilege to be a seeker for truth, with 
 pure aims and a most appreciating eye and spirit. Sit mea 
 anima cum tud. Yours truly, 
 
 " R. CHOATE." 
 
 Besides the political business of the session, Mr. 
 Choate was much interested in a law case of great im 
 portance, that of Massachusetts v. Rhode Island. Mr. 
 
 1 At the New England Festival. 
 
1843-1844.] LETTERS TO CHARLES SUMNER. 103 
 
 Charles Sumner acted as counsel witli him in obtain 
 ing and preparing the local proofs. The following 
 letter refers to that case : 
 
 To CHARLES SUMNER, ESQ. 
 
 "My DEAR SUMNER, I thank you for the documents. 
 The cause is assigned for the 20th, and being, as Mr. Justice 
 Catron expressly declared, a case of * Sovereign States, it has, 
 before this tribunal of strict constructionists, a terrified and 
 implicit precedence. Great swelling words of prescription 
 ought to be spoken. For the rest, I see no great fertility or 
 heights in it. .Most hurriedly yours, 
 
 " R. CHOATE. 
 
 " Saturday, 5 P.M." 
 
 To CHARLES SUMNER, ESQ. 
 
 "My DEAR SUMNER, I have written by this mail to Mr. 
 Palfrey, Secretary of State, to send me instantly certain papers 
 for Massachusetts v. Rhode Island. May I entreat you to go 
 as soon as possible to the State House, see my letter, and aid 
 and urge its objects. You will know the what and where, 
 and a mail saved is all one as it were a kingdom for a horse. 
 
 " I thank you for your views, excellent and seasonable. 
 I will speak them to the court so that they shall never know 
 any thing else again as long as they live. Please be most 
 prompt. " Yours, R, CHOATE. 
 
 " 15th FEB. The case is for the 20th ! ! " 
 
 To CHARLES SUMNER, ESQ. 
 
 " Saturday, Feb. 17, 1844. 
 
 " MY D EAR SIR, To my horror and annoyance, the court 
 has just continued our cause to the next term ! The counsel 
 of Rhode Island moved it yesterday, assigning for cause that 
 the court was not full ; that the Chief Justice could not sit by 
 reason of ill health ; Mr. Justice Story did not sit, 1 and there 
 
 1 Because belonging to Massachusetts. 
 
104 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 was a vacancy on the bench. The court was therefore re 
 duced to six judges. We opposed the motion. 
 
 " To-day Mr. Justice M Lean said, that on interchanging 
 views they found that three of the six who would try it have 
 formally, on the argument or the plea, come to an opinion in 
 favor of Massachusetts, and that therefore they thought it not 
 proper to proceed. If Rhode Island should fail, he suggested, 
 she might have cause of dissatisfaction. 
 
 " I regret this result, on all accounts, and especially that the 
 constant preparatory labors of a month are for the present 
 wholly lost. I had actually withdrawn from the Senate 
 Chamber to make up this argument, which may now never 
 be of any use to anybody. . . . 
 
 " Yours, R. CHOATE." 
 
 To CHARLES SUMNER, ESQ. 
 
 "Feb. 1844. 
 
 Mr DEAR SUMNER, All the papers came safe, except 
 as yet the whole volume which is to come by Harnden. I 
 shall print the useful, keep all safely with the entire file. 
 Some of them are very good. The continuance of the cause 
 rendered it partially to be regretted that so much trouble was 
 given. But it is better to close the printing at once. 
 
 " Please thank Dr. Palfrey, and dry his and Mr. Felt s 
 tears. I knew it would be like defending a city by holding 
 up upon the walls against darts and catapults, little children, 
 images of gods, cats, dogs, onions, and all other Egyptian 
 theogonics, but better so than to be taken. 
 
 " Yours truly, R. CHOATE." 
 
 To CHARLES SUMNER, ESQ. 
 
 [No date.] 
 
 " DEAR SUMNER, I have just had your letter read to me 
 on a half-sick bed, and get up redolent of magnesia and roasted 
 apples, to embrace you for your Burkeism generally, and for 
 your extracts and references. It is odd that I have, on my 
 last year s brief, a passage or two from him on that very topic 
 which he appreciates so profoundly, but am most happy to 
 
1843-1844.] LETTER TO HIS DAUGHTERS. 105 
 
 add yours. By the way, I always admired that very letter 
 in Prior, if it is the same. 
 
 " I hope you review Burke in the N. A., 1 though I have 
 not got it and you do not say so. Mind that he is the fourth 
 Englishman, Shakspeare, Bacon, Milton, Burke. I hope 
 you take one hundred pages for the article. Compare, con 
 trast, with Cicero, both knowing all things, but God 
 knows where to end on Burke. No Englishman or country 
 man of ours has the least appreciation of Burke. The Whigs 
 never forgave the last eight or ten years of that life of glory, 
 and the Tories never forgave what preceded ; and we poor, 
 unidealized democrats do not understand his marvellous Eng 
 lish, universal wisdom, illuminated, omniscient mind, and 
 are afraid of his principles. What coxcombical rascal is it 
 that thinks Bolingbroke a better writer ? Take page by 
 page the allusions, the felicities, the immortalities of truth, 
 variety, reason, height, depth, every thing, Bolingbroke is a 
 voluble prater to Burke ! 
 
 " Amplify on his letter in reply to the Duke of Bedford. 
 Plow mournful, melodious, Cassandra-like! Out of Burke 
 might be cut 50 Mackintoshes, 175 Macaulays, 40 Jeffreys, 
 and 250 Sir Robert Feels, and leave him greater than Pitt 
 and Fox together. 
 
 " I seem to suppose your article is not written, as I hope 
 it is. God bless you. Yours truly, II. C." 
 
 To ins DAUGHTERS. 
 
 "Mr DEAR DAUGHTERS THREE, I owe you so many 
 letters, that I know not how to begin to pay. I thought of 
 three different letters, one to each, but I am so dreadfully 
 busy that I could not achieve such a thing ; so 1 put my arms 
 ar6und you one and all, and make one kiss serve. Sarah s 
 conundrum is tres belle and tres fine, but thrice tres easy. Is 
 it not the letter A ? 
 
 " Picciola is so famous and fine that I am glad you like it 
 and find it easier. I am reading French law-books to prepare 
 for a case. Dear Minnie writes a pretty short letter. I hope 
 the girls are no longer x to her as she says. Be good, sober 
 girls, and help your mother in all her cares and works. 
 
 " I am awfully lonesome. But I study quite well, and am 
 preparing to argue a great cause. 
 
 1 North American Review. 
 
106 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 " It is extremely cold. Write each day a full account of 
 its studies, its events, its joys and sorrows ; arid any new ideas 
 you have acquired. 
 
 k - Take excellent care of my books. Do not let any thing 
 be lost. 
 
 "Coleridge I have; but I don t think you would under 
 stand it. Try however. Kiss your dear mother for me. 
 
 " YOUR AFFECTIONATE FATHER." 
 
 Mr. Choate was always interested in naval affairs, 
 and exerted himself during this session to secure a 
 suitable indemnity for the officers and seamen (or 
 their widows and orphans), who lost their property by 
 wreck of United States vessels of war. 
 
 Another question received still more attention. 
 
 On the 9th of January, 1844, Mr. Semple, of Illinois, 
 introduced a resolution requesting the President to 
 give notice to the British Government of a desire on 
 the part of the United States to terminate the treaty 
 allowing the joint occupation of the territory of Oregon. 
 Mr. Choate opposed the resolution, because negotiation 
 on the subject had already been invited, and to pass 
 the resolution would only impede the efforts of pleni 
 potentiaries, while it imperilled the interests of the 
 United States, and looked towards a declaration of 
 war. These views in substance were maintained by 
 the Whigs generally. They were opposed by the 
 opposite party, and by no one more ably than by Mr. 
 Buchanan, who directed his argument mainly against 
 the speech of Mr. Choate. To this- Mr. Choate made a 
 reply on the 19th of March, expanding and enforcing 
 his previous argument: As this speech will be found 
 in its proper place in these volumes, 1 it is not necessary 
 
 1 The Life and Writing of Rufus Choate, published by Little, 
 Brown, & Co., in 2 vols., 
 
1843-1844.] TARIFF BILL. 107 
 
 to dwell upon it further. Two days after its delivery 
 the resolution was rejected by a vote of twenty-eight 
 to eighteen. 
 
 There was probably no subject which awakened a 
 deeper interest during this session, or called out a 
 greater amount of talent in discussion than the tariff. 
 Soon after the meeting of Congress Mr. M Duffie asked 
 leave to introduce a bill to revive the tariff of 1833. 
 On this more than twenty senators, the leaders and 
 veterans of that august body, spoke at different times, 
 most of them with elaborate and formal argument, and 
 some of them more than once. Mr. Choate addressed 
 the Senate first on the 13th and 15th of April, in an 
 exhaustive historical discussion of the early tariffs, 
 especially showing that that of 1789 was essentially a 
 tariff of protection, and deriving from this a general 
 argument in favor of a protective policy ; enlivening 
 the necessarily dry enumeration of individual opinions, 
 and the details of an old subject, by occasional pleas 
 antry, and sometimes by high and fervid eloquence. 
 Mr. Benton had spoken of the evils of an irregular 
 policy. "Perhaps," replied Mr. Choate, " I might not 
 entirely concur with the distinguished senator from 
 Missouri, in his estimate of the magnitude of the evil. 
 An evil it no doubt is. Sometimes, in some circum 
 stances, irregularity would be an intolerable one. In 
 the case he puts, of a balloon in the air, i now bursting 
 with distention, now collapsing from depletion, it 
 would be greatly inconvenient. But all greatness is 
 irregular. All irregularity is 4 not defect, is not ruin. 
 Take a different illustration from that of the balloon. 
 Take the New England climate in summer ; you would 
 think the world was coming to an end. Certain recent 
 
108 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 heresies on that subject may have bad a natural origin 
 there. Cold to-day, hot to-morrow ; mercury at eighty 
 degrees in the morning, with a wind at south-west, 
 and in three hours more a sea-turn, wind at east, a 
 thick fog from the very bottom of the ocean, and a fall 
 of forty degrees of Fahrenheit ; now so dry as to kill 
 all the beans in New Hampshire, then floods carrying 
 off the bridges and dams of the Penobscot and Connec 
 ticut ; snow in Portsmouth in July, and the next day 
 a man and a yoke of oxen killed by lightning in Rhode 
 Island, you would think the world was twenty times 
 coming to an end ! But I don t know how it is ; we 
 go along ; the early and the latter rain falls each in 
 his season ; seed time and harvest do not fail ; the 
 sixty days of hot corn weather are pretty sure to be 
 measured out to us ; the Indian summer with its bland 
 south-west and mitigated sunshine brings all up ; and on 
 the 25th of November, or thereabout, being Thursday, 
 three millions of grateful people, in meeting-houses, 
 or around the family board, give thanks for a year of 
 health, plenty, and happiness. All irregularity, what 
 ever the cause, is not defect nor ruin." 
 
 He closed with a word for Massachusetts, which had 
 been assailed for her opinions. "Permit me to say, 
 Sir, that you must take the States of America as you 
 find them. All of them have their peculiarities ; all 
 have their traits ; all have their histories, traditions, 
 characters. They had them before they came into the 
 Union ; they will have them after 
 
 Rome in Tiber melts, and tlie wide arch of the ranged empire falls. 
 
 South Carolina has hers ; Massachusetts has hers. 
 She will continue to think, speak, print, just what she 
 
1843-1844.] DEBATE ON THE TARIFF. 
 
 109 
 
 pleases, on every subject that may interest the patriot, 
 the moralist, the Christian. But she will be true to 
 the Constitution. She sat among the most affectionate 
 at its cradle ; she will follow the saddest of the pro 
 cession of sorrow its hearse. She sometimes has 
 stood for twenty years together in opposition to the 
 general government. She cannot promise the implicit 
 politics of some of her neighbors. I trust, however, 
 that she will not be found in opposition to the next 
 administration. I have heard that once her Senate re 
 fused to vote thanks for a victory for which her people 
 had shed their blood. Sir, you must take the States as 
 you find them ; you must take her as you find her. 
 Be just to her, and she will be a blessing to you. She 
 will sell to you at fair prices, and on liberal credits ; 
 she will buy of you when England and Canada and the 
 West Indies and Ireland will not ; she will buy your 
 staples, and mould them into shapes of beauty and use, 
 and send them abroad to represent your taste and your 
 genius in the great fairs of civilization. Something 
 thus she may do, to set upon your brow that crown of 
 industrial glory to which i the laurels that a Csesar 
 reaps are weeds. More, Sir, more. Although she 
 loves not war, nor any of its works, although her 
 interests, her morals, her intelligence, are all against 
 it, although she is with South Carolina, with all the 
 South on that ground, yet, Sir, at the call of honor, 
 at the call of liberty, if I have read her annals true, 
 she will be found standing, where once she stood, side 
 by side with you on the darkened and perilous ridges 
 of battle. Be just to her, coldly, severely, consti 
 tutionally just, and she will be a blessing to you." 
 The debate closed on the 31st of May. Mr. M Duffie, 
 
110 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 as having opened the discussion, occupied two days in 
 replying to his different opponents. His hopes of carry 
 ing the bill, if ever entertained, had long since vanished ; 
 and this may account in a measure for the unusual 
 tone of his speech. The first portion of it was mainly 
 addressed to Mr. Choate, and charged him with draw 
 ing very largely, if not exclusively, upon his imagina 
 tion for his facts, and spinning and weaving a web 
 " about the texture of a cobweb, and produced ve-ry 
 much in the same way." He asserted that he gave 
 isolated, if not garbled, extracts from the speeches of 
 members of the first Congress, " picking up from Grub 
 street a worm-eaten pamphlet, with opinions that would 
 form an appropriate argument for the leader of a band 
 of highway robbers." " I confess, Mr. President," he 
 went on to say, " that when I followed the honorable 
 senator, hopping and skipping from legislative debates 
 to catch-penny pamphlets, gathering alike from the 
 flowers and the offal of history, I found it difficult to 
 decide whether his labors more resembled those of a 
 humming-bird in a flower-garden, or a butterfly in a 
 farm-yard." There was more of the same sort. The 
 answer was immediate, and in a strain which Mr. 
 Choate in no other case ever indulged in. " I must 
 throw myself, Mr. President," he said, " on the indul 
 gence of the Senate for a few minutes ; and offer a few 
 words of explanation, made necessary by the senator s 
 comments upon a portion of the remarks which 1 had 
 the honor to submit to you some six weeks ago. I do 
 not propose to take notice of any thing which he has 
 said to other senators, nor of what I may call the 
 general tariff matter of his speech. If others have 
 been assailed, as I have been, by stale jests or new jests, 
 
1843-1844.1 
 
 REPLY TO MR. M DUFFIE. Ill 
 
 stale argument or new argument, stale denunciations 
 or fresh, they well know how to take care of themselves. 
 I rejoice, too, to see that the protective policy of the 
 country is taking excellent care of itself. One more 
 such vote as another branch of Congress has just 
 given, one such election as will occupy, reward, and 
 illustrate the approaching summer and autumn, and 
 the universal labor of America will be safe from the 
 jokers of old jokes, or the jokers of new jokes. If 
 then it be assailed by the arguments of men or the 
 arms of rebels, it will, I hope, be quite able to defend 
 itself against them also. 
 
 " Confining myself, then, Mr. President, altogether 
 to the senator s notice of me, I must begin by saying 
 that never in my life have I been so completely taken 
 by surprise as by this day s exhibition, just closed, of 
 good manners, sweet temper, courteous tone, fair state 
 ment of his opponent s position, masterly reply to it, 
 excellent stories all out of Joe Miller extempora 
 neous jokes of six weeks preparation, gleaned from 
 race-ground, cockpit, and barn-yard, with which the 
 senator from South Carolina has been favoring the 
 Senate and amusing himself. I came into the Senate 
 yesterday with the impression that the occasion was to 
 be one of a sort of funereal character. I supposed that 
 this bill of the senator, never fairly alive at all, but 
 just by your good-nature admitted to have been so for 
 a moment to make a tenancy by courtesy, and now 
 confessedly dead, was to be buried. I came in, there 
 fore, with composed countenance, appropriate medita 
 tions on the nothingness of men and things, and a 
 fixed determination not to laugh, if I could help it. 
 The honorable senator, I supposed, would pronounce 
 
112 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CiiAr. IV. 
 
 the eulogy, and then an end. Even he, I expected, 
 would come rather to bury than to praise. I thought 
 it not improbable that we should hear the large and 
 increasing majority of the American people proclaimed 
 robbers and plunderers, because that we hear from 
 the same source so often, some threatening of nullifi 
 cation in old forms or new, some going to death on 
 sugar, some purging of the passions by pity and 
 terror, and then the ceremony would be closed and 
 all be over. 
 
 " No tongue, then, can express the surprise with 
 which I heard the honorable senator waste a full hour 
 or more of the opening of his speech, and some pre 
 cious health and strength, in slowly dealing out a suc 
 cession of well-premeditated and smallish sarcasms on 
 me. I was surprised, because I think the Senate will 
 on all sides bear witness to what, under the very pecu 
 liar circumstances, I may be excused for calling to 
 mind, my own general habit of courtesy here. Not 
 participating with excessive frequency in debate, nor 
 wholly abstaining from it, I have sought always to ob 
 serve the manner, as I claim to possess the sentiments, 
 of a gentleman. In such a body as this, such a course 
 is, indeed, no merit and no distinction. It is but an 
 unconscious and general sense of the presence in which 
 we speak. 
 
 " In the instance of this discussion of the tariff I am 
 totally unaware of any departure from what I have 
 made my habit. The senator from South Carolina, 
 had, as he had a perfect right to do, introduced a 
 proposition which, adopted, would sweep the sweet 
 and cheerful surface of Massachusetts with as accom 
 plished, with as consummated a desolation, as if fire 
 
1843-1844.] REPLY TO MR. M DUFFIE. 113 
 
 and famine passed over it ; and would permanently, 
 and widely as I believed, and most disastrously, affect 
 the great interests and all parts of the country. That 
 proposition I opposed ; debating it, however, in a 
 general tone, and with particular expression of high 
 respect for the abilities and motives of the honorable 
 Senator, and in a manner from first to last which could 
 give no just offence to any man. I acknowledge my 
 surprise, therefore, at the course of the Senator s re 
 ply. But I feel no stronger emotion. I do not even 
 remember all the good things at which his friends did 
 him the kindness to smile. If he shall ever find 
 occasion to say them over again, he will have, I presume, 
 no difficulty in re-gathering them from the same jest- 
 book, the same historian of Kilkenny, the same race- 
 ground and cockpit and barn-yard, where he picked 
 them up. They will serve his purpose a second time 
 altogether as well as they have done now." From this 
 the speaker went on distinctly and cogently to reaffirm 
 and prove his former position, respecting the law of 
 1789, not a new and original idea, as had been charged 
 upon him, but held by Washington, Jefferson, Madison, 
 and Dallas, " almost as old indeed as some of his op 
 ponent s newest jests and best stories." 
 
 Another charge he meets with peremptory denial. 
 " What does the Senator say next ? Well, Sir, as far 
 as I could make out a certain enormous and broken- 
 winged metaphor, in which he slowly and painfully 
 wrapped up his meaning rather than displayed it, be 
 ginning with his grandfather s regimentals, and ending 
 -I am sure I could not see how with a butterfly 
 and a barn-yard a Homeric metaphor a longue 
 queue as well as I could take the sense of the figure, 
 
114 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 he meant to say that, in my former remarks, I con 
 trived by selecting my own speakers, by picking and 
 choosing from what they said, and by interpolations 
 of my own, to give a garbled and unfair exposition of 
 that great debate, its course and topics and interpre 
 tative effect. In fewer words, his metaphor went to 
 accuse me of having confined myself to a culling out 
 of a few paragraphs here and there from a debate of 
 two or three hundred pages, and then assuming to pass 
 off these as specimens of the whole ; whereas they 
 afforded no idea of it whatsoever. It is cheating by 
 samples, I think, which the Senator figuratively charges. 
 
 " Now, Sir, I deny this charge. I dare him to the 
 proof. I challenge him ; I challenge any man to pro 
 duce a particle of proof of it. ... I meet the Sena 
 tor s bad metaphor by good plain English. The accu 
 sation or insinuation is totally groundless and totally 
 unjust. Let the Senator sustain it, if he can. There 
 is the speech as it was delivered. He has at last 
 found the debate which it attempted to digest. If it 
 was not fully and fairly done, let him show it.-" 
 
 Beyond assertion he then went on to demonstrate 
 the correctness of his position by ample quotations 
 from impregnable documents, occasionally throwing in 
 sentiments of a higher character, and closed with a 
 quiet and beautiful appeal to the Senators from Vir 
 ginia and Georgia. Speaking of a proposition of Mr. 
 M Duffie, he says, to indicate its absurdity : " To show 
 how willing he is to follow in the footsteps of the 
 fathers, the Senator tells us he will compound for the 
 duties of 1789; nay, he will double them even. 
 Really, Sir, he is magnificent. Will he give us back 
 the world and the age of 1789 ? Will he give us back 
 
1843-1844.] REPLY TO MR. M DUFFIE. 115 
 
 our hours of infancy, the nurse, the ballad, the cradle ? 
 Will he take off our hands the cotton-mill and woollen- 
 mill, and glass-house, and all the other various, refined, 
 and sensitive labor and accumulation which we have 
 to protect ; and will he give us back the plain house 
 hold, and far-inland manufactures and mechanical 
 arts of the olden time ? Will he give us back a Europe 
 at war, and a sea whitened by the canvas of our thriv 
 ing neutrality ? Will he give us back the whole com 
 plex state of the case which made those duties 
 sufficient then, without the reproduction of which they 
 would be good for nothing now ? 
 
 " Nay, Sir, not to be difficult, the Senator 4 would 
 even be willing to give us the rates of the tariff of 
 1816. This is rich also. He is perfectly willing to do 
 almost any thing which is less than enough. The 
 labor of the country will not thank him for his tariff 
 of 1816. That labor remembers perfectly well that, 
 under that tariff, manufactures and mechanical arts fell 
 down in four years from an annual production of over 
 one hundred and fifty millions to an annual product of 
 only six and thirty millions. 
 
 " The honorable Senator, applying himself diligently 
 to the study of this debate of 1789, says that he 
 finds that it turned very much on the molasses 
 duty. This suggests to him, first, a good joke about 
 switchel, and then the graver historical assertion 
 that i Massachusetts has always been more sensitive 
 about her own pockets, and less about her, neigh 
 bors , than any State in the Union. Now, Sir, I 
 should be half inclined to move a question with him 
 upon the good taste of such a sally as that, if I did not 
 greatly doubt whether he and I have any standards of 
 
116 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 taste in common. I should be inclined to intimate to 
 him that such a sarcasm upon a State five hundred 
 miles distant, which he does not represent, to which he 
 is not responsible, is no very decisive proof of spirit or 
 sense. He will judge whether such things have not a 
 tendency to rankle in and alienate hearts that would 
 love you, if you would permit them. Let us remember 
 that we have a union and the affections of union to 
 preserve, as well as an argument to conduct, a theory 
 to maintain, or a jest, old or new, to indulge. ... It is 
 a grief to the honorable Senator to see protection senti 
 ments spreading at the South. 
 
 Sun ! how I hate thy beams ! 
 
 I rejoice to see this, on the contrary. I should be glad 
 of it, though it should raise up a manufacturing com 
 petitor in every State of the Union. 1 rejoice to per 
 ceive symptoms of a return to the homogeneous nature 
 and harmonious views of an earlier and better day. 
 I rejoice to see that moral and physical causes, the 
 power of steam, the sober second thought of the peo 
 ple, are combining to counteract the effects of a wide 
 domain, and local diversities, on opinion and on feeling. 
 I am glad to see the whole nation reassembling, as it 
 were the West giving up, the South holding not back 
 reassembling on the vast and high table-land of the 
 Union ! To the Senator from Georgia [Mr. Berrien], 
 and to the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Rives], who 
 have so conspicuously contributed to this great result, 
 I could almost presume to counsel, persevere as you 
 have begun. 
 
 Sic vobis itur ad astra ! 
 
 4 That way, in the vindication of this policy, in the 
 
1843-1844.] FRAGMENTARY JOURNAL. 117 
 
 spread of this light, in the enforcement of this truth 
 4 that way, glory lies. 
 
 With a brief reply and rejoinder, the debate here 
 ended, and the question, on an amendment which 
 brought the subject itself before the Senate, was decided, 
 twenty-five to eighteen, against the resolution. 
 
 Congress adjourned on the 17th of June. The plans 
 formed for study during the recess to him, of course, 
 no remission of labor will be seen by his journal. 
 The first few leaves have an earlier date. 
 
 "December 25, 1843. Washington. It ought to be quite 
 easy for me here, when not actually preparing for an im 
 mediate discussion, to command an hour for this journal, 
 in its plan altogether the best of the many I have attempted. 
 An hour then I prescribe myself for this labor and this 
 pleasure and this help. I think it may be usually an hour 
 of the evening ; but it must be an hour of activity and exer 
 tion of mind. 
 
 " I read, as part of a course, two pages in Johnson s Pope. 
 He records fairly, forcibly, and most pleasingly in point of 
 expression, his filial piety ; and asserts and accounts for his 
 sorrow for Gay s death. He then treats the subject of the 
 publication of his letters. The first question is, Did Pope 
 contrive a surreptitious publication, in order to be able to 
 publish himself with less exposure to imputation of vanity? 
 Johnson- first tells the story exactly as if he believed, and 
 meant to put it forth as the true account of the matter, that 
 Curl acted without Pope s procurement or knowledge ; and 
 that he was surprised and angry at Curl s conduct. He then 
 gives Curl s account, which, true or false, does not implicate 
 Pope ; and declares his belief of its truth. Somewhat un 
 expectedly then, he intimates, and at length formally declares 
 his own opinion to be, that Pope incited the surreptitious 
 publication to afford himself a pretext to give the world his 
 genuine correspondence. His proofs and arguments are at 
 least few and briefly set forth. At a moment of less occu 
 pation I will examine the question by Roscoe s helps, and 
 express the results. 
 
118 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 " Miltoii s father was the son of a Papist, who disinherited 
 him for becoming a Protestant at Oxford. His first instruc 
 tor was a private instructor, and was Young, a Puritan, who 
 had been also an exile to Hamburg for his religious opinions. 
 His father, too, was educated at the University, was of a pro 
 fession which a gentleman might follow, and a lover and 
 writer of music. His mother was of a good family, and greatly 
 esteemed for all the virtues ; and pre-eminently for her charity. 
 The earliest influences, therefore, on the transcendent ca 
 pacities yet in infancy and childhood, might dispose to serious 
 ness ; to thoughtfulness ; to the love and appreciation of 
 musical sounds and successions ; to sympathy for, and attention 
 to human suffering ; to tendencies towards the classes of 
 religious Puritanism ; to dignity and to self-respect, as des 
 cended, on both sides, of gentle ancestry, and imbibing its 
 first sentiments from refined and respectable minds, tastes, and 
 character. Milton passed through no childhood and youth of 
 annoyances, destitution, illiberal toil, or unrefined association. 
 It was the childhood and youth of a beautiful and vast genius ; 
 irresistibly attracted, systematically set to studies of language ; 
 the classical and modern tongues and literature ; already 
 marking its tendencies by recreating in the harmonious and 
 most copious speech and flow, and in the flushed and warm 
 airs of Spenser ; in the old romances ; in its own first 
 4 thoughts voluntarily moving harmonious numbers. Except 
 that his eyes and head ached with late hours of reading, till 
 he went to Cambridge, in his seventeenth year, I suspect he 
 had been as happy as he had been busy and improving." 
 
 "Boston, June 23 [1844]. It is necessary to reconstruct 
 a life at home ; life professional and yet preparatory ; edu 
 cational, in reference to other than professional life. In this 
 scheme the first resolution must be to do whatever business I 
 can find to do tot. vir. maximo conatu as for tny daily 
 bread. To enable me to do this, I must revive and advance 
 the faded memory of the law ; and I can devise no better 
 method than that of last summer, the preparation of a 
 careful brief, on every case in Metcalf s last volume, of an 
 argument in support of the decision. In preparing this brief, 
 law, logic, eloquence, must be studied and blended together. 
 The airy phrase, the turn of real reply, are to be sought and 
 
1843-1844.] FRAGMENTARY JOURNAL. 119 
 
 written out. I may embody in a commonplace the principles 
 acquired ; and I shall particularly strive to become as familiar 
 with the last cases of the English and Federal benches at 
 least, and if possible, of those of New York, Maine and New 
 Hampshire, as of our own. I have lost the whole course of 
 those adjudications for some years. These studies, and 
 this practice, for the law. 
 
 " I advance to plans of different studies, and to the training 
 for a different usefulness, and a more conspicuous exertion, 
 To avoid a hurtful diffusion of myself over too wide and 
 various a space laboriose nihil agens I at once confine my 
 rhetorical exercitations within strict and impassable limits. 
 I propose to translate Cicero s Catiline Orations ; or as many 
 as I can, beginning with the first ; with notes. The object is, 
 
 1st, The matter and manner of a great master of speech ; 
 2d, English debating style, and words ; 3d, The investigation 
 of the truth of a remarkable portion of history. All the helps 
 are near me. I shall turn the Orator, as nearly as I can, 
 into a debater statesman, of this day, in Parliament and in 
 Congress. 
 
 " With this, I shall read Burke s American speeches, writing 
 observations on them. The object is his matter and manner ; 
 useful gleanings ; rules of speech. But to this is to be added 
 the study of politics. And for this circumstances are pro 
 pitious. The approaching election requires that the true 
 national policy of the country should be impressed on the 
 minds of the people of America. To elect a Whig adminis 
 tration is to prefer, and to secure the practical realization of that 
 policy. To induce the people to elect such an administration, 
 you must first teach them to prefer, to desire that policy. To 
 do that it must be explained, contrasted, developed, decorated. 
 To do that it is to be deeply studied. I mean, therefore, to 
 compose discourses on the tariff; on Texas; on currency; on 
 the general points of difference, and grounds of choice between 
 the parties, and the like, embodying what I understand to 
 be the Whig politics, and the sound politics of the hour. In 
 all, through all an impulsive presentation of truths such 
 an one as will move to the giving of votes for particular men, 
 representing particular opinions, is the aim. Every one 
 ought to be and to involve, 1st, an honest study of the topic 
 
 and so an advance in political knowledge ; 2ndly, a diligent 
 effort to move the public mind to action by its treatment ; and 
 so an exercise in speech. Priitcip. foas sapieiitioe. Truth 
 
120 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 for the staple good taste the form persuasion to act 
 for the end. 
 
 "July 1C. The gift of an interleaved Digest of Mas 
 sachusetts Cases suggests and renders practicable a plan of 
 reviewing and reviving the law. I shall add the fifth volume 
 of Metcalf to the Digest as it stands, and in so doing advert 
 to the whole series of decisions. This will not interfere with 
 my purpose of making a frequent brief on legal theses. A 
 trial of myself in that way yesterday encouraged me to sup 
 pose I can recall and advance my law. I am sure I have hit 
 on the right mode of study, by digest, and brief; and I feel 
 in the resolution a revival of zeal, fondness, and ability to 
 work. 
 
 u 17 th July. Engaged in translating Cicero against Catiline. 
 I would study that famous incident in the Roman history. I 
 must assume Cicero s orations to be evidence of the highest 
 authority remaining. He pronounced them one in the 
 presence of Catiline all of them before the Senate or people 
 of Rome, during the transactions to which they relate he, 
 the Consul, stating and defending the most public acts of ad 
 ministration, in a great emergency. I see nothing to detract 
 from their decisive weight as testimony, but the fact that he 
 and Catiline were on opposite sides of the conspiracy. 
 This may constitute a vast diminution of title to credit, and I 
 must allow for and measure it. One word on Sallust. For 
 many reasons his authority is not so high. He was not an 
 actor in the scene. He could not have personal knowledge 
 of details to so minute an extent. But consider that he was 
 about twenty-two years of age at the time when the con 
 spiracy was formed ; and that he must have written his 
 history within thirty years after the event itself, since he died 
 at the age of fifty -one, and therefore addressed, to some extent, 
 a contemporary public. If he is not to be relied on it must 
 be for other causes than want of means of knowing main facts. 
 Still the circumstances would not assure us against very 
 considerable resort to imagination, and rhetoric, still less 
 against partisan feeling and aim. Where are the proofs or 
 grounds of suspicion of his uutrustworthiness as a historian ? 
 Take his sketch of Catiline s character. Catiline was of noble 
 birth ; and possessed extraordinary power of mind and of 
 body ; but his moral nature was wholly wicked, and his life 
 habitually vicious. 
 
 [Here appears to be a loss of some pages.] 
 
1843-1844.] CONTINUATION OF JOURNAL. 121 
 
 " There is a pleasure beyond expression, in revising, re 
 arranging, and extending my knowledge of the law. The 
 effort to do so is imperatively prescribed by the necessities 
 and proprieties of my circumstances ; but it is a delightful 
 effort. I record some of the uses to which I try to make it 
 subservient, and some of the methods on which I conduct it. 
 My first business is obviously to apprehend the exact point of 
 each new case which I study, to apprehend and to enunciate 
 it precisely, neither too largely, nor too narrowly, ac 
 curately, justly. This necessarily and perpetually exercises 
 and trains the mind, and prevents inertness," dullness of edge. 
 This done, I arrange the new truth, or old truth, or whatever 
 it be, in a system of legal arrangement, for which purpose I 
 abide by Blackstone, to which I turn daily, and which I seek 
 more and more indelibly to impress on my memory. Then I 
 advance to the question of the law of the new decision, its 
 conformity with standards of legal truth, with the statute it 
 interprets ; the cases on which it reposes ; the principles by 
 which it is defended by the court, the law, the question 
 of whether the case is law or not. This leads to a history of 
 the point ; a review of the adjudications ; a comparison of the 
 judgment and argument, with the criteria of legal truth. 
 More thought, producing and improved by more writing, 
 and more attention to last cases of English and our best 
 reports, are wanting still. 
 
 * I seem to myself to think it is within my competence to 
 be master of the law, as an administrative science. But let 
 me always ask at the end of an investigation, can this 
 law be reformed ? How ? why ? why not ? GUI bono the 
 attempt ? 
 
 " A charm of the study of law is the sensation of advance, 
 of certainty, of having apprehended, or being in a progression 
 towards a complete apprehension, of a distinct department and 
 body of knowledge. Plow can this charm be found in other 
 acquisitions ? How can I hit on some other field or depart 
 ment of knowledge which I may hope to master ; in which I 
 can feel that I am making progress ; the collateral and con 
 temporaneous study of which may rest, refresh, and liberalize 
 me, yet not leave mere transient impressions, phrases, tinc 
 ture ; but a body of digested truths and an improved under 
 standing, and a superiority to others in useful attainment, 
 giving snatches of time, minutes and parts of hours, to Cicero, 
 Homer, Burke, and Milton, to language and literature ? I 
 
122 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IV- 
 
 think I see in the politics of my own country, in the practical 
 politics of my country, a department of thought and study, 
 and a field of advancement, which may divide my time, and 
 enhance my pleasure and my improvement, with an efficacy 
 of useful results equal to the law. 
 
 " My experience in affairs will give interest to the study of 
 tlie thing. It will assist the study, as well as give it interest. 
 The newspaper of every morning, the conversation of every 
 day, the speech of the caucus, the unavoidable intercourse 
 with men, may help it. One hour of exclusive study a day, 
 with these helps, might carry one very far ; so far at least, as 
 to confer some of the sensations, and some of the enjoyments, 
 attending considerable and connected acquisitions. Let me 
 think of methods and aims. 
 
 " 1. The first great title in this science is the Constitution ; 
 its meaning, its objects, the powers it gives, the powers it 
 refuses, and the grand reasons why. 
 
 " 2. The second is the policy on which that Constitution 
 ought to be administered, the powers it ought to put forth, the 
 interests, domestic and foreign, to which it ought to attend. 
 This is practical statesmanship, the statesmanship of the day. 
 Now, let us see how systematic and scientific Acquisitions are 
 to be achieved on these grand subjects. 
 
 " 1. It is to be done by composing- a series of discourses, in 
 the manner of lectures, or speeches, or arguments, or essays, 
 as the mood varied, on the particulars into which these titles 
 expand themselves. Verplanck s letter to Col. D., speeclies 
 on the Tariff, might furnish models. I cannot anticipate the 
 several subjects of the discourses composing such a body of 
 study and thought, but I can anticipate some of them. 
 The history of the making of the Constitution, by which I 
 now mean narrowly the history of the call, and acts of the 
 convention which made, and those which adopted it. The 
 history of the causes which led to the formation of such a 
 Constitution, by which I mean the motives which led the 
 country to desire it, the evils expected to be removed, the 
 good expected to be achieved ; as these are recorded in con 
 temporary memorials, in essays, speeches, accounts of meet 
 ings, debates, and all the original discussion down to, and 
 through the adoption of the government. This needs a his 
 torian. It would reward one. It prepares for almost it 
 supersedes direct interpretation. It teaches how to adminis 
 ter it in the spirit of its fnuners and age. It teaches how to 
 value it in the spirit of its frainers and its age. 
 
1843-1844.] CONTINUATION OF JOURNAL. 128 
 
 "Thus prepared, you come to the instrument itself; to its 
 meaning, to its powers and their grounds, to its structure and 
 the philosophy and grounds of that structure. But without 
 pursuing this very general analysis of a plan, which will 
 change and unfold itself at every stage of accomplishment, let 
 me return and be a little more definite and more practical. 
 I am to write then, first, the history of the formation and 
 adoption of the Constitution. For this I have, or can com 
 mand, the necessary helps. My course will be first to glance 
 at the received general histories, Marshall, Pitkin, and others, 
 and then seek, in original papers and elsewhere, for more 
 minute, more vivid, and less familiar details. Truth, truth, is 
 the sole end and aim. I shall read first, with pen in hand, 
 for collecting the matter, and not begin to compose till the 
 general and main facts are entirely familiar. Let me auspi 
 cate the enterprise by recalling the immortal speculations of 
 Cicero on his renowned state. 
 
 " My helps I have supposed tolerably complete. In my 
 own library are Marshall, Pitkin, Bradford, the Madison 
 Papers, Story, the Debates in Conventions, the Federalist, 
 Sparks s Washington, and some less valuable. 
 
 " It will give vigor, point, and interest to what I shall write, 
 to throw it in the form of a contention, an argument, a reply 
 to an unsound, or at least hostile, reasoner, debater, or histo 
 rian. But everywhere, under whatever form, style, manner, 
 are to be assiduously cultivated and carefully adapted to the 
 subject. Reflection, therefore, rhetorical decoration, histori 
 cal allusion, a strong, clear, and adorned expression, a style 
 fit for any intelligent audience, are in votis. When shall I 
 prosecute these studies ? The hour after dinner seems best, 
 this leaves the whole morning till two o clock for the law 
 and for business, from half-past eight, or eight if possible, 
 and an hour, or half-hour before tea. 
 
 " August 24. Odyssey, Book VIII. 166 to 175. One 
 man has a figure and personal exterior, mean, contemptible ; 
 but God crowns and wreathes about his form with eloquence. 
 Men look on him delighted ; he speaks unfaltering, but with 
 a honeyed modesty; he is foremost of the assembly; as he 
 walks through the city they look on him as on a god. 
 
 " Another in form is like the immortals, but he is unadorned 
 by the charm of graceful speech. 
 
 " Mark the recognition of the power of eloquence. It is 
 
124 
 
 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CIIOATE. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 an endowment which decorates, which crowns an unattractive 
 person like a garland. It is unfaltering, self-relying, yet it 
 charms by the sweetest modesty. Its possessor reigns in the 
 assembly. He is gazed at in the streets. Such praise, such 
 appreciation, such experience, so early, predicts and assures 
 us a Demosthenes in the fulness of time. 
 
 " I have gone through a week of unusual labor; not wholly 
 unsatisfactorily to myself. I deliberately record my determin 
 ation to make no more political speeches, and to take no more 
 active part in the election or in practical politics. One ex 
 ception I leave myself to make. But I do not expect or 
 mean to make it. I have earned the discharge honesta 
 missio petitur et concessa erit. To my profession, tot is viri- 
 biis, I am now dedicated. To my profession of the law and 
 of advocacy, with as large and fair an accompaniment of 
 manly and graceful studies as I can command. 
 
 " In reference to my studies of eloquence, I would do some 
 thing to collect and arrange general observations maxims, 
 proverbs sentential, yrw^iai for use. They fix attention. 
 They are argument, authority, illustration, the signs of full 
 minds. Burke, Johnson, Burton s Anatomy any great 
 author any author supplies. The difficulty is of arrange 
 ment, so that in the composition of an argument they would 
 be at hand. I see no way but to digest them in my Index 
 Rerum selecting the letter as best I may but it must be 
 my business also to connect them in my memory with the 
 truths they belong to, and with the occasions of possible ex 
 hibition and use and to review the collection from time to 
 time, and especially on the preparation of a discourse. 
 
 " 20th September. A little attention to things, and per 
 sons, and reputations about me teaches that uncommon pro 
 fessional exertions are necessary to recover business to live, 
 and a trial or two teaches me that I can very zealously, and 
 very thoroughly, and con amore, study and discuss any case. 
 Plow well I can do so, compared with others, I shall not ex 
 press an opinion on paper but if I live, all blockheads 
 which are shaken at certain mental peculiarities, shall know 
 and feel a reasoner, a lawyer, and a man of business. lu all 
 this energy and passion I mean to say no more than that the 
 utmost possible painstaking with every case is perfectly indis 
 pensable, and fortunately not at all irksome. The case in 
 hand demands, invites to a most exact, prepared, and deep 
 legal and rhetorical discourse. 
 
1843-1844.] CONTINUATION OF JOURNAL. 125 
 
 " For the rest I grow into knowledge of Homer, and Taci 
 tus and Juvenal and of the Rome of the age from Augus 
 tus to Trajan. A busy professional week has suspended 
 Cicero somewhat, and has as usual made the snatches of my 
 unprofessional readings a little desultory, which is more 
 and more besetting ; more and more deleterious. 
 
 " I wish, as I have long wished, that I could acquire a 
 genuine and fervent love of historical reading, I mean 
 the reading of what I may call authentic and useful history ; 
 and by that I mean the series of facts of which the present 
 is the traceable result. The classical historians I do love. I 
 read Tacitus daily. But this is for their language ; for their 
 pictures ; for the poetical incident ; the rhetorical expression ; 
 the artistical perfectness ; and beauty. We cannot know that 
 any thing more is true than the most general course of larger 
 events. The moment you go beyond that, you are among 
 the imaginative writers. You are dealing with truths ; mo 
 ralities ; instructions ; but you do not know that you are or are 
 not dealing with actual occurrences. 
 
 " The history I would read is modern. I should go no 
 farther back than Gibbon ; should recall the general life, 
 thoughts, action, of the Middle Age in him, and Hallam s 
 two great works ; and begin to study, to write, to deduce, to 
 lay up, in the standard, particular histories of the great 
 countries. 
 
 " Under this impulse I have decided to start from the 
 revolution of 1688; first with the English writers; and then 
 with Voltaire. The revolution ; and the reign of William 
 and Mary, and William the Third are my first study. For 
 this the means are perhaps sufficiently ample. My plan is 
 simple. I examine first the foreign politics of England 
 her relations to Europe ; the objects of her wars ; the objects 
 of her treaties ; and the results. I have thus surveyed the 
 general course of what we loosely call the history of the time. 
 Then I turn to the Constitutional history. By this I mean 
 the history of the changes of the Constitution ; the politics of 
 the Crown ; the politics of parties ; the politics of prominent 
 men ; the politics of Parliament ; the laws made ; the progress 
 and expression of public opinion as that opinion relates to 
 Government, and to civil and political right and duty. I 
 mean by it the history of so many years of English liberty. 
 The industrial history ; the popular history ; the history of 
 the condition of the people, their occupations ; their enjoy- 
 
12G MEMOIR OF RUFUS CIIOATE. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 ments ; their nature ; the history of literature, art, aud sci 
 ence ; and the study of the master-pieces of liberal culture 
 and high art follow. 
 
 44 1 wish then to compress into a few condensed and com 
 prehensive paragraphs the result of hours and of days study, 
 under each of these heads. Notes on these summaries may 
 indicate and discuss the materials out of which this is all 
 elaborated. 
 
 " Let me begin, then, with such a succinct display of the 
 foreign politics of England in the reign of William. 
 
 "The one grand feature of English foreign policy during 
 this reign, was antagonism to France to the France of 
 Louis the Fourteenth. Its one grand and constant solicitude 
 and effort was to repel, or to attack, France ; its alliances, 
 its battles, its whole series of operations from 1688, till the 
 King sunk into the tomb, pursued this single object. 
 
 "There is a simplicity in the foreign politics of this reign 
 in this respect. And when you ascend, or penetrate to the 
 origin and explanation of this policy ; when you inquire how 
 and why this antagonism to France became its law ; on what 
 principles and with what views so wide a confederacy became 
 associated with England in its prosecution ; when, in other 
 words, you look more closely into the entire international 
 politics of the Europe of that day, you find all as simple, and 
 all as intelligible. In the first place, the foreign policy of 
 England became identified with that of the United Provinces ; 
 and Holland was under an unintermitted necessity to fight, or 
 to observe France. Turn first to Holland." 
 
1844-1845.1 POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 127 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1844-1845. 
 
 Political Excitement Speaks for Mr. Clay Meeting of Congress 
 Diary Annexation oTTTSxas ^Admission of Iowa and Florida 
 
 Establishment of the Smithsonian Institution Library Plan 
 Letters to Hon. C. W. Upham Illness of Dr. Sewall Letter to 
 Mrs. Brinley. 
 
 IN the political contest of 1844, the annexation of 
 Texas was the leading issue. Mr. Van Buren failed 
 of a nomination in the Democratic Convention, mainly 
 because he was unfavorable to that measure, and Mr. 
 Polk was substituted in his place. Mr. Clay was the 
 candidate of the Whigs. Mr. Choate entered ardently 
 into the campaign, supporting Mr. Clay with all his 
 ability. He spoke on the 4th of July, at Concord, 
 where speeches were also made by Mr. Berrien, of 
 Georgia, Mr. Webster, Mr. Winthrop, Mr. Lawrence, 
 and others. He addressed a Whig Convention of 
 Western Massachusetts at Springfield, on the 9th of 
 August. He spoke before the Young Men of Boston 
 on the 19th of the same month, and again before a 
 Mass Meeting at Lynn, early in September. He was 
 opposed to the admission of Texas, not on narrow or 
 sectional grounds, but from fear of the final result to 
 the Union itself. In the speech at Lynn, prescient of 
 coming danger, he said, " If Texas is annexed to the 
 United States, these revolutionary soldiers who rocked 
 
128 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 the cradle of the infancy of the Union, will live to 
 follow its hearse to the grave." We are better able 
 now to judge of the effect of that sudden and immense 
 increase of territory, and of the purposes for which it 
 was urged. 
 
 A continuation of the fragmentary " Journal " will 
 best show the intellectual plans of the year, and may 
 indicate what he accomplished in the midst of, and in 
 spite of the incessant demands of politics, and of his 
 profession. 
 
 "Boston, December 9, 1844. About to set off to Wash 
 ington, there to close in two months, for ever, my political life, 
 and to begin my return to my profession, I am moved with a 
 passion of planning a little what, in all probability, will 
 not be performed or not performed without pretty essential 
 variations and interruptions. 
 
 " 1. Some professional work must be done every day. 
 Probably the preparation of Hhode Island i\ Massachusetts, 
 and ot Thurlow in Error, may furnish quite enough for these. 
 But recent experiences suggest that I ought to be more fam 
 iliar with evidence and Cowen s Phillipps ; therefore, daily, 
 for half an hour, I will thumb conscientiously. When I come 
 home again, in the intervals of actual employment, my recent 
 methods of reading, accompanying the reports with the com 
 position of arguments upon the points adjudged, may be prop 
 erly resumed. 
 
 "2. In my Greek, Latin, and French readings Odyssey, 
 Thucydides, Tacitus, Juvenal, and some French orator or 
 critic I need make no change. So, too, Milton, Johnson, 
 Burke semper in manu ut mos esf. To my Greek I 
 ought to add a page a day of Crosby s Grammar, and the prac 
 tice of parsing every word in my few lines of Homer. On 
 Sunday, the Greek Testament, and Septuagiut, and French. 
 This and the oration for the Crown, which I will completely 
 master, translate, annotate, and commit, will be enough in this 
 kind. If not, I will add a translation of a sentence or two 
 from Tacitus. 
 
 k 3. The business of the session ought to engross, and shall, 
 my chief attention. The Smithsonian Fund ought to be 
 
1844-1845.] FRAGMENTARY JOURNAL. 129 
 
 applied to a great library ; and a report and a speech in favor 
 of such an appropriation are the least I owe so grand and 
 judicious a destination of a noble gift. An edition of the 
 laws, on the plan of the last winter, is only next in dignity 
 and importance. For the rest the reduction of postage, the 
 matter of Texas, the tariff will be quite likely, with the 
 Supreme Court, to prevent time from hanging vacantly on 
 my hands. Sit mihi diligentia, sint vires sit denique et 
 prcecipue gratia! 
 
 And now for details of execution. 
 
 I. Walk an hour before breakfast ; morning paper ; John 
 son and Milton before breakfast. Add, if possible, with notes, 
 an Essay of Bacon also, or a paper of the Spectator, or a page 
 of some other paper of Addison. 
 
 II. After 1. The regular preparation for the Senate, be 
 it more or less. Let this displace, indeed, all else, before or 
 after. 2. If that allows (a.) Preparation of cases for 
 courts, (b.) If that allows 1. Page in Cowen s Phillipps. 
 2. Then preparation for courts. 3. Then Senate, &c. 
 
 III. Letters and session. 
 
 IV. Then subject to claims of debate and of Court 
 Greek, Latin, French, ut supra. Burke, Taylor. 
 
 V. The cases to be prepared by say 20th January ; de 
 bate oftener than formerly ; less preparation is really needful, 
 yet seek one great occasion. 
 
 " THE LAST SESSION. 
 
 "15th December, 1844. Under this title I mean to set 
 down any thing which I may collect from reading and inter 
 course with men in Congress and the Government, that strikes 
 me as having value or interest enough to deserve the trouble. 
 I don t design it for a diary ; or mere record, or in any degree 
 a record, of daily occurrences, for that I keep elsewhere, but 
 rather as a record of daily thoughts and acquisitions and im 
 pressions, during what I foresee must be a most instructive 
 session, and what I know is to be my last session. 
 
 " I begin a great work. Thucydides, in Bloomfield s new 
 edition, with the intention of understanding a difficult, and 
 learning something from an instructive writer something 
 for the more and more complicated, interior, inter state, 
 American politics. 
 
 " With Thucydides I shall read Wachsmuth, with historical 
 
 9 
 
130 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 references and verifications. Schumann on the Assemblies of 
 the Athenians. W. especially, I am to meditate and master. 
 Dacier s Horace, Ode 1, llth to 14th line, translation and 
 notes, a pocket edition to be always in pocket. 
 
 " Washington, Tuesday eve, \lth Dec. I was able to-day 
 almost to resume my courses, such as they are, of classical 
 and elegant reading Johnson s Life of Addisou ; the Odys 
 sey, Thucydides, Tacitus, Juvenal, Horace s Art of Poetry in 
 Dacier and Hurd. It was quite mechanical however, from 
 ill health and fatigue. I begin to-morrow melioribus nt spero, 
 auspiciis. I read Phillipps s Evidence, beginning at title 
 Incompetency, and commonplaced a reference or two. 
 
 u Thursday eve. Mark how Homer makes the wise and 
 great Ulysses applaud the blind harper and poet and singer 
 Demodocus, Od. 8, 470 to 480, and again, 487, &c. Seq. 
 
 44 Demodocus, above all mortals, 1 laud you. Either the 
 Muse, the daughter of God, or Apollo, has been your teacher. 
 So clearly and so truly do you sing the dark and sad fortunes 
 of the Greeks; what they achieved; what they suffered; 
 with what manifold trials and labors they contended, as if you 
 had been with them, an eye-witness, a sharer, or had heard 
 from one who had been. 
 
 " Thucydides is explaining why the primitive ages of Greece 
 afford the historian nothing great, neither in war, nor in any 
 thing else. In my reading of to-day, close of 2d and 3d of c. 
 2, he is saying : * And for this reason, they did not strengthen 
 th mselves, either by the greatness of cities or by military 
 preparation of any kind. It was ever the most fertile regions 
 which oftenest underwent changes of occupants ; such as what 
 is now called Thessaly and Boeotia, and the greater part of 
 Peloponnesus (excepting Arcadia), and the better portions 
 of other countries of Greece. For by means of the richness of 
 their soils certain individuals would attain to a superiority of 
 wealth; and this at once gave birth to factions within, by 
 which they were subverted, and exposed them to enemies 
 from without. 
 
 " Tacitus, Lib. II., sec. 30, relates the accusation and trial 
 of Libo : 4 This compelled the accused to ask a postponement 
 of the trial until the next day ; and returning to his house, he 
 committed to P. Quirinus, his kinsman, the last entreaties, 
 to be borne to the Emperor. Let him ask mercy of the 
 Senate. Such was the reply of Tiberius. 
 
1844-1845.] FRAGMENTARY JOURNAL. 131 
 
 "Saturday night, 28th Dec., 1844. My readings have 
 been pretty regular and almost systematic. Phillipps s Evi 
 dence, with notes, Johnson, The Tatler, The Whig Examiner, 
 and Milton, in the morning some thoughts on the Smith 
 sonian Fund, and one or two other Senatorial matters in the 
 forenoon, and the Odyssey, Thucydides in Bloomfield, Hobbes, 
 and Arnold, Demosthenes for the Crown, Tacitus, Juvenal, 
 and Horace de Arte Poet, with Dacier and Hurd. For the 
 rest I have read Jeffrey s contributions to the Review, and 
 have plunged into a pretty wide and most unsatisfactory 
 course of inquiry concerning the Pelasgi, and the origin of 
 Greek culture, and the Greek mind. Upon this subject let 
 me set down a few thoughts. 
 
 "2&th December, 1844. The nation which attracts the 
 highest interest to its history is undoubtedly Ancient Greece. 
 Perfectly to know that history, to discern and arrange its 
 authentic incidents, to extract and exclude fable, to abate 
 exaggeration, to select sagaciously and probably between al 
 ternatives of conjecture ; to solve the great problem of the 
 origin, successive growth and complete formation of that mind 
 and character, the causes which produced it and set it apart 
 from all other character and mind ; to deduce and apply the 
 lessons of that history to America, would be a vast achieve 
 ment of scholarship and philosophy and statesmanship. To 
 me, cogitante scepenumero on what one such labor I may con 
 centrate moments and efforts else sure to be dissipated and 
 unproductive, this seems to be obviously my reserved task. 
 It is large enough, and various enough to employ all my leis 
 ure, stimulate all my faculties, cultivate all my powers and 
 tastes, and it is seasonable and applicable in the actual condi 
 tion of these States. He who should perform it adequately 
 would be riot merely the best Greek scholar of this country ; 
 the best read in one brilliant chapter of the history of man ; 
 the most accomplished in one vast department of literature, 
 art, philosophy, fact ; but he would have added to his means 
 of counselling the people on the things of their peace. Pie 
 would have learned more of the uses and dangers of liberty, 
 and the uses and dangers of union. Let me slowly, quietly 
 begin. I seek political lessons for my country. But I am to 
 traverse centuries before I find these lessons in the pages of 
 Thucydides. To approach to the accomplishment of this 
 design, it must be my only literary labor my only labor 
 not professional. It may well, and it positively must, super- 
 
132 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 sede all others. The investigations it will exact ; the col 
 lections of authorities; the constant use of the pen; the 
 translations, the speculations, ought to constitute an admirable 
 exercise in reasoning ; in taste ; in rhetoric as well as his 
 tory. They may be embodied in a series of careful essays. 
 
 tk l dismiss therefore, and replace in the library, all my 
 books, except the two or three which I read for English and 
 Latin and bestow myself on this. 
 
 " The Homeric poems present to us a Greece already 
 formed ; a race speaking one tongue, distinct from the tongues 
 of Egypt or Phoenicia, distributed into many distinct sover 
 eignties ; some of which, or all of which are allied for the 
 prosecution of a great foreign war, under a single command. 
 
 They disclose this race already in the occupation of 
 
 [Here a blank occurs in the MS.] 
 
 and they paint vividly, comprehensively, its whole public and 
 private life ; its religion ; its industry ; its arts ; its language ; 
 its mind ; its manners. That Greece I shall, long hereafter, 
 carefully study and exhibit. But not yet. There is a stupen 
 dous preliminary problem. What had preceded and pro 
 duced that Greece ? What causes had acted on what races so 
 as to evolve the Greece of the heroic age ? who had been the 
 actors; what had been the acts, what had been the in 
 fluences ; what the succession of changes, and of advancement ? 
 
 " The Greek character and mind in its perfection was so 
 extraordinary, so unlike all that had preceded or have followed 
 it, that it is hot very strange perhaps that speculatists should 
 look with favor on the theory of a descent from a primitive 
 race or races, of extraordinary qualities. They have scarcely 
 been able to comprehend how any mere national education, 
 however varied, however plastic, of which we can learn any 
 thing, could have formed such a character and such a mind 
 out of common savage nature ; and they have been half in 
 clined to find in the Pelasgi of the Old World, or in the Hel 
 lenes, or in a race from the North, or in all together, the 
 germs of the transcendent genius, and the brilliant traits 
 which illustrate the age of Grecian glory. 
 
 ** Let me begin then with the Ante Hellenic races and ages 
 of Greece. Who whence what and of what names, 
 fortunes, diffusion, its first inhabitants ? 
 
1844-158.4] FRAGMENTARY JOURNAL. 133 
 
 "THE LAST SESSION, A DAT. 
 
 11 January, 1845. Finished Johnson s Life of Sheffield." 
 J. carelessly assigns as evidence that S. refused conversion to 
 papacy, an anecdote which he immediately disproves. If the 
 sentence had been finished with others ; and he had then 
 said, JB. even records, &c., &c., and then disproved B. s specific 
 statement, better. 
 
 " The progress of Milton s fame, illustrated by the changes 
 of the later editions of one of his [Sheffield s] pieces from the 
 earlier, is curious. 
 
 A faultless monster, which the world ne er saw/ 
 
 is good and quotable. Sine lobe monstrum [of Scaliger] is 
 the germ certainly. 
 
 " I remark illegality, and conjunctive sovereignty. How 
 does Hallam express it ? Is it associated sovereignty ? 
 
 " Milton s Paradise Lost, 1st book, 344-375. Mark the 
 matchless grandeur and elevation of expression. Cope of 
 Hell, Great Sultan, not sovereign ; how much more har 
 monious, aiming at variety, uncommon, with a charm of 
 orientalism. Rhene/ Danaw, Beneath Gibraltar, an epi 
 thet which makes you look down south. 
 
 Gay religions, full of pomp and gold/ 
 
 classical and gorgeous. 
 
 " Paper in Ret. Rev. 1 vol. i. p. 83, on Sir Thomas Browne s 
 Urn Burial/ great beauty and an exquisite appreciation 
 of the peculiarities of B. The first page, devoted to show 
 what use other, most writers, have made of death and mortality, 
 has delightful expression and fine thoughts, not enough sep 
 arated and arranged and made progressive. Fragility of 
 delight is not a bewitching attribute of delight. It is an 
 influence, however, a fact, or that which leads to a more 
 intense estimate and greedier and fonder enjoying of, and 
 a making most of it. 
 
 " What follows is truer, or more truly sets forth what phil 
 osophy and poetry may and do effectively derive from mortality 
 to their representations of affection ; sympathy, the human 
 nature. 
 
 1 " Retrospective Review." 
 
134 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 " In addition to my course, and a rule of Greek grammar, 
 I read a part of 1st Psalm in Buchanan s Latiu and Dupont s 
 Greek ; the latter verbose and tautologous, the former, I 
 should think, rigorously classical and energetic. Finished 
 with some pages of Jeremy Taylor, on life and death. Intense, 
 exaggerated, mournful, too true. I will daily read in the 
 English version at least six verses of the New Testament 
 with an earnest effort to understand, imbibe, and live them. 
 Satis, plusquam satis, sic vixisse, sic non vixisse, nee 
 pulchre, nee recte, sine dignitate, sine me ipsurn salvum 
 faciend.! sine reg. sine observ. Dei prrccept. sine intel- 
 lig. et app. ad me instit. et ritus rel. Christ vit. ist. 
 tu felic. non debetur, nee promissa, nee poss. ! Ideo ut supra 
 in vers. ang. una cum fin. diei stud. Sex vers. leg. et iiied. 
 et orare ! 
 
 "The session ended. Boston, March 10, 1845. 
 
 " To resume my ante-Homeric Greece, I have but to pro 
 cure a Niebuhr and Miiller in addition to books already at 
 hand, to review the collections accumulated at Washington, 
 and begin. But all this is to be held in strictest subordination 
 to law and to business. It is to be relaxation and recreation 
 strictly, yet is it to improve style, reason, taste, and habits of 
 research. 
 
 " 30th M. 45. A succession of trials in different courts has 
 thrown me out of many merely literary and exercitational 
 purposes and duties. These I resume, and every day not 
 a day of trial in court I shall investigate some subject of 
 law, three hours at least, digesting the results. 
 
 " Translation daily is manifestly my only means of keeping 
 up my English. This I practise in my post-prandial readings, 
 but I fear it is not quite exacting, laborious, and stimulant 
 enough. I have a pretty strong impression that the only 
 sufficient task would be Demosthenes severely, exactly ren 
 dered, yet with utmost striving of words, style, melody, 
 volume of sound, and impression. I should begin with the 
 oral ion for the Crown. When ? By putting my post-prandial 
 classical readings before breakfast, following my English, 
 I could gain an hour, or half of one, after dinner, and half an 
 hour after breakfast at home. This will do, leaving my fore 
 noons, afternoons, and one evening hour, for business and law. 
 Try. 
 
1844-1845.] ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 135 
 
 April. I have tried, and with tolerable success. 
 I have translated the Decree of Ctesiphon ; the impeachment 
 of TEschines ; and am now about to digest so much of the 
 History of Greece as will enable me to understand the two 
 great speeches. This really will require a pretty careful 
 study of the age and life of Demosthenes in Plutarch, Mitford, 
 Thirlwall, and such other helps as I can command. Con 
 temporary authors there are none since Theopompus is per 
 ished ; and I appreciate the difficulty of the search for truth. 
 Happy if I find enough for my mere critical and rhetorical 
 purposes." 
 
 The purpose suggested above, on devoting himself to 
 a work on the history and culture of Greece, was one 
 which he doubtless pretty seriously entertained. He 
 used, sometimes, to speak to his family, half jocosely 
 and half in earnest, of his " immortal work," and I 
 think he did not quite abandon the plan until after 
 Mr. Grote s history was published. 
 
 The subjects which presented themselves for the con 
 sideration of Congress during the session of 1844-45 
 were of considerable consequence. Foremost among 
 them was the annexation of Texas. During the pre 
 vious session, in accordance with the wishes of the 
 President, an attempt had been made to accomplish 
 this object by treaty. A treaty was therefore nego 
 tiated by Mr. Calhoun, Secretary of State, and Mr. Van 
 Zandt, representative of Texas. When presented to 
 the Senate, however, it was rejected by a very decisive 
 vote. An attempt was now made to reach the same 
 end by resolutions, which were introduced in the Sen 
 ate, by Mr. M Duffie, and in the House, by Mr. Inger- 
 soll. The subject was not fairly reached in the Senate 
 until the 13th of February, 1845, and after the reso 
 lutions had passed the House. The debate was con 
 ducted with great ability, and by the leading men on 
 
136 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 both sides of the chamber, by Mr. Buchanan, Mr. 
 Walker, Mr. Woodbury, and others, on the one side, 
 and by Mr. Choate, Mr. Dayton, Mr. Crittenden, and 
 Mr. Berrien, to name no more, on the other. The 
 interest in the discussion was heightened by the fact 
 that the Senate was nearly equally divided on the 
 subject. Mr. Choate spoke on the 18th of February 
 for nearly three hours. There is no full report of 
 this speech, which is said to have been of very great 
 power. 
 
 The grounds on which he opposed the measure were 
 mainly these two : 1st, That it was beyond the con 
 stitutional power of Congress ; 2d, That even if con 
 stitutional, it was inexpedient. These points he ar 
 gued at considerable length, enforcing his argument, 
 as the report says, with " innumerable illustrations." 
 Looking at the period before the Constitution was 
 formed, he contended that " in framing the Constitu 
 tion, when the sovereign power of the people was to be 
 delegated, the grant was intended to be in express 
 terms, such as the power to declare war, make peace, 
 regulate commerce with foreign nations, levy taxes, 
 <fcc. But no such power as that of admitting foreign 
 nations into the Union was delegated, or it would have 
 been also explicitly granted." Looking at the Consti 
 tution itself, he endeavored to show that the power to 
 admit new States was not intended to imply the vast 
 power of admitting foreign governments. This he 
 denied could be done by any power but the primary, 
 sovereign power of the people themselves, either by 
 agreement to amend the Constitution so as to grant the 
 express authority, or otherwise. " Until it was found," 
 he said, " that the treaty of the last session had no 
 
1844-1845.] SPEECH AGAINST ANNEXING TEXAS. 137 
 
 chance of passing the Senate, no human being save 
 one, no man, woman, or child, in this Union or out of 
 this Union, was ever heard to breathe one syllable 
 about this power in the Constitution of admitting new 
 States being applicable to the admission of foreign 
 nations, governments, or States. With one exception, 
 till ten months ago, no such doctrine was ever heard, 
 or even entertained." The exception to which he allud 
 ed was the letter of Mr. Macon to Mr. Jefferson, which 
 Mr. Jefferson so promptly rebuked, that the insinuation 
 was never again repeated, u till it was found necessary 
 ten months ago by some one, he would not say with 
 Texas scrip in his pocket, but certainly with Texas 
 annexation very much at heart, who brought it forward 
 into new life, and urged it as the only proper mode of 
 exercising an express grant of the Constitution." This 
 he regarded as a new and monstrous heresy on the Con 
 stitution, got up not from any well-founded faith in its 
 orthodoxy, but for the mere purpose of carrying a 
 measure by a bare majority of Congress, that could not 
 be carried by a two-thirds majority of the Senate in 
 accordance with the treaty-making power. 
 
 In conclusion, alluding to some criticism upon his 
 own State, he said " Massachusetts asks nothing but 
 what the Constitution has given to her, and there is 
 nothing in the Constitution, however peculiar, however 
 different from her views of policy, that she will seek 
 to stir, or ask to be invaded. Keep the Constitution 
 and the Constitution will keep you. Break into it in 
 search of secret curiosities which you cannot find there, 
 and there is no longer security, no longer any thing 
 between you and us and the unappeasable, unchained 
 spirit of the age." 
 
138 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 The resolution, or rather an amendment " leaving it 
 at the discretion of the President, whether resort 
 should be had to negotiation, or Texas be admitted by 
 virtue of this act, and become an independent State," 
 was finally passed by a majority of two, and having 
 again gone through the House, President Tyler signed 
 the bill, among the last of his official acts. 
 
 A bill was also introduced at this session to admit 
 Iowa and Florida into the Union. Though not opposed 
 to the admission of new States, Mr. Choate strongly 
 objected to the extraordinary method of a joint bill, 
 making the admission of the one dependent upon that 
 of the other. Some things in the constitution of 
 Florida he considered to be ill-advised if not unconsti 
 tutional. When, therefore, Mr. Evans proposed as an 
 amendment that Florida should not be admitted until 
 those articles should be struck from her constitution 
 which took from her General Assembly the power to 
 pass laws for the emancipation of slaves, and to pass 
 laws preventing free negroes or other persons of color 
 from immigrating to the State, or from being dis 
 charged from any vessel in any of the ports of the 
 State, Mr. Choate supported it. He did it, though 
 reluctantly, because the articles seemed to be contrary 
 to the Federal Constitution. Admitting that Florida 
 had the right to pass such municipal laws as her cir 
 cumstances required, he wished that those who denied 
 their constitutionality might go to the Supreme Court 
 without being met by the adverse action of Congress. 
 Massachusetts was even then engaged in a controversy 
 with two other States involving the questions here 
 brought to notice, and all that he solicited was an 
 opportunity to have the right of the Southern States 
 
1844-1845.] SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 139 
 
 to arrest the colored citizens of the North, brought 
 directly before the Supreme Court of the United States 
 for its decision ; a decision, whatever it were, that 
 Massachusetts would be sure to respect. 
 
 Of all the objects, however, which came before the 
 Senate during the session, none interested Mr. Choate 
 more deeply than the organization of the Smithsonian 
 Institution. The will of James Smithson, containing 
 his munificent bequest, was dated October 23, 1826, 
 nearly three years before his death. 1 The bequest was 
 accepted by Congress in 1836, and the money was re 
 ceived by the Government of the United States on the 
 1st of September, 1838. The disposition of so large a 
 fund, amounting to more than half a million of dollars, 
 became a matter of much solicitude to all who regarded 
 the interests of knowledge, or the honor of the country. 
 Many were afraid, that through the recklessness of 
 parties, it would in some way be lost. If preserved, 
 intelligent men differed as to the use to be made of 
 it. In the summer of 1838, by order of the President 
 of the United States, letters were addressed to eminent 
 persons in various parts of the country, soliciting ad 
 vice. As might have been anticipated, the opinions 
 were as diverse as the men. John Quincy Adams, 
 who had devoted much thought to the subject, recom 
 mended that the income of the fund, for a series of 
 years, should be devoted to establishing a National 
 Observatory. President Wayland sketched the plan of 
 a University. Mr. Rush proposed the collection of 
 seeds, plants, objects of natural history, and antiqui 
 ties, and, in addition, courses of lectures, which should 
 be free to a certain number of young men from each 
 
 i Smithson died June 27, 1829. 
 
140 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 State. Other plans were also suggested, and the sub 
 ject was discussed from time to time in both branches 
 of Congress, without, however, leading to any definite 
 result. In December, 1844, Mr. Tappan, a Senator 
 from Ohio, brought in a bill similar to one which he 
 had advocated during a former session, providing for 
 the selection of grounds for purposes of agriculture and 
 horticulture, the erection of buildings, and the appoint 
 ment of Professors and Lecturers. An Institution, he 
 thought, would thus be established similar in plan and 
 results to the Garden of Plants in Paris. 
 
 Mr. Choate was so anxious for some organization 
 that he stood ready to vote for any reasonable proposi 
 tion which would command a majority, but another 
 scheme, radically different from that proposed by the 
 bill, seemed to him so much to be preferred, that on 
 the 8th of January, 1845, he offered, as an amend 
 ment, what was called the Librciry Plan. The charac 
 teristic feature of this was a provision that a sum not 
 less than $20,000 should be annually expended for the 
 purchase of books and manuscripts for the formation 
 of a Library, which for extent, completeness, and 
 value, " should be worthy of the donor of the fund, 
 and of this nation, and of this age." There were 
 reasons at that time for such a disposition of the 
 legacy, which do not to the same extent exist now. 
 Not a library in the country then numbered more than 
 50,000 volumes, and the one or two which contained so 
 many, had no funds for their large increase, or even 
 adequate to their preservation. The bill thus amended, 
 was amply discussed, and finally passed the Senate 
 January 23, 1845. It being the short session of Con 
 gress, the subject was not reached in the House in 
 
1844-1845.] SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 141 
 
 season for a vote. Mr. Choate left the Senate in March, 
 and of course had no further public agency in the 
 organization. During the next session, however, a new 
 bill, substantially the same as that proposed by Mr. 
 Choate, was carried through the House, mainly by the 
 exertions of Hon. George P. Marsh, then a member 
 from Vermont. It authorized the Regents to make an 
 appropriation not exceeding an average of $25,000 
 annually, for the formation of a library, composed of 
 valuable works pertaining to all departments of human 
 knowledge. Several other plans were urged, but all 
 were rejected, and the bill which passed, took its final 
 shape from a series of amendments proposed by Mr. 
 Marsh, " all with a view," as he said, " to direct the 
 appropriation entirely to the purposes of a library." In 
 the Senate, the bill was referred to a Select Committee, 
 and after free discussion and the rejection of several 
 amendments, finally passed that body precisely as it 
 came from the House. It was approved by the Presi 
 dent, and became a law August 10, 1846. 
 
 It may be proper to state here briefly and with ref 
 erence only to results, Mr. Choate s subsequent con 
 nection with an Institution in the establishment and 
 welfare of which he had taken so deep an interest. 
 He was elected a member of its first Board of Regents ; 
 an honor eminently due to his efforts in its behalf, and 
 to the fact that the plan of a library, which he had in 
 itiated, had been adopted by Congress. At the first 
 meeting of the Board, a committee was appointed, of 
 which Mr. Choate was the chairman, to prepare a re 
 port upon the formation of a library, and in accordance 
 with their recommendation, the Board appropriated 
 $20,000 out of the interest of the fund, for the purchase 
 
142 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 of books, and the gradual fitting np of a library. A 
 committee was also raised to prepare extended lists of 
 books in different departments of learning, proper to 
 be first purchased. Notwithstanding this beginning, 
 however, a strong opposition to the library existed 
 among the Regents, some of whom had, from the first, 
 favored a plan subsequently known as the " system of 
 active operations." As a means of conciliation, it was 
 voted, early in the next year, to divide the income 
 equally between the two classes of objects, the Library, 
 Museum, and Gallery of Art, on the one side, and the 
 Publication of Transactions, Original Researches, and 
 Lectures, on the other. This was proposed and ac 
 cepted as a compromise, although by some acquiesced 
 in with reluctance. Mr. Marsh, especially, was so 
 convinced of its failure to meet the intent of the law, 
 that he proposed to invoke again the action of Con 
 gress, and yielded only to repeated solicitations, and 
 to a reluctance to disturb an arrangement, in which 
 the public generally had no great interest, and which, 
 it was hoped, would conciliate all parties. The friends 
 of the original plan of Congress were, however, doomed 
 to greater disappointment. The genius of the Institu 
 tion bent to science, not to letters. Years rolled on, 
 and the library was suffered to languish in the shade. 
 Instead of a vigorous effort to increase it by a syste 
 matic application of appropriated funds, a proposition 
 was made to annul the compromise itself, and leave 
 the apportionment of the expenditures to the annual 
 determination of the Board of Regents. A section of 
 the law providing that " of any other moneys accruing 
 as interest upon the fund, not appropriated, the man 
 agers may make such disposal as they shall deem best 
 
1844-1845.] SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 143 
 
 suited for promoting the purpose of the testator," was 
 relied on as conferring the requisite authority for this 
 change of plan. 
 
 Of this proposition Mr. Choate wrote from Boston, 
 February 4, 1854 : 
 
 " Situated so far off, I cannot comprehend the rea 
 sons on which the compromise is sought to be dis 
 turbed. It was the result of years of disagreeing 
 opinions, and of reflections on all modes of administer 
 ing the fund. The claims of the methods of publica 
 tion of papers, and of the collection of books and 
 specimens of art, were thoroughly canvassed, and 
 respectively well understood. The necessity of recon 
 ciling opinions by concession was seen to be coercive. 
 It was yielded to, and the matter was put, as it was 
 thought, at rest. It has been acted on long enough to 
 demonstrate, that if adhered to honorably and calmly 
 and permanently, without restlessness and without am 
 bition, except to do good and to pursue truth under 
 and according to it, it will assuredly work out great, 
 visible^ and enduring results, in as much variety of 
 form, satisfactory to as large a variety of opinions, as 
 can be expected of any thing. 
 
 "For myself I should deplore any change in the dis 
 tribution of the fund. I appreciate the claims of 
 science on the Institution ; and the contributions 
 which, in the form of discovery and investigation, 
 under its able Secretary, it is making to good knowl 
 edge. But I insist that it owes a great library to the 
 Capital of the New World ; .something to be seen, 
 preserved, and to grow, into which shall be 
 slowly, but surely and judiciously, gathered the best 
 thoughts of all the civilizations. God forbid that we 
 
144 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 should not have reach, steadiness, and honor enough 
 to adhere to this as one great object of the fund, 
 solemnly proposed, and never to be lost sight of." 
 
 He subsequently opposed this new plan before the 
 Board, in a speech, of which there is no record, but 
 which one of the Regents said, was " the most beauti 
 ful that ever fell from human lips ; " and another, Mr. 
 Douglas, added, " that it seemed impertinence for any 
 body else after it to say a word." It did not avail. 
 The Board was predetermined, and Mr. Choate, who 
 had been re-elected as Regent but a short time before, 
 at once concluded to resign his position. It was in 
 convenient for him to attend the meetings, and having 
 no longer the interest of the library to lead him 
 there, he chose not to be even indirectly responsible 
 for the proceedings. There were other circumstances 
 which urged him also to the same conclusion, among 
 which, doubtless, was his sympathy with Professor 
 Jewett, who had been summarily deprived of his posi 
 tion as Librarian. He accordingly sent his resignation 
 in the following letter : 
 
 " To Hoy. JESSE P. BRIGHT, President pro tempore of the Senate, and 
 HON. LiNN-BoYD, Speaker of the House of Representatives : 
 
 " I take leave to communicate to the two Houses of Con 
 gress my resignation of the office of Regent of the Smithson 
 ian Institution. 
 
 " It is due to the body which has been pleased to honor me 
 with this trust for some years, and has recently conferred it 
 for a new term, to say that this step is taken not from any 
 loss of interest in the welfare of that important establishment, 
 but in part from the inconvenience experienced in attending 
 the meetings, and in part, also, and more immediately, from 
 my inability to concur or acquiesce in an interpretation of the 
 Act of Congress constituting the actual Institution and the 
 Board of Regents, which has been adopted, and is now about 
 
1844-1845.] RESIGNS HIS PLACE AS REGENT. 145 
 
 to be practically carried into administration by a majority of 
 the Board. That act, it has seemed to me, peremptorily 
 4 directs a manner, and devises and prescribes a plan, accord 
 ing to which it intends that the Institution shall accomplish 
 the will of the donor. By the earlier law accepting the gift, 
 Congress engaged to direct such a manner and to devise such 
 a plan; and pledged the faith, of the United States that the 
 funds should be applied according to such plan and such man 
 ner. In fulfilment of that pledge, and in the performance of 
 its inalienable and incommunicable duty as trustee of the char 
 ity, that body, after many years of deliberation from which it 
 never sought to relieve itself by devolving the work upon the 
 discretion of others matured its plan, and established the 
 actual Institution to carry it out. Of this plan, the general 
 features are sketched with great clearness and great com 
 pleteness in I he law. Without resorting for aid, in its inter 
 pretation, to its parliamentary history, the journals and 
 debates, the substantial meaning seems to be palpable and un 
 equivocal in its terms. By such aid it is rendered quite 
 certain. A Board of Regents is created to administer it. 
 Some discretionary powers, of course, are given to the Board 
 in regard of details, and in regard of possible surpluses of in 
 come which may remain at any given time, while the plan 
 of Congress is being zealously and judiciously carried into 
 effect; but these discretionary powers are given, I think, in 
 trust for the plan of Congress, and as auxiliary to, co-operative 
 with, and executory of it. They were given for the sake of 
 the plan, simply to enable the Regents the more effectually 
 and truly to administer that very one not to enable them 
 to devise and administer another of their own, unauthorized 
 in the terms of the law, incompatible with its announced ob 
 jects and its full development not alluded to in it anywhere, 
 and which, as the journals and the debates inform us, when 
 presented to the House under specific propositions, was re 
 jected. 
 
 " Of this act an interpretation has now been adopted by 
 which, it has seemed to me, these discretionary means of car 
 rying the will of Congress into effect are transformed into 
 means of practically disappointing that will, and of building 
 up an institution substantially unlike that which it intended ; 
 which supersedes and displaces it, and in effect repeals the 
 law. Differences of opinion had existed in the Board from 
 its first meeting, in regard of the administration of the act ; 
 
 10 
 
146 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 but they were composed by a resolution of compromise, ac 
 cording to which a full half of the annual income was to be 
 eventually applied in permanence to what I deem the essen 
 tial parts of the plan of Congress. That resolution of com 
 promise is now formally rescinded, and henceforward the 
 discretion of the Regents, and not the act of Congress, is to 
 be the rule of appropriation ; and that discretion has already 
 declared itself for another plan than what I deem the plan of 
 Congress. It may be added that under the same interpreta 
 tion, the office and powers of secretary are fundamentally 
 changed from, those of the secretary of the law, as I read it, 
 and are greatly enlarged. 
 
 " In this interpretation I cannot acquiesce ; and with entire 
 respect for the majority of the Board, and with much kindness 
 and regard to all its members, I am sure that my duty re 
 quires a respectful tender of resignation. I make it accord 
 ingly, and am Your obedient servant, 
 
 " RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 "WASHINGTON, D.C., January 13, 1855." 
 
 The reception of this letter excited some commotion 
 in Congress, and gave rise to sharp debates. The 
 House of Representatives appointed a select com 
 mittee, to whom it was referred, with directions to 
 inquire into the management and expenditure of the 
 funds of the Institution. The two letters which follow, 
 to the chairman of the committee, will show more com 
 pletely Mr. Choate s views and feelings : 
 
 To Hox. CHARLES W. UFIIAM. 
 
 " BOSTON, February 2, 1855. 
 
 " HON. C- W. UPHAM, My dear Sir : I happened to be 
 quite sick when your letters reached me, and am only now 
 able to go out, without being equal to any thing. It would 
 afford me the truest pleasure to be able to transmit to the 
 committee a few thoughts on the sense of the act of Congress. 
 That, if read carefully, by the lights of its history, and with a 
 mind not pre-occupied, it makes a plan which, until a new 
 law is passed, the Regents were bound to execute heartily, 
 is, however, so clear, that I do not see what can be added to 
 the bare enunciation. It happened to it just what happened 
 
1844-1845.] LETTER TO HON. C. W. UPHAM. 147 
 
 to the Constitution. It was opposed because it was a Library 
 measure, until it became a law, and then a metaphysics was 
 applied to it to show that it was no Library measure after all. 
 I await with great interest the proceedings of your committee ; 
 and, if my health will permit, I mean to address something, 
 less or more, to the Hon. Chairman as such. 
 " I am, most truly, 
 
 " Your ob t servant and friend, 
 
 " RUFUS ClIOATE." 
 
 To HON. CHARLES W. UPHAM. 
 
 " BOSTON, February 19, 1855. 
 
 " DEAR MR. UPHAM, I am distressed to find that it will 
 not be possible for me to prepare any thing for the eye of the 
 committee. My engagements are so utterly out of proportion 
 to my health, that I am prostrated and imbecile for all effort 
 but the mill-horse walk of my daily tasks. It was never my 
 purpose to do more than discuss the question of the intent of 
 Congress. The intent of Smithson is not the problem now. 
 It is the intent of Congress ; and that is so transparent, and 
 is so evidenced by so many distinct species of proof, that I 
 really feel that I should insult the committee by arguing it. 
 That Congress meant to devise a plan of its own is certain. 
 The uniform opinion of men in Congress from the start had 
 been that it must do so. Hence, solely, the years of delay, 
 caused by the difficulties of devising a plan. Why not have 
 at once made a Board, and devolved all on them ? But who 
 ever thought of such a thing ? If, then, Congress would mean, 
 and had meant, to frame a plan, what is it ? Nothing, unless 
 it is that of collections of books, specimens of art and nature, 
 and possibly lectures. It is either these exactly, or it is just 
 what the Regents please. But it cannot be the latter, and 
 then it is these. 
 
 " 1 . These are provided for in terms ; nothing else is. 
 
 2. The debates show that all things else were rejected. 
 
 3. The only difficulties are these two: 1st, It is said dis 
 cretionary powers are given to the Regents. Yes ; but how 
 does good faith require these to be interpreted? Are they 
 limited or unlimited ? If the latter, then Congress has framed 
 and preferred no plan of its own, but has committed every 
 thing to the uncontrolled fancies of the Regents. This, if 
 their discretionary powers are unlimited. But how absurd to 
 
148 MEMOIR OF RUFUS ClIOATE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 say this, against an act so loaded with details, and whose his 
 tory shows it carefully constructed to embody a plan of Con 
 gress ! If, then, the discretionary powers are limited, how 
 are they limited ? So as to subserve and help out the plan of 
 Congress, primarily and chiefly ; and when the good of that 
 plan may be best advanced by a little surplus here or there, 
 they may do with that rare and exceptional case what they 
 will. 2d, The second difficulty is, that the Regents are not 
 directed to expend at hast so much, but not above. The diffi 
 culty, as they put it, assumes that there can be no satisfactory 
 evidence of a plan of Congress, unless by express language 
 enacting, * this is the plan of Congress, or it is the intention 
 of Congress, hereby, that the income shall be applied exclu 
 sively, so and so, or, that * whether books are cheap or dear, 
 a certain minimum shall in every year be laid out thereon, 
 or some other express equivalent of language. But this is 
 foolish. If the whole antecedent action in Congress from the 
 first shows that Congress understands that it is to frame a 
 plan ; if the history of this act shows that everybody thought 
 they were framing a plan ; if then you find one in all its 
 great outlines actually sketched, building, spacious rooms, pro 
 vision for books and specimens, &c., &c., constituting de 
 facto a plan, sufficient to exhaust the income ; and if you find 
 not a trace of any other mode or scheme, how absurd to de 
 mand, in addition to all this, a section to say, By the way, 
 Congress weans something by all this pother; and it means 
 that the plan it has thus portrayed is the plan it chooses to 
 have executed. Suppose a law, in the first section authoriz 
 ing a ship to be built of a size and construction specifically 
 adapted to the Arctic navigation, as our building is to be for 
 books ; and in a second section, an enactment that the captain 
 should cruise not exceeding ten months in the Arctic Ocean ; 
 and in a third, that if he have any spare time to cruise, he 
 might explore any other sea ; could he go one month to the 
 Arctic, and then say he preferred the Mediterranean, and 
 cruise there eleven? But why not? There are no express 
 words. But there is other evidence of legislative intent, 
 the build of the ship, and the solicitous provision for a par 
 ticular sea, and the silence about all others, and the stupendous 
 dissimilarity in the two adventures. If, besides, you found 
 a Congressional history, showing that everybody understood 
 Congress was selecting its own sea, motions made to divide 
 the )ear with the Mediterranean, and rejected, it would be 
 
1844-1845.] LETTER TO MRS. BRINLEY. 149 
 
 altogether quite the case. But I beg your pardon for these 
 platitudes. I entreat you to do two things : 1. Vindicate the 
 sense of the law. 2. Vindicate art, taste, learning, genius, 
 
 mind, history, ethnology, morals 
 
 I am most anxiously and faithfully yours, 
 
 " R. CHOATE." 
 
 It cannot be denied that Mr. Choate author and 
 -successful defender of the library plan, as he was 
 suffered a great disappointment in the final disposition 
 of the fund. He felt that it by no means met the pur 
 pose of the Congress that passed the act ; and, looking 
 to permanent and comprehensive effects, would not be 
 likely to secure a result so conspicuous, so noble, so 
 worthy of the nation, so free from the possibility of per 
 version, or so directly meeting the great want of the 
 learned, cultivated, inquisitive, and thoughtful through 
 out the whole land, as if mainly or largely devoted to 
 a library. 
 
 In the spring of 1845 Mr. Choate lost his brother-in- 
 law, Dr. Sewali, to whom in early life lie had been so 
 much indebted for advice and assistance, and whose 
 house in Washington had often been his home. The 
 following letter to his relative, Mrs. Brinley, who was 
 then in Dr. SewalPs family, was written before the 
 news of his death had reached Boston. 
 
 To MRS. FRANCIS BRINLEY. 
 
 " Thursday, Fast Day, 1845. 
 
 " MY DEAR COUSIN SARAH, No one can express my ob 
 ligations to you for your faithful kindness and thoughtfulness 
 during all this great affliction at the Doctor s. God bless you 
 for it all. I have mourned deeply over the sad and surprising 
 event, although I had again conceived the strongest hopes of 
 his recovery. Give my best love to all who are alive. I 
 wisli my nephew, Thomas, would convey to his father, if liv 
 ing, my thanks and profound gratitude for a life of kindness 
 
150 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CIIOATE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 to me, and would as he will soothe his mother. ... If 
 you leave Washington, and this change happens at the Doc- 
 tors s. it is a spot blotted for ever from the earth. ... I know 
 not what to write, because I know not how or what or who 
 you all are. Pray accept my love, and give it to all our dear 
 friends. How happy for you that Miss C., so agreeable, 
 so composed, and so sympathetic, is with you. God bless 
 you. 
 
 " R. CIIOATE." 
 
1845-1849.] ADDRESS BEFORE THE LAW SCHOOL. 151 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1845-1849. 
 
 Address before the Law School in Cambridge Argues the Case of 
 Rhode Island v. Massachusetts Defence of Tirrell The Oliver 
 Smith s Will Case Speaks in favor of General Taylor Offer of 
 a Professorship in the Cambridge Law School Offer of a Seat 
 upon the Bench The Phillips Will Case Journal. 
 
 ON leaving the Senate, Mr. Choate for a time bade 
 farewell to politics, and returned without regret to the 
 narrower sphere of the city and the courts. He had 
 become known for his intrepid and successful manage 
 ment of difficult cases. These were often intrusted to 
 him when he would gladly have avoided the responsi 
 bility, if his sense of professional cluty would have 
 allowed; but he did not feel at liberty to refuse his 
 services when properly solicited, merely because the 
 cause was distasteful, or the client possibly undeserv 
 ing of sympathy. 
 
 In the summer of this year, 1845, he delivered an 
 address before the Law School at Cambridge, on the 
 " Position and Functions of the American Bar, as an 
 element of Conservatism in the State." 
 
 This noble address is replete with political wisdom. 
 It shows the careful student, to whom the lessons 
 of history are living, and urgent, the profound and 
 philosophical observer of the causes of national pros 
 perity or national decay, watchful and discriminating 
 
152 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 of the dangers of the State. A few pages will indicate, 
 although partially and inadequately, the drift of thought. 
 
 " And so the dying of a nation begins in the heart. There 
 are sentiments concerning the true idea of the State, concerning 
 law, concerning liberty, concerning justice, so active, so mortal, 
 that if they pervade and taint the general mind, and transpire 
 in practical politics, the commonwealth is lost already. It was 
 of these that the democracies of Greece, one after another, 
 miserably died. It was not so much the spear of the great 
 Emathiau conqueror which bore the beaming forehead of 
 Athens to the dust, as it was that diseased, universal opinion, 
 those tumultuous and fraudulent practical politics, which came 
 at last to supersede the constitution of Solon, and the equiva 
 lents of Pericles, which dethroned the reason of the State, 
 shattered and dissolved its checks, balances, and securities 
 against haste and wrong, annulled its laws, repudiated its 
 obligations, shamed away its justice, and set up instead, for 
 rule, the passion, ferocity, and caprice, and cupidity, and fraud 
 of a flushed majority, cheated and guided by sycophants and 
 demagogues, it was this diseased public opinion and these 
 politics, its fruits, more deadly than the gold or the phalanx of 
 Philip, that cast her down untimely from her throne on high. 
 
 " And now, what are these sentiments and opinions from 
 which the public mind of America is in danger, and which the 
 studies and offices oT our profession have fitted us and impose 
 on us the duty to encounter and correct? 
 
 " In the first place, it has been supposed that there might be 
 detected, not yet in the general mind, but in what may grow 
 to be the general mind, a singularly inadequate idea of the 
 State as an unchangeable, indestructible, and, speaking after 
 the manner of men, an immortal thing. I do not refer at this 
 moment exclusively to the temper in which the Federal Union 
 is regarded, though that is a startling illustration of the more 
 general and deeper sentiment, but I refer in a larger view to 
 what some have thought the popular or common idea of the 
 civil State itself, its sacredness, its permanence, its ends, in 
 the lofty phrase of Cicero, its eternity. The tendency appears 
 to be, to regard the whole concern as an association altogether 
 at will, and at the will of everybody. Its boundary lines, its 
 constituent numbers, its physical, social, and constitutional 
 identity, its polity, its law, its continuance for ages, its dissolu 
 tion, all these seem to be held in the nature of so many open 
 
1845-1849.] ADDRESS BEFORE THE LAW SCHOOL. 153 
 
 questions. Whether our country words so simple, so ex 
 pressive, so sacred ; which, like father, child, wife, should 
 present an image familiar, endeared, definite to the heart 
 whether our country shall, in the course of the next six 
 months, extend to the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf, or be con 
 fined to the parochial limits of the State where we live, or 
 have no existence at all for us ; where its centre of power 
 shall be; whose statues shall be borne in ifs processions; 
 whose names, what days, what incidents of glory commemo 
 rated in its anniversaries, and what symbols blaze on its flag, 
 in all this there is getting to be a rather growing habit of 
 politic nou-committalism. Having learned from Rousseau 
 and Locke, and our own revolutionary age, its theories and 
 its acts, that the State is nothing but a contract, rests in 
 contract, springs from contract; that government is a con 
 trivance of human wisdom for human wants ; that the civil 
 life, like the Sabbath, is made for man, not man for either ; 
 having only about seventy years ago laid hold of an arbi 
 trary fragment of the British empire, and appropriated it 
 to ourselves, which is all the country we ever had ; having 
 gone on enlarging, doubling, trebling, changing all this since, 
 as a garment or a house ; accustomed to encounter every day, 
 at the polls, in the market, at the miscellaneous banquet of our 
 Liberty everywhere, crowds of persons whom we never saw 
 before, strangers in the country, yet just as good citizens as 
 ourselves ; with a whole continent before us, or half a one, to 
 choose a home in ; teased and made peevish by all manner of 
 small, local jealousies ; tormented by the stimulations of a revo 
 lutionary philanthropy; enterprising, speculative, itinerant, im 
 proving, studious of change, and pleased with novelty 
 beyond the general habit of desultory man ; it might almost 
 seem to be growing to be our national humor to hold ourselves 
 free at every instant, to be and do just what we please, go 
 where we please, stay as long as we please and no longer ; 
 and that the State itself were held to be no more than an en 
 campment of tents on the great prairie, pitched at sun-down, 
 and struck to the sharp crack of the rifle next morning, in 
 stead of a structure, stately and eternal, in which the genera 
 tions may come, one after another, to the great gift of this 
 social life. 
 
 " On such sentiments as these, how can a towering and dura 
 ble fabric be set up? To use the metaphor of a- o i, on 
 such soil how can greatness be sown ? How unlike the 
 
154 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [ CHAP. VI. 
 
 lessons of the masters, at whose feet you are bred! The 
 studies of our profession have taught us that the State is 
 framed for a duration without end, without end till the 
 earth and the heavens be no more. Sic comtituta civitas 
 ut eterna ! In the eye and contemplation of law, its masses 
 may die ; its own corporate being can never die. If we in 
 spect the language of its fundamental ordinance, every word 
 expects, assumes, foretells a perpetuity, lasting as the great 
 globe itself, and all which it inherit. If we go out of that 
 record and inquire for the designs and the hopes of its founders 
 ab extra, we know that they constructed it, and bequeathed 
 it, for the latest posterity. If we reverently rise to a conjecture 
 of the purposes for which the Ruler of the world permitted 
 and decreed it to be instituted, in order to discern how soon 
 it will have performed its office and may be laid aside, we see 
 that they reach down to the last hour of the life of the last 
 man that shall live upon the earth ; that it was designed by 
 the Infinite Wisdom, to enable the generation who framed it, 
 and all the generations, to perfect their social, moral, and re 
 ligious nature ; to do and to be good ; to pursue happiness ; to 
 be fitted, by the various discipline of the social life, by obedi 
 ence, by worship, for the life to come. When these ends are 
 all answered, the State shall die ! When these are answered, 
 intereat et concidat omnis hie mundus! Until they are an 
 swered, esto, eritque perpetua ! 
 
 " In the next place, it has been thought that there was de 
 veloping itself in the general sentiment, and in the practical 
 politics of the time, a tendency towards one of those great 
 changes by which free States have oftenest perished, a 
 tendency to push to excess the distinctive and characteristic 
 principles of our system, whereby, as Aristotle has said, gov 
 ernments usually perish, a tendency towards transition from 
 the republican to the democratical era, of the history and 
 epochs of liberty. 
 
 " Essentially and generally, it would be pronounced by those 
 who discern it, a tendency to erect the actual majority of the 
 day into the de jure and actual government of the day. It 
 is a tendency to regard the actual will of that majority as the 
 law of the State. It is a tendency to regard the shortest and 
 simplest way of collecting that will, and the promptest and 
 most irresistible execution of it, as the true polity of liberty. 
 It is a tendency which, pressed to its last development, 
 would, if considerations of mere convenience or inconvenience 
 
1845-1849.] ADDRESS BEFORE THE LAW SCHOOL. 155 
 
 did not hinder, do exactly this : it would assemble the whole 
 people in a vast mass, as once they used to assemble beneath 
 the sun of Athens ; and there, when the eloquent had spoken, 
 and the wise and the foolish had counselled, would commit the 
 transcendent questions of war, peace, taxation, and treaties ; 
 the disposition of the fortunes and honor of the citizen and 
 statesman ; death, banishment, or the crown of gold ; the mak 
 ing, interpreting, and administration of the law ; and all the 
 warm, precious, and multifarious interests of the social life, to 
 the madness or the jest of the hour. 
 
 " I have not time to present what have been thought to be 
 the proofs of the existence of this tendency ; and it is needless 
 to do so. It would be presumptuous, too, to speculate, if it 
 has existence, on its causes and its issues. I desire to advert 
 to certain particulars in which it may be analyzed, and 
 through which it displays itself, for the purpose of showing 
 that the studies, employments, and, so to say, professional 
 politics, of the bar are essentially, perhaps availably, antagon- 
 istical to it, or moderative of it. 
 
 " It is said, then, that you may remark this tendency, first, 
 in an inclination to depreciate the uses and usurp the functions 
 of those organic forms in which the regular, definite, and 
 legally recognized powers of .the State are embodied, to 
 depreciate the uses and usurp the function of written constitu 
 tions, limitations on the legislature, the distribution of govern 
 ment into departments, the independence of the judiciary, the 
 forms of orderly proceeding, and all the elaborate and costly 
 apparatus of checks and balances, by which, as I have said, 
 we seek to secure a government of laws and not of men. 
 
 " The first condition it is the remark of a man of great 
 genius, who saw very far by glances into the social system, 
 Coleridge, the first condition in order to a sound constitu 
 tion of the body politic is a due proportion between the free 
 and permeative life and energy of the State and its organized 
 powers. For want of that proportion the government of 
 Athens was shattered and dissolved. For want of that pro 
 portion the old constitutions of Solon, the reforms of Clis- 
 thenes, the sanctity of the Areopagus, the temperaments of 
 Pericles, were burnt up in the torrent blaze of an unmitigated 
 democracy. Every power of the State executive, legal, 
 judicial was grasped by the hundred-handed assembly of 
 the people. The result is in her history. She became a by 
 word of dissension and injustice ; and that was her ruin. 
 
156 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 I wonder how long that incomprehensible democracy would 
 have hesitated, after the spirit of permeative liberty had got 
 the better of the organized forms, upon our Spot Pond, and 
 Long Pond, and Charles River water-questions. This intol 
 erable hardship and circumlocution of applying to a legisla 
 ture of three independent and co-ordinate departments, sitting 
 under a written constitution, with an independent judiciary to 
 hold it up to the fundamental law, the hardship of applying 
 to such a legislature for power to bring water into the city ; 
 this operose machinery of orders of notice, hearings before 
 committees, adverse reports, favorable reports rejected, dis 
 agreements of the two Houses, veto of Governor, a charter 
 saving vested rights of other people, meetings of citizens in 
 wards to vote unawed, unwatched, every man according to his 
 sober second thought, how long do you think such conven 
 tionalities as these would have kept that beautiful, passionate, 
 and self-willed Athens, standing, like the Tantalus of her own 
 poetry, plunged in crystal lakes and gentle historical rivers 
 up to the chin, perishing with thirst ? Why, some fine, sun 
 shiny forenoon, you would have heard the crier calling the 
 people, one and all, to an extraordinary assembly, perhaps in 
 the Piraeus, as a pretty full expression of public opinion was 
 desirable and no other place would hold everybody ; you would 
 have seen a stupendous mass-meeting roll itself together as 
 clouds before all the winds ; standing on the outer edges of 
 which you could just discern a speaker or two gesticulating, 
 catch a murmur as of waves on the pebbly beach, applause, a loud 
 laugh at a happy hit, observe some six thousand hands lifted 
 to vote or swear, and then the vast congregation would sepa 
 rate and subside, to be seen no more. And the whole record 
 of the transaction would be made up in some half-dozen lines 
 to this effect, it might be in ^Eschines, that in the month 
 of , under the archonate of , the tribe of , exer 
 cising the office of prytanes , an extraordinary assembly 
 
 was called to consult on the supply of water ; and it appear 
 ing that some six persons of great wealth and consideration 
 had opposed its introduction for some time past, and were 
 moreover vehemently suspected of being no better than they 
 should be, it was ordained that they should be fined in round 
 sums, computed to be enough to bring in such a supply as 
 would give every man equal to twenty-eight gallons a day ; 
 and a certain obnoxious orator having inquired what possible 
 need there was for so much a head, Demades, the son of the 
 
1845-1849.] ADDRESS BEFORE THE LAW SCHOOL. 157 
 
 Mariner, replied, that that person was the very last man in all 
 Athens who should put that question, since the assembly must 
 see that he at least could use it to great advantage by wash 
 ing his face, hands, and robes; and thereupon the people 
 laughed and separated. 
 
 " And now am I misled by the influence of vocation when I 
 venture to suppose that the profession of the Bar may do 
 somewhat should be required to do somewhat to pre 
 serve the true proportion of liberty to organization, to 
 moderate and to disarm that eternal antagonism ? 
 
 "These organic forms of our system, are they not in 
 some just sense committed to your professional charge and 
 care ? In this sense, and to this extent, does not your profes 
 sion approach to, and blend itself with, one, and that not the 
 least in dignity and usefulness, of the departments of states 
 man ship ? Are you not thus statesmen while you are law 
 yers, and because you are lawyers ? These constitutions of 
 government by which a free people have had the virtue and 
 the sense to restrain themselves, these devices of profound 
 wisdom arid a deep study of man, and of the past, by which 
 they have meant to secure the ascendency of the just, lofty, 
 and wise, over the fraudulent, low, and insane, in the long- 
 run of our practical politics, these temperaments by which 
 justice is promoted, and by which liberty is made possible 
 and may be made immortal, and this jus publicum, this 
 great written code of public law, are they not a part, in 
 the strictest and narrowest sense, of the appropriate science of 
 your profession ? More than for any other class or calling in 
 the community, is it not for you to study their sense, compre 
 hend their great uses, and explore their historical origin and 
 illustrations, to so hold them up as shields, that no act of 
 legislature, no judgment of court, no executive proclamation, 
 no order of any functionary of any description, shall transcend 
 or misconceive them to so hold them up before your clients 
 and the public, as to keep them at all times living, intelligible, 
 and appreciated in the universal mind ? " 
 
 Then on the very nature of law he utters some words 
 which it were well that all law-makers and all citizens 
 should carefully ponder. 
 
 " It is one of the distemperatures to which an unreasoning 
 liberty may grow, no doubt, to regard law as no more iior less 
 
158 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 than just the will the actual and present will of the ac 
 tual majority of the nation. The majority govern. What 
 the majority pleases, it may ordain. What it ordains is law. 
 So much for the source of law, and so much for the nature of 
 law. But, then, as law is nothing but the will of a major 
 number, as that will differs from the will of yesterday, and 
 will differ from that of to-morrow, and as all law is a restraint 
 on natural right and personal independence, how can it gain 
 a moment s hold on the reverential sentiments of the heart, 
 and the profounder convictions of the judgment? How can 
 it impress a filial awe ; how can it conciliate a filial love ; 
 how can it sustain a sentiment of veneration ; how can it 
 command a rational and animated defence ? Such sentiments 
 are not the stuff from which the immortality of a nation is to 
 be woven ! Oppose now to this the loftier philosophy which 
 we have learned. In the language of our system, the law is 
 not the transient and arbitrary creation of the major will, nor 
 of any will. It is not the offspring of will at all. It is the 
 absolute justice of the State, enlightened by the perfect reason 
 of the State. That is law, enlightened justice assisting the 
 social nature to perfect itself by the social life. It is ordained, 
 doubtless, that is, it is chosen, and is ascertained by the wis 
 dom of man. But, then, it is the master-work of man. Qua 
 est enim istorum oratlo tarn exquisita, quce sit anteponenda 
 bene constitute civitati publicojure, et moribus ? 1 
 
 " By the costly and elaborate contrivances of our constitutions 
 we have sought to attain the transcendent result of extracting 
 and excluding haste, injustice, revenge, and folly from the 
 place and function of giving the law, and of introducing alone 
 the reason and justice of the wisest and the best. By the aid 
 of time, - time which changes and tries all things ; tries 
 them, and works them pure, we subject the law, after it is 
 given, to the tests of old experience, to the reason and justice 
 of successive ages and generations, to the best thoughts of the 
 wisest and safest of reformers. And then and thus we pro 
 nounce it good. Then and thus we cannot choose but rever 
 ence, obey, and enforce it. We would grave it deep into the 
 heart of the undying State. We would strengthen it by opin 
 ion, by manners, by private virtue, by habit, by the awful hoar 
 of innumerable ages. All that attracts us to life, all that is 
 charming in the perfected and adorned social nature, we wise- 
 
 1 Cicero de Republics, I. 2. 
 
1845-1849.] RHODE ISLAND BOUNDARY. 159 
 
 ly think or we wisely dream, we owe to the all-encircling 
 presence of the law. Not even extravagant do we think it to 
 hold, that the Divine approval may sanction it as not unworthy 
 of the reason which we derive from His own nature. Not 
 extravagant do we hold it to say, that there is thus a voice of 
 the people which is the voice of God." 
 
 In January, 1846, he argued before the Supreme 
 Court at Washington the case of the boundary be 
 tween Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The latter 
 State was the complainant, and Massachusetts had 
 made an answer. Evidence also had been taken by 
 the parties, so that the case was heard upon both an 
 swer aiid evidence. The words of the Massachusetts 
 charter denned the part of the boundary in question 
 as " lying within the space of three English miles on 
 the south part of Charles River, or of any or of every 
 part thereof ; " and the State of Rhode Island insisted 
 that these words had been misconstrued and misapplied 
 in former adjustments and agreements about the line, 
 and particularly that mistakes had been made as to 
 the location of some of the ancient stations. The case 
 disclosed various acts and proceedings between the re 
 spective governments, from the very earliest times, and 
 thus opened a wide field of inquiry and discussion. 
 " The case," says a correspondent, " was argued by 
 Randolph and Whipple for Rhode Island, and Choate 
 and Webster for Massachusetts. Mr. Randolph occu 
 pied three days in referring to and reading ancient 
 grants and documents. Mr. Choate confined himself 
 to that branch of the argument resulting from the two 
 following points: 1. The true interpretation of the 
 charter. 2. The acts of 1713, 1718, &c., being acts of 
 the State of Rhode Island of a most decisive character. 
 But these points went to the very marrow of the case ; 
 
160 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 and as illustrated, expanded, and enforced by Mr. 
 Clioate, with his remarkable diction, with his clear and 
 searching analysis and his subtle logic, went far ut 
 terly to destroy the work of the preceding three days. 
 Every one who heard that argument must have felt 
 that there was something new under the sun ; and 
 that such a man as Mr. Clioate had never been heard 
 in that court before." The argument made a strong 
 impression upon the judges. Judge Catron, it was 
 said, was so much struck and charmed by it that it 
 became a standing inquiry with him at the future 
 sessions of the court, whether Clioate was not coming 
 on to argue some question. " I have heard the most 
 eminent advocates," he said, " but he surpasses them 
 all." It especially surprised him, as it did others, that 
 the soil and climate of New England sterile and 
 harsh should give birth to eloquence so fervid, beau 
 tiful, and convincing. Of this argument there remains 
 no report ; nor have any fragments of it been found 
 among Mr. Choatc s manuscripts. 
 
 In March, 1840, Mr. Clioate made his celebrated de 
 fence of Albert J. Tirrell. He probably never made 
 an argument at the bar under circumstances appar 
 ently more adverse, nor one which, from the nature of 
 one part of the defence, and from his unlooked-for 
 success, subjected him to so much criticism. He took 
 the case in the natural way of business, being retained 
 as for any other professional service. With Tirrell 
 himself he never exchanged a word till the day of the 
 trial. 1 The case was heard in Boston, before Justices 
 
 1 He was generally averse to personal contact with his clients in 
 criminal cases. In this instance, I have understood that after the 
 prisoner was in the dock, he walked to the rail and said, " Well, Sir, 
 
1845-1849.] DEFENCE OF TIRRELL. 161 
 
 Wilde, Dewey, and Hubbard venerable, one of them 
 for age, and all of them for experience and weight of 
 character. The principal facts as developed at the 
 trial were the following: Between four and five o clock 
 on Monday morning, October 27, 1845, a young woman 
 named Maria Bickford was found dead in a house of 
 bad repute, kept by one Joel Lawrence. Albert J. 
 Tirrell, a person of respectable family and connections, 
 but of vicious life, and already under indictment for 
 adultery, was known to have been with her on the 
 previous afternoon and late in the evening, the doors 
 of the house having been locked for the night. He 
 had long been a paramour of hers, and for her com 
 pany had forsaken his own wife. On the morning 
 spoken of, several inmates of the house were early 
 roused by a cry coming apparently from the room oc 
 cupied by these persons, followed by a sound as of a 
 heavy body falling on the floor. Soon afterwards some 
 one was heard going down stairs, making an indistinct 
 noise as if stifled by smoke ; and almost immediately 
 those in the house were alarmed by the smell and ap 
 pearance of fire. After the fire was extinguished, 
 which was done by the help of a fireman and a neigh 
 bor, the body of Mrs. Bickford was found on the floor 
 of the room she had occupied, and where the fire prin 
 cipally was, at some distance from the bed, her throat 
 cut to the bone from ear to ear ; her body much burnt ; 
 a considerable pool of blood upon the bed ; a bowl 
 upon a wash-stand in the corner of the room, with 
 
 are you ready to make a strong push for life with me to-day ? " The 
 answer, of course, was in the affirmative. " Very well/ replied Mr. 
 C., " we will make it," and turned away to his seat. He did not 
 speak to him again. 
 
 11 
 
162 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 water in it, thick with blood ; marks of hlood upon the 
 wash-stand, and the lamp on the mantel-piece ; the 
 bed-clothes piled up in various places in the room and 
 in the entry, and partly consumed ; a bloody razor 
 near the body ; also, some stockings, a cravat, and a 
 cane, belonging to Tirrell. Besides this, a fire had 
 been kindled in an adjoining room which was not occu 
 pied that night. A woman in the next house, sepa 
 rated from Lawrence s by a brick partition, was waked 
 that morning by a screech as from a grown child ; but 
 on listening heard the voice of a woman ; then she 
 heard a strangling noise, and afterwards a fall, and 
 then a louder noise. 
 
 It was also in evidence that Tirrell had called in 
 haste, very early on that Monday morning, at a livery- 
 stable near Bowdoin Square, saying that " he had got 
 into trouble ; that somebody had come into his room 
 and tried to murder him," and he wanted a vehicle 
 and driver to take him out of town. These were fur 
 nished, and he was driven to Weymouth. He also had 
 called between four and five o clock at the house of one 
 Head, in Alden Court, not far from the livery-stable, 
 and asked for some clothes which he had left there, 
 saying that he was going to Weymouth. The officers 
 who went in search of him on the same day did not 
 succeed in finding him ; but some months afterwards 
 he was arrested in New Orleans, and brought to Bos 
 ton for trial. The public were exasperated by the 
 atrocity of the deed, were generally convinced of his 
 guilt, and confident that he would be convicted. The 
 crime could be charged upon no one else ; and the 
 evidence connected him with it so closely that there 
 seemed to be no chance of escape. 
 
1845-1849.] DEFENCE OF TIRRELL. 163 
 
 Yet, in spite of the almost universal prejudgment, 
 and of a chain of circumstantial evidence coiling about 
 the prisoner which seemed irrefragable, his counsel, 
 by throwing doubt upon the testimony of the govern 
 ment, as derived in part from witnesses of infamous 
 character, by subtly analyzing what was indisputable, 
 and demonstrating its consistency with a theory of in 
 nocence, by a skilful combination of evidence showing 
 the possibility of suicide, or of murder by some other 
 hand, and by a peculiar line of defence so singular 
 and audacious that it seemed almost to paralyze the 
 prosecuting officer, were able to convince the jury, 
 and I believe the court and the bar, that he could 
 not be legally convicted. It appeared, for the defence, 
 that Tirrell was subject from his youth to what was 
 called somnambulism ; and that while in this state he 
 made strange noises a sort of groan or screech 
 loud and distressing ; that he frequently rose and 
 walked in his sleep ; sometimes uttered words evi 
 dently prompted by dreams ; and that once he pulled 
 a companion with whom he was sleeping out of bed, 
 stood over him and cried out, "Start that leader! 
 start that leader, or I ll cut his throat ! " and then 
 walked to the door as if for a knife that had been 
 placed over the latch ; that on the morning of the 
 asserted murder, when he went to Head s house, he 
 appeared so strangely as to frighten those who saw 
 him, and Head took hold of him and shook him, when 
 he seemed to wake up from a kind of stupor, and said, 
 " Sam. how came I here ? " It was also proved that 
 when informed at Weymouth that he was charged with 
 having committed the murder, he said that he would 
 go to Boston and deliver himself up, but was dissuaded 
 
164 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 by his brother-in-law, who furnished him money to take 
 him to Montreal. It was further proved that Mrs. 
 Bickford, though beautiful and fascinating, was inclined 
 to intemperance, was passionate and wicked, and often 
 threatened to take her own life ; that she was in the 
 habit of having a razor with her for the purpose of 
 shaving her forehead to make it high ; and once had 
 bought a dirk, and kept it concealed in her room. 
 Physicians of the utmost respectability testified that 
 the wound in the neck was one which could have 
 been inflicted by the deceased herself ; that extraordi 
 nary convulsive movements may be made after much 
 of the blood has left the body, while still some remains 
 in the head ; that from the nature of the instrument, 
 and the physical ability of the deceased, the death 
 might have been suicide ; that the prisoner appeared 
 evidently to be a somnambulist, or sleep-walker, and 
 that in this somnambulic state a person can dress him 
 self, can consistently commit a homicide, set the house 
 on fire, and run out into the street. These were the 
 strong points on which the argument of Mr. Choate 
 was based. He contended that no motive had been 
 shown for the deed, on the part of the prisoner ; that 
 the evidence did not contradict the idea of suicide ; 
 that no evidence had shown that a third party had not 
 done the deed ; and that if committed by the prisoner, 
 it must have been done while in the somnambulic 
 state. There is no record of this extraordinary argu 
 ment. An imperfect sketch is found in some of the 
 newspapers of the day, evidently not exact and accu 
 rate, and of course conveying no adequate idea of the 
 variety of power brought to bear on the analysis of 
 the evidence and its application, in overthrowing the 
 theory of the government. 
 
1845-1849.] DEFENCE OF TIRRELL. 165 
 
 Mr. Choate often said that he meant to write out 
 the argument, the materials of which existed ; but he 
 never carried this intention into effect, and a diligent 
 search among his papers has failed to discover any 
 trace of his brief. But in the imperfect notices to 
 which we now have access, we see evidence not only 
 of the solemn and earnest manner which the case 
 mainly required, and which he could render so impres 
 sive, but also of that occasional playful extravagance 
 and witty allusion with which he was accustomed to 
 relieve the anxious attention of the jury. Speaking of 
 a witness for the government, called out of place, and 
 after the defence was in, he said : " Where was this 
 tardy and belated witness that he comes here to tell us 
 all he knows, and all he doesn t know, forty-eight 
 hours after the evidence for the defence is closed ? Is 
 the case so obscure that he had never heard of it ? 
 Was he ill, or in custody ? Was he in Europe, Asia, or 
 Africa ? Was he on the Red Sea, or the Yellow Sea, or 
 the Black Sea, or the Mediterranean Sea ? Was he at 
 Land s End, or John Groat s house ? Was he .with 
 Commissioners on our north-eastern boundary drawing 
 and denning that much vexed boundary line ? Or was 
 he with General Tay or and his army at Chihuahua, or 
 wherever the fleeting south-western boundary line of our 
 country may at this present moment be ? No, gentle 
 men, he was at none of these places (comparatively 
 easy of access) , but and I would call your attention, 
 Mr. Foreman, to the fact, and urge it upon your con? 
 sideration, he was at that more remote, more inac 
 cessible region, whence so few travellers return 
 Roxbury." 
 
 In showing a possibility that the crime could have 
 
166 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 been committed by a third person, lie denounced with 
 great severity and sarcasm the reckless and depraved 
 character of most of the persons who appeared as wit 
 nesses, and the infamous nature of the house u not al 
 ways so very hermetically sealed." In accounting for 
 the position in which the body was found, he asserted, 
 what the apparent diversity of testimony seemed to 
 bear out, that all the particulars and horrors in that 
 room on the morning of the homicide, had not been 
 divulged, and that Lawrence himself might have 
 snatched the body from the burning bed. So by sug 
 gestion after suggestion he threw suspicion over the 
 theories of the government or diminished the credi 
 bility of its witnesses. In the argument for somnam 
 bulism, he produced a great impression by a quotation. 
 " I beg leave of the court to read, as illustrative of my 
 point of argument here, a passage from a good old 
 book, which used to lie on the shelves of our good old 
 fathers and mothers, and which they were wont de 
 voutly to read. This old book is 4 Hervey s Medita 
 tions, and I have borrowed it from my mother to read 
 on this occasion. Another signal instance of a Provi 
 dence intent upon our welfare (says that writer) is, 
 that we are preserved safe in the hours of slumber. 
 ... At these moments we lie open to innumerable 
 perils : perils from the resistless rage of flames ; perils 
 from the insidious artifices of thieves, or the outrageous 
 violence of robbers ; perils from the irregular workings 
 of our own thoughts, and especially from the incursions 
 of our spiritual enemy. . . . Will the candid reader 
 excuse me, if I add a short story, or rather a matter of 
 fact, suitable to the preceding remark ? Two persons 
 who had been hunting together in the day slept to- 
 
1845-1849.] DEFENCE OF TIRRELL. 167 
 
 gether the following night ; one of them was renewing 
 his pursuit in his dream, and having run the whole 
 circle of the chase, came at last to the fall of the stag. 
 Upon this he cries out with determined ardor, " I ll 
 kill him, Til kill him," and immediately feels for the 
 knife which he carried in his pocket. His companion 
 happening to be awake, and observing what passed, 
 leaped from the bed. Being secure from danger, and 
 the moon shining bright into the room, he stood to 
 view the event, when, to his inexpressible surprise, the 
 infatuated sportsman gave several deadly stabs in the 
 very place where, a moment before, the throat and 
 the life of his friend lay. This I mention as a proof, 
 that nothing hinders us, even from being assassins of 
 others or murderers of ourselves, amid the mad follies 
 of sleep, only the preventing care of our Heavenly 
 Father. ... Oh ! the unwearied and condescending 
 goodness of our Creator ! who lulls us to our rest, by 
 bringing on the silent shades, and plants his own ever- 
 watchful eye as our sentinel, while we enjoy the need 
 ful repose. 
 
 In his exordium, alluding to the certainty that death 
 would follow a verdict of guilty, he said, u Every juror, 
 when he puts into the urn the verdict of guilty/ 
 writes upon it also, 4 Let him die. In the solemn 
 and beautiful peroration, he, as it were, summed up 
 his appeal in these words : " Under the iron law of 
 old Rome, it was the custom to bestow a civic wreath 
 on him who should save the life of a citizen. Do your 
 duty this day, gentlemen, and you too may deserve the 
 civic crown." 
 
 The verdict of the jury, after a deliberation of less 
 than two hours, was " Not guilty," a verdict which 
 
168 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 has been generally acquiesced in by the legal profes 
 sion as the only one which the evidence would war 
 rant, though at the commencement of the trial few 
 could have supposed it possible. Mr. Choate suffered 
 somewhat in the general estimation from the argument 
 drawn from somnambulism. That, however, was a 
 suggestion of the friends of the accused, accepted by 
 the counsel, and employed to the best of his ability, 
 like any other capital fact. The foreman of the jury 
 stated that the question of somnambulism did not enter 
 into the consideration of the jury, and had not the 
 public been disappointed and almost shocked by the 
 result of the trial, we should probably have heard less 
 criticism of the methods of the advocate. 
 
 As this case must take rank among the most cele 
 brated in our country, for the audacity of the crime, 
 for the pervading anxiety that the criminal should not 
 escape, as well as for the power, brilliancy, and unex 
 pected success of the defence, it is much to be regretted 
 that no good report of it was ever made. No descrip 
 tion, or statement of legal points, can enable one to re 
 produce the scenes, or feel the power by which the jury 
 were brought so soon to their verdict of deliverance. 
 
 Although acquitted on the charge of murder, Tirrell 
 was still under an indictment for arson. On this 
 charge he was tried before Judges Shaw, Wilde, and 
 Dewey in January, 1847. This trial, though of less 
 celebrity than the first, was hardly less important or 
 difficult. Nor was the ability of the defence less con 
 spicuous. Every one noticed the hopeful and confident 
 tone with which Mr. Choate opened his argument. 
 He moved as if sure of success. Having thus, as by a 
 magnetic influence, removed the pressure of doubt and 
 
1845-1849.] DEFENCE OF TIRRELL. 169 
 
 apprehension, he proceeded to review the evidence, 
 which was nearly the same as in the former trial, with 
 the addition of one witness, who swore that she was in 
 Lawrence s house that night and saw Tirrell going out 
 between four and five o clock in the morning. This 
 new testimony, so important if true, damaged the case 
 for the government by throwing doubt upon the credi 
 bility of the other witnesses, Lawrence having before 
 sworn that no one was in his house that night but those 
 who appeared on the stand. Mr. Choate argued that 
 there was no proof of arson at all ; no proof of an in 
 tent to set the fire ; it might have been done by Law 
 rence himself by accident ; if done by Tirrell at all, it 
 might have been done in a somnambulic state. He 
 had no motive for the crime. "He was fascinated by 
 the wiles of the unhappy female whose death was so 
 awful ; he loved "her with the love of forty thousand 
 brothers, though alas ! it was not as pure as it was pas 
 sionate." He argued again that Mrs. Bickford might 
 have died by her own hand. " If the jury," he said, 
 " are governed by the clamor raised by a few without 
 the court-house, I must look upon the prisoner as in 
 the position of one of those unfortunates on board the 
 ill-fated Atlantic. He was tossed upon the waters 
 struck out boldly and strongly in the wintry surge, 
 was washed within reach of the ragged beach, and, with 
 one hand upon the crag, was offering up thanksgiving 
 for his safety, when the waves overtook him and he 
 was swept back to death." 
 
 " There is a day, gentlemen," he said in conclusion, 
 " when all these things will be known. When the 
 great day has arrived and the books are opened, it will 
 then be known. But, gentlemen, let not your decision 
 
170 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 be then declared in the face of the world, to be a judi 
 cial murder." 
 
 The charge to the jury by Chief Justice Shaw, dis 
 crediting the government witnesses on account of dis 
 reputable characters and discrepancy of testimony, was 
 favorable to the prisoner, who was again acquitted. It 
 was wittily said afterwards that " Tirrell existed only 
 by the sufferance of Choate." 1 
 
 In July, 1847, Mr. Choate argued, at Northampton, 
 the Oliver Smith s will case. Mr. Smith died a bach 
 elor at nearly eighty years of age, leaving an estate 
 which was inventoried at $370,000. This he disposed 
 of by a will creating a variety of charities which many 
 people regarded as unwise and useless. He had a 
 number of relations who had expected generous lega 
 cies. Some of them were needy ; to others he was 
 under obligations of kindness, and all of them felt that 
 it was right to defeat the will, if it could legally be 
 done. There was but one point at which an attack 
 seemed to offer any chance of success. One of the 
 witnesses to the will had lived so secluded from society, 
 and had conducted himself so singularly, that he was 
 reputed to be insane. If it could be shown that he 
 was insane at the time the will was made, he would of 
 course be incompetent and the will would fail. But 
 the fact that he avoided intercourse with everybody not 
 belonging to his own family, made it difficult to obtain 
 evidence. The heirs-at-law determined, however, to 
 appeal from the decree of the Probate Court which ap- 
 
 1 A short time after the conclusion of his second trial, Tirrell called 
 upon Mr. Choate and suggested that half of the fee should be re 
 turned, stating that as his innocence of the crimes charged was so 
 obvious to two juries, his counsel had been paid too much for their 
 conduct of such simple causes. The fee paid was, it is believed, 200. 
 
1845-1849.] THE SMITH WILL CASE. 171 
 
 proved the will, on the ground that it was not attested 
 by three competent witnesses. For the heirs appeared 
 Mr. Choate, R. A. Chapman, and C. P. Huntington. 
 For the executors, Daniel Webster, C. E. Forbes, and 
 Osmyn Baker. The court-room was crowded as dense 
 ly as men and women could sit and stand. The evi 
 dence was decisive that a year before the will was 
 made, the witness was regarded by the Superintendent 
 of the State Asylum as insane, but at the period in 
 question, the evidence, though conflicting, was in his 
 favor. He himself was put upon the stand, and, sus 
 tained by the presence of his powerful counsel, gained 
 much by his appearance. There is no report of the 
 arguments on this interesting trial, but I am able to 
 give the impression made upon the mind of an able 
 lawyer who was present and indirectly opposed to Mr. 
 Choate. 1 
 
 " Though I took no active part in the trial of the 
 6 Smith Will Case, I was engaged somewhat in the 
 antecedent preparation, and thus brought nearer than 
 I otherwise might have been, to the great leaders on 
 that occasion. ... I had never till then seen or heard 
 Mr. Choate, when opposed to Mr. Webster before 
 the jury. It was a case, moreover, where, at the start, 
 he must have felt how desperately the odds were 
 against him on the merits, and how necessary it was in 
 the presence of a thronged court-house of new hearers, 
 and of such an antagonist, that his genius should not 
 falter ; and surely his exhaustless resource never re 
 sponded more prodigally to his call. He spoke for 
 three hours, as, it seems to me, never man spake. 
 Mr. Webster, on the contrary, after a certain critical 
 
 1 Hon. Charles Delano. 
 
172 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 point in the production of the evidence was passed, felt 
 that he had an easy case and a sure victory. I thought 
 there was on his part rather an affectation of serenity 
 of deliberateness and even homeliness of address 
 an effort at self-suppression, perhaps, as if studying 
 more to divert the jury by the contrasted manner of 
 the men before them, than to rival his adversary in 
 any of the subtle or fascinating arts of oratory. There 
 were in fact only two or three passages in Mr. Web 
 ster s speech where he seemed to startle the bewildered 
 twelve by a power at all proportioned to his fame. 
 And if the verdict had been taken before the charge, 
 the result would have been doubtful. But the dry and 
 utterly passionless analysis of the evidence by old 
 Judge Wilde made the jury soon to see how narrowly 
 they had escaped finding an impulsive, if not a foolish 
 verdict. I speak of course with the biases of a retainer 
 against Mr. Choate s side. 
 
 "You will observe that the single issue on the trial 
 was, whether the third witness to the will was, or was 
 not, of sufficient mental soundness at the time of attes 
 tation. This witness was a young man just out of col 
 lege, the son of a gentleman of intelligence, educa 
 tion, and of the highest respectability, but a noted 
 hypochondriac, and the grandson of that chief of hypo 
 chondriacs, not less than of justices, Theophilus Par 
 sons, of the Massachusetts Bench. 
 
 " Mr. Choate converted these incidents into one of 
 his finest episodes. He gave us the Chief Justice in 
 his most exalted intellectual frame ; but then how in 
 geniously did he darken the canvas with all the horrors 
 of that great man s morbid delusions ! Surely the 
 jury were not to believe that a malady thus foreshad 
 owed, when added to and aggravated by the channel of 
 
1845-1849.] THE SMITH WILL CASE. 178 
 
 transmission, could issue in any thing less than neces 
 sary and utter mental overthrow ! His theory might 
 have gained assent, had it not been that the question 
 able witness was himself in court. His whole de 
 meanor and expression, however, were those of a man 
 absorbed in melancholy ; and I think Mr. Choate s side 
 had, from the outset, staked their expectations upon 
 the miscarriage of this witness on the stand. In the 
 first place, would the party setting up the will dare to 
 call him ? If not, it would be a confession of at least 
 present incompetency. If they should, how probable 
 that so consummate a cross-examiner would easily 
 reach the clew to his distractions, and thus topple him 
 from any momentary self-possession. It was in taking 
 this timid and reluctant witness into his own hands, 
 and bringing him to feel that he was testifying under 
 the shelter of the great Defender himself, that Mr 
 Webster figured more conspicuously than in any other 
 part of the case. Thus borne up and through a long 
 direct examination, he braved the cross-examination 
 witli perfect composure. This was the critical point of 
 the case to which I have before alluded. I know I am 
 spinning out this note to a merciless length, but my 
 apology is, that reminiscences of Mr. Choate are among 
 the most delightful memories of the lawyer. Few who 
 have ever known him can dwell tipon his death other 
 wise than as upon a personal and domestic affliction ; 
 and I count it among the chief felicities of my life, not 
 merely to have heard him at the Bar, but to have seen 
 him in his office, had a glimpse of him at home among 
 his books, and listened to him at his fireside." 
 
 Mr. Webster and Mr. Choate were often very play 
 ful towards each other during this trial, as they usually 
 
174 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 were when engaged together in the same case. " My 
 position," said one of the junior counsel, 1 " happened 
 to be between them ; and as it was the first time I had 
 ever seen them opposed to each other, I was not a 
 careless observer of either. Mr. Choate seemed to 
 know Mr. Webster s ways thoroughly ; and I was 
 sometimes amused by the shrewd cautions he gave 
 me. Mr. Webster laughed at him about his hand 
 writing, telling him his notes were imitations of the 
 antediluvian bird-tracks. While he was making his 
 argument, Mr. Webster repeatedly called my attention 
 in a whisper to his striking passages. He once asked 
 me in respect to one of them, How do you suppose 
 I can answer that ? And once when he used the 
 word abnormal, Mr. Webster said, Didn t I tell 
 you he would use the word " abnormal " before he 
 got through ? He got it in college, and it came from 
 old President Wheelock. . . . After the trial was over, 
 Mr. Webster spoke very freely of Mr. Choate, in a 
 private conversation at our hotel, and expressed the 
 highest admiration of him. He said he often listened 
 to him with wonder; and that when he argued cases 
 at Washington, the judges of the Supreme Court ex 
 pressed their amazement at the brilliancy and power 
 of his oratory, even in the discussion of dry legal 
 points. He said they had often mentioned it to 
 him." 
 
 It was understood that in this case the jury stood at 
 first, ten for the will, and two against it ; on the third 
 ballot they agreed. 
 
 In the political campaign of 1848, which resulted in 
 the election of Gen. Taylor, Mr. Choate took a promi- 
 
 1 Hon. Reuben A. Chapman, now Chief Justice of the Supreme 
 Court of Massachusetts. 
 
1845-1849.] SPEECH AT BROOKLINE. 175 
 
 nent and willing part. In the character and life of 
 Gen. Taylor, his modesty and integrity, his capacity in 
 extraordinary emergencies, his courage, his unobtru 
 sive patriotism, and his brilliant victories, there was 
 much to awaken enthusiasm as well as to command 
 respect. The speeches of Mr. Choate before the elec 
 tion are among the most effective he ever made in this 
 style of ephemeral political oratory. With a sound 
 substratum of judicious thought and argument, they 
 fairly effervesce with wit and raillery. 
 
 One of these was made at Brookline. " He had 
 been a week," writes a gentleman who went with him 
 to the place, "preparing his oration, and was well- 
 nigh used up. He got into the coach, his locks drip 
 ping with dissolved camphor, and complained of a 
 raging headache. He clutched his temple with his 
 hand, and leaned his head on my shoulder, to see if 
 he could not, by reclining, find ease. Just as we 
 touched the Mill Dam, the evening moon poured her 
 level rays over the beautiful waters of the Back Bay, 
 and filled the coach and atmosphere with dreamy light. 
 The scene instantly revived him. He put his head out 
 of the coach window, and was absorbed with the sweet 
 ness of the view. The sight of the still waters, moon 
 lighted, seemed to drive away his pain, and he struck 
 into his old rapture. In the hall where he spoke, he 
 was in his very best mood ; both mind and body seem 
 ing to be on wings. ... As we rode home in the 
 soft moonlight, he amazed me with his vast power of 
 thought. I have seen men stirred with passion ; men 
 eloquent ; men profound and brilliant in conversation ; 
 but in the whole course of my life I never saw a man 
 more roused than was he. He poured out, without 
 
176 MEMOIR OF KUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 stopping, a torrent of conversation upon history, con 
 stitutional law, philosophy, poetry ; upon Burke, Plato, 
 Hamilton, the future of the Union. No other word 
 would explain his style but torrent or * cataract ; 
 for what he spoke in that hour would have made a 
 small volume, brilliant and full of philosophy and 
 learning. And I think that I never realized so much 
 as then the power and unapproachableness of genius ; 
 and yet the man though so burning up and absorbed 
 with his subjects of conversation was true to his 
 gentle instincts. His daughter lay ill at home ; and 
 in Summer Street, at a long distance from his house in 
 Winthrop Place, he bade the coachman stop to allow 
 him to walk to his door, so that the noise of the car 
 riage might not disturb her ; insisting, at the same 
 time, against my request to the contrary, that the 
 coach should carry me home, though I lived in a dif 
 ferent part of the city." 
 
 Besides this, he addressed a mass meeting at Wor 
 cester, and spoke twice at Salem, the second time 
 on the presentation of a banner bearing on one side 
 the inscription, " Presented to the Taylor Club by the 
 Ladies of Salem, Oct. 17, 1848," and on the other, 
 a representation of Gen. Taylor giving relief to a 
 wounded Mexican, with the words " HONOR PATRIOT 
 ISM HUMANITY." The assembly was brilliant even 
 for that city, and greeted him with the fervor of friends. 
 The applause subsiding, he addressed the chairman of 
 the Club in words of beauty which foreshadow what 
 became afterwards the very heart of his political 
 life. 
 
 " It has been supposed, Sir, by that better portion 
 of this community, the ladies oi Salem, that it would 
 
1845-1849.] TAYLOR CLUB OF SALEM. 177 
 
 not be uupleasing to the association of Whigs, over 
 which you preside, to pause for an hour from the 
 austerer duties of the time, and to be recreated by 
 receiving at their hands an expression of that kind of 
 sympathy which man needs most, and a tender of that 
 kind of aid which helps him farthest, longest, and 
 most gratefully, the sympathy and approval of our 
 mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, and those, all, whom 
 most we love. Under that impression they have pre 
 pared this banner, and have requested me to present 
 it, as from them, to you. With a request so grateful, 
 from its nature and source, I am but too happy to 
 comply. . . . 
 
 " I give you, from the ladies of this Salem, the 
 holy and beautiful city of peace, a banner of peace ! 
 Peace has her victories, however, as well as war. I 
 give you, then, I hope and believe, the banner of a vic 
 tory of peace. The work of hands, some of which 
 you doubtless have given away in marriage at the altar, 
 the work of hands, for which many altars might 
 contend ! some of which have woven the more immor 
 tal web of thought and recorded speech, making the 
 mind of Salem as renowned as its beauty, the work 
 of such hands, embodying their general and warm ap 
 preciation of your exertions, and their joy in your 
 prospects ; conveying at once the assurance of triumph 
 and the consolations of possible defeat ; expressive 
 above all of their pure and considered moral judg 
 ments on the great cause and the Good Man ! the 
 moral judgments of these, whose frown can disappoint 
 the proudest aim, whose approbation prosper not less 
 than ours ; the work of such hands, the gift of such 
 hearts, the record of such moral sentiments, the sym- 
 
 12 
 
178 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 bol of so many sensibilities and so many hopes, you 
 will prize it more than if woven of the tints of a sum 
 mer evening sunset, inscribed and brought down to 
 earth by viewless artists of the skies. 
 
 " Prizing it on all reasons, I think you are too much 
 a Whig not to derive, in receiving it, a peculiar 
 pleasure from this consideration, that it expresses the 
 judgments of this portion of the community on the 
 personal qualities and character of Gen. Taylor. It 
 expresses their judgments in favor of those qualities 
 and that character. It assures us that we are not mis 
 taken in the man himself. It assures us that we are 
 right in believing him just, incorrupt, humane ; of 
 large heart, as well as clear head, whose patriotism 
 knows neither Alleghanies nor Mississippi, nor Rocky 
 Mountains, embracing our whole America, from 
 whom twenty thousand Mexicans could not wrest the 
 flag of his country, yet whom the sight of a single 
 Mexican soldier, wounded and athirst at his feet, melts, 
 in a moment, to the kindness of a woman. 
 
 " I do not suppose that I enter on any delicate or 
 debatable region of social philosophy, sure I am that I 
 concede away nothing which I ought to assert for our 
 sex, when I say that the collective womanhood of a 
 people like our own seizes with matchless facility and 
 certainty on the moral and personal peculiarities and 
 character of marked and conspicuous men, and that 
 we may very wisely address ourselves to her to learn 
 if a competitor for the highest honors may boast, and 
 has revealed, that truly noble nature that entitles him 
 to a place among the cherished regards, a niche among 
 the domestic religions, a seat at the old hearths, a 
 home in the hearts of a nation. 
 
 " We talk and think of measures ; of creeds in 
 
1845-1849.] TAYLOR CLUB OF SALEM. 179 
 
 politics ; of availability ; of strength to carry the vote 
 of Pennsylvania, or the vote of Mississippi. Through 
 all this her eye seeks the moral, prudential, social, and 
 mental character of the man himself, and she finds it. 
 
 " All the glare and clamor of the hundred victories 
 of Napoleon, all the prestige of that unmatched in 
 tellect, and that fortune and that renown, more than 
 of the children of earth while they dazzled the 
 senses, and paled the cheek of manhood could not 
 win him the love and regards of the matronage of 
 France. The worship of Madame de Stael was the 
 idiosyncrasy of an idolatress of genius, glory, and 
 power, and she paid it alone. 
 
 " But when the Father of his Country, our Wash 
 ington, arrived, on his way to the seat of Government, 
 at that bridge of Trenton, how sure and heart-prompted 
 was the recognition, by the mothers and daughters of 
 America, of that greatness which is in goodness, and 
 of the daily beauty of that unequalled life. Those 
 flowers with which they strewed his path, while they 
 sung that ode, that laurel and evergreen which they 
 twined on arch and pillar for him to pass beneath, had 
 not found the needful air and light and soil in which 
 they had sprung with a surer affinity than these had 
 detected and acknowledged the sublimity of the vir 
 tues, the kindness, the parental love, the justice, the 
 honesty, the large American heart, that made his 
 fame whiter than it was brilliant. 
 
 " I hear then, with pleasure not to be expressed, 
 this testimony from such a source to the candidate 
 of our choice. I appreciate the discernment that has 
 contrived this device, and written this inscription. 
 Right and fit it is, that such praise as theirs should 
 
180 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 commemorate his Honor, who has done so much to fill 
 the measure of his country s glory, his Patriotism, 
 on whose heart her love has burned in youth, in man 
 hood, ever bright as on an altar, his Humanity, in 
 whose regards this cup of water, pressed to the lip of 
 the wounded prisoner, is a sweeter memory than the 
 earthquake voice of many campaigns of victory ! 
 
 " There are three more traits of his character, three 
 more fruits of his election, which the authors of this 
 Gift discern and appreciate. 
 
 " They expect, first, that his will be an administra 
 tion of honorable peace. The experiences of war have 
 more than sated him of that form of duty and that 
 source of fame. From many a bloody day and field 
 too many he turns to win a victory of peace. 
 He seeks to set on that brow a garland amaranthine 
 and blameless compared to which the laurels that a 
 Caesar reaps are weeds. . . . 
 
 " They expect, next, that his administration will 
 be illustrated by the true progress of America. . . . 
 They expect to see it co-operating, as far as it may, 
 with the spirit of Humanity in achieving the utmost 
 measure of good, of greatness, of amelioration, of 
 happiness, of which philanthropy and patriotism may 
 dare to dream. And thus they look to an administra 
 tion of progress. But progress, in their view and in 
 yours, does not consist, and is not exemplified, in add 
 ing, every three or four years, to our already imperial 
 area, a country three times larger than all France, and 
 leaving it a desert; but in decorating and building up 
 what we have. Their idea of progress, therefore, and 
 yours, embraces a twofold sentiment and a twofold 
 exertion : first, to improve the land and water, to 
 
1845-1849.] TAYLOR CLUB OF SALEM. 181 
 
 bring out the material resources of America ; and 
 next, to improve the mind and heart of America ; dif 
 fusing thus over her giant limbs and features the glow 
 and grace of moral beauty as morning spread upon 
 the mountains. . . . 
 
 " They expect, finally, that his administration will 
 be memorable for having strengthened and brightened 
 the golden chain of the American Union. They ex 
 pect that, under the sobriety of his patriotism, that 
 Union will neither be sapped by the expansion of our 
 area, until identity, nationality, and the possibility of 
 all cohesion of the members are lost, nor rent asunder 
 by the desperate and profligate device of geographical 
 parties. They and we, Sir, of that Union, deem all 
 alike. We, too, stand by the shipping-articles and the 
 ship the whole voyage round. We hold that no in 
 crease of our country s area, although we hope 
 never to see another acre added to it ; no transfer and 
 no location of our centre of national power, although 
 we hope never to see it leave the place where now it 
 is ; no accession of new stars on our sky were they 
 to come in constellations, thronging, till the firmament 
 were in a blaze ; that none of these things should 
 have power to whisper to one of us a temptation to 
 treason. We go for the Union to the last beat of the 
 pulse and the last drop of blood. We know and feel 
 that there there in that endeared name be 
 neath that charmed Flag among those old glorious 
 graves, in that ample and that secure renown, that 
 there we have garnered up our hearts there we must 
 either live, or bear no life. With our sisters of the Re 
 public, less or more, we would live and we would die, 
 one hope, one lot, one life, one glory. " 
 
 The subsequent election of General Taylor gave to 
 
182 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 Mr. Choate the greatest delight. It seemed to him, 
 indeed, a triumph of HONOR, PATRIOTISM, HUMANITY. 
 On the evening when the intelligence was received that 
 made the matter certain, he said to a friend who called 
 to see him : " Is not this sweet ? Is it not sweet ? 
 The whole country seems to me a garden to-night, from 
 Maine to New Orleans. It is fragrant all over, and I 
 am breathing the whole perfume." 
 
 About this time a position as Professor of the Law 
 School at Cambridge was urged upon Mr. Choate in a 
 manner so sincere, so unusual, and so honorable to all 
 parties, that I am especially glad to be permitted to 
 present the facts in the words of one who knew them 
 familiarly, the late Chief Justice Shaw. 
 
 " After the reorganization of the Law School at Har 
 vard College, by the large donation of Mr. Dane, and 
 the appointment of Mr. Justice Story as Dane Profes 
 sor, the school acquired a high reputation throughout 
 the United States. It was regarded as an institution 
 to which young men could be beneficially sent from 
 every part of the country to be thoroughly trained in 
 the general principles of jurisprudence, and the ele 
 mentary doctrines of the common law, which underlie 
 the jurisprudence of all the States. This reputation, 
 which is believed to be well founded, was attributable, 
 in a great measure, to the peculiar qualifications, and 
 to the efficient services of Judge Story, in performing 
 the duties of his professorship. It was not so much by 
 his profound and exact knowledge of the law in all its 
 departments, nor by his extensive knowledge of books, 
 ancient and modern, that the students were benefited, 
 as by his earnest and almost impetuous eloquence, the 
 fulness and clearness of his illustrations with which he 
 
1845-1849.] OFFER OF A PROFESSORSHIP. 183 
 
 awakened the aspirations, and impressed the minds, of 
 his youthful hearers. He also demonstrated in his 
 own person how much may be accomplished by a man 
 of extraordinary talent and untiring industry, hav 
 ing successfully and faithfully performed the duties of 
 his professorship, being engaged at the same time in 
 two other departments of intellectual labor, that of 
 Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
 and author of elaborate treatises on the science and 
 practice of law, each of which would seem sufficient 
 to require the exclusive attention of a very industrious 
 man. 
 
 " Some time after the decease of Judge Story, 
 whether immediately, or after the lapse of two or three 
 years, I do not know, but as near as I recollect, about 
 the year 1848, the attention of the President and Fel 
 lows of Harvard College was turned to Mr. Choate, at 
 once an eminent jurist and an advocate conspicuous 
 for his commanding and persuasive eloquence, whose 
 services, if they could be obtained, would render him 
 eminently of use in the Dane Law School. Indeed he 
 was too prominent a public man to be overlooked, as a 
 candidate offering powers of surpassing fitness for such 
 a station. But it was never supposed by the Corpora 
 tion, that the comparatively retired position of a Col 
 lege Professor, and the ordinary, though pretty liberal 
 emoluments of such an office, could induce Mr. Choate 
 to renounce all the honors and profits of the legal pro 
 fession which rightly belonged to him, as Leader of 
 the Bar in every department of forensic eloquence. 
 But about the time alluded to, Mr. Choate, having re 
 tired from political life, was apparently devoting him 
 self ardently and exclusively to the profession of the 
 
184 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 law as a jurist and advocate. It was thought by the 
 Corporation that a scheme might be arranged, if it 
 suited his tastes and satisfied his expectation of pro 
 fessional eminence, which would secure to the Law 
 School of the University the benefit of his great 
 talents, place him conspicuously before the whole 
 country, and afford to himself the immunities and the 
 reputation of a great jurist and advocate. 
 
 " It was the opinion of the members of the Corpora 
 tion, that in appointing instructors for an academical 
 institution, designed to instruct young men in the 
 science of jurisprudence, and in part to fit them for 
 actual practice in the administration of the law in 
 courts of justice (an opinion, I believe, which they 
 hold in common with many who have most reflected 
 on the means of acquiring a legal education), it is not 
 desirable that an instructor in such institution should 
 be wholly withdrawn from practice in courts. Law is 
 an art as well as a science. Whilst it has its founda 
 tion in a broad and comprehensive morality, and in 
 profound and exact science, to be adapted to actual use 
 in controlling and regulating the concerns of social 
 life, it must have its artistic skill which can only be 
 acquired by habitual practice in courts of justice. A 
 man may be a laborious student, have an inquiring 
 and discriminating mind, and have all the advantage 
 which a library of the best books can afford, and yet, 
 without actual attendance on courts, and the means 
 and facilities which practice affords, he would be little 
 prepared either to try questions of fact, or argue ques 
 tions of law. The instructor, therefore, who to some 
 extent maintains his familiarity with actual practice, 
 by an occasional attendance as an advocate in courts 
 
1845-1849.] OFFER OF A PROFESSORSHIP. 
 
 185 
 
 of justice, would be better prepared to train the studies 
 and form the mental habits of young men designed for 
 the Bar. 
 
 " No formal application was made to Mr. Choate, 
 but a plan was informally suggested to him, with the 
 sanction of the Corporation, and explained in conver 
 sation substantially to the following effect : According 
 to the plan of the Law School of the College, there are 
 two terms or sessions in the year, of about twenty 
 weeks each, with vacations intervening of about six 
 * weeks each. The first or autumn term commences 
 about the 1st of September, and closes near the middle 
 of January ; the spring term commences about the 
 1st of March, and continues to July. The exercises 
 during term-time consist of daily lectures and reci 
 tations, conducted by the several professors, of moot 
 courts for the discussion of questions of law, delibera 
 tive oral discussions, in the nature of legislative de 
 bates ; some written exercises also, on questions and 
 subjects proposed, make up the course of training. 
 Instructions in these exercises were given in nearly 
 equal proportions by three professors, of whom the 
 Dane Professor was one. The moot courts and delib 
 erative discussions were uniformly presided over by 
 one of the professors. 
 
 " At the time referred to, the Supreme Court of the 
 United States commenced their annual session the 
 first week in December, and continued to about the 
 middle of March. It was thought, that without any 
 perceptible derangement of the course of instruction 
 in the Law School, the duties of the Dane Professor 
 ship might be so modified as to enable Mr. Choate to 
 attend the Supreme Court of the United States at 
 
186 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CIIAP. VI. 
 
 Washington during their whole term. The duties of 
 the three professors are not such as to require the at 
 tendance of each, on every day of the term ; nor is it 
 essential that the different departments of the duties 
 assigned to them respectively should be taken up in 
 any exact order. Then by an arrangement with the 
 other professors, the subjects specially committed to the 
 Dane Professor, and his proportion of all other duties, 
 might be taken up and finished in the early part of the 
 autumn term, so that without detriment to the in 
 struction, he might leave it several weeks before its * 
 termination, and in like manner postpone them a few 
 weeks at the commencement of the spring term, so 
 that with the six weeks vacation in mid-winter, these 
 curtailments from the two terms would equal in length 
 of time that of the entire session of the National Su 
 preme Court. 
 
 " The advantages to Mr. Choate seemed obvious. 
 When it was previously known that he might be de 
 pended on to attend at the entire term of the Supreme 
 Court, we supposed he would receive a retainer in a 
 large proportion of the cases which would go up from 
 New England, and in many important causes from all 
 the other States. The effect of this practice upon the 
 emoluments of his profession might be anticipated. 
 No case, we believe, whether in law, equity, or admi 
 ralty, can reach the Supreme Court of the United 
 States until the case, that is, a statement of all the 
 facts on which questions may arise, is reduced to writ 
 ing in some form, embraced in the record. 
 
 " He would therefore have ample opportunity, with 
 his case before him, and with the use of the best Law 
 Library in the country, and the assistance of a class of 
 
1845-1849.] OFFER OF A PROFESSORSHIP. 187 
 
 young men ever eager to aid in seeking and applying 
 authorities^ and proposing cases for argument, to avail 
 himself of all the leisure desirable at his own chambers, 
 to study his cases thoroughly, and prepare himself for 
 his arguments. The extent to which such a practice 
 with such means would soon add to the solid reputa 
 tion of Mr. Choate, may easily be conceived, especially 
 by those who knew the strength of his intellectual 
 power, and the keenness of his faculty for discrimina 
 tion. The advantages to the Law School contemplated 
 by this arrangement were, that Mr. Choate would not 
 only bring to the institution the persuasive eloquence, 
 and the profound legal learning which he then pos 
 sessed, but by an habitual practice in one of the highest 
 tribunals in the world, a tribunal which has jurisdic 
 tion of more important public and private rights than 
 any other, he would keep up with all the changes of 
 the times, in jurisprudence and legislation, and bring 
 to the service of his pupils the products of a constantly 
 growing experience. 
 
 " But this plan, in the judgment of the Corporation, 
 necessarily involved Mr. Choate s residence at Cam 
 bridge, and an entire renunciation of all jury trials, 
 and all other practice in courts, except occasionally a 
 law argument before the Supreme Court of the State 
 at Boston or Cambridge, each being within a short dis 
 tance of his home. It has been considered important 
 by the Corporation that the Professors of the Law 
 School should reside in Cambridge, to afford thereby 
 the benefit of their aid and counsel in the small num 
 ber composing the Law Faculty. In the case of Mr. 
 Choate, it was considered quite indispensable that he 
 should reside in Cambridge, on account of the influence 
 
188 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 which his genial manners, his habitual presence, and 
 the force of his character would be likely to exert over 
 the young men drawn from every part of the United 
 States to listen to his instructions. There was another 
 consideration leading, in Mr. Choate s case, to the same 
 result, which was, that the breaking off from the former 
 scenes of his labors and triumphs, so necessary to his 
 success in the plan proposed, would be more effectually 
 accomplished by his establishing at once a new resi 
 dence, and contracting new habits. Both considera 
 tions had great weight in inducing those who com 
 municated with Mr. Choate, to urge his removal to 
 Cambridge, and the fixing there of his future residence, 
 as essential features of the arrangement. 
 
 " Mr. Choate listened attentively to these proposals 
 and discussed them freely ; he was apparently much 
 pleased with the brilliant and somewhat attractive 
 prospect presented to him by this overture. He did 
 not immediately decline the offer, but proposed to 
 take it into consideration. Some time after, perhaps a 
 week, he informed me that he could not accede to the 
 proposal. He did not sta te to me his reasons, or if he 
 did, 1 do not recollect them." 
 
 It was not far from this time, also, that Mr. Choate 
 received from Gov. Briggs the honorable offer of a seat 
 upon the bench of the Supreme Court. It was urged 
 upon him by some of his friends, as affording him the 
 rest which he seemed to need. But he felt that he 
 could hardly afford to take it, and, after due considera 
 tion, respectfully declined. 
 
 In March of this year 1849 he delivered before 
 the Mercantile Library Association the closing lecture 
 
1845-1849.] THOUGHTS ON THE PURITANS. 189 
 
 of the winter course. The first two volumes of Mr. 
 Macaulay s brilliant history had been but recently pub 
 lished ; and availing himself of the newly awakened 
 interest, he chose for his subject one always fresh to 
 himself, "Thoughts on the New-England Puritans." 
 A short extract, comparing the public life of that day 
 with ours, will indicate the tone and spirit of the 
 whole. 
 
 u In inspecting a little more closely the colonial 
 period of 1688, than heretofore I ever had done, it has 
 seemed to me that the life of an able, prominent, and 
 educated man of that day in Massachusetts was a life 
 of a great deal more dignity, interest, and enjoyment 
 than we are apt to imagine ; that it would compare 
 quite advantageously with the life of an equally promi 
 nent, able, and educated man in Massachusetts now. 
 We look into the upper life of Old England in 1688, 
 stirred by the scenes kindled and lifted up by the 
 passions of a great action the dethronement of a 
 king; the crowning of a king; the vindication and 
 settlement of English liberty ; the reform of the Eng 
 lish constitution, parent of more reform and of prog 
 ress without end, and we are dazzled. Renown 
 and grace are there ; the glories of the Augustan 
 age of English letters, just dawning ; Newton first 
 unrolling the system of the Universe ; the school 
 boy dreamings of Pope and Addison ; the beautiful 
 eloquence and more beautiful public character of 
 Somers waiting to receive that exquisite dedication 
 of the Spectator ; the serene and fair large brow 
 of Maryborough, on which the laurels of Blenheim 
 and Malplaquet had not yet clustered. We turn 
 to the Colonial life of the same day, and it seems at 
 
190 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 first as if it could not have been borne for half an 
 hour. What a time of small things, to be sure, at first 
 it appears to be. The sweet pathos, the heroical inter 
 est of the landing at Plymouth, of the journey to 
 Charlestown, are gone ; the grander excitations of the 
 age of Independence are not yet begun to be felt ; hard 
 living ; austere manners ; provincial and parochial in 
 significance ; stupendous fabrics of witchcraft, and 
 disputes of grace and works ; little tormentings of 
 Quakers and Antinomians ; synods to build platforms, 
 on which nothing would stand ; fast days for sins which 
 there was no possibility to commit, and thanksgivings 
 for mercies never received ; these at first sight seem to 
 be the Massachusetts life of that day. But look a little 
 closer. Take the instance of an educated public man 
 of Massachusetts about the year 1688, a governor ; 
 a magistrate ; an alumnus of Harvard College, learned 
 in the learning of his time; a foremost man, and 
 trace him through a day of his life. Observe the va 
 riety and dignity of his employments ; the weight of 
 his cares ; the range of his train of thoughts; his re 
 sources against ennui and satiety ; on what aliment his 
 spiritual and intellectual nature could feed; appreciate 
 his past, his present, and his future, and see if you are 
 quite sure that a man of equal ability, prominence, and 
 learning is as high or as happy now. 
 
 " First, last, midst, of all the elements of interest in 
 the life of such a man was this : that it was in a just 
 and grand sense, a public life. He was a public man. 
 And what sort of a public man, what doing in that 
 capacity ? This exactly. He was, he felt himself to 
 be and here lay the felicity of his lot, he was in 
 the very act of building up a new nation where no na- 
 
1845-1849.] THOUGHTS ON THE PURITANS. 191 
 
 tion was before. The work was in the very process of 
 doing from day to day, from hour to hour. Every day 
 it was changing its form under his eye and under his 
 hand. Instead of being born ignominiously into an es 
 tablished order of things, a recognized and stable State, 
 to the duties of mere conservation, and the rewards of 
 mere enjoyment, his function he felt to be that rarer, 
 more heroical, more epic to plant, to found, to 
 construct a new State upon the waste of earth. He 
 felt himself to be of the conditores imperiorum. Im 
 perial labors were his ; imperial results were his. 
 Whether the State (that grandest of the works of man 
 grander than the Pyramids, or Iliads, or systems of 
 the Stars !) whether the State should last a year or 
 a thousand years, whether it should be contracted 
 within lines three miles north of the Merrimack, three 
 miles south of the Charles, and a little east of the 
 Hudson, or spread to the head waters of the Aroostook, 
 and St. John, and the springs of the Merrimack among 
 the crystal hills of New England, and to the great sea 
 on the west ; whether a Stuart and a Papist king of 
 England should grasp its charter, or the bayonet or 
 tomahawk of French or Indians quench its life ; 
 whether if it outlived, as Jeremy Taylor has said, the 
 chances of a child/ it should grow up to be one day a 
 pious, learned, well-ordered, and law-abiding Common 
 wealth ; a freer and more beautiful England ; a less 
 tumultuary and not less tasteful Athens ; a larger and 
 more tolerant Geneva ; or a school of prophets a 
 garden of God a praise a glory ; all this seemed 
 to such a man as I have described, as he awoke in the 
 morning, to depend appreciably and consciously on 
 what he might do or omit to do, before he laid his head 
 
192 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 on his pillow that very night. Public life in Massa 
 chusetts that day did not consist in sending or being 
 sent to Congress with a dozen associates, to be voted 
 down in a body of delegates representing half of North 
 America. Still less was it a life of leisure and epi 
 cureanism. This man of whom I speak, within the 
 compass of a single twenty-four hours, might have to 
 correspond with Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Ply 
 mouth Colony, and the Royal Government of New 
 Hampshire, upon the subject of boundary lines, the 
 boundary lines of States, as against one another wholly 
 independent, a dignified and historical deliberation ; 
 to collate and to draw practical conclusions from all 
 manner of contradictory information touching move 
 ments of Indians at Casco Bay and the Penobscot ; to 
 confer with Sir William Phipps about the raising of 
 troops to attack Port Royal or Quebec ; to instruct the 
 agent of the Colony, who was to sail for England next 
 morning, to watch the course of the struggle between 
 the last of the Stuarts, the people of England, and the 
 Prince of Orange, or to meditate his report from Lon 
 don ; to draw up a politic, legal, and skilful address to 
 his king s most excellent and blessed majesty, to show 
 that we had not forfeited the life of the charter and the 
 birthright of English souls ; to take counsel on the 
 state of the free schools, the university, and the law ; 
 to communicate with some learned judge on the com 
 position of our decennial twelve tables of the juris 
 prudence of liberty ; to communicate with learned di 
 vines the ardent Mathers, father and son, and with 
 Brattle on the ecclesiastical well-being of the State, 
 the aspects of Papacy and Episcopacy, the agencies of 
 the invisible world, the crises of Congregationalism, 
 
1845-1849.] THOUGHTS ON THE PURITANS. 193 
 
 the backslidings of faith for life, and all those wayward 
 tendencies of opinion, which, with fear of change, per 
 plexed the church. 
 
 " Compare with the life of such an one the life of a 
 Massachusetts public man of this day. How crowded 
 that was ; how burthened with individual responsi 
 bility ; how oppressed with large interests ; how far 
 more palpable and real the influence ; how much 
 higher and wider the topics ; how far grander the 
 cares ! Why, take the highest and best Massachusetts 
 public men of all among us. Take his Excellency. 
 What has he to do with French at Port Royal, or 
 Indians at Saco, or Dutch on the Hudson ? How 
 much sleep does he lose from fear that the next 
 steamer will bring news that the Crown of England has 
 repealed the Constitution of Massachusetts ? When 
 will he lie awake at dead of night to see Cotton Mather 
 drawing his curtain pale as the ghost of Banquo 
 to tell him that witchcraft is celebrating pale Hecate s 
 offerings at Danvers ? Where is it now the grand, 
 peculiar charm that belongs ever to the era and the 
 act, of the planting and infancy of a State ? Where 
 where now those tears of bearded men ; the faded 
 cheek ; the throbbing heart ; the brow all furrowed 
 with imperial lines of policy and care, that give the 
 seed to earth, whose harvest shall be reaped when some 
 generations are come and gone ? " 
 
 During the summer of the same year, the Phillips 
 Will Case, as it was called, was argued by him at Ips 
 wich. It involved the disposal of nearly a million of 
 dollars. The will was dated at Nahant, where Mr. 
 Phillips had his residence, October 9, 184T. He soon 
 after left for Europe, and the next year, having re- 
 
 13 
 
194 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 turned, put an end to his own life in Brattleborough, 
 Vt., June 28, 1848. It was found on examination that 
 after giving considerable sums to his mother and 
 sisters, a hundred thousand dollars to the Observatory 
 in Cambridge, and several minor bequests to his friends, 
 he left the bulk of his property to a relative, who was 
 already prospectively very wealthy. The heirs- at-law 
 disputed the will on the grounds 1st, of the insanity 
 or imbecility of the testator ; 2d, that an undue influ 
 ence had been exercised over him; and 3d, that the 
 will was void because executed on a Sunday. It is 
 seldom that an array of counsel of such eminent ability 
 is seen at once in court. For the heirs-at-law appeared 
 W. H. Gardiner, Joel Parker, and Sidney Bartlett. 
 For the executors, Rufus Choate, Benj. R. Curtis, and 
 Otis P. Lord. After a searching examination of wit 
 nesses and documents, protracted through a whole 
 week, the arguments were made by Mr. Gardiner on 
 one side and Mr. Choate on the other. That it was 
 one of Mr. Choate s ablest and most conclusive argu 
 ments, conceived in his best vein, and conducted with 
 consummate skill and eloquence, is the testimony of 
 all who were present. To those who never heard him 
 before, it was a new revelation of the scope and power 
 of legal eloquence. Unfortunately it perished with 
 the breath that uttered it. Nothing remains to attest 
 its ability but its success. The decision of the jury on 
 every point was in favor of the will. 
 
 Soon after leaving the Senate, Mr. Choate entered 
 upon a course of careful study for the purpose of a 
 more thorough self-discipline. He began to translate 
 Thucydides, Demosthenes, and Tacitus. He marked 
 out a course of systematic reading, and resolutely res- 
 
1845-1849.] FRAGMENTARY JOURNAL. 195 
 
 cued hours of daily labor from sleep, from society, 
 from recreation. Under the date of October, 1845, he 
 says, U I am reading, meditating, and translating the 
 first of Greek historians, Thucydides. I study the 
 Greek critically in Passow, Bloomfield, and Arnold, 
 and the history in Mitford, Thiiiwall, Wachsmuth, 
 Hermann, &c., <fcc., and translate faithfully, yet with 
 some attention to English words and construction ; 
 and my purpose is to study deeply the Greece of the 
 age of Pericles, and all its warnings to the liberty and 
 the anti-unionisms of my own country and time." 
 
 Several fragments of journals, and sketches of prom 
 ised labor, without dates, seem referable to the years 
 between 1845 and 1850, and may be inserted here. 
 They show the diligent efforts at self-culture in the 
 midst of entangling and exhausting labors. 
 
 " VACATIONS. PRIVATE. HINTS FOR MYSELF. 
 
 " It is plain that if I am to do aught beyond the mere 
 drudgery of my profession, for profit of others or of myself; 
 if I am to ripen and to produce any fruit of study, and to con 
 struct any image or memorial of my mind and thoughts, it 
 must be done or be begun quickly. To this I have admoni 
 tion in all things. High time if not too late it is to 
 choose between the two alternatives to amuse scarcely 
 amuse, (for how sad and ennuyant is mere desultory reading !) 
 such moments of leisure as business leaves me, in various 
 random reading of good books, or to gather up these moments, 
 consolidate and mould them into something worthy of myself, 
 which may do good where I am not known, and live when I 
 shall have ceased to live a thoughtful and soothing and rich 
 printed page. Thus far almost to the Aristotelian term of 
 utmost mental maturity I have squandered these moments 
 away. They have gone not in pleasure, nor the pursuit of 
 gain, nor in the trivialities of society but in desultory read 
 ing, mainly of approved authors ; often, much, of the grandest 
 of the children of Light but reading without method and 
 
196 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 without results. No doubt taste has been improved, senti 
 ments enlarged, language heightened, and many of the effects 
 inevitable, insensible, and abiding of liberal culture, im 
 pressed on the spirit. But for all this, who is better? Of all 
 this, who sees the proofs ? How selfish and how narrow the 
 couch of these gratifications ! How idle the strenuousuess of 
 daily labor ! How instantly the air will close on this arrowy 
 path ! How sad, how contemptible, that no more should be 
 left of such a life, than of the common] >lace and vacant and 
 satisfied, on this side and that ! I have been under the influ 
 ence of such thoughts, meditating the choice of the alterna 
 tive. I would arrest these moments, accumulate them, trans 
 form them into days and years of remembrance ! To this 
 end, I design to compose a collection of papers which I will 
 call vacations. These shall embody the studies and thoughts 
 of my fitful, fragmentary leisure. They shall be most slowly 
 and carefully written with research of authors, with medita 
 tion, with great attention to the style yet essay-like, 
 various, and free as epistles. I call them vacations, to inti 
 mate that they are the fruits of moments withdrawn from the 
 main of life s idle business, and the performances of a mind, 
 whose chief energies are otherwise exercised. The subjects 
 are to be so various as to include all things of which I read or 
 think con amore, and they are to be tasks, too, for reviving, 
 re-arranging, and increasing the acquisitions I have made. 
 My first business is to prepare an introductory and explan 
 atory paper for the public, as this is for myself, and then 
 to settle something like a course of the subjects themselves. 
 Such* a course it will be indispensable to prescribe, nearly 
 impossible to adhere to. Single topics are more easily in 
 dicated. The Greek orators before Lysias and Isocrates, 
 Demosthenes, -ZEschines, Thucydides, the Odyssey, Tacitus, 
 Juvenal, Pope supply them at once; Rhetoric, conservatism 
 of the bar, my unpublished orations, the times, politics, remi 
 niscences suggest others Cicero and Burke, Tiberius in 
 Tacitus, and Suetonius, and De Quincey, but why enum 
 erate ? The literature of this century, to the death of Scott 
 or Moore so grand, rich, and passionate." 
 
 [The succeeding sheets are missing. Some of these sub 
 jects he wrought into his lectures.] 
 
1845-1849.] FRAGMENTARY JOURNAL. 197 
 
 " I have at last hit upon a plan for the thorough study of 
 the history of the Constitution, which I hope may advance 
 all my objects, the thorough acquisition of the facts; the 
 vivid reproduction of the eventful age ; the rhetorical expres 
 sion and exhibition of the whole. I shall compose a succes 
 sion of speeches, supposed to have been made in Congress, in 
 conventions, or in assemblies of the people, in the period of from 
 1783 to the adoption of the Constitution, in which shall be 
 embodied the facts, the reasonings, and the whole scheme of 
 opinions and of policy, of the time. I select a speaker and a 
 subject ; and I make his discussion, or the discussion of his 
 antagonist, revive and paint the actual political day on which 
 he speaks. My first subject is the resolution of April, 1783, 
 recommending to the States to vest in Congress the power 
 of imposing certain duties for raising revenue to pay the debt 
 of the war. To prepare for this debate I read Pitkin, Mar 
 shall, Life of Hamilton, and above all, Washington s Address 
 to the People of 8 June, 1783, and that of the Committee of 
 Congress. 
 
 "Mr. Ellsworth or Mr. Madison or Mr. Hamilton may 
 have introduced the measure ; and a review of the past, a 
 survey of the present, a glance toward the future, would be 
 unavoidably interwoven with the mere business-like and 
 necessary exposition of the proposition itself." 
 
 It is evident from the above fragment, that Mr. 
 Choate cherished the purpose of embodying his reflec 
 tions on various subjects in a series of papers. To 
 this he sometimes jocosely referred in conversation 
 with other members of the bar. He once told Judge 
 Warren that he was going to write a book. " Ah," 
 said the Judge, " what is it to be ? " " Well," replied 
 Mr. Choate, " I ve got as far as the title-page and a 
 motto." " What are they ? " " The subject is 4 The 
 Lawyer s Vacation, the motto I ve forgotten. But 
 I shall show that the lawyer s vacation is the space be 
 tween the question put to a witness and his answer ! " 
 
 The following seems to be an essay towards a title 
 and introduction to some such work : 
 
198 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 "VACATIONS. 
 
 "BT A MEMBER OF THE BAR OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 " Paululum itinere decedere, non intempestivis amcenitatibus, adino- 
 nemur. PLINY. 
 
 "ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 " The vacations of the Massachusetts, and I suppose of the 
 general American Bar, are not certain stated and consider 
 able seasons in which a lawyer may turn his office-key, and 
 ramble away, without reclamation or reproval, to lake and 
 prairie, and beyond the diminished sea ; or resign himself, 
 with an absolute abandonment of successive weeks, to those 
 thoughts and studies of an higher mood, by which soul and 
 body might be sooner and longer rested and recreated. They 
 are, rather, divers infinitely minute particles of time, half- 
 hours before breakfast, or after dinner, Saturdays at evening, 
 intervals between the going out of one client and the coming 
 in of another ; blessed, rare, fortuitous days, when no Court 
 sits, nor Referee, nor Master in Chancery, nor Commissioner, 
 nor Judge at Chambers, nor Legislative Committee, these 
 snatches and interstitial spaces, moments, literal and fleet, are 
 our vacations. 
 
 " How difficult it is to arrest these moments, to aggregate 
 them, to till them as it were, to make them day by day ex 
 tend our knowledge, refine our tastes, accomplish our whole 
 culture ! how much more difficult to turn them to any large 
 account in the way of scholarship and authorship, sowing 
 them, as Jeremy Taylor has said, * with that which shall 
 grow up to crowns and sceptres, all members of the pro 
 fession of the law have experienced, and all others may well 
 understand ! That they afford time enough, if wisely used, for 
 4 the exercises and direct actions of religion, for much domes 
 tic and social enjoyment, for many forms of tasteful amuse 
 ments, for some desultory reading, and much undetected and 
 unproductive reverie, I gratefully acknowledge. But for 
 studies out of the law, studies, properly so described, either 
 recondite or elegant, and still more for the habit and the 
 faculty of literary writing, they are too brief and too inter 
 rupted ; gifts, too often, to a spirit and a frame too much 
 worn or depressed or occupied, to employ or appreciate them. 
 
1845-1849.1 
 
 VACATIONS." 199 
 
 " It was in such moments, gathered of many years, that 
 these papers were written. They are fruits, often, or always, 
 1 harsh and crude, of a lawyer s vacations. They stand in 
 need, therefore, of every degree of indulgence ; and I think I 
 could hardly have allowed myself to produce them at all, if I 
 had not been willing that others should know that the time 
 which I have withheld from society, from the pursuit of 
 wealth, from pleasure, and latterly from public affairs, has not 
 been idle or misspent ; non otiosa vita ; nee desidiosa occupa- 
 tio." 
 
200 
 
 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VII 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 1850. 
 
 Change of Partnership Voyage to Europe Letters to Mrs. 
 Choate Journal. 
 
 IN 1849 Mr. Choate terminated his professional con 
 nection with B. F. Crowninshield, Esq. It had lasted 
 for fifteen years, with a confidence so entire and un 
 broken, that during the whole time no formal division 
 of the income of the office was ever made, nor had 
 there arisen between them, on this account, the slight 
 est disagreement. He now took into partnership his 
 son-in-law, Joseph M. Bell, Esq., and removed from 
 Court Street to 7-J Tremont Row, a quarter then nearly 
 unoccupied by members of the profession. Here he 
 remained till the autumn of 1856, when he again re 
 moved to more commodious rooms in a new building 
 in Court Street. 
 
 In the summer of 1850, he gratified a long-cherished 
 wish by a voyage to Europe. So constant had been 
 his occupation, so unremitting his devotion to the law, 
 hardly allowing him a week s vacation during the year, 
 that, at last, the strain became too great, and he felt 
 compelled to take a longer rest than would be possible 
 at home. He sailed in the Steamship Canada on the 
 29th of June, in company with his brother-in-law, Hon. 
 Joseph Bell. They visited England, Belgium, France, 
 
1850.1 
 
 LETTERS TO MRS. CHOATE. 201 
 
 a part of Germany and Switzerland, and returned 
 home in September. Fortunately, he kept a brief 
 journal, which, with a few letters, will indicate the ob 
 jects which proved most attractive to him. He was 
 kindly received in England by those to whom he had 
 letters, and, during the few weeks he was in the coun 
 try, saw as much as possible of English life, and of 
 interesting places. 
 
 To MRS. CHOATE. 
 
 " June 30, 1850. 12 o clock. At Sea. 
 
 "DEAR H., We have had a very pleasant run so far, 
 and are to reach Halifax at night, say six to ten. I do 
 not suppose I have been sea-sick, but I have had that head 
 ache and sickness which usually follows a very hard trial, and 
 have just got out of my berth, to which I had retreated igno- 
 miniously from the breakfast-table. After I get wholly over 
 this, I hope I shall be better than ever. So far I don t regret 
 coming, but oh! take care of every thing, the house, the 
 books, your own health and happiness. . . . To tell the 
 truth, I am scarcely able to write more, but with best, best, 
 best love, I go again to my berth. Mr. Bell is writing at my 
 side, and grows better every moment. This letter I shall 
 mail at Halifax, where I shall not land, however, as we 
 touch in the night. God bless you all. Farewell again." 
 
 To MRS. CHOATE. 
 
 " LIVERPOOL, 7th and 8th July, 1850. 
 
 "DEAR H. AND DEAR CHILDREN, We arrived here 
 yesterday, 7th July, Sunday morning, at about eight o clock, 
 and I am quite comfortably set down at the Waterloo Hotel, 
 a stranger in a strange land. Yesterday, Sunday, after 
 breakfasting upon honey, delicious strawberries, &c., &c., I went 
 to church, St. George s, and heard the best church service 
 music I ever heard, and then tried to rest. To-day Mr. Bell 
 and I have been running all over Liverpool, and to-morrow 
 we go to London. Most of the passage over I was very sick. 
 Two days I lay still in my berth ; the rest of the time I crept 
 
202 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 about, rather low. But the whole voyage was very pleas 
 ant and very prosperous, and, I suppose, at no period danger 
 ous. One vast and grim iceberg we saw, larger than the 
 whole block of buildings composing Park Street, and I saw 
 the spouting of whales, but no whales themselves. The tran 
 sition, yesterday, from a rocking ship and all the smells of 
 the sea to the hotel, was sweet indeed. I don t know how I 
 shall like England, and how I shall stay till October. 
 Sometimes my heart droops. But our course will be this, 
 to stay now a fortnight in London, then go a fortnight to the 
 Continent, and then spend the whole of the rest of our time 
 in England and Scotland. More of all this we shall learn 
 to-morrow, or soon, at London. . . . My heart swells to think 
 of you all, and of my dear, poor library. Take good care of 
 that. Write every thing to me. . . . My heart is at home. 
 Miss G. got along very well, a little pale and sad. All 
 England is in mourning for Sir R. Peel. How awful ! One 
 of my letters was to him, whom I am never to see. I have 
 lived so much at home, that I don t know how I shall go along 
 or go alone. But if we all meet again, what signifies it? 
 Write by every boat. . . . Tell the news the news. Re 
 member I can give you no idea by letters of all I see, but if 
 I come home you shall hear of My Lord, Sir Harry and the 
 Captain till you are tired. Good-by, good-by. It is near 
 three. Mr. B. and I dine at that hour. Bless you bless 
 you." 
 
 To MRS. CHOATE. 
 
 " LONDON, Friday,- July 12. 
 
 "DEAR H. AND DEAR CHILDREN, We are in London 
 you see, at Fenton s Hotel, St. James s Street, and very 
 pleasantly off for rooms and all things. I have not yet de 
 livered my letters, but we have been everywhere and walked 
 so much, and seen so much, that I am to-day almost beat out. 
 . . . Thus far I have stopped nowhere, examined nothing, 
 seen nobody, but just wandered, wandered everywhere, 
 floating on a succession of memories, reveries, dreams of Lon 
 don. ... I think we shall hurry to the Continent sooner than 
 we intended, perhaps in a week. This will depend on how 
 our London occupations hold out. I cannot particularize, but 
 thus far, London, England, exceed in interest all I had ex 
 pected. From Liverpool across, all is a garden, green 
 
1850.] LETTERS TO MRS. CHOATE. 203 
 
 fields, woods, cottages, as in pictures, here and there old 
 Gothic spires, towers, and every other picturesque and foreign- 
 looking aspect. The country is a deep dark green ; the build 
 ings look as in engravings and pictures, and all things so 
 strangely mixed of reality and imagination that I have not 
 been able to satisfy myself whether I am asleep or awake. 
 But London ! the very first afternoon after riding two hun 
 dred miles, we rushed into St. James s Park, a large, beau 
 tiful opening, saw Buckingham Palace, the Queen s city 
 residence, went to Westminster Abbey, whose bell was 
 tolling for the death of the Duke of Cambridge, went to 
 the Thames and looked from Westminster Bridge towards 
 St. Paul s, whose dome hung like a balloon in the sky. Next 
 morning I rose at six, and before eight had seen Charing 
 Cross, the Strand, Temple Bar r an arch across it on 
 which traitors heads were suspended or fixed, Fleet Street, 
 where Sam Johnson used to walk and suffer, St. Dunstan s 
 church, of which I think we read in the Fortunes of Nigel, 
 and none can tell what not. Last evening I went to the 
 opera and heard, in the Tempest, Sontag and Lablache, and, 
 in Anna Bolena. Pasta, the most magnificent theatre, audi 
 ence, music, I ever heard or saw. Yet Sontag and Pasta, es 
 pecially Pasta, are past their greatest reputation. ... I am 
 quite well. I die, when I think how you and the girls would 
 enjoy all. Bless you. Good-by. R. C." 
 
 To MRS. CHOATE. 
 
 " LONDON, Friday, July 18. 
 
 "DEAR H. AND DEAR CHILDREN, We are to start to 
 day for Paris and our tour of the Continent. We shall get 
 to Paris to-morrow eve, and thence our course will be guided 
 by circumstances. But we expect to be here again by the 
 middle or last of August, to renew our exploration of Eng 
 land and Scotland. Thus far, except that I am tired to death 
 of seeing sights and persons, and late hours, I have been very 
 well. One day of partial sick-headache is all I have had yet. 
 But the fatigue of a day, and of a week of mere sight-seeing 
 is extreme, though not like that of business, and the late 
 hours of this city, to me, who sometimes used to lose myself 
 as early as nine or ten, are no joke. I have not more than 
 three times been in bed till twelve or one, and up again at 
 
204 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 seven or eight. It is now five o clock in the morning. Ex 
 pecting to come back to London so soon, I have not tried to 
 see it all, but have found it growing daily on my hands. We 
 attended church at the Foundling Hospital last Sunday, 
 where some five hundred to one thousand charity children, in 
 uniform dress, performed the responses. The organ was 
 Handel s own, and the sight and the music, and the march of 
 the children to their dinner were most pleasant to see and 
 hear. I have been as much amazed at the British Museum 
 as at any thing. It is a vast building, one part of which, 
 divided into a great number of departments, is full of all 
 manner of curiosities, statuary, antiquities, specimens of 
 natural history, every thing, and the other is the transcen 
 dent Library. This last I have spent much time in. The 
 catalogue alone fills two hundred or three hundred volumes. 
 The rooms are wide, high, of the size of Faneuil Hall al 
 most, and lined with books to the ceiling. One single room 
 is three hundred feet long, and full. The Temple is a most 
 sweet spot too, a sort of college, enclosing a beautiful 
 large area or garden, which runs to, and along, the Thames, 
 secluded and still in the heart of the greatest city of earth. 
 There Nigel was, before returning to Alsatia. 
 
 " We dined at Mr. Lawrence s pleasantly, and I spent a 
 delightful evening at Mr. Bunsen s, the Prussian minister. 
 The house belongs to his government, and is a palace ; rooms 
 large and high. It was not a large party, chiefly for 
 music, which was so so, Prussian chiefly, by ladies and gen 
 tlemen of the party. I have been at Lord Ashburton s, Lord 
 Lonsdale s, and Mr. Macaulay s, and am to go to Lord Ash- 
 burton s in Devonshire, when we come back. The deaths of 
 the Duke of Gloucester and Sir R. Peel, and the lateness of 
 the season, somewhat check the course of mere society ; but 
 I have been most politely received, and more than I expected 
 gratified by the mere personnel of London. Lord Ashbur 
 ton s house is a palace too, full of pictures, though all in 
 confusion on the eve of his departure for his summer seat. 
 The country is the grand passion of such persons. Mr. 
 Macaulay told me they would sell any house they own in 
 town for its money value, but their country seats nothing could 
 take from them. ... I wish J. would ascertain the latest 
 day to which my causes in the S. J. C. can be postponed, and 
 write very particularly which must come on, and at what 
 times, doiug his best to have all go over till October, if pos 
 sible. 
 
1850.] LETTERS TO MRS. CHOATE. 205 
 
 " The confession of Professor Webster has just arrived. 
 The cause is as well known here as there. It of course can 
 not save him. 1 Mr. Coolidjze has helped us to a capital 
 servant, and was most polite and kind ; so are all from whom 
 we had any right to look for any thing. And yet if I were 
 asked if I have ever been as happy as I am every day and 
 hour at home, at talk with you all, in my poor dear library, I 
 could not truly say I have. But even home will be, I hope, 
 the pleasauter for the journey. 
 
 " Good-by, all dear ones. We go to Dover to-night, start 
 ing at one. It draws near to breakfast, and I must go to 
 packing. Bless you all. Give my love to Mrs. B. and all 
 inquirers. R. C." 
 
 To MRS. CHOATE. 
 
 " PARIS, Thursday, 24th July. 
 
 "DEAR H., I was delighted to get your letter yesterday, 
 though struck speechless to learn at the moment of receiving 
 it from the banker, that President Taylor is dead. I hardly 
 credit it yet, though it is as certain as it is surprising. Better 
 for him perhaps, but what an overthrow of others, the 
 cabinet, the party, and all things. 
 
 " We got here Saturday night, and have been I have 
 in a real dream ever since. Nothing yet seen is in the least 
 degree to be compared with Paris, for every species of in 
 terest. Every spot of which you read in the history of the 
 revolution and the times of Napoleon, over and above all that 
 belongs to it historically, is a thousand times more beautiful 
 and more showy than I had dreamed. I saw the Tuileries 
 by moonlight, Saturday evening, from the garden of the Tuil 
 eries. This garden I should think it larger, with the 
 Champs Elysees certainly, than a dozen of our Commons 
 is a delightful wood, with paths, fountains, statues, busts, at 
 every turn, quiet, though a million of people seemed walk 
 ing in it, with soldiers here and there to keep order. It 
 stretches along from the Tuileries to a clearing called the 
 Place de la Concorde, an open area where are fountains, and 
 the great Egyptian obelisk. Then you reach the Champs 
 Elysees, also wooded, not so close or quiet, then come 
 
 1 It is understood that Mr. Choate was solicited to defend Dr. Web 
 ster, but, for reasons which he judged satisfactory, declined. 
 
206 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 to the Arch of Triumph, a prodigious structure on which 
 are inscribed the names of Napoleon s victories. . . . Notre 
 Dame is a majestic old church, 500 or 1000 years old, as 
 grand as Westminster Abbey and the Madeleine a glori 
 ous new Greek Temple church. . . . We went yesterday to 
 Versailles, the mo>t striking spot of earth, out of Rome, 
 one enormous palace, full of innumerable great rooms, halls, 
 museums, full of statues and pictures. We were in the bed 
 room and boudoir of Marie Antoinette, and Louis XVI., not 
 usually opened. The most striking place I have seen, of 
 which I never had heard, is a beautiful chapel built over the 
 spot where Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were first 
 privately buried. There they lay 21 years and then were 
 removed to St Denis, but then this chapel was built. It has 
 two groups, the king, an angel supporting him, and the 
 queen, similarly supported, in marble. I touched the place 
 where they were buried. We start to-morrow lor Brussels, 
 Cologne, the Rhine and Switzerland. Best, best love to 
 all. R. C." 
 
 " Take care of my library, dearer than the Bibliotheque 
 du Itoi, though smaller ! " 
 
 JOURNAL OF MR. CHOATB. 
 
 "Saturday, 29th June, 1850. 
 " Ox BOARD THE CANADA. 
 
 " I never promised myself nor any one else to attempt 
 a diary of any part of the journey on which I have set out, 
 still less of the first, most unpleasant, and most unvaried, 
 part of it, the voyage. But these hours, too, must be 
 arrested and put to use. These days also are each a life. 
 Let me be taught to number them then lest, seeking 
 health, I find idleness, ennui, loss of interest more than the 
 allotted and uncontrollable influence of time, on the faculties 
 and the curiosity. 
 
 " These affectionate aids, too, of my wife and daughters 
 pen, ink, and beautiful paper at once suggest and prescribe 
 some use of them. Such a claim, now less than ever, would 
 I disallow. 
 
 * So 1 will try to make the briefest record of the barren 
 outward time, uud try also to set mvselt to some daily task 
 
1850.] JOURNAL ON BOARD THE CANADA. 207 
 
 of profit. My first three days, Wednesday, Thursday, and 
 Friday, were grasped from me by a sick-headache of the 
 Court House, aggravated, changed, by the sickness of the sea. 
 The first day and night and the second day till after dinner 
 were one fearful looking-for of the inevitable consequences of 
 my last laborious fortnight. Ship or shore, I should have 
 had it. It came, is gone, and for the first time, to-day, I feel 
 like myself, arid to be well, I hope, for a month more. 
 
 " Meantime we have run up the New England coast, 
 touched at Halifax, and are coming fast abreast of our last 
 land, Cape Race. They expect to pass it to-day at 6 P.M., 
 and the east wind and incumbent fog announce the vicinity of 
 the inhospitable coast and the Great Bank. I understand the 
 passage of Cape Race is reckoned the last peril of the voy 
 age, at this season till we make the Irish shores. We all 
 share the anxiety and appreciate the vigilance of the pilotage, 
 which is on the look-out for this crisis. Under the circum 
 stances, it infers little danger at least. Thus far, till this 
 morning, day and night have been bright. Sun, moon, and 
 stars have been ours, and the wind fair and fresh. We 
 have generally carried sail, often studding sails. The sea has 
 been smooth too, for ocean ; yet breathing ever, life-full, 
 playing with us, the serene face of waves smiling on us. 
 To-day, is some change. Wind east ; dead ahead, a 
 low, cold, damp fog, brooding for ever and for ever in these 
 regions of the meeting of the warm and cold tides. On we 
 go still, every sail furled close eleven miles an hour. I 
 remark our northing, in the diminished power of the clearest 
 sunbeam and in the cool air, and our easting in the loss of 
 my watch s time. The sun comes to the meridian an hour 
 sooner than in Boston. We are taking our meridian lunch, 
 while our dear friends hear their parlor and kitchen clocks 
 strike eleven. For the rest, it is a vast sentient image of 
 water all around. We have seen three or four sail daily, 
 parcel of the trade of England to her northern colonies ; ^ 
 and a mackerel fisherman or two ; and with these exceptions, 
 we are alone in the desert. 
 
 " Our ship is a man-of-war, for size, quiet, and discipline ; 
 the passengers a well-behaved general set ; my accommoda 
 tions excellent. Hcec hactenus. 
 
 " I have come away without a book but the Bible and 
 Prayer-Book and Daily Food/ and I sigh for the sweet 
 luxuries of my little library (UXQOV re qpJLor re. 
 
208 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 " Yet am I resolved not to waste this week in ineptiisj 
 and I mean to know more at the end of it than I know now. 
 I will commit one morsel in the Daily Food daily, and 
 have to-day, that of 2 ( Jth June. To this, I mean to add a 
 page at least of French, and two pages of * Half-hours with 
 Best Authors, with Collectanea, lit passim. 
 
 "Liverpool. Alas! on that very Saturday evening, my 
 real sea-sickness set in, pursued me till Thursday, then fol 
 lowed languor, restlessness, and all the unprofitable and un 
 availing resolving of such a state of the mind left to itself on 
 board a vessel. The result is, that the rest of my voyage 
 was lost, except so far as it has quite probably prepared me 
 for better health and fresher sensations on shore. 
 
 " We passed Cape Race on Saturday evening in thick fog, 
 and very close, nearer I suppose to a point of it, the pro 
 jecting termination of a cove, into which we ran, which we 
 coasted, and out of which we had to steer by a total change 
 of course, nearer than we designed. To see it, for de 
 parture, was indispensable almost, and that done we steered 
 assured and direct towards Cape Clear in Ireland. Then 
 followed two or three days of fog and one or two more of a 
 quite rough sea. But we have had no gale of wind, and on 
 Friday night we entered the Irish Channel and ascended it 
 till about 5 P.M., by science only, when we saw the first laud 
 since our departure one week before from the S. E. cape of 
 Newfoundland. What we saw were islands on the coast 
 of Wales, or mountains of Wales, or both. We came up 
 toward Liverpool as far as the bar would permit, last eve, 
 anchored or waited for tide, and came to our dock at about 
 8 this morning. 
 
 " On Sunday afternoon, June 30th, we were called on deck 
 to see an iceberg. It was late in the afternoon, a cold, gross 
 fog incumbent, a dark night at hand, the steamer urging for 
 ward at the rate of twelve miles an hour. The iceberg lay 
 slowly floating, I suppose one-fourth of a mile off, getting 
 astern, and was a grand and startling image certainly. It 
 might be in some places fifty, in some one hundred feet from 
 the water, and perhaps three hundred to five hundred yards 
 long, looking like a section of a mountain-top severed horizon 
 tally, but ice, ice, suggesting its voyage of thousands of miles 
 perhaps, and its growth of a thousand years, giving us to look 
 directly on the terrible North, present to us in a form of real 
 danger. The Captain professed no fears from such causes, 
 
1850.] JOURNAL ON BOAKD THE CANADA. 209 
 
 and under the admirable vigilance of his command, I suppose 
 there was not much. One day we saw porpoises, as in the 
 Sound, and I saw twice vast sheets of water thrown up by 
 the spouting of the whale, although himself I did not see. 
 
 " Enough. The voyage is over. Brief, prosperous, yet 
 tedious. And now I am to address myself to the business of 
 my journey. I have come to the Waterloo House, to a 
 delicious breakfast, including honey, strawberries a snug, 
 clean room and the luxuries of purification and rest. I have 
 traversed a street or two, enough to recognize the Old World 
 I am in. I am beginning to admit and feel the impression of 
 England. The high latitude, deep green of tree and land, 
 clouded sky, cool, damp air ; the plain, massive, and enduring 
 construction of fort, dock, store and houses, dark, large, brick 
 or stone, instantaneously strike. Thus far it seems gloomy, 
 heavy, yet rich, strong, deep, a product of ages for ages. 
 Yet I have not looked at any individual specimen of antiquity, 
 grandeur, power, or grace. I have attended service at St. 
 George s for want of knowing where to go. The music was 
 admirable, forming a larger part than in the American Epis 
 copal Service, and performed divinely. The sermon was 
 light and the delivery cold, sing-song, on the character of 
 David. 
 
 " And now to some plan of time and movement for England. 
 Before breakfast I shall walk at least an hour observantly, 
 and on returning jot down any thing worth it. This hour 
 is for exercise however. I mean next to read every day a 
 passage in the Bible, a passage in the Old and in the New 
 Testament, beginning each, and to commit my Daily Food. 
 Then, I must carefully look at the papers, for the purpose of 
 thoroughly mastering the actual English and European public 
 and daily life, and this will require jotting down, the debates, 
 the votes, chiefly. Then I must get, say half an hour a day, 
 for Greek and Latin and elegant English. For this purpose, 
 I must get me an Odyssey and Crusius, and a Sallust. and 
 some single book of poems or prose, say Wordsworth. This, 
 lest taste should sleep and die, for which no compensations 
 shall pay ! 
 
 " For all the rest, I mean to give it heartily, variously, to 
 what travel can teach, men opinions places, with 
 great effort to be up to my real powers of acquiring and im 
 parting. This journey shall not leave me where it finds me. 
 
 14 
 
210 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 Better, stronger, knowing more. One page of some law-book 
 daily, I shall read. That I must select to-morrow too. 
 
 " Friday, 1 2th July. I must write less, but more regu 
 larly, or the idea of a journal must be abandoned. Tuesday 
 I came to London, a beautiful day, through a beautiful land, 
 leaving an image, a succession of images, ineffaceable. That 
 which strikes most is the universal cultivation, the deep, live, 
 fresh green on all things, the hedge-fences, the cottages small 
 and brick, the absence of barns, and the stacks of* hay out of 
 doors, the excellent station constructions, the Gothic spires 
 and castles here and there among trees, identifying the scene 
 and telling something of the story. The railroad was less 
 smooth than the Lowell, at least the car ran less smoothly. 
 Here and there women were at work in the fields. I know 
 not how rich was the land. I saw no, or not much, waste, and 
 the main aspect was of a nearly universal and expensive 
 culture. 
 
 " We passed through Tarn worth, and saw at a distance a 
 flag at half-mast from a tower. It was the day of Sir Robert 
 Peel s funeral, of which, however, we saw nothing. Tuesday 
 eve, Wednesday, and yesterday I rambled, and to-day have 
 lain still. I ran this way and that, like a boy, seeking every 
 where and iindiug everywhere some name and place made 
 classical by English literary or general history, and have 
 brought off a general, vague, yet grand impression of Lon 
 don, with no particulars of knowledge. The parks are sweet 
 spots, quiet and airy, but plain. Green Park, at least, was 
 partially dotted by flocks of sheep. Buckingham Palace, 
 name apart, does not strike much more than the Capitol or 
 President s house. Westminster Abbey externally is sublime. 
 The new Parliament House will be showy. 
 
 " I heard a cause partially opened to a committee of Lords ; 
 another partially argued to the jury in the Exchequer ; and 
 another partially argued to the Lord Commissioners. The 
 A. G. [Attorney-general] Jervis, [Sir John Jervis,] and Mr. 
 Cockburn, [Alexander E. Cockburn,] open respectively for 
 and versus Pate, for striking the Queen. There was no occa 
 sion for much exertion or display, and there was nothing of 
 either. Mr. Cockburn had the manner of Franklin Dexter 
 before the committee. Mr. Marten seemed animated and 
 direct in a little Exchequer jury cause. Pate would have 
 been acquitted in Massachusetts. The English rule is, 
 knowledge, or want of it, that the act is wrong. The prison- 
 
1850.] JOURNAL COURTS. 211 
 
 er s counsel, in my judgment, gave up his case by conceding ; 
 he feared he should fail. I thought and believed he might 
 have saved him. The chief judge presiding, Alderson, [Sir 
 E. PI. Alderson,] offended me. He is quick, asks many ques 
 tions, sought unfavorable replies, repeats what he puts down 
 as the answer, abridged and inadequate. The whole trial 
 smacked of a judiciary, whose members, bench and bar, 
 expect promotion from the Crown. Their doctrine of in 
 sanity is scandalous. Their treatment of medical evidence, 
 and of the informations of that science, scandalous. 
 
 " One thing struck me. All seemed to admit that the 
 prisoner was so far insane as to make whipping improper ! 
 yet that he was not so insane as riot to be guilty. Suppose 
 him tried for murder, how poor a compromise ! 
 
 " The question on handwriting was do you believe it to be 
 his ? after asking for knowledge. Opening the pleadings is 
 useless, except to the courts, and is for the court. The coun 
 sel interrogating from a brief; leads in interrogation being 
 very much on uncontested matter. It saves time and is not 
 quarrelled with. The speaker is at too great a distance from 
 the jury. Their voices are uncommonly pleasant ; pronuncia 
 tion odd, affected, yet impressing you as that of educated 
 persons. Some, Mr. Humphry, Mr. Cockburn, occasionally 
 hesitated for a word. All narrated dryly ; not one has in the 
 least impressed me by point, force, language, power ; still 
 less, eloquence or dignity. The wig is deadly. The Ex 
 chequer Jury sittings were in Guildhall as were the C. C. 
 Pleas. Pate was tried at the Old Bailey. The rooms are 
 small, never all full. Mr. Byles was in one ins. cause in 
 C. C. Pleas. 
 
 " Last eve, I heard Sontag and Lablache in La Tempeta 
 and saw the faded Pasta. I returned late, and am sick to 
 day, a little. Bought Kiihner s Edition of the Tusculan 
 Questions. Mr. Bates called and made some provision for 
 our amusement. 
 
 " I read J^ible, Prayer-Book, a page of Bishop Andrews s 
 Prayers, a half-dozen lines of Virgil and Homer, and a page 
 of Williams s Law of Real Property." 
 
 THE CONTINENT. 
 
 " July 1 9, Friday. Left London for Folkstone, whence 
 across to Boulogne a cloudy day terminating in copious rain 
 through which the deep green of English landscape looked 
 
212 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 gloomy and uniform. At Folkstone, which is a few miles 
 S. W. of Dover, just built up to be a terminus point of 
 transit of railroad and steamboat line to France found our 
 for the present last English hotel, clean bedrooms, abun 
 dance of water, and all other appointments, and all well ad 
 ministered and soundly exacting. 
 
 " Saturday. We passed in the steamboat to Boulogne, 
 breakfasted at B. and came to Paris, arriving at six. The 
 passage across the Channel was on a foggy, rainy morning, 
 showing that renowned water drearily and indistinctly, and a 
 little darkening our first experience of France. Numerous 
 vessels, from small fishermen of both coasts to large merchant 
 ships, were in view however, and I recalled with Mr. Prescott 
 the occasions when Roman, Saxon, Danish, and Dutch keels 
 had ploughed it, the old intercourse of France and Scotland, 
 the voyage of Mary, the descents of the Henrys and Ed 
 wards, and the cruise of so many great fleets, in so many and 
 such various fortunes of England and France. Mr. P. told 
 me of Lockhart who interested him deeply, thinks freely, 
 despises the Bishops, utters brilliant sarcasms, lives retired, 
 sad, and independent. Deaths of the loved, the bad character 
 of a living child, with other unexplained causes, are supposed 
 to cause it. He saw at L s. the MSS. of Rob Roy, the first 
 hundred pages covered with second thoughts then all work 
 ing itself consummate by the first effort. He related sar 
 casms of Rogers, sneers at the Bishop of Oxford. Wilberforce ; 
 the incredible touching and altering, by which the historic 
 sheet of Macuulay at last is brought to its perfection ; the 
 great narrowness of all male and female Church adherents, 
 the mendacious reputation of Lord B., telling an audience 
 at Harrow, his father and grandfather were educated there, 
 every man, woman, and child knowing better. By the time 
 we were ready to leave Boulogne the sun came out, and our 
 ride to Paris was lighted by a sweet, glowing summer s day. 
 I must say I was delighted with the country. Part of our 
 way was quite on the seashore, as far as Abbeville, thence 
 more inland, and the last three to five hours lay through 
 whole prairies of fields ripe with wheat. Till now I had no 
 conception of the wheat culture of France, nor of the affluent 
 and happy aspect with which the wheat harvest, when nod 
 ding, yellow, over level plains, up the sides and to the tops of 
 hills, through patches of trees, five miles to six or seven in 
 extent on each side, for a distance of fifty miles, robes a 
 
1850.] JOURNAL PARIS. 213 
 
 country. Why, France, if all like this, could feed Europe. 
 A few vineyards were interspersed here and there ; chateaux 
 in the distance and the towers of cathedrals, with men and 
 women at work in the fields, completed the scene. Ah. how 
 absurd, yet common, to think of Paris only as France, and 
 the Deputies only as Paris. How English media refract and 
 tinge. The cars were the best I ever saw, and the whole 
 railroad administration, rapid and in all things excellent. I 
 am come to Hotel Canterbury. Of Paris from the station I 
 avoided seeing much, but could not wholly lose the narrow 
 street and vast height of houses and want of wealth in shop- 
 windows. After dinner, at nine in the evening, by moonlight, 
 I first saw Paris. I walked down through the Place Ven- 
 dome, looked on the column cast of cannon, towering gloomy, 
 grim, storied, surmounted by Napoleon, recognized even so, 
 and in three minutes stood in the Gardens, before the struct 
 ure of the Tuileries. This scene, this moment, are inefface 
 able for ever ! Some soldiers in uniform, with muskets 
 bayouetted, marched to and fro near the entrance. Hun 
 dreds, thousands men, women, and children were walking 
 in the Garden, in paths beneath a wood, extending, so far as 
 I could see, without limit ; lights twinkled in it here and 
 there ; vases, statues, reposed all around ; fountains were 
 playing, and before me stretched the vast front of the Tuiler 
 ies, the tricolor hanging motionless on its dome, the moonlight 
 sleeping peacefully and sweetly on the scene of so much 
 
 flory, so much agony a historic interest so transcendent, 
 did not go to the Seine, nor seek for definite ideas of locality, 
 or extent ; but gave myself to a dream of France, land of 
 glory and love. Far, far to the west, I remarked an avenue 
 extending indefinitely, along whose sides, at what seemed 
 an immense distance, twinkled parallel lines of lights. I did 
 not then know that it ran to the Place de la Concorde the 
 Obelisk - and thence on, on, becoming the Avenue of the 
 Champs Ely sees and so to the Arch at last. That 1 learned 
 the next morning. 
 
 <% 2 2d. It is now Monday morning. I have not been out 
 to-day yet. But yesterday I saw and entered Notre Dame 
 and the Madeleine glorious specimens of diverse styles 
 pure Gothic and Greek. Notre Dame impresses as a mere 
 structure, as much as Westminster Abbey. It is cruciform. 
 At the west end rise two vast towers, lofty, and elaborately 
 finished telling of a thousand years. Between these you 
 
214 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 enter and are in the nave. Thence you may wander through 
 ranges of pillars from which the pure Gothic arch is spring 
 ing, mark along the sides the numerous chapels in recesses, 
 observe the two vast circular windows of the transept, and 
 look up to the ceiling rising as a firmament above you. No 
 statues or tablets of the dead are here. Pictures of sacred 
 subjects on the walls, worshippers here and there, the appoint 
 ments of the Papal service, the grand, unshared, unmodified 
 character of a mere cathedral is on it all. The Madeleine is 
 a beautiful Greek temple, showy and noble. The Boulevards 
 terminate there thence running I know not how far a 
 vast, broad street with thousands of both sexes walking, 
 sitting outside of cafes, drinking coffee, wine, &c., the whole 
 lined by miles of shops, cafes, and other places of public 
 resort glittering and full, 
 
 " Monday, 2 2d July. This morning I am to begin a more 
 detailed observation of Paris." 
 
 " Basle, 2d August, Friday. A day of rain and a head 
 ache compel or excuse my lying by till to-morrow, and so I 
 avail myself of an undesired and unexpected opportunity to 
 recall some of the sights that have been crowded into the last 
 fortnight. Left Paris Friday eve, July 26, for Brussels, to 
 which point we came to breakfast visited Waterloo, and 
 next morning started for Cologne where we arrived at sunset. 
 On Monday went to Bonn and passed the afternoon and night, 
 
 making, however, an excursion to the top of Drachenfels. 
 Thus far our journey was by rail. The next morning we 
 embarked on the Rhine in the steamer Schiller, and ascended 
 to Wiesbaden, arriving, by aid of a quarter or half an hour in 
 an omnibus, at nine o clock. On Wednesday we came by rail 
 to Kehl opposite and four miles from Strasburg, glancing at 
 Frankfurt, and spending three hours at Heidelberg. Yester 
 day we crossed to Strasburg, visited the Cathedral, and 
 came by rail to Basle in season for dinner at the table d hote. 
 And now what from all this ? I shall remember with con 
 stant interest Paris, and shall extend my acquaintance wiih 
 the language, literature, and hi.-tory of the strange and beau 
 tiful France. Besides what I have already recorded, I at 
 tended a sitting of the Chamber of Deputies an assembly 
 of good-looking men not just then doing any thing of interest 
 
 most interesting, however, as the government, and the ex- 
 
1850.] JOURNAL BELGIUM. 215 
 
 ponent and multifarious representation of the political and 
 social opinions and active organ of a great nation. M. Ber- 
 ryer I saw, and Eugene Sue, and M. Mole. M. Guizot I saw 
 afterwards in the steamer Schiller, going up from Bonn. He 
 left the boat at Coblentz. Two or three deputies spoke to a 
 most freezing inattention. They got the floor in their seats, 
 then went to the tribune, laid their MSS. at their side and 
 went to it as we lecture at lyceums. Great animation 
 much gesture a constant rising inflection at the end of 
 periods before the final close of the sentence an occasional 
 look at the MSS. and pull at the tumbler of water some 
 pausings at the noise of inattention this is all I could ap 
 preciate. The courts of law pleased me too. The judges in 
 cloaks or robes of black, with capes, quiet, thoughtful, and 
 dignified ; the advocate in a cloak and bare-headed, debating 
 with animation, and no want of dignity the dress and man 
 ners far better than the English bar. The silk gown or cloak 
 is graceful and fit, and might well have been (it is too late 
 now) among the costumes of our bar. 
 
 " This was all I saw of the mind of France in political or 
 executive action. The impression I brought from them was 
 of great respect. In this I can say nothing of the opinions or 
 wisdom of anybody. Tbe chamber seemed full of energy, 
 quickness, spirit, capacity. The courts grave, dignified, 
 among forms, and in halls, of age, solemnity, and impressive- 
 ness. Great French names of jurisprudence came to my 
 memory, and I learned to feel new regard for my own profes 
 sion. 
 
 " The rest of my time I gave to the storied spectacles of 
 Paris. The Louvre, a part of which was closed for repairs, 
 leaving enough to amaze one, such a wilderness of form, 
 color, posture, roof, walls, pedestals, alive with old and modern 
 art ; Versailles, holding within it the history of the nation of 
 France, tracing in picture and statue its eras, showing forth 
 its glory, breathing and generating an intense nationality, 
 with here and there a small room, a boudoir of Marie Antoin 
 ette, or a confessional of Louis Sixteenth, touching a softer 
 and sadder emotion ; St. Cloud, of which I saw only the de 
 lightful exterior, imperial, grand ; the street to Versailles 
 through the Bois de Boulogne ; the little chapel over the first 
 burial-place of Louis Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette, full of 
 deepest and saddest interest ; the Luxemburg, its deserted 
 chamber of the Senate of Napoleon and the. Peers of the Res- 
 
216 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 toration and Louis Philippe s dynasty, and its glorious gallery 
 of pictures ; the Royal Library in which I was disappointed 
 after the British Museum, but where are some old curiosities 
 and a capital statue of Voltaire; these are of my banquet 
 of three days. I went through the Garden of Plants too, 
 which we should imitate and beat at Washington ; the Place 
 de Greve, the site of that guillotine ; the Hotel des Invalides ; 
 the Pantheon, disagreeable as a monument to the dead ; Pere- 
 la-Chaise, which exceeded my expectations, and shows France 
 affectionate and grateful and thoughtful to the loved and lost; 
 Place Bastille, sacred by its column to the Revolution of 1830, 
 with interest, and sufficiently. 
 
 "The cafes and cafe dinners are a strict Parisian fact and 
 spectacle cooking, service, and appointments, arti^tical as a 
 theatre. A dinner at the * Trois Freres is to be remembered. 
 And so adieu to France. We entered on that famous soil 
 again at Strasburg to find Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, 
 graven on every national front, and to mark the quickness, 
 courtesy, and skill with which all things are done. I made 
 the acquaintance of but one inhabitant of Paris out of the 
 hotel, M. Bossange, the bookseller in the Quai Voltaire, polite, 
 kind, and honest, of whom I ordered some books. 
 
 " I have seen Paris with any feeling but that of disappoint 
 ment. I feel no other at least, than that which always attends 
 the substitution of the actual spectacle for the imaginary one 
 which rises on the mind of every reader of an event or de 
 scription, and which, by a thousand repetitions, becomes the 
 only spectacle which can fill his mind full. I have lost the 
 Tuileries, and Boulevards, and Champs Elysee?, and Seine, and 
 Versailles, and St. Cloud, of many years of reading and rev 
 erie, a picture incomplete in details, inaccurate in all 
 things, yet splendid and adequate in the eye of imagination, 
 and have gained a reality of ground and architecture, accurate, 
 detailed, splendid, impressive and I sigh ! 
 
 ki One word is enough for Belgium. Everywhere and in 
 stantly you are struck with the vast level yet varied garden 
 of agriculture, through which you ride. Every inch at first 
 seems tilled. Wheat, rye, flax, everywhere a wilderness, 
 a prairie, a flood of cultivation. You see, as in France and 
 Germany, few people in the fields, few cottages. It seems to 
 be tilled by night by unseen hands. I gave no time to Brus 
 sels, which every guide-book describes, but rode to Waterloo 
 and studied that locality, a sweet, undulating, vast wheat- 
 
1850.] JOURNAL BELGIUM. 217 
 
 field, a spot memorable and awful above all I shall see or have 
 seen. I have now an indelible image, by the aid of which I 
 can read anew the story of that day the last of the battles ! 
 I retain, 1st, the short line along which the two armies were 
 ranged, say a mile or a mile and a half from wing to wing ; 
 2d, the narrow space of valley between the two lines, the ar 
 tillery of either posted over against that of the other a quarter 
 or a third of a mile apart ; 3d, the inconsiderable, easy ascent 
 from the valley, up to the British ridge ; 4th, the sufficiency 
 of the ridge to shelter from the French artillery ; 5th, the 
 precise position and aspect of the shattered, pierced, and singed 
 Hougoumont guarded from artillery by its wood guarded 
 in its interior citadel by a brilliant and transcendent courage ; 
 6th, La Haye Sainte, taken, retaken, held, on right of centre, 
 from which nothing was reaped ; 7th, the place of the ter 
 rific attack in which Picton fell, and the place of the later, 
 final attack, now obliterated by the mound. The plan, 
 series attacks on Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte 
 cannonade to prepare charges of cavalry met by squares, 
 charges of infantry met by any thing. The following years 
 undoubtedly yielded richer crops of wheat than before. In 
 some places of burial, by decay, large depressions of earth 
 disclosed themselves. 
 
 " I am glad I did not see enough of Liege to correct Quen- 
 tin Durward, and I was glad to leave Brussels and to come 
 upon Rhenish Prussia, and into the valley of the Rhine, all at 
 once. Everywhere from Brussels to Cologne, on all practi 
 cable spots, wheat, wheat, and rye, ripe for the sickle, every 
 where the same universal culture, here and there a castle or 
 chateau, or harnessed dog, or unintelligible conversation, re 
 minded me where we were. 
 
 " I could have wished to stay a little at Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 historically and actually striking ; but on we were whirled ; 
 the valley of the Rhine opened, a vast plain with no river yet 
 in sight, groaning under its wheat spread on all sides, and just 
 before coming to the great old gates of Cologne, the river, 
 rapid, majestic, flashed to sight. In half an hour I was in 
 my room at the hotel, and looked down on the river flowing 
 at my very feet within fifty yards of the house, broad and free, 
 under his bridge of boats. 
 
 " From that moment to this my journey has been a vision 
 of the Rhine. I have gained new images and knowledge, 
 new materials of memory and thought. The width, rapidity, 
 
218 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 volume, tone of the river, exceed all my expectations. But 
 the aspects of its shores from Bonn to Coblentz, and its whole 
 valley again from Wiesbaden to Strasburg ! the scenery so 
 diverse ; plain, hill, crag, mountain, vale ; the fields and 
 patches of culture, mainly of vine, but of wheat, too, and 
 apple, and all things, which spread and brighten to the very 
 tops of mountains ; the castellated ruins never wholly out 
 of view ; these will abide for ever. The mere scenery is 
 nowhere, except at two points, perhaps, Coblentz and Hei 
 delberg, superior to the North River. But the character 
 of the agriculture, the vine as well as wheat, its spread over 
 every inch of practicable earth, carried as by a nature to the 
 minutest and remotest vein of yielding earth; the history 
 of the river, the most eastern frontier of imperial Rome, 
 her encampments here and there, discernible still in the 
 names of towns, and in innumerable works of military or fine 
 art, the scene of so many more recent strifes and glories ; 
 the ruins resting so grandly on so many summits, the 
 record, every one of them, of a thousand years, all together 
 give it a higher and different interest. I visited the library 
 at Bonn, a university to which Niebuhr and Schlegel would 
 give fame, of 130,000 to 180,000 volumes; the tops of 
 Drachenfels, reminding one of the view from Holyoke over 
 Northampton, but pervaded by this high and specific and 
 strange historical interest; the Castle of Heidelberg, restoring 
 you, grimly, grandly, the old feudal time, and opening from 
 its mouldering turrets a sweet and vast view of the Necker 
 and the valley of the Necker and the Rhine ; and the Cathe 
 dral of Strasburg, where mass was performing and a glorious 
 organ was filling that unbounded interior with the grandest 
 and the sweetest of music, through whose pauses you heard 
 the muttered voice of the priest, and the chanting of a choir 
 wholly out of sight. Byron does not overstate the impression 
 of the Rhine, nor the regrets of parting from it, nor the keen 
 sense of how much loved and absent ones, if here, would 
 heighten all its attractions. The points of particular interest 
 are the Drachenfels, Coblentz, with Ehrenbreitstein, Heidel 
 berg, the cathedral at Strasburg ; but the general impression 
 made by the whole Rhine is one of a unity, identity, entirety, 
 and depth, never to be equalled, never to be resembled. Old 
 Rome predominated in the vision, next the Middle Age, 
 Church and Barons, then the age of Louis XIV., then the 
 form of Napoleon, and the passage of the armies of modern 
 
1850.] JOURNAL BASLE. 219 
 
 war. The Rhine would form a grand subject of a lecture. 
 Compare with no river. Its civilization to that of the Nile is 
 recent and grand, hence no river may rival. 
 
 " Our steamer was Schiller. I saw another named Goethe. 
 I had forgotten the most glorious cathedral of Cologne, and a 
 beautiful picture of Jews weeping at Babylon in the Museum. 
 The choir of the cathedral is indeed a vision ; a single har 
 mony of the boys chanting in the Strasburg affected me more 
 than all else ! 
 
 " Dogs draw little carts in Belgium. Cows are yoked and 
 draw burthens in Prussia, Baden, Nassau. Women labor in 
 all the fields. Vines are led over the cottages, and flowers 
 planted almost up to the rail of the car. 
 
 " Here at Basle our hotel stands on the side of the Rhine 
 just as at Cologne, but here the river rushes rapid and sound 
 ing, and, till fretted and swelled by this rain, its color was a 
 clear green. All things show we are going toward his 
 sources, or to his cradle of mountains, and to-morrow we ap 
 proach the Alps. The river passes out of view, and the 
 mountain begins to claim its own worship. From my win 
 dow I see the flag of the U. S. hung from the window of the 
 Consulate, in mourning. 1 I have visited the cathedral, turned, 
 without violence or iconoclasm, into a Protestant church, 
 holding the grave of Erasmus. 
 
 kt Political life for ever is ended. Henceforth the law and 
 literature are all. I know it must be so, and I yield and I 
 approve. Some memorial I would leave yet, rescued from 
 the grave of a mere professional man, some wise or beautiful 
 or interesting page, something of utility to America, which 
 I love more every pulse that beats. 
 
 " The higher charm of Europe is attributable only to her 
 bearing on her bosom here and there some memorials of a 
 civilization about seven or eight hundred years old. Of any 
 visible traces of any thing earlier there is nothing. All earlier 
 is of the ancient life, is in books, and may be appropri 
 ated by us, as well as by her under God and by proper 
 helps. The gathering of that eight hundred years, however, 
 collected and held here, libraries, art, famous places, edu 
 cational spectacles of architecture, picture, statue, gardening, 
 fountains, are rich, rich, and some of them we can never 
 have nor use. 
 
 1 General Taylor died July 9, 1850. 
 
220 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cnxp. VII. 
 
 " On how many European minds in a generation is felt, 
 educationally, the influence of that large body of spectacle, 
 specifically European, and which can never be transferred? 
 Recollect, first, that all her books we can have among us per 
 manently. All her history we can read and know, therefore, 
 and all things printed. What remains ? What that can 
 never be transferred ? Picture, statue, building, grounds ; 
 beyond and above, a spirit of the place ; whatsoever and all 
 which come from living in and visiting memorable places. 
 How many in Europe are influenced, and how, by this last? 
 The recorded history affects us as it does them. In which 
 hemisphere would an imaginative and speculative mind most 
 enjoy itself ? In America, land of hope, liberty, Utopia 
 sobered, realized, to be fitted according to an idea, with oc 
 casional visits to this picture gallery and museum, occasional 
 studies here of the objects we can t have ; or here, under an 
 inflexible realization, inequalities of condition, rank, force, 
 property, tribute to the Past, the Past ! ! ! 
 
 "Looking to classes: 1st, The vast mass is happier and 
 better in America, is worth more, rises higher, is freer; its 
 standard of culture and life higher. 2. Property holders are 
 as scarce. 3. The class of wealth, taste, social refinement, 
 and genius, how with them? 
 
 " Mem. The enjoyment of an American of refined tastes 
 and a spirit of love of man is as high as that of a European 
 of the same class. He has all but what visits will give him, 
 and he has what no visits can give the other. 
 
 " What one human being, not of a privileged class, is better 
 off in Europe than he would be in America? Possibly a 
 mere scholar, or student of art, seeking learning or taste, 
 for itself, to accomplish himself. But the question is, if in 
 any case, high and low, the same rate of mind, and the same 
 kind of mind, may not be as happy in America as in Europe. 
 It must modify its aims and sources somewhat, live out of it 
 self, seek to do good, educate others. It may acquire less, 
 teach more ; suck into its veins less nutriment, less essence, 
 less perception of beauty, less relish of it (this I doubt), but 
 diffuse it more. 
 
 " What is it worth to live among all that I have seen ? I 
 think access to the books and works of art is all. There is no 
 natural beauty thus far beyond ours and a storied country, 
 storied of battles and blood is that an educational in 
 fluence ? 
 
1850.] JOURNAL ZURICH. 221 
 
 
 
 "Monday, Aug. 5. Lucerne. This is then Switzerland. 
 It is a sweet, burning midsummer s morning at Lucerne. 
 Under one of my windows is a little garden in which I see 
 currants, cabbages, pear-trees, vines, healthfully growing. Be 
 fore me from the other, I see the lake of Lucerne beyond 
 it in farthest east I see the snowy peaks of Alps I count 
 some dozen distinct summits on which the snow is lying com 
 posing a range of many miles. On my extreme right ascends 
 Mt. Pilate splintered bare granite, and on the other Righi, 
 high and bold yet wooded nearly to the top. It is a scene of 
 great beauty and interest where all save the heart of man 
 may seem divine. We left Basle at nine on Saturday morn 
 ing and got to Zurich that evening at six. This ride opened 
 no remarkable beauty or grandeur, yet possessed great inter 
 est. It was performed in a Diligence the old Continental 
 stage-coach. And the impression made through the whole 
 day or until we approached Zurich, was exactly that of a ride 
 in the coach from Hanover to the White Hills. I ascribe this 
 to the obvious circumstances that we were already far above 
 the sea, were ascending along the bank of a river, the Rhine, 
 and then a branch which met us rushing full and fast from its 
 mountain sources that we were approaching the base of 
 mountains of the first class in a high northern latitude. The 
 agricultural productions (except the exotic vine), the grass, 
 weeds moderate; wheat clover white weed the con 
 struction of the valley the occasional bends and intervales 
 all seem that of New England. There was less beauty 
 than at Newbury and Bath, and I think not a richer soil, 
 certainly a poorer people. They assiduously accumulate 
 manure, and women of all ages were reaping in the fields. 
 
 " Zurich is beautiful. The lake extends beautifully to the 
 south before it. Pleasant gardens and orchards and heights 
 lie down to it and adjoining it. And here first we saw the 
 Alps a vast chain. The Glaciers ranging from east to 
 west closing the view to the south their peaks covered with 
 snow lay along as battlements unsupported beneath of a city 
 of the sky out of sight. I went to the library and asked for 
 Orelli. He died some months since. Most of his library was 
 shown me standing by itself in the public collection and 
 the few I could stay to look at were excellent and recent edi 
 tions of Greek and Latin classics. I obtained of his widow 
 three printed thin quartos belonging to him about the size 
 of a commencement thesis in Latin. 
 
222 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 "All things in Zurich announce Protestantism activity 
 of mind. The University the books the learned men 
 the new buildings the prosperity. 
 
 I shall never forget the sweet sensations with which I 
 rode the first five or ten miles from Zurich yesterday. It was 
 Sunday. The bells of Zurich were ringing, including that 
 honored by the preaching of Zwingle, and men, women, 
 and children were dressed, and with books were going to 
 meeting. Our way lay for some time along the shores of the 
 lake, through gardens, orchards, and fields to the water s edge ; 
 many of them of the highest beauty. Then it left the lake 
 to ascend the Albis. This is an excellent road, but to over 
 come the mountain its course is zigzag and is practicable only 
 for a walk of the horses. I got out and ascended on foot, 
 crossing from one terrace of road to another by paths 
 through pleasant woods. As I ascended, the whole valley of 
 Zurich the city the lake in its whole length the amphi 
 theatre of country enclosing it the glorious Alps, and at 
 last Righi and Pilate standing like the speaker s place in a 
 Lyceum with an audience of mountains vastly higher ris 
 ing into the peculiar pinnacle of the Alps covered with snow, 
 ascending before them successively evolved itself. I saw 
 over half of Switzerland. Spread on it all was the sweet, 
 not oppressive, unclouded summer s sunlight. A pure clear 
 air enfolded it the Sunday of the pastoral, sheltered and 
 happy world. In some such scenes the foundations of the 
 Puritan mind and polity were laid, scenes, beautiful by ttye 
 side of Tempe and Arcady fit as they to nurse and shelter 
 all the kinds of liberty. 
 
 " We descended to Zug and its lake, and then coasted it to 
 Lucerne. Last evening we visited the emblematical lion and 
 sailed on the lake. To-day I go to the chapel of Tell. The 
 first view of the peculiar sharp points of Alps was just from 
 the very top of Albis on the southwest brow. There rose 
 Righi and Pilate, and east apart and above a sort of 
 range or city of the tents of an encampment in the sky. They 
 rested on nothing and seemed architecture of heaven pa 
 vilions the tents of a cavalcade travelling above the earth. 
 
 " Berne, Wednesday 1th. We left Lucerne at seven in 
 our own hired voiture, and with one change of horses treating 
 ourselves toft wo long pauses, arrived here at eight o clock 
 the last two hours through a thunder shower. The way gave 
 me much of the common and average life of Switzerland, 
 
1850.] JOURNAL BERNE. 223 
 
 lying through two of its great Cantons. What I saw of Lu 
 cerne disappointed rne. The soil I should think cold and un 
 grateful and the mind of the laborer not open. Crucifixes 
 everywhere, and all over every thing weeds in corn and 
 grass. Once in Berne all changes. Man does his duty. 
 Excellent stone bridges ; good fences ; fewer weeds ; more 
 wheat and grass ; more look of labor ; better buildings ; better, 
 newer, larger houses and barns ; no crucifixes ; express the 
 change. Throughout I find a smallish, homely race, and pur 
 sue the dream of Swiss life in vain. Yet in these valleys, on 
 the sides of these hills, in these farm houses scattered far and 
 near, though all is cut off from the great arterial and venous 
 system of the world of trade and influence though the 
 great pulse of business and politics beats not though life 
 might seem to stagnate is happiness and goodness too. 
 Sometimes a high Swiss mind emerges, and speaking a foreign 
 or dead tongue, or migrating, asserts itself. Berne is full 
 of liveliness and recency as well as eld. I have run over it 
 before breakfast and shall again before we go. 
 
 " I saw at Berne the place of the State bears, and two of 
 the pensioners the high terraced ground of view the resi 
 dence of the patricians and the Cathedral, containing among 
 other things, tablets to the memory of those who fell in 1798, 
 enumerating them, and the painted windows of Protestant 
 satire. Our journey to Vevay had little interest, a grim 
 horizon of cloud and a constant fall of rain wholly obscured 
 the Alps. Freiburg is striking its suspended bridge sub 
 lime and it holds one of the best organs of the world. We 
 arrived here [Vevay] at ten and I have this morning looked 
 out on the whole beauty of this part of the lake from Haute- 
 ville and from a point on the shore above it and towards the 
 direction of Chillon, and admitted its supreme interest, 
 and its various physical and associated beauty. The day is 
 clear and warm and still. The slightest breeze stirs the sur 
 face of the lake, light clouds curl half way up the steep shores 
 float vanish and are succeeded by others a summer s 
 sun bathes a long shore and inland rising from the shore, clad 
 thick with vines; yonder, looking to the south-east upon 
 the water in that valley sheltered by the mountain 
 nestling among those trees embraced and held still in the 
 arms of universal love is Clarens fit, unpolluted asyhmi of 
 love and philosophy ; before it, on its left, is the castle of Chil 
 lon ; more directly before it the mouth of the Rhone, here 
 
224 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 resting a space in his long flight from his glacier-source ; far 
 off west stretched the Lake of Geneva at peace here and 
 there a white sail the home the worship the inspira 
 tion of Rousseau and De Stael the shelter of liberty the 
 cradle of free thinking the scene in which the character and 
 fortunes of Puritanism were shaped and made possible the 
 true birthplace of the civil and religious order of the northern 
 New World. 
 
 " Geneva, Sth Aug., Friday. The lake was smooth and 
 bright, and our voyage of five hours pleasant and prosperous; 
 and we had the extraordinary fortune to witness what we are 
 assured was the best sunset on Mont Blanc for years. Long 
 after the sun had sunk below our earth, the whole range of 
 the mountain was in a blaze with the descending glory. At 
 first it was a mere reflection, from a long and high surface, of 
 the sun s rays. Gradually this passed into a golden and rosy 
 hue, then all darkened except the supreme summit itself, from 
 which the gold-light flashed, beamed, some time longer; one 
 bright turret of the building not made with hands, kindled 
 from within, self-poised, or held by an unseen hand. Under 
 our feet ran the Rhone, leaping, joyful, full, blue, to his bed 
 in the Mediterranean. Before us is the city of thought, 
 liberty, power, influence, the beautiful and famous Geneva. 
 More than all in interest was the house of the father of Ma 
 dame de Stael, and the home of the studies of Gibbon. 
 
 44 Paris, Aug. 18. I went on Saturday, Aug. 10, to the 
 nearer contemplation of Mont Blanc, at Chamouny. Most of 
 that journey lies through Savoy, of the kingdom of Sardinia, 
 even as far as St. Martin, and beyond somewhat, a well- 
 constructed royal road. Within the first third I should think 
 of the day s ride out from Geneva, and long before Mont 
 Blanc again reveals himself (for you lose sight of him wholly 
 in a mile or two out of the city), you enter a country of 
 much such scenery as the Notch of the White Mountains. 
 An excellent road ascends by the side of the Arve, itself a 
 mad, eager stream, leaping from the mer de glace, and running 
 headlong, of the color of milk mixed with clay, to the Rhone, 
 below Geneva, on each side of which rise one after another, 
 a succession of vast heights, some a half-mile to a mile above 
 you, all steep, more than even perpendicular, and even hang 
 ing over you, as projecting beyond their base. These are so 
 near, and your view so unobstructed, and they are all of a 
 height so comprehensible and appreciable, so to speak, so 
 
1850.] JOURNAL CHAMOUNY. 225 
 
 little is lost by an unavailing elevation, that they make more 
 impression than a mountain five times as high. It is exactly 
 as in the Notch, where the grandeur instead of being en 
 throned remote, dim, and resting in measurement, and 
 demanding comparisons and thoughts, is near, palpable, and 
 exacting. Down many of these streamed rivulets of water, 
 silver threads of hundreds, perhaps of thousands, of feet long 
 from source to base of cliff ; often totally floating off from the 
 side of the hill and the bed in which they had begun to run 
 in a mere mist which fell like rain, and farther down, and to 
 the right or left of the original flow, were condensed again 
 into mere streams. These have no character of waterfall as- 
 you ride along, but discharge a great deal of water in a very 
 picturesque, holiday, and wanton fashion. This kind of 
 scenery grows bolder and wilder, and at last and suddenly at 
 St. Martin we saw again, above it, and beyond it all, the 
 range of Mont Blanc, covered with snow, and at first its 
 summit covered too with clouds. Thenceforth this was ever 
 in view, and some hours before sunset the clouds lifted them 
 selves and vanished, and we looked till all was dark upon the 
 unveiled summit itself. Again we had a beautiful evening sky ; 
 again, but this time directly at the foot of the mountain we 
 stood, and watched the surviving, diminishing glory, and just 
 as that faded from the loftiest peak, and it was night, I turned 
 and saw the new moon opposite, within an hour of setting in 
 the west. From all this glory, and at this elevation, my 
 heart turned homeward, and I only wished that since dear 
 friends could not share this here, I could be by their side, 
 arid Mont Blanc a morning s imagination only. 
 
 " My health hindered all ascensions. I lay in bed on Sun 
 day, reading a little, dreaming more, walked to the side of 
 one glacier, and on Monday returned to Geneva to recruit. 
 After a day of nursing, we on Wednesday, 14th August, 
 started for Paris, and arrived last evening. Our first three 
 days was by post-horses and a hired carriage, and brought us 
 to Tonnerre. The first day ended at Champagnole, and was 
 a day of ascending and descending Jura. We passed through 
 Coppet however, and I had the high delight of visiting the 
 chateau and the grounds which were the home of Madame 
 de Stael, and of looking, from a distance still, on the tomb 
 where she is buried. The chateau could not be entered, but 
 it is large, looks well, and beholds the lake directly before it, 
 spread deliciously to the right and left. I walkecl up and 
 
 15 
 
226 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 down the grounds, and over a path where she habitually 
 walked and wrote, and thought and burned with the love of 
 fame and France, and plucked a leaf. She helped to shape 
 my mind, and to store and charm it. My love for her began 
 in college, growing as I come nearer to the hour when such 
 tongues must cease, and such knowledge vanish away. Almost 
 in sight was Lausanne. Jura is climbed by a noble road 
 which, if possible, grows better all the way to Tonnerre. 
 Both sides seem cold, and wooded, not grateful to the hus 
 bandman ; and, upon the whole, the country till we left the 
 Jura at Poligny was not interesting. A French fortification 
 is building on the line, beggary ceased instantly, some 
 saw-mills to manufacture timber, and for the rest it is a 
 moderately good farming country. 
 
 " At Poligny a new image ! The vast plain of Franche- 
 Comte, and then of Burgundy opened before us, and for near 
 two whole days, and a hundred miles, we rode through vast 
 fields of excellent Indian corn, and then through the great 
 grape region, all productive of famous wine ; some rare and 
 privileged spots, the cote du vin, productive of the most re 
 nowned wine in the world. Generally the eye turned every 
 way on a plain. On this rose some undulations, and these 
 grew more and more numerous as we approached the hither 
 limit of Burgundy. And this plain, thus undulating, some 
 times rising to hills, was covered all over with the two, not 
 kindred, yet not dissimilar, and both rich, harvests of maize 
 and vine. Peace, quiet labor, good husbandry, and an ample 
 return, a peasantry of good-looking men and women, and 
 well-clad children, large houses, whereof barn is part, the 
 name and history of Burgundy, all together left an image 
 sweet, peculiar, memorable. 
 
 " Quentin Durward, Louis XL, Philip de Comines, Charles 
 the Bold, the whole Ducal life, the whole vast struggle of cen 
 tralization, seem henceforth to have a clearer significance, 
 and a more real inherence in locality. Dijon is full of the 
 Ducal name and being. At Montbard, my dining-room win 
 dow looked on the solitary tower-study of Buffon, a sight of 
 deep and sad interest. At Tonnerre we took the rail, and 
 soon the valley of the Saone and Rhone, the slope to the 
 Mediterranean was left behind, and we came upon the tribu 
 taries of the Seine, the waters of the Cote d Or, and of the 
 English Channel. Two hours we gave to Fontainebleau. 
 With a different, and in some respects less interest than Ver- 
 
1850.] JOURNAL ENGLAND. 227 
 
 sailles, it has a charm of its own. There is the private life 
 of French kings. St. Louis, Louis XIII., Francis I., Henry 
 IV., Louis XV., Napoleon, are there en famille, the home 
 of kings. The spot of the Adieux at Fontainebleau, near 
 the foot of the staircase in the court, the table of the signing 
 of the abdication ; his throne, his bedroom, the dining-hall, 
 the chapel of the two marriages (of Louis XV., and of the 
 late Duke of Orleans, whose tomb I have just visited), the 
 glorious Gobelins, old and new, the hall of Henry and Diana 
 (of Poictiers), and of Francis, the gardens behind, the strik 
 ing of the clock, all are worth a sight, a hearing, a memory, 
 a sigh. 
 
 " This approach to Paris is beautiful. The valley of the 
 Seine, stretching as far as the sight, the vine everywhere, yet 
 flocks of sheep, rye-fields, forest of royal chase interspersed 
 and contrasted, and at last the dome of the Invalides, and the 
 solemn towers of Notre Dame, these are its general spec 
 tacle and its particular images some of them. 
 
 " To-day I have attended vespers at St. Denis, and have 
 visited the tomb of the Duke of Orleans. They showed us 
 the restored series of the French royal dead, and gave us the 
 loud and low of the grandest organ ; and then I saw at 
 the chapel, which is the tomb of the Duke, such a mingling 
 of sharp grief; parents and brothers in agony for the first 
 born, and the dearly loved ; the son, brother and heir-apparent, 
 with crushed hopes ; perishing dynasties ; as few other spots 
 of earth may show. If Thiers and Guizot were there, their 
 thoughts might wander from the immediate misery to the 
 possible results ; they might reflect that not only the imme 
 diate heir, but the only loved of France of that line was 
 dying. The organ was played just enough to show what 
 oceans and firmaments full of harmony are there accumulated. 
 Some drops, some rivulets, some grandest peals we heard, 
 identifying it, and creating longings for more. The first time 
 I have seen a Louis XI. was in that royal cemetery. He 
 wears a little, low hat, over a face of sinister sagacity. 
 
 " Cambridge, 1st Sept. Since I came to Dover (Aug.), my 
 whole time has passed like a sweet yet exhausting dream. 
 England never looked to any eye, not filial, so sweet as I found 
 it from Dover to London. It was the harvest home of Kent ; 
 and the whole way was through one great field through a 
 thour-and rather some nodding yellow and white, -waiting 
 
228 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 the sickle ; some covered with the fallen and partially gathered 
 grain ; some showing a stubble extensive the numerous 
 and large stacks shaped and clustered as houses in villages, 
 embodying the yield ; some green with hops, grass, turnips ; 
 everywhere glorious groves of great trees ; everywhere trees 
 standing large, hale, independent, one vast, various, yet mo 
 notonous image of the useful, plain, rich, and scientific agri 
 culture of England. Came to London. I saw the interior 
 of St. Paul s, the parks ; heard in some fashionable ladies 
 society a story or two of Brougham ; heard Grisi and Mario 
 in three operas, Norma : another by Donizetti, comic, but 
 a reckless squandering of delicious music on a story of a lover 
 seeking a potion to make him loved ; and finally Don Gio 
 vanni ; the trio, and the solo of Mario, by far the best music 
 I ever heard in that kind. Mario is handsome voluptu 
 ously ; his voice flexible, firm, rich as a clarionet. 
 
 " But from London what have I not seen ! Twickenham : 
 Pope s Grotto the views through it Richmond Hill, and 
 its wealth of beautiful aspects ; Hampton Court, so glorious 
 in its exterior of trees, grounds, avenue, park so disap 
 pointing within, yet leaving an impression of William III. ; 
 Kensington, known to the world as a great, useful, botanic 
 garden ; Gray s home and poetical nourishments the church 
 yard, ivy tower mouldering heaps yew-tree, his own 
 monument, his view of Eton the ride to and fro the 
 most intensely rural England ; Eton itself the palace and 
 the matchless prospect from the keep ; Windsor forest. Old 
 Windsor the valley of the Thames, and all the scenes 
 which the Augustan poetry of England loved, by which it 
 was led and stimulated, on which a greater than that school 
 loved to look, and has done something to endear and to im 
 mortalize. 
 
 " When this was done, there was left to see the University 
 physical and mental architecture of England. I am glad I went 
 first to Oxford. I am doubly and for ever grateful and glad, 
 that the last great impression I shall take and hold of England 
 is to be that conveyed by the University of Cambridge. This 
 day, Sunday, I have passed here at Cambridge, with perhaps 
 as keen and as various a pleasure as I ever felt, except at 
 home, or in a book. But I begin with Oxford. The country 
 on the way disappointed me in the first place. The whole 
 city and the Colleges did so, even more cruelly, in the next 
 place. Something I ascribe to the day, dark and cold, 
 
1850.] JOURNAL CAMBRIDGE. 229 
 
 but not much. The Isis does nothing for Oxford, that I could 
 see, though some of the college walks are on its meadows. 
 The exterior of the Colleges, so far as I saw, was not old 
 only that was well but all old, only old, grim, and with 
 a worn and neglected look, as if the theory were to keep for 
 ever before the eye the old, old time and art and product, un- 
 warmed, unacidulated, unenlivened by the circulation of a 
 drop of later life. I visited, however, the dining-hall of 
 Christ s Church, and its chapel and library, with interest, yet 
 oppressed at every step with I know not what of the 
 retrograding or stationary and narrow and ungenial in opinion, 
 in policy, in all things. The Bodleian, impressed by its regal 
 wealth and spaciousness. Altogether it seemed a place for 
 rest, for inertness, for monastic seclusion, for a dream, and a 
 sigh after the irrevocable past. 
 
 " This day at Cambridge has been such a contrast that I 
 distrust myself. The country from London, in spite of heavy 
 cloud and chill, was beautiful, an undulating and appar 
 ently rich surface, strongly suggestive of the best of Essex 
 and Middlesex. The impression made by the University 
 portion of Cambridge I can scarcely analyze. The architec 
 ture is striking. The old is kept in repair ; the new harmon 
 izes, and is intrinsically beautiful, so that here seems a recon 
 ciliation of past, present, and of the promise of the future. 
 Conservation and progress the old, beautified, affectionately 
 and gracefully linked to the present an old field of new 
 corn the new recalling the old, filial, reverential, yet look 
 ing forward running, running a race of hope. The new 
 part of St. John is beautiful ; all of King s is striking, too. 
 I attended the cathedral service in King s Chapel, as striking 
 as St. George s in London, and then for a few minutes went 
 to the University Chapel, and again to All Saints to see the 
 tablet and statue of Kirke White. The courts, buildings, and 
 grounds of Trinity are beautiful and impressive ; and in my 
 life I have never been filled by a succession of sweeter, more 
 pathetic, more thrilling sensations than in looking from the 
 window of Newton s room, walking in his walks, recalling 
 the series of precedent, contemporaneous, and subsequent 
 companionship of great names whose minds have been trained 
 here, and which pale and fade before his ! The grounds of 
 Trinity, St. John, St. Peter, are the finest I have seen ; the 
 two former on, and each side of, the Cam, which is bridged 
 by each college more than once, divided and conducted around 
 
230 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 and through the gardens, so as artificially to adorn them more, 
 and to be made safe against inundation, the latter not 
 reaching to the river, but even more sweet mid redolent of 
 more and more careful and ta-teful and modern horticulture. 
 I seem to find here an image of the true and the great Eng 
 land. Here is a profusion of wealth, accumulated and appro 
 priated for ages, to a single and grand end, the advancement 
 of knowledge and the imparting of knowledge. It is em 
 bodied to the eye in a city of buildings, much of it beautiful, 
 all of it picturesque and impressive, and in grounds shaded, 
 quiet, fittest seats of learning and genius. Something there is 
 of pictures; great libraries are here. Learned men, who 
 are only the living generation of a succession which, unbroken, 
 goes back for centuries, and comprehends a vast proportion of 
 the mind of the nation in all its periods, in increasing num 
 bers, tenant these walls, and are penetrated by these influences. 
 A union of the old, the recent, the present, the prediction of 
 the future, imaged in the buildings, in the grounds, by every 
 thing, is manifested, giving assurance and a manifestation 
 of that marked, profound English policy, which in all things 
 acquires but keeps, and binds the ages and the generations 
 by an unbroken and electric tie." 
 
 The Journal abruptly breaks off with this heartfelt 
 tribute, and was never resumed. 
 
 From this the travellers went to the north of Eng 
 land, to Edinburgh, Abbotsford, Glasgow, and through 
 the lowlands of Scotland, and embarking at Liverpool, 
 reached home in September. 
 
1850-1855.1 FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 231 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 1850-1855. 
 
 Political Excitement Union Meetings Address on Washington, 
 Feb. 1851 The Case of Fairchild v. Adams Address before the 
 "Story Association" Webster Meeting in Faneuil Hall, Nov. 
 1851 Argues an India-Rubber Case in Trenton Baltimore 
 Convention, June, 1852 Address to the Phi Beta Kappa Society, 
 Burlington, Vt. Journey to Quebec Death of Mr. Webster 
 Letter to E. Jackson Letter to Harvey Jewell, Esq. Letter to 
 Mrs. Eames Offer of the Attorney-Generalship Convention to 
 revise the Constitution of Massachusetts Eulogy on Daniel Web 
 ster, at Dartmouth College Letter to his Daughter Letters to 
 Mrs. Eames Letter to Mr. Everett Letters to his Son Letters 
 to his Daughter Address at the Dedication of the Peabody Insti 
 tute, Sept. 1854 Letters to Mr. Everett Letter to Mrs. Eames 
 Accident and Illness Letters to Mr. and Mrs. Eames. 
 
 THE state of the country in 1850 was such as to 
 cause great anxiety among thoughtful men. The 
 whole year was marked by a political excitement second 
 only in intensity to that which has since produced such 
 momentous results. The acquisition of new territory 
 from Mexico re-opened the question of slavery. On 
 the 7th of March, Mr. Webster made his memorable 
 speech on " The Constitution and the Union." The 
 law for the return of fugitive slaves excited much 
 opposition among a portion of the people at the North, 
 while at the South there was wide-spread apprehension 
 and discontent. This feeling was exasperated in both 
 parts of the country, by intemperate harangues, and 
 
232 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 inflammatory appeals through the newspapers. The 
 excitement became at last so strong, that judicious and 
 conservative men felt bound to protest against, and, if 
 possible, allay it. Accordingly, Union meetings were 
 held in different States, in Alabama, Kentucky, 
 Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and 
 Massachusetts, and sound men of all parties united 
 to deprecate the disloyal and hostile sentiments which 
 were too frequently heard. The meeting in Boston 
 was held in Faneuil Hall, on the 26th of November. 
 It was opened by Hon. Benjamin R. Curtis, with an 
 address of great compactness and power, and closed 
 with a speech from Mr. Choate replete with profound 
 feeling as well as broad and generous patriotism ; far- 
 sighted and wise in pointing out the dangers of the 
 Republic, and earnest and solemn, even beyond his 
 wont, in exhortation to avoid them. 
 
 In February, 1851, Mr. Choate delivered, in Charles- 
 town, an address on Washington. He repeated it in 
 Boston. It was marked by his usual fervor, and af 
 forded him another opportunity of dwelling upon that 
 public virtue which he feared was losing its high place 
 and honor. An extract of a few pages will show its 
 spirit. 
 
 " In turning now," he said, " to some of the uses to 
 which this great example may contribute, I should 
 place among the first this, to which I have this moment 
 made allusion ; that is, that we may learn of it how 
 real, how lofty, how needful, and how beautiful a virtue 
 is patriotism. 
 
 " It is among the strangest of all the strange things 
 we see and hear, that there is, so early in our history, 
 
1850-1855.] ADDRESS ON WASHINGTON. 233 
 
 a class of moralists among us, by whom that duty, once 
 held so sacred, which takes so permanent a place in 
 the practical teachings of the Bible, which Christianity 
 as the Christian world has all but universally under 
 stood its own religion not tolerates alone, but enjoins 
 by all its sanctions, and over which it sheds its selectest 
 influences, while it ennobles and limits it; which liter 
 ature, art, history, the concurrent precepts of the wisest 
 and purest of the race in all eras, have done so much 
 to enforce and adorn and regulate, I mean the duty 
 of loving, with a specific and peculiar love, our own 
 country ; of preferring it to all others, into which the 
 will of God has divided man ; of guarding the integrity 
 of its actual territory ; of advancing its power, emi 
 nence, and consideration ; of moulding it into a vast 
 and indestructible whole, obeying a common will, vivi 
 fied by a common life, identified by a single soul ; 
 strangest it is, I say, of all that is strange, we have 
 moralists, sophists, rather, of the dark or purple robe, 
 by whom this master-duty of social man is virtually 
 and practically questioned, yea, disparaged. They 
 deal with it as if it were an old-fashioned, and half- 
 barbarous and vulgar and contracted animalism, rather 
 than a virtue. This love of country of yours, they say, 
 what is it, at last, but an immoral and unphilosophical 
 limitation and counteraction of the godlike principle 
 of universal Benevolence ? These symbols and festal 
 days ; these processions, and martial airs, and dis 
 courses of the departed great ; this endeared name of 
 America, this charmed flag, this memorial column, 
 these old graves, these organic forms, this boasted 
 Constitution, this united national existence, this ample 
 and glorious history of national progress, these dreams 
 
234 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 of national fortune, alas! what are they but shams, 
 baubles, playthings for the childhood of the race ; nur 
 sery ballads, like the Old Testament; devices of vanity, 
 devices of crime, smelling villanously of saltpetre ; 
 empty plausibilities ; temporary and artificial expe 
 dients, say hindrances, rather, by which the great and 
 good, of all hemispheres and all races, are kept from 
 running into one another s embraces ; and man, the 
 abstract, ideal, and subjective conception of humanity, 
 after having been progressively developed, all the way 
 up, from the brain of a fish, is, in this nineteenth cen 
 tury, sacrificed and smothered by his accidents ! Do 
 not stoop so low as to be a Patriot. Aspire to be a 
 Philanthropist ! To reform your country, not to pre 
 serve your country, is the highest style of man, nowa 
 days. Root and branch work of it, is the word. If 
 she goes to pieces in the operation, why, her time had 
 come, and there is an end of an old song. It will be 
 only the ancient myth of the fall of man and expulsion 
 from Paradise, nothing but a stage of progress, - 
 just a bursting into a new life, rather different from the 
 old, and more of it, that is all ! ! 
 
 "It would be easy to expose the emptiness, presump- 
 tuousness, and dangers of such morality ; but I direct 
 you, for a better refutation, always to the life and 
 death of Washington. Was not that patriotism, 
 virtue ? Was it not virtue, entitling itself in the 
 language of the Christian Milton entitling itself, 
 after this mortal change, to a crown among the en 
 throned gods on sainted seats ? Was that patriotism 
 selfish or vain or bloody or contracted ? Was it the 
 less sublime because it was practical and because it was 
 American ? This making of a new nation in a new 
 
1850-1855.] ADDRESS ON WASHINGTON. 235 
 
 world, this devising of instrumentalities, this inspira 
 tion of a spirit, whereby millions of men, through 
 many generations and ages, will come one after another 
 to the great gift of social being, shall be born and 
 live and die in a vast brotherhood of peace, mental 
 and moral advancement, and reciprocation of succor 
 and consolation, in life and death, what attribute of 
 grandeur, what element of supreme and transcendent 
 beneficence and benevolence does it lack ? Is it not 
 obedience to the will of God? Does not He decree the 
 existence of separate and independent nations on the 
 earth ? Does not the structure of the globe, its seas, 
 mountains, deserts, varieties of heat, cold, and produc 
 tions ; does not the social nature of man, the grand 
 educational necessities and intimations of his being ; 
 does not the nature of liberty ; does not his universal 
 history, from the birth of the world ; do not all things 
 reveal it, as a fundamental and original law of the race, 
 this distribution into several National Life ? Is it 
 not as profoundly true to-day as ever ? Nihil est enim 
 illi principi Deo, qui omnem hunc mundum regit, quod 
 quidem in terris fiat, acceptim quam concilia, ccetusque 
 Jiominum jure sociati, quce civitates appellanturS l 
 
 " Is not the national family as clear an appointment 
 of nature and nature s God as the family of the hearth? 
 Is it not a divine ordinance, even as love of parents 
 and love of children ? Nay, is it not, after all, the only 
 practical agency through which the most expansive 
 love of Man can be made to tell on Man ? And if 
 so, if the end is commanded, that is, if the existence 
 of the independent and entire state is commanded, 
 are not the means of insuring that end commanded 
 1 Cic. De Rep. vi. 13. 
 
236 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VHI. 
 
 also? And if so, are not the traits, the deeds, the 
 care, the valor, the spirit of nationality, the obedience 
 to the collective will and reason as expressed through 
 the prescribed organic form ; are not all these senti 
 ments, and all that policy, the great scenery, the 
 heroic feelings, the blaze of ancient virtue, the exalted 
 deaths, which are directed specifically and primarily 
 to the creation and preservation of the State, are 
 they not highest in the scale of things commanded ? 
 Must not .being, in the antithesis of Hooker, go 
 before even well being ? Away then with this spu 
 rious and morbid morality of the purple robe, which 
 erects the uses of some particular, moral, or social, or 
 economical reform, that if not effected to-day, may be 
 to-morrow, above the keeping of the Republic, which, 
 once descended into the tomb of nations, shall rise 
 not, till the heavens be no more ; which dislocates im 
 piously the fair and divinely appointed order of the du 
 ties, which thinks it savors of lettered illumination, to 
 look down on that glorious family of virtues which 
 holds kingdoms and commonwealths in their spheres. 
 Give me back rather, give back to America rather, 
 she needs it yet, for a century, till her national being, 
 so recent, so immature, is compacted to the consistency 
 of pyramids, give her back rather the faith and the 
 philosophy of that day which prayed in every pulpit, 
 for the arms of "Washington ; which in the gorgeous 
 orientalism of Robert Hall, say rather of the Scripture 
 itself, believed that, guided and inspired by the Mighty 
 Hand, his hosts, in the day of battle, might have their 
 eyes opened, to behold in every plain and every valley, 
 what the prophet beheld by the same illumination, 
 chariots of fire, and horses of fire ; which saw in his 
 
1850-1855.1 ADDRESS ON WASHINGTON. 237 
 
 escape from the wasting rifle-shot of the Monongahela, 
 a prediction, and a decree of some transcendent public 
 service, for which he was saved. 
 
 " To form and uphold a State, it is not enough that 
 our judgments believe it to be useful ; the better part 
 of our affections must feel it to be lovely. It is not 
 enough that our arithmetic can compute its value, and 
 find it high ; our hearts must hold it priceless, above 
 all things rich or rare, dearer than health or beauty, 
 brighter than all the order of the stars. It does not 
 suffice that its inhabitants should seem to you good 
 men enough to trade with, altogether even as the rest 
 of mankind ; ties of brotherhood, memories of a com 
 mon ancestry, common traditions of fame and justice, 
 a common and undivided inheritance of rights, liber 
 ties, and renown, these things must knit you to them 
 with a distinctive and domestic attraction. It is not 
 enough that a man thinks he can be an unexceptionable 
 citizen, in the main, and unless a very unsatisfactory 
 law passes. He must admit, into his bosom, the spe 
 cific and mighty emotion of patriotism. He must love 
 his country, his whole country, as the place of his birth 
 or adoption, and the sphere of his largest duties ; as 
 the playground of his childhood, the land where his 
 fathers sleep, the sepulchre of the valiant and wise, of 
 his own blood and race departed ; he must love it for 
 the long labors that reclaimed and adorned its natural 
 and its moral scenery ; for the great traits and great 
 virtues of which it has been the theatre ; for the insti 
 tution and amelioration and progress that enrich it ; 
 for the part it has played for the succor of the nations. 
 A sympathy indestructible must draw him to it. It 
 
238 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 must be of power to touch his imagination. All the 
 passions which inspire and animate in the hour of con 
 flict must wake at her awful voice." 
 
 In the earlier part of this year Mr. Choate defended 
 his pastor, Rev. Dr. Adams, on a charge of slander. 
 The case was peculiar and presented some interesting 
 points for the clerical profession in general. 1 
 
 " The action of Fairchild v. Adams was for written 
 and verbal slander. Mr. Fairchild, while pastor of a 
 church in South Boston, became a member of the Suf 
 folk South Association of Ministers ; Rev. Dr. Adams 
 being also a member. Mr. Fairchild was privately 
 charged by one Rhoda Davidson with being the father 
 of her illegitimate child ; and she demanded of him 
 a considerable sum of money. He paid her a part of 
 what she demanded, and promised to pay her further 
 sums, and wrote her a letter which was strongly indi 
 cative of the truth of the charge. The circumstances 
 having become known to a few persons in his society, 
 he asked a dismission, under a threat of exposure, 
 and went to Exeter, N.H., where he was installed as a 
 pastor. Having learned, soon after his settlement 
 there, that there must be a public exposure of the 
 affair, he attempted to commit suicide. Soon after 
 wards an ecclesiastical council met at Exeter, which 
 advised that he should be dismissed from his charge, 
 and degraded from the ministry. He was about this 
 time indicted at Boston for adultery, but kept out of 
 the State, and was not taken upon the warrant till 
 
 1 For the following account I am indebted to Hon. R. A. Chapman, 
 now Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, one of the 
 referees before whom the case was tried. 
 
1850-1855.] CASE OF FAIRCHILD v. ADAMS. 239 
 
 after the lapse of a considerable time. He finally re 
 turned and took his trial, and was acquitted, as it was 
 understood, because the testimony of the witness 
 Davidson was impeached. After this acquittal he re 
 turned to his former pursuit in South Boston, and 
 received a call to settle there. A council was con 
 vened, which advised his settlement, taking the ground 
 that his acquittal in a criminal court should be treated 
 by an ecclesiastical council as conclusive evidence of 
 his innocence. From this position Dr. Adams and 
 other members of the association always dissented, 
 and refused to recognize him as a minister. 
 
 " Before the meeting of the council at Exeter, some 
 discussion had taken place in respect to the standing 
 of Mr. Fairchild in the Suffolk South Association ; and 
 it had been arranged that the association should be 
 governed by the result of that council. Accordingly 
 after he had been degraded from the ministry, the as 
 sociation passed a vote, reciting that result, and expel 
 ling him from their body. After he had been again 
 installed in South Boston, he requested of the associa 
 tion a copy of the vote by which they had expelled 
 him. The copy was accordingly furnished him, after 
 which he sent them a communication demanding that 
 they should rescind the vote as a libel, and restore him 
 to good standing as a member ; and he proposed to 
 appear before them, and offer evidence and arguments 
 on the question of rescinding the vote, and proposed 
 to some of the members to make inquiries of certain 
 persons in respect to some of the accusations that had 
 been made against him. The association gave him a 
 hearing, and after its close each of the members was 
 called upon to give an opinion, with the reasons for it. 
 
240 MEMOIR OF KUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 Among others Dr. Adams gave his vote in favor of a 
 resolution adverse to the restoration of Mr. Fairchild, 
 and stated verbally his reasons for it. He was selected 
 as the object of a suit, because he was a man of influ 
 ence, and because of some personal feelings ; and the 
 written slander consisted of the resolution that was 
 passed, and the verbal slander of the reasons stated 
 by Dr. Adams for believing in the guilt of Mr. Fair- 
 child. 
 
 " The cause was heard before referees agreed on by 
 the parties, and several very interesting questions 
 arose on the hearing. Among them was the question 
 to what extent should ministers and churches be influ 
 enced by the acquittal of a man charged with a crime 
 in a civil court. Mr. Choate contended that inasmuch 
 as the rules of evidence are different in civil and eccle 
 siastical tribunals ; inasmuch as some things are re 
 garded as criminal in one that may not be in the other ; 
 inasmuch as a defendant may be acquitted by the jury 
 from mere doubt, or from collusion of the party with 
 a witness who suffers his testimony to be broken down, 
 or omits to disclose the whole truth, the verdict ought 
 not ipso facto to restore the party, but should only 
 furnish a ground of consideration for action. The de 
 bate on this point also led him to an investigation of 
 the constitution, history, and usages of Congregational 
 churches and associations of ministers. 
 
 " Another question was, whether associations of 
 ministers had power to expel their members for alleged 
 offences, without being held in an action of slander to 
 prove to a jury that the party is guilty. On the part 
 of Mr. Fairchild, it was contended that these bodies 
 had no privileges in this respect beyond that of the 
 
1850-1855.] CASE OF FAIRCHILD v. ADAMS. 241 
 
 ordinary slanderer, who utters a charge of crime 
 against his neighbor where the matter does not concern 
 him. On the part of Dr. Adams it was contended 
 that the case came within the class called privileged 
 communications ; that is, when in the transaction 
 of business or the discharge of a duty, one person has 
 proper occasion to speak of another, and in good faith 
 and without malice alleges that he has been guilty of 
 a crime. In such cases he may defend himself in an 
 action for slander by proving that he thus acted, and 
 without proving to the jury that the accusation is true. 
 The discussion of this question led to an investigation 
 of the authorities to be found in the books of law in 
 reference to the general doctrine, and also to the 
 nature and history of associations of ministers, and 
 their relation to the churches. My minutes of the 
 points and authorities are pretty full ; but they would 
 give no idea of the style and manner of Mr. Choate s 
 argument. 
 
 " The referees were of opinion that associations are 
 privileged to inquire into the conduct of their mem 
 bers, and in good faith to pass votes of expulsion, 
 stating the reasons of their proceeding, and are not 
 responsible to legal tribunals for the accuracy of their 
 conclusions. They were satisfied that Dr. Adams 
 acted in good faith, and made an award in his favor, 
 which, after argument, was sustained by the Court. 
 The case is reported in 11 Gushing, 549." 
 
 In May, 1851, Mr. Choate argued a cause, which, 
 whether estimated by the interests at stake, or the 
 signal ability of the counsel, or the subtleness of the 
 questions at issue, would undoubtedly be considered 
 one of the most important in which he was ever en- 
 
 16 
 
242 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 gaged. It was that generally known as the " Method 
 ist rimrch CUSP." It was heard in Nc\v York. In-fore 
 the Circuit Court of the United States, Justices Nelson 
 and Betts presiding. At the time, it was, from obvious 
 reasons, of the deepest interest to the whole Methodist 
 world of the United States, and although it concerned 
 property alone, yet the members and presses of the 
 Church at the North always maintained most urgently, 
 and apparently most truthfully, that the pecuniary gain 
 or loss was quite inconsequential ; that the real ques 
 tion was whether the General Conference of Churches 
 could lawfully act so as to destroy the entirety of the 
 Church ; that if it could divide the Church in this in 
 stance, there was no limit to the future subdivisions 
 that might be made. It is, also, proper to state that 
 the Church at the North was anxious to harmonize the 
 existing dispute, and, it is understood, made, as they 
 thought, a very liberal offer of compromise, which was 
 rejected by the Southern Church. 
 
 This dispute originated in that prolific source of ill, 
 slavery. Various questions, growing out of the 
 connection of the Southern Churchmen with slavery, 
 had, at various times, arisen in the Church r leading to 
 a growing alienation of the two sections. Finally, at 
 a General Conference of the then united Church, held 
 at New York in June, 1844, a " plan of separation " 
 was drawn up, looking to a final division of the Church, 
 which, among other matters, provided that each section 
 of the country should have its own Church, independ 
 ent of the other ; that ministers of every grade 
 might attach themselves without blame to either 
 Church, as they preferred ; that a change of the first 
 clause of the sixth restrictive article should be recom- 
 
1850-1855.] METHODIST CHURCH CASE. 243 
 
 mended, so as to read : " They shall not appropriate 
 the produce of the Book Concern other than for the 
 benefit of travelling, supernumerary, superannuated, 
 and worn-out preachers, their wives, widows, and 
 children, and such other purposes as a General Con 
 ference may determine ; " that on the adoption of this 
 recommendation by the Annual Conferences, the Nor 
 thern Agents should deliver to the Southern Agents 
 so much of certain property belonging to the Church 
 as the number of travelling preachers in the Southern, 
 bore to the number of the same class in the Northern 
 Church ; that all the property of the Church within 
 the limits of the Southern organization should be for 
 ever free from any claim of the Church, and that the 
 Churches, North and South, should have a right in 
 common to use all copyrights of the New York and 
 Cincinnati " Book Concerns " at the time of settle 
 ment. 
 
 Included in this was the large property called the 
 " Book Concern," the proceeds of which were to be 
 appropriated as the change in the first clause of the 
 sixth article above stated shows, and which was origi 
 nally instituted by that class which is now its bene 
 ficiaries. This " Book Concern " was vested in agents, 
 and against them this action was brought by the 
 Southern agents to compel a delivery of their share 
 of the property. 
 
 The plaintiffs maintained that the resolutions of the 
 General Conference were of binding force, and that 
 the General Conference of the Southern Church had 
 acted upon them in good faith, and passed resolutions 
 declaring the expediency of separation ; and that, after 
 this action of the Southern Conference, a council of 
 
244 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cnxr. VIII. 
 
 Northern Bishops met at New York, and passed reso 
 lutions ratifying the " plan " of the General Confer 
 ence of 1844, regarding it as of binding obligation. 
 
 In reply to this, the defendants, admitting many of 
 the plaintiffs allegations, rested their defence mainly 
 on the following propositions : 
 
 1. That the resolutions of the General Conference 
 of 1844, when properly understood, do not impart an 
 unqualified assent of that body to a division of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church into two separate and dis 
 tinct organizations or churches ; that the assent there 
 by given was conditional and contingent, and that the 
 conditions were not complied with, nor has the con 
 tingency happened. 
 
 2. That, if otherwise, the General Conference was 
 not possessed of competent power and authority to 
 assent to or authorize the division. And 
 
 3. That the division, therefore, which took place 
 was a nullity, and the separate organization a wrongful 
 withdrawal and disconnection from the membership, 
 communion, and government of the Church, by reason 
 of which the travelling, supernumerary, and worn-out 
 preachers, composing the separate organization, are 
 taken out of the description of the beneficiaries of the 
 fund. 
 
 The decision of Justice Nelson was adverse to the 
 Northern party ; and this view was subsequently main 
 tained by the Supreme Court in Washington. 
 
 In July of this year (1851), Mr. Choate again ad 
 dressed the Law School at Cambridge, or rather " The 
 Story Association," composed of the past and present 
 members of the School. And here, moved by the 
 dangerous heresies which seemed to him too familiarly 
 
1850-1855.] ADDRESS AT CAMBRIDGE. 245 
 
 received in the community, the orator urged upon the 
 profession the new duty, as he called it, of checking 
 the spirit of disloyalty, by correcting the public judg 
 ment, by enlightening and directing the public sense 
 of right. " This then," he said, " is the new duty, the 
 opus aureum, to cherish the Religion of the Law to 
 win back the virtues to the service of the State, and, 
 with Cicero and Grotius, to make loyalty to Law the 
 fundamental principle in each good man s breast. The 
 capital defect of the day is, not that conscience is too 
 much worshipped, but that it is not properly limited. 
 Its true sphere is not properly seen and circumscribed. 
 Men think that by the mere feeling within them of a 
 sense of right, they can test great subjects to which 
 the philosophy of ages leads the way, and can try a 
 grand complex polity, embracing a multitude of inter 
 ests and conflicting claims and duties. But these 
 ethical politics do not train the citizen ab extra to be 
 enlightened on these subjects. 
 
 " Morality should go to school. It should consult 
 the builders of Empire, and learn the arts imperial by 
 which it is preserved, ere it ventures to pronounce on 
 the construction and laws of nations and common 
 wealths. For, unless the generation of Washington 
 was in a conspiracy against their posterity, and the 
 generation of this day, in high and judicial station, is 
 in the same plot, the large toleration which inspires 
 the Constitution and the Laws, was not only wise, but 
 was indispensable to forming or keeping any union, 
 and to the prosperity of us all. 
 
 " Let the babblers against the laws contemplate Soc 
 rates in his cell about to quaff the poison which Athens 
 presented to him. He is pleading with his disciples 
 
246 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 for the sanctity of the very law which condemns him : 
 he refuses to escape ; and, < after a brief discourse on 
 the immortality of the soul, he dies. Let them learn, 
 that ere laws and constitutions can be talked about, 
 they must at least be the subject of a special study. 
 Their transcendental philosophy must condescend to 
 study, not only the character, but even the temper, of 
 a people, and this not a priori, but as it appears in the 
 local press and public demonstrations. Then they 
 would observe that there are three great things adverse 
 to the permanence of our National Government, its 
 recency, its artificial structure, and the peculiar facilities 
 which the State organizations afford for separation ; and 
 from this study they would learn how little they know 
 what a work it was to found and keep the Republic and 
 its laws. c Tantce molis erat Romanam condere gentem* 
 " To exercise this conservative influence, to beget a 
 distrust of individual and unenlightened judgment, on 
 matters of such vast import and extent, and to foster a 
 religious reverence for the laws, is the new duty which 
 the times demand of the legal profession." 
 
 "BOSTON, 11 October, Saturday evening. 
 
 " MY DEAR SON, I get so little time, now that J. is gone, 
 and all the courts are sitting, to do what I should love most 
 to do, that I have been obliged to neglect writing at the very 
 moment when letters from home might be the most pleasant 
 and useful to you. To-day I gain a little respite, and feel as 
 if I must send you my love if no more. Your letters to your 
 mother and sisters seem to show you happy and contented, 
 yet loving to think and hear of home. So I hope it will be 
 through your whole college life. If now we can continue to 
 hear that you escape all the sickness of college remain the 
 same true and good boy as ever with a little more develop 
 ment of the love of study good hooks noble examples 
 and true excellence our happiness for the present would be 
 
1850-1855.] LETTERS TO HIS SON. 247 
 
 complete. You have been so excellently fitted, that I know 
 you can stand high in the class, and I entreat you to resolve 
 not by foul means but by fair to win such prizes as those 
 with which E. gladdens his father s and sisters hearts. All 
 that I can ever do for you is if I live (all depends on 
 that) to afford you the means of laying a foundation for 
 eminence and usefulness by scholarship. If you neglect 
 these, all is lost. But I am sure you will not. I hope that 
 you will from the start cultivate elocution. The power of 
 speaking with grace and energy the power of using aright 
 the best words of our noble language is itself a fortune 
 and a reputation if it is associated and enriched by knowl 
 edge and sense. I would therefore give a special attention 
 to all that is required of you in this department. But not 
 one study prescribed by the government is to be neglected. 
 It is a large and liberal course, and fits well for the in 
 troduction to a really solid and elegant education. Cultivate 
 the best scholars and minds ; and while you treat all men well, 
 do not squander time on shallow, frivolous, and idle boys. 
 
 " I believe my library has received its last finish since you 
 were here. Next to my whole family, here and elsewhere, I 
 love it best of all things of earth, and wish I could gain 
 more time from plaintiffs and defendants to give to its solaces, 
 utilities, and amenities. 
 
 " We begin to count the weeks to your first return ! Be 
 most prudent to avoid the sicknesses you speak of and all 
 things else that shall prevent your bringing bank the bloom 
 of body and heart which you carried away. Your mother is 
 not very well, but sends love and cautions, as do the sisters 
 three. Give our united love to E. and tell him we look to 
 him for our son. 
 
 " YOUR AFFEC. FATHER." 
 
 " BOSTON, 6th March, 1852. 
 
 "Mr DEAREST RUFUS, I have been quite unwell fora 
 fortnight unusually so for me and I am not sure that I 
 am yet wholly restored. In the intervals of sharp neuralgic 
 pains, I have been either exhausted, or very busy ; and there 
 fore, although my thoughts and heart have been very much 
 turned towards you, I have not been able to write. The girls 
 and your mother have given you my love but neither they 
 nor I can convey any idea of how much I love you; how 
 
248 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 anxious I feel for your true and best good ; and how inex 
 pressibly happy I shall be to know that you love learning ; 
 love honor, character, and virtue ; and have energetically and 
 hopefully set out on the career of usefulness and respecta 
 bility. "Sometimes I regret that I did not incur the expense 
 and run the hazards of Cambridge, that we might see your 
 pleasant face, and give you a helping hand, and a pleasant 
 family welcome once a week. But my means are really so 
 small depending wholly on my health from day to day, 
 and the temptations, and general influences of this great 
 school so severe and Amherst promises so much help to 
 studious habits, and moral dispositions, that we have plucked 
 you as from our arms, to send you to a safer and more beauti 
 ful spot. I hope, my most dear child, all our wishes will be 
 gratified in the result. 
 
 " The thing I most of all, or as much as any thing, regret, is 
 that I cannot, from day to day, go over with you the studies 
 of the day. My college life was so exquisitely happy, that I 
 should love to relive it in my son. The studies of Latin and 
 Greek, Livy, Horace, Tacitus Xenophon, Herodotus, 
 and Thucydides especially, had ever a charm beyond ex 
 pression ; and the first opening of our great English authors, 
 Milton, Addison, Johnson, and the great writers for the 
 Reviews, made that time of my life a brief, sweet dream. 
 They created tastes, and supplied sources of enjoyment, 
 which support me to this hour in fatigue, ill-health, and low 
 spirits and I must say I could not then, and cannot now, 
 look with a particle of respect or interest on any classmate 
 who did not relish these delicious and ennobling sources of 
 scholarlike enjoyment and accomplishment, and resolve to be 
 distinguished by his command of them. 
 
 " You are so infinitely better fitted for college than I was 
 or than almost any in your class can be that I am sure you 
 can lead if you will resolve to do so. Be just and generous to all. 
 Use no arts to supplant others with the government, but by 
 study persistent and habitual give me the supreme grati 
 fication of hearing that you stand in good conduct as you did 
 at the Latin school and in scholarship among the foremost. 
 Oh, think what delight you will give us all to know that the 
 days of exhibition in your class are days your mother, sisters, 
 and I, can attend with pride and hope ! 
 
 " I have conceived so much anxiety about my health for 
 reasons which I hardly communicate to the family that I 
 
1850-1855.] WHIG CONVENTION OF 1851. 249 
 
 seem to feel that at any moment you might be left the only 
 support of those you love so dearly. Such an event would 
 leave you all poor. Continue to be then, my dear son, frugal, 
 temperate, and thoughtful. If I live, I hope you will read 
 the law with me, and rise to its honors , but your imme 
 diate sphere of duty is college life, and through th^t I am 
 sure you mean to pass with distinction and safety. 
 
 "I have sometimes given you presents. I would coin my 
 heart for drachmas rather than that you should want the 
 means of a thorough education ; and / now promise you, if 
 you will bring me satisfactory evidence at the end of the term, 
 of good conduct, and high, good scholarship, / will give you 
 the most valuable gift which you have ever yet had, or had 
 promised: I shall not tell you what. 
 
 " Give my love to Edward. Pray avoid all idle and all 
 vicious companions, and cultivate the ambitious, studious, and 
 rising rising by merit. 
 
 " I want you to write me a full letter, telling me your 
 daily life and studies, what you like best, and why. 
 
 " Bless you, dear son. Your father, 
 
 " R. CHOATE." 
 
 During the years 1851 and 1852, notwithstand 
 ing the increasing demands of his profession, Mr. 
 Choate continued deeply interested in national politics. 
 There were many at the North dissatisfied with the 
 compromise measures of 1850, and alienated from Mr. 
 Webster, on account of his speech on the 7th of March. 
 There were others who believed those measures to be 
 in general wise and conciliatory, and that Mr. Webster 
 never assumed a position more dignified and patriotic, 
 or showed a more profound sense of the demands of 
 the whole country. The Massachusetts Whigs of this 
 class determined to call a public meeting, in order to 
 present to the country the name of that great states 
 man as a candidate for the Presidency. The conven 
 tion was held on the 25th of November, 1851, and 
 proved to be one of the largest, most respectable, and 
 
250 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 most enthusiastic gatherings of the year. It was pre 
 sided over by Hon. George Ashmuii ; and the princi 
 pal address was made by Mr. Choate. Of all the 
 tributes to Mr._Wchster. never was one, more hearty, 
 more sincere, or more stirring than that which he then 
 delivered. His whole soul was alive with his theme. 
 A sense of the injustice which that great statesman had 
 suffered ; of the angry and slanderous attacks made 
 upon him by the little and malignant ; of the insult 
 which one of the boards of the city government had con 
 trived to inflict by refusing to him the first citizen of 
 the State permission to speak in Faneuil Hall; the 
 ingratitude with which many at the North had requited 
 his long and arduous and grand services, all in 
 spired the orator to a strain of fervid declamation, 
 which swept the vast assembly with him as if but one 
 spirit moved them all. 
 
 The early part of the year 1852 was marked by 
 nothing of peculiar interest. In March he made a 
 powerful argument in an India-rubber case, in Tren 
 ton, N.J. Mr. Webster was on the opposite side 
 one of his latest appearances in a case of great impor 
 tance. Mr. Choate was said to have surpassed himself 
 in learning, strength, and brilliancy ; but of the argu 
 ment, as of the great majority of speeches at the bar, 
 absolutely nothing remains ipsce periere ruincc. 
 
 The SHMg-Cozrvention for the nomination of a can 
 didate for the Presidency the last National Conven 
 tion of the party met in Baltimore on Wednesday 
 the 16th of June, 1852. The secret history of it is yet 
 to be written. 
 
 The place of meeting was a spacious hall. The 
 members occupied a raised platform in the centre ; 
 
1850-1855.] BALTIMORE CONVENTION, JUNE, 1852. 251 
 
 spectators, from all parts of the country, sat upon 
 benches at the sides, while the gallery was filled with 
 ladies. Two days were spent in effecting an organi 
 zation, and preparing a series of resolutions. It was 
 considered doubtful whether a platform could be agreed 
 upon, binding the party to the " compromise meas 
 ures," as they were called. As these measures were 
 not entirely acquiesced in by many of the Northern 
 members, it was supposed to be the policy of some to 
 make the nomination without a declaration of political 
 sentiments on the question of slavery, and then to re 
 solve that no such declaration was necessary. If this 
 were the plan, it did not succeed. It was understood 
 that General Scott had written to some member of 
 the Convention assenting to these " measures," though 
 for some reason the letter had not been produced. The 
 resolutions were at length read, and all eyes turned 
 toward the seats occupied by the Massachusetts dele 
 gates. Mr. Choate presently rose ; it was about half- 
 past five o clock on the afternoon of Friday. The 
 thousand fans ceased to flutter, and the hall was silent 
 with expectation. He began in a quiet manner, as he 
 usually did, with an allusion to the general sentiment 
 of the platform itself, and then broke into a more fer 
 vent strain of thanksgiving to God, that a sentiment 
 urged before, many times and in many places, seemed 
 now likely, by so near an approach to unanimity, to be 
 adopted and promulgated by that authority, among the 
 highest which he recognized, the National Whig Party 
 of the United States, in General Convention assembled. 
 " Sir," said he, " why should not this organ of one 
 of the great national parties, which, pervading the 
 country, while they divide the people, confirm the 
 
252 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CiiAr. VIII. 
 
 Union, for I hold that these party organizations, 
 wisely and morally administered, are among the most 
 powerful instrumentalities of union, here, now, and 
 thus declare, that, in its judgment, the furtlij^ agita 
 tion of the subject of slavery be excluded from, and 
 forbidden in, the national politics? Why should it 
 not declare that if agitation must continue, it shall be 
 remitted to the forum of philanthropy, of literature, of 
 the press, of sectional organization, of fanaticism, 
 organized or unorganized ; but that the Federal Gov 
 ernment has in this field closed its labors and retires, 
 leaving it to the firmness of a permanent Judiciary to 
 execute what the Legislature has ordained ? 
 
 " Why should we not engage ourselves to the finality 
 of the entire series of measures of compromise ? Does 
 any member of this body believe that the interests of 
 the nation, the interests of humanity, our highest in 
 terests, our loftiest duties, require an attempt to dis 
 turb them ? Was it needful to pass them ? Did not 
 a moral necessity compel it ? Who now doubts this ? 
 I do not deny that some good men have done so, and 
 now do. I am quite well aware that fanaticism has 
 doubted it, or has affected to doubt it, to the iid that 
 it may leave itself free, unchecked by its own con 
 science, to asperse the motives of the authors and 
 advocates of this scheme of peace and reconciliation, 
 to call in question the soundness of the ethics on 
 which it rests, and to agitate for ever for its repeal. 
 But the American people know, by every kind and 
 degree of evidence by which such a truth ever can be 
 known, that these measures, in the crisis of their time, 
 saved this nation. I thank God for the civil courage, 
 which, at the hazard of all things dearest in life, dared 
 
1850-1855.] SPEECH IN BALTIMORE. 253 
 
 to pass and defend them, and 6 has taken no step back 
 ward. I rejoice that the healthy morality of the 
 country, with an instructed conscience, void of offence 
 toward God and man, has accepted them. Extremists 
 denounce all compromises, ever. Alas ! do they re 
 member that such is the condition of humanity that 
 the noblest politics are but a compromise an approx 
 imation a type a shadow of good things the 
 buying of great blessings at great prices ? Do they 
 forget that the Union is a compromise ; the Constitu 
 tion social life, that the harmony of the universe 
 is but the music of compromise, by which the antago 
 nisms of the infinite Nature are composed and recon 
 ciled ? Let him who doubts if such there be 
 whether it were wise to pass these measures, look back 
 and recall with what instantaneous and mighty charm 
 they calmed the madness and anxiety of the hour ! 
 How every countenance, everywhere, brightened and 
 elevated itself! How, in a moment, the interrupted 
 and parted currents of fraternal feeling reunited ! Sir, 
 the people came together again, as when, in the old 
 Roman history, the tribes descended from the mount 
 of secession, the great compromise of that constitu 
 tion achieved, and flowed together behind the eagle 
 into one mighty host of reconciled races for the con 
 quest of the world. 
 
 " Well, if it were necessary to adopt these measures, 
 is it not necessary to continue them ? In their nature 
 and office, are they not to be as permanent as the an 
 tagonisms to which they apply ? Would any man here 
 repeal them if he could command the numerical power ? 
 Does he see any thing but unmixed and boundless 
 evil in the attempt to repeal them? Why not, then, 
 
254 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CIIOATE. [CHAP. VIII 
 
 declare the doctrine of their permanence ? In the 
 language of Daniel Webster, 4 Why delay the decla 
 ration ? Sink or swiin, live or die, survive or perish, 
 I am for it. 
 
 " Sir, let me suggest a reason or two for this for 
 mality of announcement of such a declaration in such 
 a platform. In the first place, our predecessors of the 
 Democratic Convention, in this hall, have made it in 
 dispensable. If we do not make it as comprehensive 
 and as unequivocally as they have, we shall be ab 
 sorbed, scattered ! absorbed by the whirlpool, 
 scattered by the whirlwind of the sentiment of nation 
 ality which they have had the sagacity to discern and 
 hide under. Look at their platform, and see what a 
 multitude of sins of omission and commission, bad 
 policy and no policy, the mantle of national feeling is 
 made not ungracefully to cover. And remember that 
 you may provide a banquet as ample as you will ; you 
 may load the board with whatever of delicacy or neces 
 sity ; you may declare yourselves the promoters of 
 commerce, wheresoever, on salt water or fresh water, 
 she demands your care ; the promoters of internal 
 improvements, of the protection of labor, promising 
 to the farmer of America the market of America, of 
 peace with all nations, entangling alliances with none, 
 -of progress, not by external aggression, but by 
 internal development ; spread your board as tempt 
 ingly as you will, if the national appetite does not 
 find there the bread and water of national life, the 
 aliment of nationality, it will turn from your provisions 
 in disgust. 
 
 " Again : some persons object to all such attempt so 
 give sacredness and permanence to any policy of gov- 
 
1850-1855.] SPEECH IN BALTIMORE. 255 
 
 ernment, or any settlement of any thing by the people. 
 They object to them as useless, as unphilosophical, as 
 mischievous. The compromise measures are nothing, 
 they say, but a law ; and, although we think them a 
 very good law, yet better turn them over to the next 
 elections, the next Presidential canvass, the next ses 
 sion of Congress, to take their chance. If they are of 
 God, of nature, of humanity, they will stand anyhow ; 
 and if not, they ought not to stand. 
 
 " I am not quite of this opinion. I know, indeed, 
 how vain it is to seek to bind a future generation, or 
 even a future day. I see the great stream of progress 
 passing by, on which all things of earth are moving. 
 I listen, awe-struck, to the voice of its rushing. Let 
 all who have eyes to see and ears to hear, see and 
 hear also. Still I believe something may be done at 
 favorable junctures to shape, color, confirm even, so 
 capricious and so mighty a thing as public opinion. 
 This is the theory on which written constitutions are 
 constructed. Why such toil on these, unless in the 
 belief that you may and should seek to embody and 
 fix an important agreement of the national mind, 
 may for a little space moor the ship against the stream, 
 and insure that when she is swept from that mooring, 
 she may not be instantly shattered, but float with 
 some safety, and under some control, to the ocean ? 
 
 " I believe, and have many times asserted and 
 enforced the idea, that if the two great national parties 
 would now, in this most solemn, public, authoritative 
 manner, unite in extracting and excluding this busi 
 ness of the agitation of slavery from their political 
 issues, if they would adjudge, decree, and proclaim 
 that this is all a capital on which a patriotic man, or 
 
256 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 body of men, may not trade ; that the subject is out 
 of the domain of politics, disposed of by the higher 
 law of a common national consent, founded on a 
 regard for the common good, and that if they would 
 go into the coming and all contests upon their proper 
 and strict political issues, each contending with the 
 other only for the glory of a greater participation in 
 the compromise, much would be done to perpetuate 
 the national peace within, which we now enjoy. 
 Whatever the result of the canvass, and however se 
 verely it might be conducted, it would be one great ju 
 bilee of Union, in which the discordant voice of sections 
 and fanaticism would be silenced or unheard. 
 
 "Let me trouble you with one more reason for adopt 
 ing this compromise. Sir, let us put it out of our 
 power to be tempted, in the excitement of this election, 
 to press the claims of our candidate in one part of the 
 country on the ground that his success will extinguish 
 agitation, and to press the claims of the same candidate 
 in another part of it on the ground that his success 
 will promote agitation. As gentlemen and men of 
 honor and honest men, let us take the utmost security 
 against this. Who does not hang down his head in 
 advance with shame, at the fraud and falsehood exem 
 plified in going into one locality and crying out of the 
 Northern side of our mouths, No platform ! agita 
 tion for ever ! ours is the candidate of progress and 
 freedom ! And then going into another and shouting 
 through the Southern side, All right ! we are the 
 party of compromise ! we have got no platform, to 
 be sure, but Mr. So-and-so has got a first-rate letter in 
 his breeches-pocket, and Mr. So-and-so is vehemently 
 believed to have one in his, either of them as good 
 
1850-1855.] BALTIMORE CONVENTION, JUNE, 1852 257 
 
 as half a dozen platforms. Pray, if you love us, put 
 us into no such position as this. Lead us not into 
 such temptation, and deliver us from such evil. How 
 much better to send up the Union flag at once to each 
 masthead, blazing with Liberty and Union, now and 
 for ever, one and inseparable, and go down even so ! " 
 The effect of this speech upon the audience, who fre 
 quently interrupted him with enthusiastic applause, was 
 indescribable. After the cheering had somewhat sub 
 sided, remarks were made by several members of the Con 
 vention, and a running conversation for some time kept 
 up concerning the letter of General Scott, till finally 
 one was produced and read. Mr. Botts, of Virginia, in 
 the course of his remarks criticised Mr. Choate for an 
 implied imputation upon General Scott, and an implied 
 commendation of Mr. Webster. He closed by asking 
 whether he should move the adoption of the resolutions 
 and call for the previous question, saying, however, 
 that he would not do so, even at the request of the en 
 tire Convention, if the gentleman from Massachusetts 
 felt aggrieved at his remarks and desired to respond. 
 There were loud cries for " Choate." "First," says 
 one who was present, " by his friends of the Conven 
 tion, then by his partisans on the floor, and then by 
 the gay galleries. The chorus was immense, impera 
 tive, and determined." After some hesitancy he at 
 last rose, and in a tone of imperial grace said, "I shall 
 endeavor* to keep within the rule laid down by the 
 chairman. I beg to assure gentlemen that nothing in 
 the world was further from my intention than to enter 
 upon any eulogy of that great man, my friend of so 
 many years, whose name is as imperishably connected 
 with a long series of all the civil glories of his country 
 
 17 
 
258 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 as it is with this last and greatest of his achievements. 
 I assure you, Sir, upon my honor, and I assure the 
 gentleman from Virginia on my honor also, that I rose 
 solely and simply to express, in the briefest possible 
 terms, the convictions of myself and of many gentlemen 
 here on the merits of the general subject itself, without 
 appreciating what possible influence the remarks I 
 might submit would exert on the chances of this, that, 
 or the other eminent person for receiving the nomina 
 tion of the Convention." 
 
 Being interrupted here by a question from Mr. Botts, 
 " Whether he understood the gentleman rightly as 
 saying that he did not mean to depreciate any other 
 candidate, when speaking of that one who was his first 
 choice," he proceeded, " I meant to present a sound 
 argument to the Convention, to the end that this Con 
 vention might stand committed as men of honor every 
 where. I say here and everywhere, give us that man, 
 and you will promote peace and suppress agitation ; 
 and if you give us any other, you have no assurance at 
 all that that agitation will be suppressed. 
 
 " I am suspected of having risen to pay a personal 
 compliment to that great name with which I confess 
 my heart is full to bursting, because I stand here, ac 
 cording to my measure, to praise and defend the great 
 system of policy which the unanimous judgment of this 
 Convention has approved, or is about to approve and 
 promulgate. Ah, Sir, what a reputation that must be, 
 what a patriotism that must be, what a long and 
 brilliant series of public services that must be, when 
 you cannot mention a measure of utility like this but 
 every eye spontaneously turns to, and every voice 
 spontaneously utters, that great name of DANIEL WEB 
 STER ! 
 
1850-1855.] SPEECH AT BALTIMORE. 259 
 
 " I have done, Sir. I have no letter to present, 
 written last week, or the week before last. Mr. Web 
 ster s position on this question dates where the peace 
 of the country had its final consummation, on the Tth 
 of March, 1850. 
 
 " But, Sir, I did not intend .to electioneer in the 
 slightest degree. If my friend from Virginia will recall 
 the course of my observations, he will find that I con 
 fined myself exclusively to the defence of the measure 
 itself. But so it is that there is some such reputation 
 that you cannot stand up and ask for glory and bless 
 ing, and honor and power, or length of days upon 
 America, but you seem to be electioneering for that 
 great reputation." 
 
 The scene that followed was one of intense enthusiasm. 
 Bouquets were thrown at the feet of the orator, and 
 every demonstration made which could indicate homage 
 and delight. All were amazed at the ingenuity of the 
 speech as well as captivated by its eloquence. The 
 platform was adopted by a vote of 227 to 66. 
 
 There was another speech made by Mr. Choate dur 
 ing the sitting of the Convention, at a private enter 
 tainment given by the Massachusetts members to some 
 of those from the South-west, which is said to have 
 produced the greatest delight and enthusiasm. The 
 gathering was arranged with the hope that it might 
 lead the Southerners to cast their votes for Mr. Web 
 ster. Mr. Choate had not been consulted; the heat of 
 the weather was intense, and he had gone to bed with 
 a sick-headache. One of his friends went to him and 
 asked him to be present. " It is impossible," he re 
 plied, " I am too ill to hold up my head. I have not 
 strength to say a word." He was told that he need 
 
r 
 
 
 260 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 say but little, and that it was for Mr. Webster, his 
 last chance of influencing the delegates in favor of that 
 just and grand nomination. On this view of the case 
 he immediately assented, rose and went to the table. 
 He was too unwell to take any thing, and spoke but 
 about fifteen minutes. I have never heard what he 
 said ; it may be imagined by those who knew his love 
 for Mr. Webster, and his deep sense of the injustice 
 likely to be done him ; but it carried away that little 
 audience as with a whirlwind. They seemed half be 
 side themselves, sprang from their seats, jumped 
 upon the chairs and benches, broke their glasses, and 
 acted like wild men. But the efforts of the friends of 
 Mr. Webster were without avail. The Southern mem 
 bers offered to come with one hundred and six votes, 
 when forty votes should be obtained from the North ; 
 but so firmly determined were some of the Northern 
 delegates, that this number could not be found. The 
 vote for Mr. Webster never exceeded thirty-two. At 
 the fifty-third ballot Gen. Scott received the nomination. 
 
 In August, 1852, Mr. Choate addressed the Phi Beta 
 Kappa Society of the University of Vermont, on the 
 " Intervention of the New World in the affairs of the 
 Old; the Duty, the Limitations, and .the Modes." 
 It was high-toned, conservative, and wise. The subject 
 was suggested by recent events in the East, and espe 
 cially by the visit of Kossuth to this country. The 
 oration opened with the following tribute to the eloquent 
 Hungarian. 
 
 " To his eye who observes the present of our own 
 country, and of the age, needfully, looking before 
 and after, every day offers some incident which first 
 awakens a vivid emotion, and then teaches some great 
 
1850-1855.] PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY. 261 
 
 duty. Contemplate, then, a single one of such a class 
 of incidents; give room to the emotions it stirs; gather 
 up the lessons of which it is full. 
 
 " On the fifth day of the last December, there came 
 to this land a man of alien blood, of foreign and unfa" 
 miliar habit, costume, and accent ; yet the most elo 
 quent of speech, according to his mode, the most 
 eloquent by his history and circumstances, the most 
 eloquent by his mission and topics, whom the world 
 has, for many ages, seen ; and began among us a brief 
 sojourn, began, say rather, a brief and strange, 
 eventful pilgrimage, which is just now concluded. 
 Imperfect in his mastery of our tongue, he took his 
 first lessons in the little room over the barrack-gate 
 of Buda, a few months before, his only practice in it 
 had been a few speeches to quite uncritical audiences 
 in Southampton, in Birmingham, Manchester, and 
 Guildhall ; bred in a school of taste and general cul 
 ture with which our Anglo-Saxon training has little 
 affinity and little sympathy ; the representative and 
 impersonation, though not, I believe, the native child, 
 of a race from the East, planted some centuries ago in 
 Europe, but Oriental still as ever, in all but its Chris 
 tianity ; the pleader of a cause in which we might 
 seem to be as little concerned as in the story of the 
 lone Pelops or that of Troy divine, coming before us 
 even such that silver voice, that sad abstracted eye, 
 before which one image seemed alone to hover, one 
 procession to be passing, the fallen Hungary the 
 unnamed demigods, her thousands of devoted sons ; 
 that earnest and full soul, laboring with one emotion ; 
 has held thousands and thousands of all degrees of 
 susceptibility ; the coldness and self-control of the East 
 
262 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 the more spontaneous sympathies of the West 
 the masses in numbers without number Women 
 Scholars our greatest names in civil places by the 
 seashore in banquet halls in halls of legislation 
 among the memories of Bunker Hill, everywhere, he 
 has held all, with a charm as absolute as that with 
 which the Ancient Mariner kept back the bridal guest 
 after the music of the marriage feast had begun. 
 
 " The tribute of tears and applaudings ; the tribute of 
 sympathy and of thoughts too deep for applaudings, too 
 deep for tears, have attested his sway. For the first time 
 since the transcendent genius of DEMOSTHENES strove 
 with the downward age of Greece ; or since the Proph 
 ets of Israel announced each tone of the hymn 
 grander, sadder than before the successive footfalls of 
 the approaching Assyrian beneath whose spear the Law 
 should cease and the vision be seen no more ; our ears, 
 our hearts, have drunk the sweetest, most mournful, 
 most awful of the words which man may ever utter, or 
 may ever hear the eloquence of an Expiring Nation. 
 " For of all this tide of speech, flowing without ebb, 
 there was one source only. To one note only was the 
 harp of this enchantment strung. It was an appeal not 
 to the interests, not to the reason, not to the prudence, 
 not to the justice, not to the instructed conscience of 
 America and England ; but to the mere emotion of 
 sympathy for a single family of man oppressed by another 
 contending to be free cloven down on the field, yet 
 again erect; her body dead, her spirit incapable to die; 
 the victim of treachery; the victim of power ; the victim 
 of intervention ; yet breathing, sighing, lingering, dy 
 ing, hoping, through all the pain, the bliss of an agony 
 of glory ! For this perishing nation not one inhabi- 
 
1850-1855.] JOURNEY TO QUEBEC. 263 
 
 taut of which wo ever saw ; on whose territory we had 
 never set a foot ; whose books we had never read ; to 
 whose ports we never traded ; not belonging in an 
 exact sense to the circle of independent States ; a prov 
 ince rather of an Empire which alone is known to in 
 ternational law and to our own diplomacy ; for this 
 nation he sought pity the intervention, the armed 
 intervention, the material aid of pity ; and if his au 
 diences could have had their will, he would have ob 
 tained it, without mixture or measure, to his heart s 
 content ! 
 
 " When shall we be quite certain again that the lyre 
 of Orpheus did not kindle the savage nature to a 
 transient discourse of reason, did not suspend the 
 labors and charm the pains of the damned, did not 
 lay the keeper of the grave asleep, and win back Eury- 
 dice from the world beyond the river, to the warm, 
 upper air ? 
 
 " And now that this pilgrimage of romance is ended, 
 the harp hushed, the minstrel gone, let us pause a 
 moment and attend to the lessons and gather up the 
 uses of the unaccustomed performance." 
 
 Immediately after this college anniversary he made 
 a brief journey to Quebec, going along the accustomed 
 line of travel by Montreal and the St. Lawrence, and 
 retracing his way along the same line quite to New 
 York. This naturally led him to the places distin 
 guished in the earlier wars, at most of which he 
 stopped, refreshing and verifying his knowledge, kin 
 dling anew his patriotism at every hallowed spot, from 
 the Falls of Montmorenci, and the Plains of Abraham, 
 to the mouth of the Hudson. The weather was de 
 lightful, and the trip altogether invigorating to both 
 body and mind. 
 
204 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 In the fall of this year, the country suffered a loss, 
 the greatness of which time alone can disclose. Mr. 
 Choate felt it not only as an irreparable public calamity, 
 but as a personal bereavement, for which there was no 
 remedy. 
 
 From the Baltimore Convention the friends of Mr. 
 Webster returned with an uncontrollable feeling of 
 disappointment and with a deep sense of wrong. But 
 before the day of election, he, for whom they had 
 struggled, had closed his eyes for ever upon this earth. 
 Mr. Webster died on the 24th of October. On the 
 28th, the members of the Suffolk Bar presented to the 
 United States Circuit Court, then in session, a series 
 of resolutions expressive of their sense of the loss, 
 and Mr. Clioate with other eminent lawyers addressed 
 the court. He spoke with entire quietness of manner, 
 and with the deepest feeling, and his words seem to 
 contain the germs of almost all the eulogies afterwards 
 pronounced upon the great New England statesman. 
 
 As soon as a sense of propriety would allow, Mr. 
 Choate received solicitations from very respectable 
 bodies in different parts of the country, to deliver a 
 more formal and extended eulogy. He accepted that 
 which came first, from the Faculty and Students of 
 Dartmouth College, influenced still more, perhaps, by 
 his deep and truly filial affection for the place. After 
 the announcement of this was made public, he received 
 a letter from a gentleman in Connecticut, suggesting 
 resemblance between Mr. Webster and some other 
 eminent men, particularly Sir Walter Scott. The fol 
 lowing is his answer : 
 
1850-1855.] LETTER TO E. JACKSON. 265 
 
 To E. JACKSON, ESQ., Middletown, Conn. 
 
 " BOSTON, 10th Dec. 1852. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, I was extremely struck and gratified by 
 the kindness of your note to me, and by the parallel which 
 it suggested and pursued. Scarcely any thing in literary or 
 public biography is more curious or just. I mentioned the 
 thought to Mr. Curtis, Geo. T. Curtis, on whom it 
 made instantly the same impression. I think the patriotism 
 of Fox was less trustworthy (having regard to his stormy 
 ambition), and his character less balanced and dignified. He 
 had less eloquent feeling too, and less poetical feeling, and no 
 veneration, and his whole intellectual toil was one mighty 
 tempestuous debate. In naturalness, warmth of heart, and 
 prodigious general ability in political affairs and public speech, 
 he does remind us of Mr. Webster. 
 
 " But to Scott the likeness is quite remarkable. I can add 
 nothing to your conception of it, but of that I shall trj to 
 profit. Mr. Curtis told me that if Mr. Jackson could have 
 heard Mr. Webster s conversations with regard to keeping 
 the Marshfield estate in the family, he would have been more 
 forcibly reminded of Scott. Both felt the desire to be found 
 ers ; neither won fortune, nor transmitted inheritances in 
 lands. Both made deep and permanent impressions wholly 
 useful on their time and the next ; and both linked themselves 
 shall we say for ever ? to the fondest affections as well as 
 reasonable regards of very intellectual races. 
 
 " I am, with great respect, your servant and friend, 
 
 "RuFUS CHOATE." 
 
 The treatment which Mr. Webster received at the 
 Baltimore Convention had alienated many Whigs at 
 the North, and inclined them to vote for the Demo 
 cratic electors. Mr. Choate s position will be indicated 
 by the following letter : 
 
 " To HARVEY JEWELL, ESQ., President of the Young Men s Whig Club. 
 
 " BOSTON, 30th October, 1852. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, I certainly can have no unwillingness to 
 repeat quite formally, what I have informally said so many 
 times to so many of our friends. 
 
266 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 u That I regretted very keenly our failure to place Mr. 
 Webster in nomination, I, of course, have never disguised. 
 So much, too, did I love him, and so much, so filially per 
 haps for him so unnecessarily desire, that in all things his 
 feelings might be respected, his claims acknowledged, and the 
 effect of the proceedings of the Convention on him mitigated, 
 that, although I have ever deemed those proceedings as oblig 
 ing my vote as a Whig, yet I had decided that it w&uld not 
 be decorous or right, having respect to those relations with 
 him, which have been and are in their memory so dear to me, 
 to take any active part in setting on the head of any other 
 the honors which he had earned. 
 
 " But that the true interests of the country, as our party has 
 ever apprehended those interests, require, in the actual cir 
 cumstances, the election of the eminent person who is our 
 regular candidate, I cannot doubt. As a Whig, still a Web 
 ster Whig, standing at his grave and revering his memory, 
 I think that more of his spirit, more of his maxims of govern 
 ment, more of his liberal conservatism, more peace, a more 
 assiduous culture of that which we have, with no reckless 
 grasping for that which we have not, would preside in the 
 administration of Gen. Scott than in that of his Democratic 
 competitor for the Presidency. 
 
 " There are good men who esteemed Mr. Webster and Mr. 
 Clay so highly and justly, as to hope that while they lived, 
 although out of office, their counsels would still be of power 
 to repress the tendencies to evil, which they fear from the 
 ascendency of our political opponents. But now that those 
 lights are passed and set, must we not all, and those of us 
 with a special solicitude, who followed them with most confi 
 dence, turn to others, whose associations and ties of party, 
 whose declared opinions, whose conduct of affairs and whose 
 antecedents afford the surest trust that their practical politics 
 will be those which we have so advisedly adopted, and so 
 long professed ? With these politics, and the great party rep 
 resenting them, Gen. Scott is identified. His election would 
 pledge his character and honor to seek through them, and by 
 them, the common good and general welfare, and there is no 
 reason to doubt that the convictions of his judgment would 
 guide him by the same path. Certainly he is a Whig ; and 
 he has rendered the country great services, in important con 
 junctures, in war and peace. 
 
 " It is quite needless to say, then, that I shall vote for the 
 
1850-1855.] LETTER TO MRS. EAMES. 267 
 
 regularly nominated Whig ticket of electors. He, the 
 best beloved, the most worthy, is in his grave. Duty sub 
 sists, still and ever, and I am entirely persuaded that duty 
 requires of me this vote. 
 
 " I am, respectfully, your obd t serv t, 
 
 " RUFUS CHOATE." 
 
 The regular correspondents of Mr. Choate were few. 
 He had not much time to give up even to that society 
 which was most attractive. Of those to whom he 
 wrote with the freedom of a warm and sympathizing 
 friendship were Hon. Charles Eames and Mrs. Eames. 
 A few of these letters have been kindly placed at my 
 disposal. 
 
 "BOSTON, Dec. 4th, 1852. 
 
 " MY DEAR MRS. E., ... You were wholly right, 
 and not the less kind, to assume an explanation of my silence 
 consistent with my fixed and enhancing appreciation of your 
 friendship. . . . 
 
 " I have been here occasionally and hurriedly only, since 
 I last wrote you ; but my chief time and duties have been 
 engaged to my mother, on the verge of a timely grave, yet sick 
 beyond the mere inflictions of eighty years. She is living yet, 
 and better. . . . 
 
 " Till yesterday I had nourished a secret, but great thought 
 of just running on to Washington for four days, not to super 
 sede, but to prepare for my January visit. Likewise, I could 
 not go. ... 
 
 " I am to congratulate you, and Mr. Eames, personally, on 
 the election which he has influenced so much. May every 
 reward he would seek be his. Choose wisely and well, and 
 above all fix your hearts on something at home. But why 
 should I grudge you the Fortunate Isles, the Boulevards, 
 Damascus rose cinctured, if you wish it ? Give my love to 
 him. Wish Mr. Davis and Mr. Everett well. Pray (as 
 poor Mr. Webster said) for the peace of Jerusalem, and 
 especially for your attached friend, 
 
 " RUFUS CHOATE." 
 
 Early in 1853, Mr. Choate lost his aged and vener 
 able mother. He always detained for her the most 
 
268 
 
 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 filial respect and affection, and although her death, at 
 her advanced age, was not unexpected, it filled him 
 with deep sorrow. Almost at the same time he re 
 ceived from Governor Clifford the offer of the Attorney- 
 Generalship of the State. This he accepted, not for 
 its emoluments, which were inconsiderable, while 
 the labor was great, but partly because he con 
 sidered it an honorable position, and in part because 
 he was desirous of being freed from a certain class of 
 distasteful cases which he did not feel quite at liberty 
 to decline. The great labor in this office arose from 
 the fact that judicial interpretation of the liquor law 
 of 1852, popularly called the " Maine Law," became 
 necessary, and a large number of cases came under 
 his charge for argument, some of them involving grave 
 constitutional questions. To the study of these cases 
 he devoted much time and labor. The criminal nisi 
 prius trials he disliked ; and this, together with certain 
 mere drudgeries of office, caused him to resign his 
 commission after holding it a little more than a year. 
 
 On the 3d of May, 1853, the third convention of the 
 delegates of the people of Massachusetts met in Bos 
 ton to revise the Constitution of the State. It is 
 doubtful whether an abler body of men ever assembled 
 in the State. Every county sent its best and wisest 
 citizens. The convention continued its sessions till the 
 1st of August. The subjects brought into discussion 
 were fundamental to the being and prosperity of States. 
 In this dignified and weighty assembly Mr. Choate 
 spoke on some of the most important questions, and 
 never without commanding the highest respect. His 
 speeches on the Basis of Representations, and on the 
 Judiciary were listened to with profound interest, and 
 
1850-1855.] EULOGY ON DANIEL WEBSTER. 269 
 
 will rank with the best specimens of deliberative elo 
 quence. 
 
 During this summer, and in the midst of various 
 distracting public and professional duties, he caught 
 time as he could, for preparing the eulogy upon Mr. 
 Webster. How he wrote it may be inferred from a 
 little anecdote furnished by one who subsequently be 
 came a member of his family by marrying his youngest 
 daughter. 1 " I returned from Europe," he says, " in 
 1853, and reached Boston the 7th of July. I went to 
 Mr. Choate s house about 9 o clock that evening, and 
 found him in his chamber reclining in bed in a half- 
 sitting posture. On his knees rested an atlas, lying 
 obliquely ; in his left hand he held a lamp, while 
 another was balanced on a book ; in his right hand 
 was his pen. He playfully excused himself for not 
 shaking hands with me, saying that he feared the sharp 
 reproaches of Mrs. C. if he should by any mischance 
 spill the oil. On my asking him what, at that time of 
 night, and in that singular position, he was doing, he 
 said he was trying to get a few things together to say 
 at Dartmouth College in relation to Mr. Webster. He 
 had put it off so long, he said, was so hampered with 
 work at his office, and had to give so much time to 
 the Constitutional Convention, then in session, that he 
 had almost made up his mind to write to the officers 
 of the college asking to be let off. If I deliver it, 
 he added, it will be wholly inadequate to the theme. 
 He did deliver it, however, but he said to me the day 
 before he went to Dartmouth, that any friend of his 
 would stay away, for, although so much time was given 
 to write it in, it was one of the most hurried things he 
 had ever done." 
 
 1 Edward Ellerton Pratt, Esq. 
 
270 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 With tlic high ideal that was before his mind, to 
 him "much meditating" on the greatness of Mr. 
 Webster, and feeling how interwoven was his life with 
 the later history of the country, it is not surprising 
 that he felt the insufficiency of any eulogy. Yet one 
 would be at a loss to know where, in all the records of 
 such eloquence, for fulness, suggestiveness, and dis 
 crimination, for richness and vitality, for beauty of 
 language and felicity of allusion, for compactness and 
 for amplification, to find another to equal it. 
 
 To HIS DAUGHTER SARAH. 
 
 "Monday, August, 1853. 
 
 "DEAR SALLIE, The accompanying letter came to me 
 to-day, and I send it with alacrity. I wish you would study 
 calligraphy in it, if what I see not is as well written as what 
 I do. I got quietly home, to a cool, empty house, unvexed 
 of mosquito, sleeping to the drowsy cricket. It lightened a 
 little, thundered still less, and rained half an hour ; but the 
 sensation, the consciousness that the Sirian-tartarean summer 
 is really gone though it is sad that so much of life goes 
 too is delightful. Next summer will- probably be one long 
 April or October. By the way, the dream of the walnut 
 grove and the light-house is finished. They will not sell, 
 and the whole world is to choose from yet. 1 I see and hear 
 nothing of nobody. I bought a capital book to-day by Bun- 
 gener, called * Voltaire and his Times, fifty pages of which 
 I have run over. He is the author of Three Sermons under 
 Louis XV./ and is keen, bright, and just, according to my 
 ideas, as far as I have gone. My course this week is rudely 
 broken in upon by the vileness and vulgarity of business, 
 and this day has been lean of good books and rich thoughts, 
 turning chiefly on whether charcoal is an animal nuisance, 
 and whether Dr. Manning s will shall stand. Still, Rufus will 
 be glad to hear I read my JEschines and Cicero and German 
 Martial, and, as I have said, this Bungener. 
 
 u I wish you would all come home ; that is, that your time 
 had arrived. Pick up, dear daughter, health, nerves, and 
 
 1 Referring to a project of purchasing a site for building at Essex. 
 
1850-1855.] LETTER TO MRS. EAMES. 271 
 
 self-trust, and come here to make the winter of our discontent 
 glorious summer. 
 
 " Thank your dear mother and Rufus for their letters. I 
 hope for Minnie a neck without a crick, and a lot without a 
 crook, if one may be so jinglesome. One of the Choates of 
 Salem called in my absence if Daniel did not see a doppel- 
 gcinger, in a dream but which, where he is, what he wants, 
 where he goes, or how he fares, I know not. I would invite 
 him to dine, if I knew where he was. Best love to all. 
 Tell your mother I don t believe I shall write her for two or 
 three days, but give her, and all, my love. I like the court 
 house prospect and the Bucolical cow, and verdant lawn much, 
 as Minnie says. Good-by, all. R. C." 
 
 During this fall, his health, which, with the excep 
 tion of severe headaches, had been generally good, 
 occasioned himself and his friends some anxiety. He 
 alludes to it in the following letters : 
 
 To MRS. EAMES. 
 
 " BOSTON, 13th Nov. 1853. 
 
 " MY DEAR MRS. EAMES, ... I had a narrow escape 
 from going just now to New York, arid then taking a flying 
 aim at Washington. The Doctors and I have changed all 
 that, and resolved that instead of* any such unsatisfactory 
 splurging, I should go quietly to Washington, like a grave 
 citizen and elderly lawyer, and make, as it were, a business of 
 it, see my friends, try a case, go to the theatre and the levee, 
 and all the rest of it, say in December or January. ... I 
 have come quite near being placed among the Emeritus Pro 
 fessors in the great life university, that reserved and lament 
 able corps, whose long day is done, and who may sleep. 
 
 " There again the Doctors and I were too much for them, 
 and I am all right again, with injunctions to do but little, nor 
 do that little long, at a time. Such a change of life sets me 
 thinking, which is disagreeable, and resolving, which only 
 paves bad places with good intentions. . . . 
 
 " I must say I think your administration toil though it 
 Hoes and spin is not yet arrayed with all the glory of 
 Solomon, or even of the lilies of the field. 
 
 " Yours truly, " R. CHOATE." 
 
 " P.S. Mr. Everett is rising in my telescope." 
 
272 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 To MRS. EAMES. 
 
 " BOSTON, 17th Dec. 1853. 
 
 " MY DEAR MRS. EAMES, I took the liberty yesterday to 
 address to you the first two volumes of Lord J. Russell s 
 4 Moore, and to ask our Little and Brown to include it in 
 their collections for the Washington Express. Mine I have 
 not yet received, but I promise myself that the thing will 
 have some interest with those old people at least who began 
 life, as I did, upon I saw from the beach, Vale of Avoca, 
 Erin go Bragh, and all the rest of it. Whether it will for 
 you, I fear and doubt, yet you will agree that we have never 
 seen and never shall see any thing like that glorious constella 
 tion of poets which illustrated the first twenty-five or thirty 
 years of this century, and which has set to the last star. 
 Beaming brightly and singing like a seraph, sometimes, among 
 these lights was poor Moore. Therefore 1 hope the package 
 will go safely and come regularly to hand, as the merchants 
 clerks do write. 
 
 " My visit to Washington recedes like any horizon. Mr. 
 Davis has me in charge, but any time after the 10th of Janu 
 ary, if he bids me come, I come. Please to entreat him to 
 hasten that day, as he hopes to have his eulogy read and ap 
 preciated. 
 
 " Our winter has come frosty but kindly. Thus far, as a 
 mere matter of cold, heat, snow, it is as good as a Washing 
 ton winter. I do not say that it presents just the same ag 
 gregate and intensity of moral, social, and personal interest. 
 
 * 4 Please give my best regards to Mr. Eames and all friends. 
 " Most truly yours, R. CIIOATE." 
 
 The following letter to Mr. Everett (then a member 
 of the United States Senate), with its reference to 
 topics of great national importance will explain itself: 
 
 To Hox. EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 " BOSTON, 4th Feb. 1854. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, I have not delayed to answer your letter 
 for want of interest in the subject, and still less from want of 
 strong personal desire that your own course should be as for 
 tunate as it will be conspicuous and influencive. But in 
 truth, 1 did not know enough of the whole ground of opinion 
 
1850-1855.] LETTER TO RUFUS CHOATE, JR. 273 
 
 and duty and hazards, to make my suggestions of real value, 
 and yet, jzood for nothing else, they might mislead. Mean 
 time, as far as I can possibly discern, the whole free world 
 of the United States seems likely to demand the observance 
 of the Missouri Compromise. I must say, that I think that a 
 speech and a course adhering to that great adjustment, and 
 reconciling that with the compromises of 1850, will be claimed 
 here, and I should be amazed and grieved, if this could do 
 harm anywhere. Yet for myself, I should consult the spirit 
 of the proceeding of 1850 and execute that, whithersoever it 
 led. But I cannot yet see how that should demand such a 
 measure as this of Mr. Douglas. 
 
 " The result, with me and with all here, is that we feel the 
 deepest solicitude that you should not be drawn into a position 
 which can impair your large prospects, and that we hope you 
 may defeat the further extension of slavery on grounds and by 
 reasonings that will not lose you one American heart or judg 
 ment anywhere. I am most truly, 
 
 " Your servant and friend, 
 
 *" RUFUS CHOATE." 
 
 A few letters here to his son, then a student in Am- 
 herst College, and to his daughter Sarah, will give us 
 an insight into the thoughts and ways of home. 
 
 To RUFUS CHOATE, JR. 
 " BOSTON, Feb. 13, 1854. Monday morning, six o clock. 
 
 "Mr DEAREST SON, I am afraid the elite of Amherst 
 are not stirring quite so early as this, but as my writing here 
 by my lamp does not disturb you, and as I think of you al 
 ways, but with peculiar interest and love when I look round 
 my study at this early hour, I will say a word while M. is 
 waiting for the coach to carry him to the Portland cars. 
 
 " I have had a very fatiguing winter, contending as the 
 French bulletins used to say when badly beaten with vari 
 ous success. However, I have had my share of causes, and 
 my chief grief after S. s sickness, has been that I have had so 
 little time for literary readings. Euripides stands neglected on 
 the shelf, Alcestis dying alone, and the last days of Augustus 
 are as if Tacitus had not recorded them with his pen of steel. 
 You are happier in having days arid nights for the most de 
 lightful of all things, the studies of college. My dear son, 
 
 18 
 
274 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 make much of this fleeting hour, and all future exertions and 
 acquirements will be easy. . . . To see you come out of col 
 lege affectionate, true, pure, and a good scholar, to begin the 
 law at Cambridge with hope and ambition, is the desire which 
 more than all else gives interest to my future. . . . M. has 
 gone.- Daniel appears with the newspapers ; it approaches 
 sunrise, and I must turn to prepare for * Gray et al. r. Co- 
 burn, for the hour and a quarter before breakfast. Good-by." 
 
 To HIS DAUGHTER SARAH. 
 
 " BOSTON, 9 July [1854], 
 
 " DEAREST SALLIE, I was delighted to find your letter 
 and mother s on my return from the broiled, though sea-girt 
 Nan tucket. I will not say that 1 could read a word of it, 
 before the affectionate and craving Helen carried it off, 
 snatched it, as one may say, from the unsated parental jaws. 
 But at dinner with her to-day I shall recover it interpreted. 
 
 " I am sorry the geography is a failure. Astronomy and 
 St. Pierre stars and harmonies of earth, I hope will enable 
 you to support the necesary delay in finding another. Mean 
 time the Russian war is going to end ; the Turkish moons are 
 at the full ; and except Kansas and Nebraska, no spot of 
 earth has a particle of interest adscititious, present, and tran 
 sient though all must be generally known, or history her 
 ample page rich with the spoils of time, inadequately unrolls. 
 I much fear that we are doomed to more of Malte Brun and 
 of the crust of the earth. I will look, however. 
 
 " I am rebuked at finding that the great treatises on Will 
 and Sin were not written at West Stockbridge, after all. It 
 follows, first, that so much of our ride was what Kufus calls 
 a sell; secondly, that the most arrogant memories will fail 
 be nonplussed the characters, the imagery, as Locke says, 
 fading out of this brass and marble ; and thirdly, that all ex 
 ternal beauty of scenery is mainly created and projected from 
 within. How still and studious looked West Stockbridge 
 and now what a poor, little, half-starved saw-mill of a situation 
 it is ! 
 
 The disenchanted earth lost half its lustre ; 
 The great magician s dead/ 
 
 I will be confident of nothing again < that s Pozj as Miss 
 Ed^eworth s story or somebody s, has it. 
 
1850-1855.] LETTERS TO RUFUS CHOATE, JR. 275 
 
 " Sallie, if it is cool in Lenox if there is one cool spot ; 
 yea, if there is a place where by utmost effort of abstraction, 
 you can think upon the frosty Caucasus ; upon the leaves of 
 aspen in motion ; upon any mockery or mimicry of coolness 
 and zephyrs, be glad. Our house glows like a furnace ; the 
 library seems like a stable of brazen, roasting bulls of Pha- 
 laris, tyrant of Agrigentum of whom you read in De Quin- 
 cey ; and I woo sleep on three beds and a sofa in vain. All 
 would be sick here and I already am, or almost so. 
 
 " I hope the Astronomy engages you, and the St. Pierre. 
 Botany and other natural history will soothe you, dear child, 
 when the burning and suggestive words of mere literature 
 sting as serpents. Good-by, dearjille. R. C." 
 
 To RUFUS CHOATE, JR. 
 
 " BOSTON, 19 July, 1854. 
 
 " DEAREST SON, I was grieved when I got home to find 
 what an inhospitable time you had of it. If you had hinted 
 your purpose, Helen surely would have welcomed you. I 
 could not, for I was melting beneath the Nantucket court 
 house. Next time let us know, that we may make your 
 shortest vacation pleasant. Yesterday I ought to have been 
 at Washington. What they have done I know not. If my 
 friends carried an adjournment it is well. If not, the Library 
 fuit, as the expressive perfect tense has it. 
 
 " I was very sorry that I could not stay longer in your poor 
 little pleasant room, and seem to get more into your college 
 intimate life. It glides away so fast, and is so delightful a 
 portion of the whole term of life, that I should envy every 
 day and hour. I prized mine. Yet now, as the poet says, it 
 is my grief that I prized it no more. . . . They will rejoice 
 to see you at Lenox, where I hope to meet you. The cool 
 weather of the 4th continues, and seems likely to, till men 
 call on Caucasus to bury them and done with it. 
 
 To RUFUS CHOATE, JR. 
 
 " BOSTON, 24 Sept. [1854.] 
 
 "My DEAR DEAR SON, You were very good to write 
 me, and if I had not been rather harder at work than ever 
 
276 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 before, I should have written sooner. I have jnst finished an 
 insurance trial of some ten or eleven days, very scraggly and 
 ticklish though a just claim and won it, against a very 
 strong charge of the judge. Then came another insurance 
 cause where J. and I were for the office, deft. and had the 
 luck to get that too, in three or four hours. I had to snatch 
 any moment to write a little address for Danvers. Altogether, 
 therefore, I am utterly prostrated and unstrung. I would 
 give a thousand dollars, if I could afford it, for an undisturbed 
 rest of a week. The house is now in most perfect order. If 
 dear mother, Sallie, Minnie, and you were here, it would be 
 more perfect even. 
 
 To HIS DAUGHTER SARAH. 
 
 "Sept. [1854.] 
 
 "MY DEAR SALLIE, You were a special good girl to 
 write me pausing among so many grand spectacles, laugh 
 ing girls, and moustached artists if that is the French of it 
 and I should have written before if I had not been 
 4 blowed. I was 4 overworked for about twelve days, and up 
 to yesterday morning, when I came out of the pestilential 
 court-house to compose an address on Knowledge, for Danvers. 
 The topic is new and the thoughts rise slowly and dubious. 
 However, I shall go through this also as a thief through a 
 horse-pond in the simile of Lord Chancellor Thurlow. 
 
 " The autumn here now outshines itself. Such skies and 
 such unblanched green leafiness, and occasional peach and 
 plum, I have never seen. Our grapery is, as it were, Floren 
 tine and Mantuanical ; but for mere eating I have preferred 
 such as you buy of the common dealers in the article. Lately 
 1 have given no dinners. I have in fact for ten days not 
 dined at home, but at the restaurant. To-morrow I hope to 
 be at home. I never saw the house so clean, lovely, still, and 
 homelike. They have washed every thing unless it is 
 Cicero and Demosthenes, and it seems to me their very bronze 
 seems sleek, fleshly, and cleansed. My books are all bound, 
 and all up and if mother and you were here, and Minnie, 
 and I could rest, rest, rest, one day one week stock still 
 still as a statute I should be too happy. 
 
 " I have just written your mother suggesting, 1st, whether 
 she is ever coming home ; 2d, when, if ever, she is coining ; 
 3d, what money it will take to come, to bring honey, also you, 
 and any * Jew or Jewess. 
 
1850-1855.] LETTER TO MRS. EAMES. 277 
 
 " Good-by, poor dear roe, hart, and pelican upon the moun 
 tains. I look at the picture in the dining-room daily, and 
 wonder if you see sights so brilliant and light then turn 
 again to my baked apple, farina, or what not. 
 
 " Good-by, dear pet. I have had three nights to sleep in 
 your room. All well at Helen s. Your Voter" 
 
 In September, 1854, Mr. Choate delivered the ad 
 dress at the dedication of the Peabody Institute in 
 South Danvers. This institution was founded by the 
 munificence of Geo. Peabody, Esq., of London, and 
 from the first was regarded with great interest by Mr. 
 Choate, who watched with sincere pleasure the pros 
 perity of the town where he commenced his professional 
 life, and which conferred upon him his first honors. 
 The year was otherwise filled with the ordinary labors 
 of the law. 
 
 In the mean time his friend Mr. Eames had been ap 
 pointed Minister-Resident at Caraccas. 
 
 To MR EVERETT. 
 
 " Winthrop Place, Oct. 9, 1854. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, I thank you for your kind invitation, 
 and should have the truest pleasure in accepting it, hut I am 
 so much the victim of an urgent and ignominious malice as 
 Mr. S. Smith might say, that I am cruelly forbidden all 
 such opportunity. 
 
 " You are more than kind to the Danvers affair. And 
 really, because one is not an Academician, is he not therefore 
 to be indulged in his occasional platitudes and commonplaces ? 
 " I am most truly 
 
 " Your servant and friend, 
 
 " RUFUS CHOATE." 
 
 To MRS. EAMES. 
 
 "Boston, 31st Oct. 1854. 
 
 " MY DEAR MRS. EAMES, I have been imagining 
 through all these divine days, how supreme must be the 
 
278 MEMOIR OF RLTFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 beauty on all things about you and have sighed for the 
 sight of all that scene in your company again. Meanwhile 
 the leaf falls, arid the last lark will send up his note of fare 
 well ; the school-ma am will have recovered, and the school- 
 house will be coming alive with the various hubbub of child 
 hood, and the time draws on when you will go, perhaps to look 
 back from a grander Nature to that plain ]N T ew England soli 
 tude which you have found, and made, so delightful to look 
 back homesick and with affectionate sadness. ... 
 
 " I have seen Mr. Everett once, and had a most pleasant 
 hour not unmingled with pain. He looks despomlingly out 
 ward ; and I think his personal hopes are turning from poli 
 tics and their bubble reputation. In his library, he seems to 
 sit above all annoyance, at the centre of all reasonable felici 
 ties a happy and great character, who may yet write his 
 name for ever on our history. 
 
 " I hope all your little, and thrice dear children are well, 
 and give you no alarm. They seem well, happy, and of rare 
 goodness and interest. If it should so happen that I can by 
 any possibility see you and Mr. Eames before you go if go 
 you must I mean to do it here or at New Braiutree, 
 or in New York. . . . 
 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 R. CHOATE." 
 
 Notwithstanding his labors and periodical suffering 
 from sick-headaches, Mr. Choate s general health was 
 good. A strong constitution and vigorous frame en 
 abled him to endure a vast amount of work without in 
 jury. But early in 1855 he met with an accident 
 which confined him for several months to his house 
 and for much of the time to his room. While at Ded- 
 ham during the trial of a cause, he hit his knee against 
 the corner of a table. This brought on an inflamma 
 tion of the joint, which became complicated with other 
 ailments, to which time only could bring relief. 1 Dur- 
 
 1 As a result of the accident, he was obliged" to submit to a slight 
 surgical operation ; but so sensitive was he to physical suffering, that 
 even this made a considerable draft upon his nervous energies. He 
 
1850-1855.] LETTER TO HON. CHARLES EAMES. 279 
 
 ing this period of seclusion, he was not cut off from the 
 solace of his library, nor entirely unable to study. He 
 never more fully enjoyed the society of his friends, giv 
 ing himself up freely to those whom he loved. Mr. 
 Everett particularly, used to visit him regularly two 
 or three times a week, sometimes to bring a new book, 
 sometimes to impart intelligence, not generally known, 
 always to bring sunlight to the quiet library of the in 
 valid. So much interested had both become in this 
 unwonted familiarity, that on Mr. Choate s resuming 
 his professional labors, Mr. Everett remarked to him, 
 that, for his own sake, he could only wish one thing, 
 namely, that he might hurt his knee again. To that 
 friendly interest Mr. Choate alludes in one of the follow 
 ing letters, both bearing the same date : 
 
 To HON. CHARLES EAMES. 
 
 " Boston, 29th June, 1855. 
 
 "DEAR MR. EAMES, I doubt if you see a brighter sun 
 or drink a balmier air than I do to-day, but I hope you are 
 as well as the rosy-fingered June of New England could make 
 you. Our summer, they say, is cool and backward ; but 
 whoso desires any thing diviner than this morning may go 
 farther and fare worse. 
 
 " I thank you and Mrs. Eames for your kind remembrances. 
 I have had a pretty sorry spring of it ; but it may be ac 
 cepted for some years of indifferent health in the future. My 
 physicians talk of change of life renovation rejuvenes 
 cence and what not hoc erat in votis certainly but who 
 knows what shall be on the morrow ? . . . 
 
 " Your estate is gracious that keeps you out of hearing of our 
 politics. Any thing more low obscene feculent the mani 
 fold oceanic hearings of history have not cast up. We shall come 
 to the worship of onions cats and things vermiculate. 
 * Renown and grace are dead. There s nothing serious in 
 
 took ether, and afterwards remarked to a friend, that " it was very 
 pleasant till the moment of utterly surrendering consciousness, then 
 death itself could not have been more awful." 
 
280 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Ciixr. VIII. 
 
 mortality. If any wiser saw or instance, ancient or modern, 
 occurred to me to express the enormous impossible inanity of 
 American things, I should utter it. Bless your lot then, 
 which gives you to volcanoes, earthquakes, feather-cinctured 
 chiefs, and dusty sights of the tropics. I wish I was there 
 with all my heart that I do 
 
 "After all, the Democratic chance is best. The whole 
 South is Pierce s I think so is the foreign vote of the 
 North. So will be Pennsylvania, I guess. . . . 
 
 " I write to Mrs. Eames and send love to her and the babes. 
 
 " I wish you health, happiness, and treaties of immortal 
 peace and fame. Most truly, 
 
 " Yours, 
 
 " R. CHOATE." 
 
 lion. Charles Eames, $r., $~c., frc. t Caraccas. 
 
 To MRS. EAMES. 
 
 "Boston, 29th June, 1855. 
 
 " MY DEAR MRS. EAMES, I have only just got abroad after 
 a confinement of a matter of four months, and, with a hand still 
 tremulous, though I flatter myself legible to the eye of a true 
 friendship, I would send you my love and good wishes 
 chiefly and first congratulating you upon your safe arrival at 
 that vortex of palms and earthquakes and sea-change. My 
 our excellent Mr. Everett has reported with some frequency 
 of you ; and here comes a tin case, and a little letter, more 
 tellingly assuring me that your kindness is untravelled, and 
 that you remember and wish to be remembered from the 
 other side of this watery wilderness of separation. . . . 
 
 4< I have come out of town to-day about three miles to my 
 daughter Bell s to lie at large and sing the glories of the 
 circling year as Thomson, or who was he, says but more 
 particularly and properly to write to you. She and her hus 
 band, not expecting me, have gone into Boston ; and I am 
 alone in a little library in a garden, held, as it were, to the 
 very breast of June. It is our summer at its best roses 
 hens and chickens green peas honeysuckle cocks 
 crowing a balmy west wind heavy with sweets. I wish, 
 instead of the fierce and gigantic heats and growths and out 
 landish glory and beauty of Caraccas whose end is to be 
 burned you, your children, and Mr. Eames were here 
 * pastoral and pathetic virtuously and contentedly a smell- 
 
1850-1855.] LETTER TO MRS. EAMES. 281 
 
 ing of this new-mown hay and walking with me I, on two 
 crutches say two sticks like the title of some beastly 
 French novel and talking over the old times. You see 
 Boston through the trees, and hear now and then the whistle 
 of invisible cars otherwise, you might fancy yourself fifty 
 thousand globes from cities or steam. These are the places 
 and the moments for that discourse in which is so much more 
 of our happiness than in actualities of duty, or even in hope. 
 
 "I look forward with longing to your coming back. Come 
 unchanged all of you except the children, who are to be 
 bigger, darker, and even handsomer. . . . 
 
 44 1 mean to go out and hear Mr. Everett on the 4th of 
 July, at his native Dorchester. He will outdo himself, and I 
 wish you and Mr. Eames could hear him. He has been inex 
 pressibly kind to rne in my confinement. 
 
 " I am slowly getting well nothing remains of it all but a 
 disabled knee, and that is slowly getting well too. . . . 
 
 " God bless you all. Write by every wind that comes this 
 way. 
 
 "Yours most truly, 
 
 " R. CHOATE." 
 
282 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CIIOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 1855-1858. 
 
 Love of the Union Letter to the Whig Convention at Worcester, 
 October, 1855 Letter to Rev. Chandler Robbins Lecture on 
 the Early British Poets of this century, March, 1856 Sir Walter 
 Scott Political Campaign of 1856 Determines to support Mr. 
 Buchanan Letter to the Whigs of Maine Address at Lowell 
 Letter to J. C. Walsh Professional position His Library 
 Lecture on The Eloquence of Revolutionary Periods, February, 
 1857 Defence of Mrs. Dalton Oration before the Boston Demo 
 cratic Club, July 4th, 1858. 
 
 OF all feelings and sentiments none was stronger in 
 Mr. Choate s mind than the love of country. But it 
 was the whole country, THE ONE UNDIVIDED AND INDI 
 VISIBLE NATION that absorbed his interest. Strongly as 
 he was attached to Massachusetts, and no son ever 
 loved her with a more filial devotion, he saw the 
 greatness of the State in the prosperity of the Union. 
 The narrower virtue was always absorbed in the 
 grander. The large and strong patriotism of Wash 
 ington and Madison and Hamilton and Webster as 
 sumed a new intensity in his bosom. Every speech, 
 every lecture, almost every public utterance of his 
 during his later years, is full of this spirit. It was 
 the side on which his sympathies touched those of the 
 Democratic party, far from it as he ever had been, on 
 so many points of national policy. " There are a good 
 
1855-1858.] LOVE OF THE UNION. 283 
 
 many things," he said in a speech at Worcester, in 
 1848, " that I like in the Democratic party. I like 
 their nationality and their spirit of union, after all. 
 I like the American feeling that pervades the masses." 
 It was this feeling, not merely an intellectual convic 
 tion that the Union was necessary for safety and pros 
 perity, but the nationality, the " country s majestic 
 presence," which led him to oppose every political 
 scheme which looked to less than the welfare of the 
 whole. This feeling of patriotism grew stronger and 
 stronger as he saw others apparently indifferent to it, 
 or proposing measures which, by disregarding the in 
 terests and feelings of large States, would necessarily 
 tend, as he thought, to make them disloyal. 
 
 From the illness of the earlier part of 1855, Mr. 
 Choate recovered sufficiently to enter with some eager 
 ness into the political contests of the autumn. A 
 new party, called, from their secret organization, 
 " Know-nothings," and subsequently claiming the 
 name of " American," had sprung up in several 
 States, and in Massachusetts had made unexpected 
 inroads into both the great parties which, before, had 
 mainly divided the people. The Whigs, however, 
 were not inclined to give up their organization. A 
 convention was holden in Worcester early in October. 
 Mr. Choate was one of the delegates from Boston, and 
 not being able to attend, sent the following letter, the 
 concluding sentence of which has passed into one of 
 the watchwords of patriotism. 
 
284 
 
 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 LETTER TO THE WHIG CONVENTION AT WORCESTER, MASS., 
 
 " BOSTON, October 1, 1865. 
 " Messrs. Peter Butler, Jr., and Bradley N. Cummings, Secretaries, $*c., frc. 
 
 " GENTLEMEN, I discover that my engagements will not 
 allow me to attend the convention to be holden at Worcester 
 to-morrow, and I hope that it is not too late to fill the va 
 cancy. 
 
 " I assure the Whigs of Boston that I should have regarded 
 it as a duty and a privilege, if it had been practicable, to 
 serve as one of their delegates. The business which the con 
 vention meets to do gives it extraordinary attraction as well 
 as importance. 
 
 " Whether we are dead, as reported in the newspapers, or, 
 if not, whether we shall fall upon our own swords and die 
 even so, will be a debate possessing the interest of novelty at 
 least. For one, I deny the death, and object to the suicide, 
 and should be glad to witness the indignation and laughter 
 with which such a question will be taken. 
 
 " If there shall be in that assembly any man, who, still a 
 Whig, or having been such, now proposes to dissolve the 
 party, let him be fully heard and courteously answered upon 
 his reasons. Let him declare what party we shall join. 
 Neutrality in any sharp civil dissension is cowardly, immoral, 
 and disreputable. To what party, then, does he recommend 
 us ? I take it for granted it will not be to the Democratic ; 
 I take it for granted, also, not the American. To what other, 
 then ? To that of fusion certainly, to the Republican, so 
 called, I suppose, because it is organized upon a doctrine, and 
 aims at ends, and appeals to feelings, on which one-half of 
 the Republic, by a geographical line, is irreconcilably opposed 
 to the other. Even to that party. 
 
 " Let him be heard on his reasons for deserting our con 
 nection and joining such an one. To me, the answer to them 
 all, to all such as I have heard, or can imagine, seems ready 
 and decisive. 
 
 " Suppressing entirely all that natural indignation and 
 sense of wounded pride and grief which might be permitted 
 in view of such a proposition to Whigs who remember their 
 history, the names of the good and wise men of the living 
 and dead, that have illustrated their connection, and served 
 their country through it, who remember their grand and 
 large creed of Union, the Constitution, peace with honor, 
 
1855-1858.] LETTER TO THE WHIG CONVENTION. 285 
 
 nationality, the development and culture of all sources of 
 material growth, the education of the people, the industry of 
 the people, suppressing the emotions which Whigs, remem 
 bering this creed and the fruits it has borne, and may yet 
 bear, might well feel towards the tempter and the temptation, 
 the answer to all the arguments for going into fusion is at 
 hand. It is useless, totally, for all the objects of the fusionist, 
 assuming them to be honest and constitutional, useless and 
 prejudicial to those objects ; and it is fraught, moreover, with 
 great evil. What are the objects of the fusionist? To re 
 store the violated compromise, or, if he cannot effect that, to 
 secure to the inhabitants, bondjide such, of the new territory 
 the unforced choice of the domestic institutions which they 
 prefer, a choice certain, in the circumstances of that country 
 now or soon to close it against slavery for ever. These, 
 unless he courts a general disturbance and the revelry of civil 
 battle-fields, are his object ; and when he shall prove that 
 fusion will send to Congress men who will labor with more 
 zeal and more effect to these ends than such Whigs as Mr. 
 Walley is, or as Mr. Rockwell was. with a truer devotion 
 to liberty more obedient to the general sentiment and the 
 specific exactions of the free States with a better chance 
 to touch the reason and heart, and win the co-operation of 
 good men in all sections, when he proves this, you may 
 believe him. We know that the Whig representatives of 
 Massachusetts in Congress do and must completely express 
 the anti-slavery sentiment of Massachusetts, so far as they 
 may be expressed under the Constitution. More than this 
 we do not seek to express while there is yet a Constitution. 
 Fusion is needless for the honest objects of the fusionist. 
 
 " But the evils of disbanding such a party as ours and 
 substituting such a party as that ! See what it fails to do. 
 Here is a new and great political party, which is to govern, if 
 it can, the State of Massachusetts, and to govern, if it can, 
 the American Union. And what are its politics ? It has 
 none. Who knows them ? Even on the topic of slavery, 
 nobody knows, that I am aware of, what in certain it seeks to 
 do, or how much or how little will content it. Loud in 
 general demonstration, it is silent or evasive on particular 
 details. 
 
 " But outside of the topic of slavery, what are its politics ? 
 What, in the most general outline, is its creed of national or 
 State policy ? How does it interpret the Constitution ? What 
 
286 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 is its theory of State rights ? What is its foreign policy ? 
 By what measures ; by what school of politicians ; by what 
 laws or what subjects ; by what diplomacy ; how, generally, 
 does it propose to accomplish that good, and prevent that evil, 
 and to provide for those wants for which States are formed 
 and government established ? Does it know ? Does it tell ? 
 Are its representatives to go to Congress or the Legislature, 
 to speak and vote on slavery only ? If not, on what else, 
 and on which side of it ? 
 
 " A party, a great political party, without politics, is a 
 novelty indeed. Before the people of this country or State 
 enable it to rule them, they will desire, I fancy, a little more 
 information on these subjects. We all, or almost all, of the 
 Free States who recognize the Constitution, think on slavery 
 substantially alike. Before we make men Presidents and 
 Governors and Senators and Judges and Diplomatists, we 
 demand to see what else besides cheap, easy, unavoidable con 
 formity to the sectional faitli on that one topic, they can show 
 for themselves. 
 
 " We elect them not to deliver written lectures to assenting 
 audiences of ladies and gentlemen, to kindle the inflamma 
 ble, and exasperate the angry, but to perform the duties of 
 practical statesmanship in the most complicated and delicate 
 political system, and the hardest to administer in the world. 
 Let us, at least, then, know their politics. Kept totally in 
 the dark about these, we do know that this party of fusion is, 
 in the truest of all senses, and the worst of all senses, a geo 
 graphical party. What argument against it can we add to 
 this ? Such a party, like war, is to be made when it is neces 
 sary. If it is not necessary, it is like war, too, a tremendous 
 and uncompensated evil. When it shall have become neces 
 sary, the eternal separation will have begun. That time, that 
 end, is not yet. Let us not hasten, and not anticipate it, by 
 so rash an innovation as this. 
 
 " Parties in this country heretofore have helped, not de 
 layed, the slow and difficult growth of a consummated nation 
 ality. Our discussions have been sharp ; the contest for 
 honor and power, keen ; the disputes about principles and 
 measures, hot and prolonged. But it was in our country s 
 majestic presence that we contended. It was from her hand 
 that we solicited the prize. Whoever lost or won, we loved 
 her better. Our allies were everywhere. There were no 
 Alleghanies nor Mississippi rivers in our politics. 
 
1855-1858.] LETTER TO REV. CHANDLER ROBBINS. 287 
 
 " Such was the felicity of our condition, that the very dis 
 sensions which rent small republics in twain, welded and 
 compacted the vast fabric of our own. Does he who would 
 substitute for this form of conducting our civil differences a 
 geographical party, completely understand his own work ? 
 Does he consider how vast an educational instrumentality the 
 party life and influence compose ? Does he forget how the 
 public opinion of a people is created, and that when created 
 it determines their history ? All party organization tends 
 towards faction. This is its evil. But it is inseparable from 
 free governments. To choose his political connection aright 
 is the most delicate and difficult duty of the citizen. We 
 have made our choice, and we abide by it. We join our 
 selves to no party that does not carry the flag and keep step to 
 the music of the Union. 
 
 " I am, gentlemen, your fellow-citizen, 
 
 " RUFUS ClIOATE." 
 
 During the election contest a large meeting of the 
 Whigs of Boston and its vicinity was held in Paneuil 
 Hall. It was addressed, among others, by Mr. Choate, 
 in a strain of lofty and urgent patriotism such as has 
 seldom been heard in a State election. His mind 
 soared to heights from which it saw not the temporary 
 interest of a State alone, nor the success of this or 
 that candidate for honorable office, but " the giant 
 forms of empires " on their way to prosperity or ruin. 
 How deeply his mind was moved is attested not only 
 by the speech itself, but by his future action. The 
 election was not favorable to the Whigs, nor yet to the 
 Republicans. A letter written soon afterwards will 
 incidentally show the means by which he solaced him 
 self under defeat, where not the slightest personal 
 interest was at stake, and what were still his hopes. 
 
 To REV. CHANDLER ROBBINS. 
 
 " BOSTON, November 12, 1855. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, Absence from the city since Tuesday has 
 prevented me from expressing my most grateful, my warmest 
 
288 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 thanks for your note. In the circumstances and feelings of 
 the moment, it was soothing in the highest degree. On a 
 more deliberate reading, and le.^s on personal reasons, it has 
 afforded even more gratification. We are the most fortunate 
 of the nations, and owe the largest debt to humanity, with 
 the perfect certainty of paying it, to one hundred cents on 
 the dollar, with interest, and in the natural lifetime of the 
 State, if we will only consent to live on, and obey the law of 
 normal growth. And yet they would enlist what they call 
 the moral sentiment, and incite us to immediate or certain 
 national self-murder. I rejoice with great joy that such dis 
 tempered ethics are disowned of a teacher of religion a 
 cultivated, humane, and just man ; and that a patriotism, 
 whose first care is for the Union * being, before even well- 
 being is regarded of such authority as high among the 
 larger virtues. 
 
 " I may be permitted to say, that although the details and 
 instruments are less satisfactory than could have been wished, 
 the election is a real victory of intense American feeling, in 
 which even you may have pleasure. I think it leaves only 
 two great parties, both national to the cannon s mouth, in the 
 field. 
 
 " Your delightful allusion to Mr. "Webster excites even 
 warmer emotions. I never think of him without recalling 
 the fine, pathetic, unfinished sentence of Burk, in reference 
 to Lord Keppel, On that day I had a loss in Lord Keppel ; 
 but the public loss of him in this awful crisis ! 
 
 " Yet it shall not, I think, be the generation which saw 
 him, that shall witness the overthrow of the system to which 
 he devoted himself with such desperate fidelity. 
 " I am, with the highest regard,- 
 
 "Your obliged humble servant, 
 
 " RUFUS CHOATE." 
 
 The following letter refers to a speech made at a 
 dinner on the birthday of Mr. Webster, where Mr. 
 Everett presided : 
 
 To HON. EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 " Saturday eve, January 19, 1856. 
 
 "DEAR MR. EVERETT, It signifies nothing what I say 
 in all this din and tempest of applause ; but I believe that 
 
1855-1858.] LECTURE ON THE POETS. 289 
 
 nobody is more sincerely glad at your most signal success, 
 and I know that nobody has read you with more delight. It 
 was only within an hour or two that I was so well as to do 
 this carefully, though I heard it all read early in the day. 
 Our mighty friend himself, and even the nature that he so 
 loved, come mended say rather, show clearer and nearer, 
 like those headlands in the Homeric moonlight landscape. I 
 most heartily thank you for presiding ; it has won or con 
 firmed many hearts ; and I can never cease to regret that I 
 could not have seen and heard what all felt to be an effort of 
 extraordinary felicity. 
 
 " I am, very truly, your servant and friend, 
 
 " RUFUS CHOATE." 
 
 Boston has long been noted for its popular lectures. 
 Mr. Choate was frequently solicited to occupy an even 
 ing of the prescribed course ; and notwithstanding 
 the pressure of other engagements, often did so. He 
 generally availed himself of some recent noteworthy 
 event, civil or literary, which served to suggest the 
 eloquent and wise discourse. On the 13th of March, 
 1856, he closed the series of lectures before the Mer 
 cantile Library Association, by an address on " Our 
 Obligations to the British Poets of the first twenty 
 years of this Century." The theme was a favorite one, 
 and carried him back to college days and his earlier 
 life. The lecture was announced, for brevity and con 
 venience, as upon Samuel Rogers, whose death had 
 occurred a few mouths before, although that poet was 
 but one among many whose life and influence were 
 cursorily noticed. 
 
 " I appreciate quite well," he said, " that to a great 
 many of you this once resplendent circle is a little out 
 of the fashion. Their task is done, you say ; their 
 song hath ceased. . . . You began to read fine writing, 
 verse and prose, at a time when other names had 
 
 19 
 
290 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 gained, or were gaining, the large ear of the gentle 
 public, . . . when Eugene Aram, or Ernest Maltrav- 
 ers, or Vivian Grey, or the Pickwick Papers, had begun 
 to elbow Waverley, the Antiquary, and Ivanhoe, off 
 the table ; . . . after the c last new poem began to be 
 more read than the matchless Fourth Canto of Childe 
 Harold, ... or the grand, melancholy, and im 
 mortal Platonisms and Miltonisms of the Excursion. 
 So much the worse for yourselves ! 
 
 " But if there be any in this assembly of the age of 
 fifty or thereabout, you will hold a different theory. 
 You will look back not without delight, to the time, 
 say from 1812 to 1820, when this brilliant and still 
 young school had fairly won the general voice, to 
 that time when exactly as taste, fancy, the emotions, 
 were beginning to unfold and to pronounce themselves, 
 and to give direction to your solitary and voluntary 
 reading, these armed flights of genius came streaming 
 from beyond the sea, that time when as you came 
 into your room from a college recitation in which you 
 had been badly screwed in the eighth proposition on 
 the Ellipse in Webber s Conic Sections, or in some 
 passage of Tacitus in an edition with few notes and a 
 corrupt text, and no translation, you found Rob 
 Roy, or The Astrologer, or The Antiquary, just repub- 
 lished and waiting your hands uncut ; when being 
 asked if there were any thing new, the bookseller would 
 demurely and apologetically say, No, nothing very 
 particular; there was just a Fourth Canto of Childe 
 Harold, or a little pamphlet edition of Manfred, or a 
 thing of Rogers, the author of The Pleasures of 
 Memory, called Human Life, or Lines of Coleridge on 
 a view of the Alps before sunrise in the vale of Cha- 
 
1855-1858.] LECTURE ON THE POETS. 291 
 
 mouny, or The Excursion, or Coriime or Germany of 
 Madame de Stael, nothing else I believe. You who 
 can remember this will sigh and say, 
 
 Twas a light that ne er can shine again 
 On life s dull stream. 
 
 So might you say, whatever their worth intrinsically ; 
 for to you, to us, read in the age of admiration, 
 
 of the first pulse of the emotions beating unwont- 
 edly, associated with college contentions and friend 
 ships ; the walk on the gleaming, Rhine-like, riverside ; 
 the seat of rock and moss under the pine singing of 
 Theocritus ; with all fair ideals revelling in the soul 
 before 
 
 The trumpet call of truth 
 Pealed on the idle dreams of youth, 
 
 to you they had a spell beyond their value and a place 
 in your culture that nothing can share." 
 
 Of them all that constellation of brilliant writers 
 
 no one interested Mr. Choate so much as Sir Walter 
 Scott. The whole lecture is, of necessity, somewhat 
 desultory ; but one cannot well pass by the general 
 tribute to Scott, and the brief defence of him from the 
 criticism of Mr. Carlyle : 
 
 " And now, of all that bright circle, whom shall we 
 say we love best? Each has his choice. Our own 
 moods have them. But do I deceive myself in suppos 
 ing, that if the collective voice of all who speak the 
 language of England could be gathered by ballot, it 
 would award the laurel by about a two-thirds majority 
 to Walter Scott, to the prose romance of Scott ? Of 
 him, no one knows where to begin or end. Consider 
 first, to how many minds, to how many moods of mind, 
 these pages give the pleasure for which books of elegant 
 
292 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 literature are written. To enjoy them, you need be in 
 no specific and induced state ; you need not be gloomy, 
 hating, pursued by a fury, a sorrow, a remorse, or chas 
 ing a pale visionary phantom of love and hope, as you 
 must to read Byron ; you need not be smitten with a 
 turn to mysticism and the transcendental and the Pla 
 tonic, as you must be to relish a great deal of Words 
 worth ; you need not feel any special passion, nor 
 acknowledge any very pronounced vocation, for reform 
 ing school-houses and alms-houses, for shortening the 
 hours and raising the wages of weavers labor, for pull 
 ing down the aristocracy, the offices and Court of 
 Chancery, and reconstructing society in general, as 
 you must to enjoy very much even of our excellent 
 Dickens. You need only to be a man or woman, with 
 a love of reading and snatching your chances in the 
 interstitial spaces of life s idle business to indulge it, 
 and that is all. And why so ? Because that genius 
 was so healthful as well as so large and strong, because 
 that humanity was so comprehensive, because that ca. 
 pacity was so universal, that survey of life so wide 
 and thorough, that knowledge of man in his general 
 nature as well as in his particular, so deep and true ! 
 Therefore it is, he gives you what Homer gives, what 
 Shakspeare gives, not crotchets, not deformities, 
 not abnormal and exceptional things or states, not in 
 tensities, extravagancies, and spasms ; but he gives 
 you an apocalypse of life, from its sublimest moments 
 to its minutest manners, such as never was communi 
 cated but by two other human imaginations. In that 
 panorama of course, as in the mighty, complicated, and 
 many-colored original of nature and history, there are 
 all sorts of things, the jester, the humorist, the appari- 
 
1855-1858.] LECTURE ON THE POETS. 29 
 
 tion from the dead, even as there is the clown grave- 
 digger in Hamlet, the fool in Lear, the drunken porter 
 in Macbeth, Thersites in the Iliad ; but they are in 
 proportion and place. The final aggregate of impres 
 sion is true. You have not read that particular chap 
 ter in the great Book of Life before ; but you recog 
 nize it in a moment ; you learn from it. These men 
 and women you had not known by name ; you see 
 them tried by imaginary and romantic circumstances 
 certainly, but they reveal and illustrate and glorify the 
 genuine humanity whic i you know to be such at its 
 best ; courage, honor, love, truth, principle, duty ; 
 tried on high places and on low ; in the hour of battle ; 
 in the slow approach of death ; in bereavement ; in 
 joy ; in all that varied eventful ebb and flow that makes 
 life. 
 
 " This is the reason, one reason, why so many 
 more, in so many more moods, love him, than any other 
 one in that splendid companionship. True it is no 
 doubt, that even above the sound of a universal and 
 instant popularity, there is a charm beyond. There is 
 a twofold charm beyond. They are, first, the prose 
 romances of a poet ; not the downright prose of Smol 
 lett, of Defoe, and of Fielding, nor the pathetic prose 
 of Richardson, nor the brilliant and elegant prose of 
 Edgeworth, or Hope in Anastasius. They sparkle and 
 burn with that element, impossible to counterfeit, im 
 possible to destroy, a genuine poetry. Sometimes 
 the whole novel is a poem. Who does not feel this in 
 every page of the Bride of Lammcrmoor ? The story 
 is simple, its incidents are few ; yet how like a trag 
 edy, brooded over by Destiny, it sweeps on, from that 
 disturbed funeral of old Lord Ravenswood, the pnr 
 
294 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 cession interrupted the father on the bier the 
 mourning child by his side, outraged under the very 
 arches of the house of death that deep paleness of 
 the cheek of the young son revealing how the agony of 
 his sorrow masters for a space the vehemence of his 
 burning resentment, that awful oath of revenge 
 against the house of his future affianced bride ; how 
 it sweeps on, from this burial service presided over by 
 doom, through those unutterable agonies of two hearts, 
 to the successive and appalling death-scenes ; how 
 every incident and appendage s wells the dark and swift 
 tide of destiny ; how highly wrought how vivid 
 how spontaneous in metaphor, is every scene and dia 
 logue ; to what fervor and exaltation of mind to 
 what keen susceptibility of emotion to how towering 
 and perturbed a mood of imagination, all the dramatis 
 personce seem elevated ! In the same sense in which 
 the CEdipus or the Agamemnon is a tragic poem, so is 
 this ; and the glorious music of the opera, is scarcely 
 passionate and mournful enough to relieve the over- 
 burthened and over-wrought heart and imagination of 
 the reader. 
 
 " And when the whole romance is not a poem in its 
 nature, in model, as Waverley, the Antiquary and the 
 Astrologer and Kenilworth and Ivanhoe are not, how 
 does the element of poetry yet blend and revel in it ! 
 In what other prose romances of any literature, in how 
 many romances in verse, do you find pictures of scen 
 ery so bold, just, and free, such judgment in choos 
 ing, and enthusiasm in feeling, and energy in sketching, 
 an unequalled landscape, identified by its own incom 
 municable beauty and grandeur ? Where else but iu 
 the finest of tragedies do you find the persons of the scene 
 
1855-1858.] LECTURE ON THE POETS. 295 
 
 brought together and interacting in speech and figure 
 so full of life, the life of a real presence, the life 
 flashing from the eye, trembling in the tones of voice, 
 shaking the strong man s frame, speaking in the elo 
 quent face ? Who has sketched the single combat, the 
 shock of ancient and modern battle, the assault, the. 
 repulse, the final storm, like him ? Recall that contest 
 with night, ocean, and tempest, in which Sir Arthur 
 and Isabella are rescued in the Antiquary ; and con 
 trast that other also in the Antiquary, the fisherman s 
 funeral, the bier of the young man drowned the 
 passionate, natural sobs of the mother the sullen 
 and fierce grief of the father, shaking in its energy 
 the bed beneath whose canopy he had hidden his face 
 
 the old grandmother, linking by a strange tie the 
 guilt, the punishment of the proud house of Glenallan, 
 to this agony of humble life. Over what other prose 
 volumes do you find strewn broadcast with the prodi 
 gality of a happy nature, so much simile and metaphor, 
 
 the vocabulary, the pearls, gems, and coral of 
 the language, and the thoughts of poetry ? What 
 would you think to come, in Fielding or Smollett or 
 Richardson or Defoe, on such a passage as this : It is 
 my Leicester! It is my noble Earl! It is my Dud 
 ley ! Every stroke of his horse s hoof sounds like a 
 note of lordly music ! Or this : Major Bridgenorth 
 glided along this formal society with noiseless step, 
 and a composed severity of manner resembling their 
 own. He paused before each in succession, and ap 
 parently communicated, as he passed, the transactions 
 of the evening, and the circumstances under which the 
 heir of Martindale Castle was now a guest of Moul- 
 trassie Hall. Each seemed to stir at his brief detail, 
 
296 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 like a range of statues in an enchanted hall, starting 
 into something like life as a talisman is applied to 
 them successively. 
 
 " I know, too, what interest and what value their 
 historical element gives to these fictions. Like all this 
 class of fiction in all literature, their theme is domestic 
 life, and nature under the aspects of domestic life. 
 But his is domestic life on which there streams the 
 mighty influence of a great historical conjuncture. 
 That interest indescribable which attaches ever to a 
 people and a time over which dark care, an urgent 
 peril, a vast apprehension is brooding ; a crisis of war, 
 of revolution, of revolt, that interest is spread on all 
 things, the minutest incident, the humblest sufferer, 
 the conversations of boors on the road or at the ale 
 house ; every thing little or high is illustrative and rep 
 resentative. The pulses of a sublime national move 
 ment beat through the universal human nature of 
 the drama. The great tides of historical and public 
 existence flow there and ebb, and all things rise and 
 fall on those resistless forces. The light of the castle 
 stormed and on fire streams in through the open door 
 of some smallest cottager ; and lovers are kept asunder 
 by a war of succession to thrones. 
 
 ** To one of his detractors, let me say one word. 
 
 " It has pleased Mr. Thomas Carlyle to record of 
 these novels, The sick heart will find no healing 
 here, the darkly struggling heart no guidance, the 
 heroic that is in all men no divine, awakening voice. 
 These be sonorous words assuredly. In one sense I 
 am afraid that is true of any and all mere romantic 
 literature. As disparagement of Scott it is a simple 
 absurdity of injustice. In any adequate sense of these 
 
1855-1858.] LECTURE ON THE POETS. 297 
 
 expressions, Homer and Shakspeare must answer, 
 These are not mine to give/ To heal that sickness, 
 to pour that light on that gloom, to awaken that sleep 
 of greatness in the soul in the highest sense, far other 
 provision is demanded, and is given. In the old, old 
 time, Hebrew, Pagan, some found it in the very 
 voice of God ; some in the visits of the angel ; some 
 in a pilgrimage to the beautiful Jerusalem ; some in 
 the message of the Prophet, till that succession had its 
 close ; some sought it rather thai; found it, like Soc 
 rates, like Plato, like Cicero, like Cato, in the thoughts 
 of their own and other mighty minds turned to the 
 direct search of truth, in the philosophy of specula 
 tion, in the philosophy of duty, in the practice of pub 
 lic life. To us only, and at last, is given the true light. 
 For us only is the great Physician provided. In our 
 ears, in theirs whose testimony we assuredly believe, 
 the divine awakening voice has been articulately and 
 first spoken. In this sense, what he says would be 
 true of Homer, Shakspeare, Dante, Milton ; but no 
 more true of Scott than of Goethe or Schiller. 
 Neither is, or gives, religion to the soul, if it is that of 
 which he speaks. But if this is not his meaning, 
 and I suppose it is not, if he means to say that by 
 the same general treatment, by the same form of suf 
 fering humanity, by which Homer, Virgil, Dante, 
 Shakspeare heal the sick heart, give light to the dark 
 ened eye, and guidance to blundering feet, and kindle 
 the heroic in man to life, if he means to say that as 
 they have done it he has not in kind, in supreme de 
 gree, let the millions whose hours of unrest, anguish, 
 and fear he has charmed away, to the darkness of 
 whose desponding he has given light, to whose senti- 
 
298 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 ments of honor, duty, courage, truth, manliness, he 
 has given help let them gather around the Capitol 
 and answer for themselves and him. I am afraid that 
 that Delphic and glorious Madame de Stael knew sick 
 ness of the heart in a sense and with a depth too true 
 only ; and she had, with other consolation, the fisher 
 man s funeral in the Antiquary read to her on her 
 death-bed ; as Charles Fox had the kindred but un 
 equal sketches of Crabbe s Village read on his. 
 
 " And so of this complaint, that the heroic in man 
 finds here no divine, awakening voice. If by this 
 heroic in man he means what assuming religious 
 traits out of the question we who speak the tongue 
 of England and hold the ethics of Plato, of Cicero, of 
 Jeremy Taylor and Edmund Burke, should understand, 
 religion now out of the question, that sense of 
 obligation, pursuing us ever, omnipresent like the 
 Deity, ever proclaiming that the duties of life are more 
 than life, that principle of honor that feels a stain 
 like a wound, that courage that fears God and knows 
 no other fear, that dares do all that may become a man, 
 truth on the lips and in the inward parts, that love 
 of our own native land, comprehensive and full love, 
 the absence of which makes even the superb art-world 
 of Goethe dreamy and epicurean, manliness, equal 
 to all offices of war or peace, above jealousy, above in 
 justice, if this is the heroic, and if by the divine 
 awakening voice he meant that artistic and literary 
 culture fitted to develop and train this quality, that 
 voice is Scott s. 
 
 " I will not compare him with Carlyle s Goethe or 
 even Schiller, or any other idol on the Olympus of his 
 worship ; that were flippant and indecorous, nor within 
 
1855-1858.] LECTURE ON THE POETS. 299 
 
 my competence. But who and where, in any litera 
 ture, in any walk of genius, has sketched a character, 
 imagined a situation, conceived an austerity of glori 
 fied suffering, better adapted to awaken all of the heroic 
 in man or woman, that it is fit to awaken, than Rebecca 
 in act to leap from the dizzy verge of the parapet of 
 the Castle to escape the Templar, or awaiting the bit 
 terness of death in the list of Templestowe and reject 
 ing the championship of her admirer ? or than 
 Jeanie Deans refusing an untruth to save her innocent 
 sister s life and then walking to London to plead for 
 her before the Queen, and so pleading? than Mac- 
 briar in that group of Covenanters in Old Mortality 
 in presence of the Privy Council, confessing for him 
 self, whom terror, whom torture, could not move to the 
 betrayal of another ; accepting sentence of death, after 
 anguish unimaginable, his face radiant with joy ; a trial 
 of manhood and trust, a sublimity of trial, a manifesta 
 tion of the heroic to which the self-sacrifice of a Leoni- 
 das and his three hundred was but a wild and glad 
 revelry, a march to the Dorian music of flutes and 
 soft recorders, a crowning, after the holiday conten 
 tion of the games, with all of glory a Greek could 
 covet or conceive. 
 
 " I rode in the August of 1850, with a friend and 
 kinsman, now dead, from Abbotsford to Dryburgh, from 
 the home to the grave of Walter Scott. We asked the 
 driver if he knew on which side of the Tweed the fu 
 neral procession, a mile in length, went down. He 
 did not know. But what signified it ? Our way lay 
 along its south bank. On our right rose the three 
 peaks of the cloven summit of Eildon ; fair Melrose, 
 in its gray ruin, immortal as his song, the Tweed, 
 
300 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 whose murmur came in on his ear when lie was dying, 
 were on our left ; the Scotland of the Lay of the Last 
 Minstrel, hathed in the mild harvest sunlight, was 
 around us ; and when we came within that wide in- 
 closure at the Ahbey of Dryburgh, in which they have 
 laid him down, we could then feel how truly that deep 
 sob, which is said to have burst in that moment from 
 a thousand lips, was but predictive and symbolical of 
 the mourning of mute Nature for her worshipper ; of 
 Scotland for the crown of her glory ; of the millions 
 of long generations for their companion and their 
 benefactor." 
 
 The year 1856 was a year of political excitement. 
 The Democratic party nominated Mr. Buchanan for 
 the Presidency, and the Republicans, Col. Fremont ; 
 still another party, composed of those who called them 
 selves " Americans," had nominated Mr. Fillmore. 
 Mr. Choate did not entirely sympathize with either of 
 these parties, and for some time was in doubt what 
 position to take. To be neutral he thought unbecom 
 ing, when great interests seemed to be at stake, nor 
 was he willing to throw away his influence where there 
 was no chance of success, especially where his convic 
 tions did not impel him to act. He meditated long 
 and anxiously, taking counsel of none, because he de 
 termined to act independently. A separation from old 
 friends, even temporarily, gave him real sorrow, yet to 
 follow any party founded on geographical principles, 
 or which would divide the States by a geographical 
 line, seemed to him, not only repugnant to the counsels 
 of Washington and the fathers of the Republic, but so 
 unstatesmanlike and dangerous that he could not re- 
 
1855-1858.] LETTER TO MAINE WHIG COMMITTEE. 301 
 
 gard it with favor. A letter to Mr. Evarts, of New 
 York, who had recently made a speech in favor of the 
 Republican party, indicates this feeling. 
 
 To WM. M. EVARTS, ESQ. 
 
 u DEAR MR. EVARTS, I thank you for your courtesy in 
 the transmitting of the speech. I had read it before, and for 
 that matter, there has been nothing else in my papers since, 
 except the proceedings in the matter of poor Hoffman. Both 
 the political and the eulogistic are excellent. To say that 
 I see my way clear to act with you were premature. Bless 
 ings are bought with a price. We may pay too high for good 
 sentiments and desirable policy. I hate some of your asso 
 ciates and recognize no necessity at all for a Presidential cam 
 paign on platforms less broad than the whole area. . . . 
 
 " Most truly yours, R. CHOATE." 
 
 The first distinct intimation that he gave of his 
 probable political course was in a note to Mr. Everett. 
 It was little more than a conjecture, however, hardly a 
 declaration of a fixed purpose ; yet he was not timid 
 in declaring his opinions when fully formed and the 
 occasion demanded it, and in his letter to the Whigs 
 of Maine, dated the 9th of August, he unhesitatingly 
 affirmed his position. This letter was in answer to an 
 urgent request from the Whig State Committee to ad 
 dress the people at a mass meeting in Waterville. 
 
 To E. W. PARLEY, and other gentlemen, of the Maine Whig State 
 Central Committee. 
 
 "BOSTON, Aug. 9, 1856. 
 
 "GENTLEMEN, Upon my return last evening, after a 
 short absence from the city, 1 found your letter of the 30th 
 ult., inviting me to take part in the proceedings of the Whigs 
 of Maine, assembled in mass meeting. 
 
 " I appreciate most highly the honor and kindness of this 
 invitation, and should have had true pleasure in accepting it. 
 The Whigs of Maine composed at all times so important a 
 division of the great national party, which, under that name, 
 
2 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CIIOATE. [CRAP. IX. 
 
 with or without official power, as a responsible administration, 
 or as only an organized opinion, has done so much for our 
 country, our whole country, and your responsibilities at 
 this moment are so vast and peculiar, that I acknowledge an 
 anxiety to see not wait to hear with what noble bearing 
 you meet the demands of the time. If the tried legions, to 
 whom it is committed to guard the frontier of the Union, 
 falter now, who, anywhere, can be trusted? 
 
 " My engagements, however, and the necessity or expedi 
 ency of abstaining from all speech requiring much effort, will 
 prevent my being with you. And yet, invited to share in 
 your counsels, and grateful for such distinction, J cannot 
 wholly decline to declare my own opinions on one of the duties 
 of the Whigs, in what you well describe as the present 
 crisis in the political affairs of the country . I cannot now, 
 and need not, pause to elaborate or defend them. What I 
 think, and what I have decided to do, permit rue in the brief 
 est and plainest expression to tell you. 
 
 " The first duty, then, of Whigs, not merely as patriots 
 and as citizens, loving, with a large and equal love, our 
 whole native land, but as Whigs, and because we are 
 Whigs, is to unite with some organization of our countrymen, 
 to defeat and dissolve the new geographical party, calling 
 itself Republican. This is our first duty. It would more 
 exactly express my opinion to say that at this moment it is 
 our only duty. Certainly, at least, it comprehends and sus 
 pends all others ; and in my judgment, the question for each 
 and every one of us is, not whether this candidate or that 
 candidate would be our first choice, not whether there is 
 some good talk in the worst platform, and some bad talk in 
 the best platform, not whether this man s ambition, or that 
 man s servility or boldness or fanaticism or violence, is respon 
 sible for putting the wild waters in this uproar; but just 
 this, by what vote can I do most to prevent the madness 
 of the times from working its maddest act, the very ecstasy 
 of its madness, the permanent formation and the actual 
 present triumph of a party which knows one-half of America 
 only to hate and dread it, from whose unconsecrated and 
 revolutionary banner fifteen stars are erased or have fallen, 
 in whose national anthem the old and endeared airs of the 
 Eutaw Springs and the King s Mountain and Yorktown, and 
 those, later, of New Orleans and Buena Vista and Chapulte- 
 pec, breathe no more. To this duty, to this question, all 
 
1855-1858.] LETTER TO MAINE WHIG COMMITTEE. 303 
 
 others seem to me to stand for the present postponed and 
 secondary. 
 
 " And why ? Because, according to our creed, it is only 
 the united America which can peacefully, gradually, safely, 
 improve, lift up, and bless, with all social and personal and 
 civil blessings, all the races and all the conditions which com 
 pose our vast and various family, it is such an America, 
 only, whose arm can guard our flag, develop our resources, 
 extend our trade, and fill the measure of our glory ; and be 
 cause, according to our convictions, the triumph of such a 
 party puts the Union in danger. That is my reason. And 
 for you and for me and for all of us, in whose regards the Union 
 possesses such a value, and to whose fears it seems menaced 
 by such a danger, it is reason enough. Believing the noble 
 Ship of State to be within a half cable s length of a lee 
 shore of rock, in a gale of wind, our first business is to put 
 her about, and crowd her off into the deep, open sea. That 
 done, we can regulate the stowage of her lower tier of powder, 
 and select her cruising ground, and bring her officers to court- 
 martial at our leisure. 
 
 " If there are any in Maine and among the Whigs of 
 Maine I hope there is not one but if there are any, in 
 whose hearts strong passions, vaulting ambition, jealousy .of 
 men or sections, unreasoning and impatient philanthropy, or 
 whatever else have turned to hate or coldness the fraternal 
 blood and quenched the spirit of national life at its source, 
 with whom the union of slave States and free States under 
 the actual Constitution is a curse, a hindrance, a reproach, 
 with those of course our view of our duty and the reason of 
 it, are a stumbling-block and foolishness. To such you can 
 have nothing to say, and from such you can have nothing to 
 hope. But if there are those again who love the Union as 
 we love it, and prize it as we prize it, who regard it as we 
 do, not merely as a vast instrumentality for the protection of 
 our commerce and navigation, and for achieving power, emi 
 nence, and name among the sovereigns of the earth, but as a 
 means of improving the material lot, and elevating the moral 
 and mental nature and insuring the personal happiness of the 
 millions of many distant generations, if there are those 
 who think thus justly of it, and yet hug the fatal delusion 
 that, because it is good, it is necessarily immortal, that it will 
 thrive without care, that anj thing created by a man s will is 
 above or stronger than his will, that because the reason and 
 
304 MEMOIR OF KUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 virtues of our age of reason and virtue could build it, the 
 passions and stimulations of a day of frenzy cannot pull it 
 down ; if such there are among you, to them address your 
 selves with all the earnestness and all the eloquence of men 
 who feel that some greater interest is at stake, and some 
 mightier cause in hearing, than ever yet tongue has pleaded 
 or trumpet proclaimed. Jf such minds and hearts are reached, 
 all is safe. But how specious and how manifold are the soph 
 isms by which they are courted ! 
 
 " ; They hear and they read much ridicule of those who fear 
 that a geographical party does endanger the Union. But can 
 they forget that our greatest, wisest, and most hopeful states 
 men have always felt, and have all, in one form or another, 
 left on record their own fear of such a party ? The judg 
 ments of Washington, Madison, Clay, Webster, on the dangers 
 of the American Union are they worth nothing to a con 
 scientious love of it ? What they dreaded as a remote and 
 improbable contingency that against which they cautioned, 
 as they thought, distant generations that which they were 
 so happy as to die without seeing is upon us. And yet 
 some men would have us go on laughing and singing, like the 
 traveller in the satire, with his pockets empty, at a present 
 peril, the mere apprehension of which, as a distant and bare 
 possibility, could sadden the heart of the Father of his Coun 
 try, and dictate the grave and grand warning of the Farewell 
 Address. 
 
 " They hear men say that such a party ought not to en 
 danger the Union ; that, although it happened to be formed 
 within one geographical section, and confined exclusively to 
 it, although its end and aim is to rally that section against 
 the other on a question of morals, policy, and feeling, on 
 which the two differ eternally and uuappeasably, although, 
 from the nature of its origin and objects, no man in the 
 section outside can possibly join it, or accept office under it, 
 without infamy at home, although, therefore, it is a stupen 
 dous organization, practically to take power and honor, and a 
 full share of the government, from our whole family of States, 
 and bestow them, substantially, all upon the antagonist family, 
 although the doctrines of human rights, which it gathers out 
 of the Declaration of Independence that passionate and 
 eloquent manifesto of a revolutionary war and adopts as 
 its fundamental ideas, announce to any Southern apprehension 
 a crusade of the government against slavery, far without and 
 
1855-1858.] LETTER TO MAINE WHIG COMMITTEE. 305 
 
 beyond Kansas, although the spirit and tendency of its 
 electioneering appeals, as a whole, in prose and verse, the 
 leading articles of its papers, and the speeches of its orators, 
 are to excite contempt and hate, or fear, of one entire geo 
 graphical section, and hate or dread or contempt is the 
 natural impression it all leaves on the Northern mind and 
 heart ; yet that no body anywhere ought to be angry, or 
 ought to be frightened ; that the majority must govern, and 
 that the North is a majority ; that it is ten to one nothing will 
 happen ; that, if worst comes to worst, the South knows it is 
 wholly to blame, and needs the Union more than we do, and 
 will be quiet accordingly. 
 
 " But do they who hold this language forget that the ques 
 tion is not what ought to endanger the Union, but what will 
 do it ? Is it man as he ought to be, or man as he is, that we 
 must live with or live alone ? In appreciating the influences 
 which may disturb a political system, and especially one like 
 ours, do you make no allowance for passions, for pride, for 
 infirmity, for the burning sense of even imaginary wrong ? 
 Do you assume that all men, or all masses of men in all sec 
 tions, uniformly obey reason ; and uniformly wisely see and 
 calmly seek their true interests ? Where on earth is such a 
 fool s Paradise as that to be found ? Conceding to the people 
 of the fifteen States the ordinary and average human nature, 
 its good aud its evil, its weakness and its strength, I, for one, 
 dare not say that the triumph of such a party ought not to be 
 expected naturally and probably to disunite the States. With 
 my undoubting convictions, I know that it would be folly and 
 immorality in men to wish it. Certainly there are in all sec 
 tions and in all States those who love the Union, under the 
 actual Constitution, as Washington did, as Jay, Hamilton, 
 and Madison did ; as Jackson, as Clay, as Webster loved it. 
 Such even is the hereditary and the habitual sentiment of 
 the general American heart. But he has read life and books 
 to little purpose who has not learned that * bosom friendships 
 may be to resentment soured/ and that no hatred is so keen, 
 deep, and precious as that. 
 
 And to be wroth with one we love 
 Doth work like madness in the brain. 
 
 He has read the book of our history to still less purpose, who 
 has not learned that the friendships of these States, sisters 
 but rivals, sovereigns each, with a public life, and a body of 
 
 20 
 
306 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CIIOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 interests, and sources of honor and shame of its own and with 
 in itself, distributed into two great opposing groups, are of all 
 human ties most exposed to such rupture and such transfor 
 mation. 
 
 " I have not time in these hasty lines, and there is no need, 
 to speculate on the details of the modes in which the triumph 
 of this party would do its work of evil. Its mere struggle 
 to obtain the government, as that struggle is conducted, is 
 mischievous to an extent incalculable. That thousands of the 
 good men who have joined it deplore this is certain, but that 
 does not mend the matter. I appeal to the conscience and 
 honor of my country that if it were the aim of a great party, 
 by every species of access to the popular mind, by elo 
 quence, by argument, by taunt, by sarcasm, by recrimination, 
 by appeals to pride, shame, and natural right, to prepare 
 the nation for a struggle with Spain or England or Austria, 
 it could not do its business more thoroughly. Many persons, 
 many speakers, many, very many, set a higher and wiser 
 example ; but the work is doing. 
 
 " If it accomplishes its objects and gives the government 
 to the North, I turn my eyes from the consequences. To 
 the fifteen States of the South that government will appear 
 an alien government. It will appear worse. It will appear 
 a hostile government. It will represent to their eye a vast 
 region of States organized upon anti-slavery, flushed by tri 
 umph, cheered onward by the voices of the pulpit, tribune, 
 and press ; its mission to inaugurate freedom and put down 
 the oligarchy ; its constitution the glittering and sounding 
 generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration 
 of Independence. And then and thus is the beginning of the 
 end. 
 
 " If a necessity could be made out for such a party we 
 might submit to it as to other unavoidable evil, and other cer 
 tain danger. But where do they find that ? Where do they 
 pretend to find it ? Is it to keep slavery out of the territo 
 ries ? There is not one but Kansas in which slavery is 
 possible. No man fears, no man hopes, for slavery in Utah, 
 New Mexico, Washington, or Minnesota. A national party 
 to give them freedom is about as needful and about as feasi 
 ble as a national party to keep Maine for freedom. And 
 Kansas ! Let that abused and profaned soil have calm within 
 its borders ; deliver it over to the natural law of peaceful 
 and spontaneous immigration ; take off the ruffian hands ; 
 
1855-1858.] LETTER TO MAINE WHIG COMMITTEE. 307 
 
 strike down the rifle and the bowie-knife ; guard its strenuous 
 infancy and youth till it comes of nge to choose for itself, 
 and it will choose freedom for itself, and it will have for ever 
 what it chooses. 
 
 " When this policy, so easy, simple, and just, is tried and 
 fails, it will be time enough to resort to revolution. It is in 
 part because the duty of protection to the local settler was 
 not performed, that the Democratic party has already by the 
 action of its great representative Convention resolved to put 
 out of office its own administration. That lesson will not 
 and must not be lost on anybody. The country demands 
 that Congress, before it adjourns, give that territory peace. 
 If it do, time will inevitably give it freedom. 
 
 " I have hastily and imperfectly expressed my opinion 
 through the unsatisfactory forms of a letter, as to the im 
 mediate duty of Whigs. We are to do what we can to defeat 
 and disband the geographical party. But by what specific 
 action we can most effectually contribute to such a result is a 
 question of more difficulty. It seems now to be settled that 
 we present no candidate of our own. If we vote at all, then, 
 we vote for the nominees of the American or the nominees of 
 the Democratic party. As between them I shall not venture 
 to counsel the Whigs of Main j , but I deem it due to frank 
 ness and honor to say, that while I entertain a high apprecia 
 tion of the character and ability of Mr. Fillmore, 1 do not 
 sympathize in any degree with the objects and creed of the 
 particular party that nominated him, and do not approve of 
 their organization and their tactics. Practically, too, the con 
 test in my judgment is between Mr. Buchanan and Col. 
 Fremont. In these circumstances, I vote for Mr. Buchanan. 
 He has large experience in public affairs; his commanding 
 capacity is universally acknowledged; his life is without a 
 stain. I am constrained to add that he seems at this moment, 
 by the concurrence of circumstances, more completely than 
 any other, to represent that sentiment of nationality, tolerant, 
 warm, and comprehensive, without which, without increase 
 of which, America is no longer America ; and to possess the 
 power and I trust the disposition to restore and keep that 
 peace, within our borders, and without, for which our hearts 
 all yearn, which all our interests demand, through which and 
 by which alone we may hope to grow to the true greatness 
 of nations. " Very respectfully, 
 
 " Your fellow-citizen, 
 
 " Rurus CHOATE." 
 
308 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 Tliis letter was no sooner published than solicitations 
 came, almost without number, to take part in the po 
 litical campaign. Committees from New York and 
 Philadelphia urged him with an importunity which it 
 was very difficult to resist. He determined at last to 
 make one speech, and but one. He chose the place, 
 Lowell, an important manufacturing city in Middle 
 sex County, the county which holds Bunker Hill and 
 Lexington. An immense crowd assembled to hear 
 him on the 28th of October. It was an unwonted and 
 hard thing for him to leave, even for a time, those with 
 whom he had always been politically associated, and 
 join those whom he had always opposed. If ever 
 one were controlled by a high sense of public duty, he 
 certainly was in that difficult step. He sought neither 
 honor, nor office, nor emolument ; nothing but the 
 greater safety and welfare of the country could repay 
 him. There was a tone of deprecation in some parts 
 of the speech which marked his deep feeling. " Cer 
 tainly," he said, " somewhat there is in the position of 
 all of us a little trying. Ties of years which knit some 
 of us together are broken. Cold regards are turned 
 on us, and bitter language, and slander cruel as the 
 grave, is ours. 
 
 I cannot but remember such things were, 
 That were most precious to me. 
 
 You have decided, Fellow-Whigs, that you can best 
 contribute to the grand end we all seek, by a vote 
 for Mr. Fillmore. I, a Wjiiigall^my^ life, a Whig in all 
 things, and as regards all"otHeriiames, a Whig to-day, 
 have thought I could discharge my duty most effect 
 ually by voting for Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Breckin- 
 
1855-1858.] ADDRESS AT LOWELL. 309 
 
 ridge ; and I shall do it. The justice I am but too 
 happy in rendering you, will you deny to me ? In do 
 ing this I neither join the Democratic party, nor retract 
 any opinion on the details of its policy, nor acquit it of 
 its share of blame in bringing on the agitations of the 
 hour. . . . There never was an election contest that, 
 in denouncing the particulars of its policy, I did not 
 admit that the characteristic of the Democratic party 
 was this, that it had burned ever with the great master- 
 passion this hour demands, a youthful, vehement, 
 exultant, and progressive nationality. Through some 
 errors, into some perils, it has been led by it ; it may 
 be so again ; we may require to temper and restrain 
 it ; but to-day we need it all, we need it all! the hopes, 
 the boasts, the pride, the universal tolerance, the gay 
 and festive defiance of foreign dictation, the flag, the 
 music, all the emotions, all the traits, all the energies, 
 that have won their victories of war, and their miracles 
 of national advancement, the country needs them all 
 now, to win a victory of peace. That done, I will pass 
 again, happy and content, into that minority of con 
 servatism in which I have passed my life." 
 
 The meeting had assembled in the largest hall in the 
 city, which was densely packed. It was estimated 
 that from four to five thousand persons were present. 
 The committee of arrangements, with the orator, could 
 with great difficulty force their way to the platform. 
 The meeting was soon organized, and the president had 
 hardly begun to make a preliminary address, when a 
 dull, heavy sound like a distant cannon was heard, 
 and the floor evidently yielded. A general fright 
 seemed to pervade the audience, which was assuaged 
 only by assurances of safety, and that an examination 
 
310 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 of the supports of the building should at once be made 
 by an experienced architect. The agitation having 
 subsided, Mr. Choate rose and was hailed with a storm 
 of applause, such as even he had rarely heard before. 
 He proceeded for nearly half an hour, when again that 
 ominous sound was heard, and the floor was felt sink 
 ing as before. Mr. Choate paused, and the fear of the 
 crowd was partially quieted a second time by an assur 
 ance of an immediate inspection of the building, and if 
 it should not be found safe, an adjournment to some 
 other place. The architect who first went to examine 
 the supports had not come back. General Butler, 
 who was presiding, said that he would go and ascertain 
 the condition of things, and return and report. He 
 went, and to his horror found that several of the rods 
 by which the floor was sustained had drawn through 
 the timbers, that the ceiling below was opening, and 
 that the slightest movement or demonstration of ap 
 plause would be likely to bring the floor, the roof, and 
 probably the walls, to the ground, with a destruction 
 of life too awful to think of. Comprehending all the 
 peril, he forced his way in again through the crowd, 
 till he reached the platform, and then calmly address 
 ing the audience told them that though there might be 
 no immediate danger, as they had been interrupted 
 twice and some were timid, it would be best quietly 
 and without haste to leave the hall. This is the place 
 of greatest danger, he said, and I shall stand here 
 till all have gone out. The hall was at once cleared, 
 those on the platform going last ; and it is said that as 
 they were walking out the floor again sprung for an 
 inch or two. Not till all were safe, did they under 
 stand the imminent peril in which they had been ; how 
 
1855-1858.] LETTER TO JOHN CARROLL WALSH. 311 
 
 near to a catastrophe, to which that of the Pemberton Mill 
 might have been a mercy. The crowd soon forgot the 
 danger, and were so eager for the continuance of the 
 speech, that Mr. Choate, who had retired to the hotel, 
 and was suffering from an incipient illness, addressed 
 the assembled masses for some time from a platform 
 hastily erected in front of one of the windows. 
 
 It was natural that his determination to vote for Mr. 
 Buchanan should be regarded with sorrow by those 
 with whom he had always been associated, and perhaps 
 not very surprising that he should have received 
 anonymous letters filled with abuse and threats, some 
 of them frightful in their malignity. After the elec 
 tion, it was intimated to him, that any honorable posi 
 tion under the government, that he might desire, would 
 be at his disposal. But he was determined to receive 
 nothing, nor allow the remotest suspicion to attach to 
 his motives. Some doubted the necessity or the wis 
 dom of his course ; but none who knew him distrusted 
 the depth and sincerity of his convictions, or the im 
 maculate purity of his patriotism. Misjudgment and 
 censure he expected to receive, but charges of merce 
 nary or malignant motives he could not overlook. Such 
 having been brought to his notice as made in Maryland, 
 he replied to his informant by the following letter : - 
 
 To JOHN CARROLL WALSH, Harford Co., Maryland. 
 
 " Boston, Sept. 15, 1856. 
 
 "DEAR SIR, Your letter informing me that Mr. Davis 
 asserted in a public speech that the secret of my opposition to 
 Mr. Fillmore was disappointment, created by not receiving 
 from him an office which I sought and desired, was received a 
 little out of time. I thank you for affording me an opportu 
 nity to answer, at the first moment of hearing it, a statement 
 so groundless and so unjust. There is not a particle of truth 
 
312 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 in it, nor is there any thing to color or to suggest Ms infor 
 mant s falsehood. I authorize and request you, if you attach 
 a iv importance to the matter, to give it the most absolute and 
 comprehensive denial. I never sought an office from Mr. 
 Fillmore directly or indirectly, and never requested or author 
 ized any other person to do so for me, and never believed for 
 a moment, or su-pected, and do not now believe or suspect, 
 that any one has done so, or has even mentioned my name to 
 him in connection with an office. Mr. Fillmore never had a 
 place in his gift which I desired, or which I could have af 
 forded to accept, even if I had thought myself competent to 
 fill it, or for which I could, under any circumstances, have ex 
 changed the indispensable labor of my profession. Personal 
 complaint of Mr. Fillmore I have not the slightest reason to 
 make ; and he who thinks it worth his while to conjecture 
 why I shall not vote for him, must accept from me, or fabri 
 cate for himself, a different explanation. 
 
 44 With great regard, your servant and fellow-citizen, 
 
 " RCFUS CHOATE." 
 
 The key to Mr. Choate s public life, especially his 
 later life, may be found in two grand motives : the 
 first, his strong American feeling ; the second, his love 
 of the Union. The former led him to sustain the 
 country, its institutions, and public policy, as dis 
 tinguished from those of the Old World. The latter 
 made him as careful of the rights, as respectful to the 
 feelings, the sentiments, the habits, of the South as of 
 the North, of the West as of the East. He felt that 
 sufficient time had not yet elapsed thoroughly to prove 
 the power and virtues of the Republic, or suggest an 
 adequate remedy for its defects. He felt that to per 
 petuate a government strong but liberal considerate 
 of every interest and oppressive of none requires 
 great breadth and intensity of patriotism, much for 
 bearance of sectional ignorance and prejudice, a con 
 ciliatory and just spirit, a large prudence, and a liberal 
 regard to wants and interests as diverse as the races 
 
1855-1858.] HIS LIBRARY. 313 
 
 which march under the one national banner, and pro 
 fess allegiance to a common government, or the produc 
 tions and pursuits of our various climate and soil. 
 The State he loved, as one would love a father. The 
 faults of the State he would not make the ground of 
 party exultation, or parade them for universal, indis 
 criminate, and barren censure, but would rather shun, 
 and if possible cure, or at least cover with a filial 
 sorrow, diclitans, domestica mala tristitia operienda. 
 He shared largely the fears of the wisest and most far- 
 sighted statesmen, but still trusted that under a mag 
 nanimous public policy, time would more completely 
 consolidate the races and States, evils would be gradu 
 ally corrected, and the spirit of nationality deeply 
 imbedded in the affections and interests would rise 
 supreme over every local ambition or sectional scheme. 
 Mr. Choate s position was now such as any one might 
 envy. As a statesman, his ideas and policy had noth 
 ing narrow or sectional. They embraced the welfare 
 of the whole country, and of every part of it. He was 
 identified with whatever in patriotism was most gener 
 ous and unselfish. In his profession he had won the 
 love, as well as the admiration, of his brethren. He 
 stood at the head of the New England Bar ; nor was 
 there in the country an advocate whose well-earned 
 reputation surpassed his. Too liberal to acquire an 
 ample fortune, he had, nevertheless, secured a compe 
 tence. His family was still almost unbroken. Two of 
 his daughters were married, 1 and lived very near him. 
 His residence and his library had been every year grow 
 ing more and more to his mind. His library had 
 
 i His eldest daughter to Joseph M. Bell, Esq. ; and his youngest to 
 Edward Ellerton Pratt, Esq. 
 
314 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 always been an object of special interest. On moving 
 into his house in Winthrop Place, it filled a front 
 chamber directly over the parlor. Soon overflowing, it 
 swept away the partition between that and a small room 
 over the front entry. Then, accumulating still more 
 rapidly, it burst all barriers and filled the whole second 
 story. A friend visiting him one day, asked how he 
 contrived to gain from Mrs. Choate so large a part of the 
 house. " Oh," said he, in a most delightfully jocular 
 tone, " by fighting for it." It was indeed a charming 
 retreat. Every wall, in all the irregularities of the 
 room, filled with crowded bookcases, with here and 
 there choice engravings and pictures in unoccupied 
 places, or on frames arranged expressly to hold them ; 
 with tables, desks, luxurious chairs, and lounges, 
 all for use and nothing for show, though elegant, all 
 warm, familiar, and inviting. His library was rich in 
 English literature and learning in all its branches, and 
 in choice editions of the classics ; well, though not am 
 ply, provided with modern foreign literature ; and 
 thoroughly stocked with all the apparatus of dictiona 
 ries, gazetteers, and maps, which a scholar constantly 
 needs. It numbered, at the time of his death, about 
 seven thousand volumes. His law library, it may be 
 here stated, consisted of about three thousand volumes, 
 and, I am informed by those familiar with it, was one 
 of the best professional libraries in the State. 
 
 The next two years of Mr. Choate s life were diver 
 sified by little besides the ordinary varieties of his pro 
 fession. In February, 1857, he delivered before the 
 Mechanic Apprentices Library Association a lecture 
 on the " Eloquence of Revolutionary Periods," in 
 which he dwelt especially on Demosthenes and Cicero. 
 
1855-1858.] DEFENCE OF MRS. DALTON. 315 
 
 It is full of high thoughts, and raises one by its beauty 
 and magnanimity. Its eloquent defence of Cicero was 
 harshly criticised, one hardly knows why, by some 
 who accept the later theories of Cicero s life ; but was 
 received with rare satisfaction by the lovers of the 
 patriotic Roman, nearly the most eloquent of the 
 Ancients. 
 
 In May of the same year he made his powerful and 
 successful defence of Mrs. Dalton. This case excited 
 great interest from the respectability of the parties, 
 from the circumstances which preceded the trial, as 
 well as from the great ability of the advocates on both 
 sides. 1 Its details, however, true or false, were such 
 as almost of necessity to exclude it, and the argument 
 based upon it, from full publication. Shortly after his 
 marriage, nearly two years before, Mr. Dalton dis 
 covered what he thought an improper intimacy between 
 his wife and a young man by the name of Sumner. 
 As a result of this, Sumner was induced to go to the 
 house of Mr. Coburn (who had married a sister of Mrs. 
 Dalton) in Shawmut Avenue, where he was confronted 
 with Mrs. Dalton, was attacked by Dalton and Coburn, 
 beaten and driven from the premises. He went home 
 to Milton, where soon after he was taken sick and died. 
 The story found its way into the newspapers, with the 
 usual exaggerations and inaccuracies. The death of 
 Sumner increased the popular excitement, and Dalton 
 was arrested and imprisoned on a charge of murder. 
 After lying in jail more than a month, the grand jury, 
 on examining the case, indicted him for manslaughter, 
 and for assault and battery. On the former charge he 
 was acquitted ; to the latter he pleaded guilty and was 
 
 1 R. H. Dana, Jr., was Mr. Dalton s counsel. 
 
316 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 condemned to an imprisonment of five months. Soon 
 after going to jail on this sentence, he filed his libel 
 for a divorce. To hear such a cause in public before 
 a jury, was a doubtful experiment, tried then for the 
 first time. Day after day, for nearly three weeks, the 
 court-room had been crowded by an eager and curious 
 multitude, watching the parties who sat within the bar 
 by the side of their respective counsel ; watching every 
 movement of the eminent advocates as they would the 
 players of a great game, and intently listening to the 
 revelations of the evidence. Day by day the larger 
 audience of the public had been both stimulated and 
 sickened by the startling, contradictory, scandalous, 
 and disgusting details spread wide in the newspapers. 
 All were waiting with curiosity and interest, and some 
 with intense anxiety, for the result of the trial, which 
 at length drew to a close. The doors were no sooner 
 opened on the morning when the argument was ex 
 pected, than the court-room was crowded to its utmost 
 capacity. While waiting for the judge to take his seat, 
 much merriment was caused by a grave announcement 
 from the Sheriff that the second jury, which had been 
 summoned in expectation that the trial would be ended, 
 " might have leave to withdraw." As this was at the 
 moment when expectation was at the highest, and 
 chairs were at a premium, and whoever had a standing- 
 place felt that he was a fortunate man, the effect may 
 be easily imagined. 
 
 Mr. Choate was punctually in his place at the ap 
 pointed time ; behind and near him sat his young client 
 attended by her mother and sister. Not far distant, 
 and close to his counsel, his eye turned often to the 
 great advocate but never to her, was a fair and pleasant- 
 
1855-1858.] DEFENCE OF MRS. DALTON. 317 
 
 looking young man the husband suing for a divorce 
 from a wife charged with the most serious criminality. 
 Immediately on the opening of the court, Mr. Choate 
 rose, and, after briefly referring to a case or two in a 
 law-book, commenced in a grave and quiet manner by 
 congratulating the jury on approaching, at least, the 
 close of a duty so severe and so painful to all. He 
 then in a few sentences, with a felicity which has sel 
 dom been equalled, professed to be really pleading for 
 the interests of both parties. 
 
 " It very rarely happens indeed, gentlemen, in the 
 trial of a civil controversy, that both parties have an 
 equal, or however, a vast interest, that one of them, 
 in this case the defendant, should be clearly proved 
 to be entitled to your verdict. Unusual as it is, such 
 is now the view of the case that I take ; such a one is 
 the trial now before you. To both of these parties it 
 is of supreme importance, in the view that I take of it, 
 that you should find this young wife, erring, indiscreet, 
 imprudent, forgetful of herself, if it be so, but innocent 
 of the last and the greatest crime of a married woman. 
 I say, to both parties it is important. I cannot deny, 
 of course, that her interest in such a result is, perhaps, 
 the greater of the two. For her, indeed, it is not too 
 much to say that every thing is staked upon the result. 
 I cannot, of course, hope, I cannot say, that any ver 
 dict you can render will ever enable her to recall those 
 weeks of folly, and frivolity, and vanity, without a 
 blush without a tear; I cannot desire that it should 
 be so. But, gentlemen, whether these grave and im 
 pressive proceedings shall terminate by sending this 
 young wife from your presence with the scarlet letter 
 upon her brow ; whether in this her morning of life, 
 
318 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CIIOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 her name shall be thus publicly stricken from the roll 
 of virtuous women, her whole future darkened by 
 dishonor, and waylaid by temptation, her companions 
 driven from her side, herself cast out, it may be, 
 upon common society, the sport of libertines, unas 
 sisted by public opinion, or sympathy, or self-respect, 
 this certainly rests with you. For her, therefore, I 
 am surely warranted in saying, that more than her 
 life is at stake. Whatsoever things are honest, what 
 soever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, 
 whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any 
 virtue, if there be any praise, all the chances that are 
 to be left her in life for winning and holding these 
 holy, beautiful, and needful things, rest with you. . . . 
 " But is there not another person, gentlemen, inter 
 ested in these proceedings with an equal, or at least a 
 supreme, interest with the respondent, that you shall 
 be able by your verdict to say that Helen Dalton is not 
 guilty of the crime of adultery ; and is not that per 
 son her husband ? ... If you can here and now on 
 this evidence acquit your consciences, and render a 
 verdict that shall assure this husband that a jury of 
 Suffolk men of honor and spirit some of them 
 his personal friends, believe that he has been the vic 
 tim of a cruel and groundless jealousy ; that they 
 believe that he has been led by that scandal that cir 
 culates about him, that has influenced him everywhere; 
 that he has been made to misconceive the nature and 
 overestimate the extent of the injury his wife has 
 done him ; ... if you can thus enable him to see 
 that without dishonor he may again take her to his 
 bosom, let me ask you if any other human being can 
 do another so great a kindness as this ? " 
 
1855-1858.] DEFENCE OF MRS. DALTON. 319 
 
 He then went on throughout the day, with a general 
 statement and review of the evidence, so as to concili 
 ate the jury to the theory of culpable indiscretion 
 indeed, but of indiscretion consistent, after all, with in 
 nocence. This was the theme of all the variations of 
 that music, an intimacy light, transient, indiscreet, 
 foolish, inexcusable, wrong, yet not carried to the last 
 crime, consistent still with devoted love for her hus 
 band, whom " she followed, half distracted, to the jail, 
 hovering about that cell, a beam of light, a dove of 
 constant presence." To this was added the fact that 
 after most of these indiscretions were known to Dai- 
 ton, and after the scene when Sumner was assaulted 
 and driven from the house, he still loved, cherished, 
 and lived with her, and wrote that series of letters 
 from the jail " so beautiful, so manly, one long, un 
 broken strain of music, the burthen of which is home, 
 sweet home ; and you, my loved one, my fond one, 
 dearer and better for what has happened, you again 
 to fill, illumine, and bless it." 
 
 These thoughts he never lost sight of during the 
 long and varied statement, and the searching examina 
 tion of the evidence, which followed. A part of that 
 evidence was hard to evade. Two witnesses had sworn 
 to a confession, or what amounted to one, on the part 
 of Mrs. Dalton. How their evidence and characters 
 were sifted, no one can forget who heard, nor fail to 
 understand, who reads. They crumbled in his hand 
 like clay. Sometimes with the gravest denunciation 
 and sometimes with the keenest ridicule, he demon 
 strated the improbabilities and impossibilities of the 
 testimony, till all felt that if there was not perjury there 
 must be mistake. Seldom has a witness been held up 
 
320 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 ill a light more irresistibly ludicrous than John H. Co- 
 burn, who had confessed to making false representa 
 tions by telegraphic communications and otherwise, in 
 order to excite the fear of Mr. Gove, the father of 
 Mrs. Dalton, and extort from him money and clothing 
 (as he was a clothing merchant). " He found out," 
 said the advocate, " that Mr. Gove was extremely 
 exercised by the attack upon his daughter, 4 and/ says 
 he, c 1 will have a jacket and trousers out of this busi 
 ness, I see pantaloons there ; I will have a game of 
 billiards and a suit of clothes, or I am nobody ! ! 
 The house was convulsed with laughter at the ludi 
 crous picture. At the same time he was most careful 
 not to carry the raillery too far. u I am bringing him 
 up to the golden tests and standards by which the law 
 weighs proof, or the assayer weighs gold." But it 
 might be said that this proceeding of Coburn was only 
 a joke. " Practise a joke under those circumstances ! " 
 said the advocate. " Is this the character of Coburn V 
 Why, he admitted all this falsehood on the stand in 
 such a winning, ingenuous, and loving way, that he 
 was a great rogue and liar, and had been everywhere, 
 that we were almost attracted to him. It is, there 
 fore, fit and proper we should know that this winning 
 confession of Coburn on the stand was not quite so 
 voluntary after all. This Coburn, about six days ago, 
 was attacked by a very bad erysipelas in his foot or 
 ankle. In my humble judgment it was an erysipelas of 
 apprehension about coming into the court-house to tes 
 tify under the eye of the court and jury. But he was 
 attacked ; and accordingly we sent a couple of eminent 
 physicians Drs. Dana and Durant to see what they 
 could do for him, and they put him through a course of 
 
1855-1858.] DEFENCE OF MRS. DALTON. 321 
 
 warm water or composition powder, or one thing or 
 another, till they cured the erysipelas beyond all doubt, 
 gentlemen. They cured the patient, but they killed the 
 witness. [Here the sheriff had to interfere to check the 
 laughter.] So the man came upon the stand and ad 
 mitted he sent this communication by telegraph, and 
 the message from the Parker and the Tremont. He 
 swore forty times very deliberately that he never wrote 
 one of them, deliberately and repeatedly over and 
 over again, and it was not till my friend, the Doctor 
 here, had turned the screw about a hundred times with 
 from forty to fifty interrogations, that he was beaten 
 from one covert into another, until at last he was 
 obliged to confess although he began with most per 
 emptorily denying it altogether that he sent the 
 telegraph and wrote the forged communication from 
 the Tremont and the Parker House." 
 
 So the stream of argument and raillery, and sarcasm 
 and pathos, rolled on ample, unchecked, and over 
 whelming, for two long summer days (no one in the 
 throng of auditors restless or weary), and drew to its 
 close in exquisite quietness and beauty. " I leave her 
 case, therefore," said the advocate, as if repeating the 
 refrain of a hymn, " upon this statement, and respect 
 fully submit that for both their sakes you will render a 
 verdict promptly and joyfully in favor of Helen Dalton 
 for both their sakes. There is a future for them 
 both together, gentlemen, I think. But if that be not 
 so, if it be that this matter has proceeded so far that 
 her husband s affections have been alienated, and that 
 a happy life in her case has become impracticable, 
 yet for all that, let there be no divorce. For no levity, 
 no vanity, no indiscretion, let there be a divorce. I 
 
 21 
 
322 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 bring to your minds the words of Him who spake as 
 never man spake : Whosoever putteth away his wife 
 for vanity, for coquetry, for levity, for flirtation 
 whosoever putteth away his wife for any thing short of 
 adultery, and that established by clear, undoubted, and 
 credible proof, whosoever does it, causeth her to 
 commit adultery. If they may not be dismissed then, 
 gentlemen, to live again together, for her sake and her 
 parents sake sustain her. Give her back to self-re 
 spect, and the assistance of that public opinion which 
 all of us require." 
 
 One word of the last letter of the wife to the hus 
 band, and a single echoing sentence, finished this re 
 markable speech. " Wishing you much happiness 
 and peace with much love, if you will accept it, I re 
 main, your wife. So may she remain until that one of 
 them to whom it is appointed first to die shall find the 
 peace of the grave ! " 
 
 The mere reading of this argument can give but 
 a feeble idea of its beauty and cogency to those who 
 were so fortunate as to listen. Oftentimes, before a 
 legal tribunal, the cause is greater than the advocate. 
 He rises to it, and is upheld by it. But sometimes it 
 is his province to create an interest, which the subject 
 itself does not afford ; to enliven the dull ; to dignify 
 the mean ; to decorate the unseemly. The body may 
 be vile, but he arrays it in purple and crowns it with 
 gems. This case, though with some elements of un 
 usual character, would probably have fallen to the 
 dreary level of similar actions, were it not lifted and 
 enveloped in light by the genius of the advocate. It 
 is like some of those which made Erskine and Curran 
 famous ; and the defence shows a power not inferior to 
 
1855-1858.] LETTERS TO EDWARD EVERETT. 323 
 
 theirs. As a result of it, the jury disagreed ; the di 
 vorce was not consummated ; and it is understood (as 
 if to make the spirit of the argument prophetic) that 
 the parties are now living together in harmony. 
 
 The following letters need no explanation : 
 
 To HON. EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 " BOSTON, 30th September, 1857. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, I was sick when your kindest gift of 
 the Inauguration Discourse 1 was brought in, and although 
 able to read it instantly, for I was not dying, it is only 
 now that I have become able to thank you for your courtesy, 
 and to express the exceeding delight, and, as it were, triumph, 
 with which I have studied this most noble exposition of the 
 good, fair, and useful of the high things of knowledge. To 
 have said on such themes what is new and yet true, in words 
 so exact as well as pictured and burning, and in a spirit so 
 fresh and exulting, and yet wise, sober, and tender, was, I 
 should have thought, almost impossible even for you. I won 
 der as much as I love, and am proud for you on the double 
 tie of friendship and of country. 
 
 " I remain, with greatest regard, 
 
 " Your servant and friend, 
 
 "RuFus CHOATE." 
 
 To HON. EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 " WINTHROP PLACE, 17th November, 1857. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, I was not aware of that hiatus, and I 
 made an exchange of my 21 vols. for a set extending over a 
 longer period, and containing 30 vols. or more. I have found 
 no defect that I remember. I beg you to supply your imme 
 diate wants from this one, if it is not just as bad. 
 
 " There is a certain gloomy and dangerous sense in which 
 I am gratified/ But renown and grace where are 
 they ? Such a series of papers as you hint at would bless 
 mankind, and rescue Mr. Buchanan. I entreat you to give 
 him and all conservative men an idea of a patriot administra- 
 
 1 An Address delivered at St. Louis, at the Inauguration of "Wash 
 ington University of the State of Missouri. 
 
324 
 
 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 tion. Kansas must be free sua sponte and the nation 
 kept quiet and honest, yet with a certain sense of growth, 
 nor unmindful of opportunities of glory. 
 
 " Most truly, your friend, 
 
 " R. CHOATE." 
 
 A lecture on Jefferson, Burr, and Hamilton, which 
 he delivered March 10th, 1858, though of necessity 
 general and somewhat desultory, was marked by his 
 usual breadth of delineation and brilliancy of coloring, 
 and led him to review and re-state some of the funda 
 mental ideas which marked the origin and progress of 
 our government. I pass by his delineation of Jeffer 
 son, who brought to the great work of that era " the 
 magic of style and the habit and the power of delicious 
 dalliance with those large and fair ideas of freedom 
 and equality, so dear to man, so irresistible in that 
 day ; " and of Burr, to whom he was just, but whom 
 he did not love, and whose " shadow of a name " he 
 thought it unfair to compare for a moment with either 
 of the others ; and content myself with the conclusion 
 of his sketch of Hamilton. After referring to the 
 progress and the changes in the public sentiment of 
 America, by which the Confederation, largely through 
 Hamilton s influence, melted into the Union, he pro 
 ceeds : 
 
 " I find him [Hamilton] growing from his speech in 
 * the Great Fields/ at seventeen, in 1774, to the last 
 number of 4 The Federalist. I find him everywhere 
 in advance ; everywhere frankest of our public men. 
 Earlier than every other, bolder than every other, he 
 saw and he announced that the Confederation could 
 not govern, could not consolidate, could not create the 
 America for which we had been fighting. Sooner than 
 
1855-1858.] LECTUKE ON HAMILTON. 325 
 
 every one he saw and taught that we wanted, not a 
 league, but a government. Sooner than every one he 
 saw that a partition of sovereignty was practicable, 
 that the State might retain part, the new nation acquire 
 part ; that the grander, more imperial the right of 
 war, of peace, of diplomacy, of taxation, of commerce, 
 and rights similar and kindred might be acquired 
 and wielded directly by the nation, and the vast, vari 
 ous, and uncertain residue held by the States, which 
 in this system were an essential part ; that the result 
 would be one great People E Pluribus Unum 
 master of a continent, a match for a world. To him 
 more than to all or any one besides we owe it, that 
 the convention at Annapolis ascended above the vain, 
 timid, and low hope of amending the old Articles, as 
 sumed the high character of a direct representation 
 of the People of these States, and took on themselves 
 the responsibility of giving to that People for accept 
 ance or rejection by conventions in their States a 
 form of government completely new. 
 
 " These speculations, these aims, ruled his life from 
 1780 to 1789. < That age all of it is full of his 
 power, his truth, his wisdom, full to running over. 
 Single sentiments ; particular preferences, minor, and 
 less or more characteristic ; less cherished details, 
 modes, stages, proofs of opinion, of these I have 
 said nothing, for history cares nothing. I do not 
 maintain that he did as much in the convention at 
 Annapolis as others to shape the actual provisions of 
 the Constitution. I do not contend that he liked all of 
 them very well. But soldier-like, statesman-like, sailor- 
 like, he felt the general pulse ; he surveyed his coun 
 try ; he heaved the lead at every inch of his way. 
 
326 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 His great letter to Duane in 1780 anticipates the 
 Union and the Government in which we live. Through 
 the press, in the Assembly of New York, in the old 
 Congress, to some extent in the Constitutional, and to 
 large extent in the State Convention, he was first ; he 
 who, like Webster, never flattered the people, but 
 served them as he did, dared to address their reason, 
 their interests, not their passion of progress, in 
 1 The Federalist. And of the foremost and from the 
 start he espoused that Constitution all as his, and 
 loved, and honored, and maintained it all till he went 
 to his untimely grave. 
 
 " I dwell on that time from 1780 to 1789 because 
 that was our age of civil greatness. Then, first, we 
 grew to be one. In that time our nation was born. 
 That which went before made us independent. Our 
 better liberty, our law, our order, our union, our credit, 
 our commerce, our rank among the nations, our page 
 in the great history we owe to this. Independence was 
 the work of the higher passions. The Constitution was 
 the sloiv product of wisdom. I do not deny that in that 
 age was sown the seed of our party divisions ; of our 
 strict and our liberal Constructionists ; of our Union 
 ists and States Rights Men ; of smaller Hamiltons, 
 and smaller Jeffersons. But who now dares raise a 
 hand against the system which illustrates that day ? 
 Who dares now to say that the Union shall not stand 
 as they left it ? Who dares now to say that the wide 
 arch of empire ranged by them shall not span a conti 
 nent ? Who dares now to say that the America of that 
 day ; the America of this ; the America of all time 
 and all history, is not his own America; first, last, 
 midst ; who does not hail on that flag, streaming over 
 
1855-1858.] LECTURE ON HAMILTON. 327 
 
 land and sea, living or dying, the writing, bathed 
 and blazing in light, Liberty and Union, now and for 
 ever, one and inseparable ! 
 
 " The public life of Hamilton closes with the fall of 
 Federalism, in 1801, as a party of the nation. In his 
 administration as first Secretary of the Treasury, in 
 his general counsels to Washington, in his general in 
 fluence on the first years of our youthful world, you 
 see the same masterly capacity ; the same devotion to 
 the Constitution as it was written, and to the Union 
 which it helped to grow ; the same civil wisdom ; the 
 same filial love ; the same American feeling ; the same 
 transparent truth which had before made him our first 
 of statesmen. Some, all, or almost all, of the works 
 which he did, have come under the judgment of party 
 and of time ; and on these, opinions are divided. But 
 no man has called in question the ability which estab 
 lished all departments, and framed and presided over 
 that one ; which debated the constitutionality and ex 
 pediency of that small first Bank ; which funded our 
 debts, restored order to our credit ; which saw in us 
 before we saw, before Smith saw, our capacity to manu 
 facture for ourselves ; which made us impartial and 
 made us neutral while our ancient friends became a 
 Republic, and our ancient enemy and the world were 
 in arms for old, shaking thrones. When that argu 
 ment for the Bank was read by the Judges in 1819, 
 one of them said, that every other supporter and oppo 
 nent of that measure in the age of Washington seemed 
 a child in the grasp of a giant. In this last era his 
 difference in all things from Jefferson became more 
 widely pronounced ; each retired from the cabinet ; 
 and in 1801 Democracy became the national politics of 
 America. 
 
328 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 " I have avoided, as I ought, all inquiry into the 
 private life of Burr. I am equally reserved on that 
 of Hamilton ; although that private life fears no dis 
 closures as a whole, and no contrasts as a whole. Yet 
 this sketch would be imperfect more than it must be, 
 if I did not add something which I have read, heard, 
 or thought on the man. 
 
 " From 1781 to 1789, and again from 1795 till his 
 death in 1804 some seventeen years he practised 
 the law. I hear that in that profession he was wise, 
 safe, and just ; that his fees were moderate ; that his 
 honor was without a stain ; that his general ability was 
 transcendent, and that in rank he was leader. A gen 
 tleman from this city, whose name I might give, 
 solicited his counsel in some emergency. He admired, 
 as all did, his knowledge of men, his ingenuity, his 
 promptness ; and tendered him a fee of one hundred 
 dollars. c No, Sir, said Hamilton, handing him back 
 the difference, twenty dollars is very abundant. He 
 was consulted by a guardian, knavish as the guardian 
 of Demosthenes. He heard his story ; developed its de 
 tails ; ran with him through the general wilderness of 
 his roguery ; and then, sternly as at Yorktown, 
 4 Now go and make your peace with your ward, or I 
 will hunt you as a hare for his skin. There was a 
 political opponent, oldish, delicate, and prejudiced, 
 who hated him and his administration of the treas 
 ury, but who lost no hour, day in and day out, at 
 Albany, in the Errors and Supreme Court, to hear 
 every word that he said. I could never, said he, 
 4 withdraw from him half an eye. It was all one 
 steady, flashing, deepening flow of mind. This I 
 heard from a member of Congress. 
 
1855-1858.] LECTURE ON HAMILTON. 329 
 
 " His masterpiece at the Bar was the defence of 
 Croswell, of 4 The Balance, published at Hudson, for a 
 libel, in 1804. It is reported in Johnson s cases. It 
 is better reported by Chancellor Kent, who heard it ; 
 by the universal tradition, which boasts of it as of the 
 grandest displays of the legal profession ; and by the 
 common or statute law of America, on which it is 
 written for ever. There and then he engraved on our 
 mind, as with a pen of steel, the doctrine, that truth 
 from right motives, for justifiable ends, might be safely 
 written of everybody, high or low. 
 
 " Such so limited is our unwritten or our better 
 liberty. 
 
 " That argument was made to a bench of Judges. 
 It was made to an audience of lawyers and educated 
 men ; and I have heard that tears unbidden silence 
 that held his breath to hear applause unrepressed 
 murmurs not loud, but deep marked the magic and 
 the power. 
 
 " He wrote out that argument at length ; then tore 
 his manuscript in fragments, and spoke as he was 
 moved of the genius within him ! 
 
 " Who surpassed him as a reasoner? You all know 
 the calm power of The Federalist. Do you admire 
 any thing in that immortal work more than his trans 
 parent and quiet style ; his pure English, always equal 
 to itself; his skilful interpretation ; his masterly ability 
 wtih which from the nature of man, the nature of gov 
 ernment, the lessons of history, the past and present of 
 Europe, the uses of a head, the uses of a nation, he 
 demonstrated that such powers must be given, and 
 such powers are given ? Who, since the eighty-eighth 
 number, has dared to doubt that to the judge it is given 
 
330 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 to compare the law with the Constitution, and to pro 
 nounce which is higher ; and that from the judge there 
 lies no appeal ! 
 
 " What a revolution may do to force prematurely 
 the capacity of man, we, thank God ! know not. What 
 a cross of Scotch and Huguenot blood ; a birth, infan 
 cy, childhood, and boyhood beneath those tropics where 
 the earthquake revels, which the hurricane sweeps 
 over, which the fever wastes at noonday, over which 
 the sun tyrannizes, whose air is full of electricity, and 
 whose soil is of fire, personally we know not. But 
 I own I am struck with nothing more than the preco- 
 ciousness of those mighty powers, and their equal, 
 balanced, and safe development. At seventeen, lie ad 
 dressed masses on non-importation in the Great 
 Fields of New York, with the eloquence and energy of 
 James Otis. At eighteen, he was among our ablest 
 and wisest in the conduct of that great controversy 
 with the measures of a king. At twenty, he conceived 
 our Union. At thirty-two he wrote his share of The 
 Federalist. At thirty-eight his public life was over. 
 I doubt if Pascal, if Grotius, if Cassar, if Napoleon, had 
 so early in life revealed powers vaster and maturer. 
 
 " There is one memory of Hamilton to which he is 
 entitled in his bloody grave, and by which his truest 
 eulogy is spoken, which refutes of itself ten thousand 
 slanders, and which blooms over him over Hoboken 
 over the church where his tomb is kept, ever fra 
 grant and ever new. With the exception, of course, of 
 certain political opponents, and of a competitor or two, 
 no one knew him who did not dearly love him ; no 
 one loved him once that did not love him to the last 
 gasp. From the moment he saw and talked with him 
 as Captain of Artillery, from the hour after he left his 
 
1855-1858.] LETTER TO GEO. T. DAVIS. 331 
 
 military family, until he slept that long sleep at Mount 
 Vernon, Washington held him to his heart ; and when 
 that man greatest of earth died, Hamilton sat 
 down speechless in the presence of Sedgwick, pressed 
 his hand upon his eyes, and cried as a child for a father 
 dead. < The tears, said Ames, that flow over this 
 fond recital will never dry up. My heart, prostrated 
 with the remembrance of Hamilton, grows liquid as I 
 write, and I could pour it out like water. 
 
 " To compare the claims and deeds of Burr with 
 those of this great man, his victim, were impious. To 
 compare those of Hamilton, or contrast them with those 
 of the great Philanthropist and Democrat, Thomas 
 Jefferson, who is equal ? Each in his kind was 
 greatest ; each in his kind advanced the true interests 
 of America." 
 
 The following letter will illustrate the playful mixt 
 ure of literature with business, which often charac 
 terized Mr. Choate s intercourse with friends. It oc 
 curred after a meeting on professional affairs, during 
 which a question forgotten, however, almost as soon 
 as proposed, till thus again brought to mind had 
 arisen on the reading of a passage in Yirgil. 
 
 To GEORGE T. DAVIS, ESQ. 
 
 " Boston, 20th April, 1858. 
 
 " DEAR SIB, I am glad they are beaten, as they deserve 
 to be. Of course, no adjustment now is to be heard of. The 
 motion is the shadow of a shade, and I guess, after actual 
 fraud found, the bill stands, and the cancellation follows, 
 which leads me to say how Virgil wrote it, averno, or averm. 
 We shall never know till we ask him in the meads of Aspho 
 del. But Forbiger, Wagner, Heyne, Servius, after the cracker 
 MSS., write averno. So in the more showy texts it is now. 
 When we meet we will settle or change all that. 
 
 " Truly yours, RUFUS CHOATE." 
 
332 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 Iii 1858 Mr. Choate accepted an invitation to deliver 
 an oration, on the 4th of July, before the Young Men s 
 Democratic Club. It was with the understanding, 
 however, that no party affinities were to be recognized. 
 He spoke for the Union, and his subject was " Ameri 
 can Nationality its Nature some of its Conditions, 
 and some of its Ethics" He was received with wild 
 and tumultuous applause, and heard with profound 
 interest and sympathy by the multitudes which crowded 
 the Tremont Temple ; but many were pained to per 
 ceive the marks of physical weakness and exhaustion. 
 He spoke with difficulty, and could hardly be heard 
 throughout the large hall. But there was an earnest 
 ness and almost solemnity in his words which sunk 
 deep into the hearts of the audience. It was a plea 
 for the nation, in view of a peril which he thought he 
 foresaw, as a necessary result of rash "counsels, of a 
 false political philosophy, and of wild theories of politi 
 cal morality. He never again addressed his fellow- 
 citizens on questions of general political interests, and 
 his last public words may be said to have been spoken 
 in behalf of that Union which he so warmly loved, 
 that one nation whose grand march across the conti 
 nent, whose unrivalled increase in all the elements of 
 power so stimulated and gratified his patriotic ambi 
 tion. Whether or not his fears were wise, we may 
 now perhaps be better able to judge than when he first 
 uttered them. 
 
 How his words were received by those who heard 
 him, was admirably expressed by Mr. Everett at a 
 banquet, on the same afternoon, at the Revere House. 
 " For myself, Sir," he said, " standing aloof from pub 
 lic life and from all existing party organizations, I can 
 
1855-1858.] REMARKS OF MR. EVERETT. 333 
 
 truly say that I have never listened to an exposition of 
 political principle with higher satisfaction. I heard the 
 late Mr. Samuel Rogers, the venerable banker-poet of 
 London, more than once relate that he was present on 
 the 10th of December, 1790, when Sir Joshua Rey 
 nolds delivered the last of his discourses before the 
 Royal Academy of Art. Edmund Burke was also one 
 of the audience ; and at the close of the lecture Mr. 
 Rogers saw him go up to Sir Joshua, and heard him 
 say, in the fulness of his delight, in the words of Mil 
 ton: 
 
 The angel ended, and in Adam s ear 
 So charming left his voice, that he awhile 
 Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear. 
 
 When our friend concluded his superb oration this 
 morning, I was ready, like Mr. Cruger (who stood with 
 Burke for the representation of Bristol), i to say ditto 
 to Mr. Burke. I was unwilling to believe that the 
 noble strain, by turns persuasive, melting, and sublime, 
 had ended. The music of the voice still dwelt upon 
 my ear ; the lofty train of thought elevated and braced 
 my understanding ; the generous sentiments filled my 
 bosom with delight, as the peal of a magnificent organ, 
 touched by the master s hand, thrills the nerves with 
 rapture and causes even the vaulted roof to vibrate in 
 unison. The charmed silence seemed for a while to 
 prolong the charming strain, and it was some moments 
 before I was willing to admit that the stops were 
 closed and the keys hushed," 
 
334 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 1868-1859. 
 
 Failing Health Speech at the Webster Festival, January, 1859 
 Address at the Essex Street Church Last Law Case Goes to Dor 
 chester Occupations Decides to go to Europe Letter to Hon. 
 Charles Eames Letter to Alfred Abbott, Esq. Sails in The 
 Europa, Capt. Leitch Illness on Board Lands at Halifax Let 
 ter from Hon. George S. Hillard Sudden Death Proceedings of 
 Public Bodies Meeting of the Boston Bar Speeches of Hon. C. 
 G. Loring, R. H. Dana, Judge Curtis and Judge Sprague Meeting 
 in Faneuil Hall Speech of Mr. Everett Funeral. 
 
 FOR several years Mr. Choate s health had not un- 
 frequently excited the anxiety of his friends. They 
 wondered how he could endure such continuous and 
 exhausting labors ; why he, whose mind was always 
 on the stretch, who took no rest, and allowed himself 
 no recreation but that of his library, should not at 
 last fail, like the over-strained courser. Their fears 
 were not groundless. The deepening lines of his 
 countenance pallid and sallow, the frame feebler than 
 once, the voice less strong, the whole manner less 
 energetic, demonstrated a need of caution. He was 
 under an engagement to address the Alumni of Dart 
 mouth College at their triennial meeting in 1858, and 
 had made a partial preparation, but at the last moment 
 was obliged to give it up, and betake himself for a few 
 idle and wearisome days to the seaside. A week or 
 two of respite from work it could not be called rec 
 reation a brief visit at Essex, a few nights in Dor- 
 
1858-1859.] ADDRESS AT ESSEX STREET CHURCH. 335 
 
 Chester at the residence of his daughter, Mrs. Bell 
 gave tone again to his wonderfully elastic constitution. 
 I saw him repeatedly during the next winter, and, not 
 withstanding some unfavorable symptoms, thought that 
 for a long time I had not seen him in such exuberance 
 of spirits. I heard him make two arguments, and could 
 not but notice the vigorous life with which he moved. 
 There was the same intellectual face the same eye, 
 black, wide open, looking straight at the jury, and at 
 individuals of them as he addressed now one and then 
 another, the same unrivalled felicity of speech, 
 the same tremendous vehemence, a little tempered, 
 perhaps, the same manner of straightening and 
 drawing himself up at an interruption, the same 
 playfulness and good humor, the occasional drop 
 ping of his voice to a confidential whisper, the 
 confident exactness of statement, the absolute com 
 mand of every circumstance, the instantaneous ap 
 prehension, the lightning rapidity of thought, the 
 subtle, but clear and impregnable logic. This apparent 
 vigor proved, however, to be but the last flashes of the 
 fire whose fuel was nearly exhausted. 
 
 The friends of Mr. Webster, according to a custom 
 which had grown into honor among them, celebrated 
 his birthday in 1859 by a festive gathering, which Mr. 
 Choate found himself able, though but just able, to 
 attend. With what warmth he spoke on that theme 
 which never failed to stimulate him, those who heard will 
 never forget. They thought he was never so eloquent. 
 
 He spoke but once more in public out of the line of 
 his profession. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the 
 settlement of the Rev. Dr. Adams, whose church he 
 attended, was celebrated on the 28th of March. He 
 
336 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 could not resist the wish to bear his testimony to the 
 opinions and character of one whom he deeply re 
 spected and loved. It was a large and interesting 
 assemblage of clergymen and laymen, met to pay a 
 tribute of respect to a faithful Christian minister. Mr. 
 Choate spoke with great tenderness and depth of 
 feeling of the many years they had been together in 
 that society, alluding briefly, in illustration, to the 
 great events which in the mean time had been taking 
 place in Europe and in this country. He then spoke 
 of the reasons accident or inclination which had 
 brought them to that house as their habitual place of 
 worship, first among which he named the love and 
 respect of the congregation for its minister. They had 
 marked the daily beauty of his life, his consistency, 
 his steadiness, his affectionateness, his sincerity, 
 transparent to every eye, his abilities, his modera 
 tion, his taste, his courage. They had seen him on 
 some occasions most interesting to the feelings, and 
 which dwell the longest in the memory and the affec 
 tions : at the bedside of the sick and dying, at the 
 burial of those loved most on earth, at the baptism of 
 their children, or when first they clasped the hands of 
 their brides. Thus between them and him there had 
 been woven a tie which could never be sundered, even 
 when the silver cord itself is loosed and the golden 
 bowl is broken. 
 
 " There is a second reason, however," he proceeded 
 to say, " which we may with very great propriety give 
 for the selection which we have made, and to which 
 we have so long adhered ; and it is, my friends, that 
 we have attended this worship and attached ourselves 
 to this society, because we have believed that we found 
 
1858-1859.] ADDRESS AT ESSEX-STREET CHURCH. 337 
 
 here a union of a true and old religion, with a possi 
 bility and the duty of a theory of culture and of love 
 for that in which the mental and moral nature of man 
 may be developed and may be completely accom 
 plished. 
 
 " That we hold a specific religious creed, is quite 
 certain ; obtruding it on nobody, and not for a mo 
 ment, of course, dreaming of defending ourselves 
 against anybody, in the way of our fathers, we 
 worship God in this assembly. We believe that the 
 sources and proof and authority of religion rest upon 
 a written revelation, communicated by the Supreme 
 Will to a race standing in certain specific abnormal con 
 ditions. What that Will, honestly gathered, teaches, 
 composes the whole religious duty of man. To find 
 out that meaning by all the aids of which a thorough 
 and an honest scholarship may possibly avail itself, 
 by the study of original tongues, by the study of 
 the history and government and manners and customs 
 and geography of the nations in which it was first 
 published, by a collation, honestly and intelligently, 
 of one version with another version, by the history 
 of creeds, by attending especially to the faith of 
 those churches who thought they saw the light at first, 
 and saw it when it was clearest and brightest, by all 
 this, we say, it is the first duty of the minister to learn 
 the truth ; and the second duty is to impress it by per 
 suasive speech and holy life upon the consciences and 
 hearts of men. These things, truly and honestly in 
 terrogated, reveal a certain state of truths, and these 
 compose our creed, and the creed of every other de 
 nomination possessing and preaching and maintaining 
 a kindred theology. Diversities of expression there 
 
 22 
 
338 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 are undoubtedly ; diversities of the metaphysical theo 
 ries of those who hold them ; more or less saliency, 
 more or less illustration in the mode in which they are 
 presented ; but substantially we have thought they 
 were one. We regard the unity, and we forget the 
 diversity, in concentration of kindred substances. I 
 think our church began with the name and in the 
 principle of Union ; and in that name, and according 
 to that principle, we maintain it to-day. 
 
 " And now, is there any thing, my friends, in all this, 
 which is incompatible, in any degree, with the warmest 
 and most generous and large and liberal and general 
 culture, with the warmest heart, with the most expan 
 sive and hopeful philanthropy, with the most tolerant, 
 most cheerful, most charitable love of man ? Do we 
 not all of us hold that outside of this special, authori 
 tative, written revelation, thus promulgated, collateral 
 with it, consistent with it, the creation of the same 
 nature, there is another system still, a mental and 
 moral nature, which we may with great propriety ex 
 pose, and which we may very wisely and fitly study 
 and enjoy ? Into that system are we forbidden to pry, 
 lest we become, or be in danger of becoming, Atheists, 
 Deists, Pantheists, or Dilettanti, or Epicurean ? What 
 is there to hinder us from walking consistently with 
 our faith and the preaching to which every Sunday we 
 are so privileged to listen what is there to hinder us 
 from walking on the shore of the great ocean of gen 
 eral truth, and gathering up here and there one of its 
 pebbles, and listening here and there to the music of one 
 of its shells ? What is there to hinder us from looking 
 at that natural revelation that shall be true hereafter ? 
 What is there in all this to prevent us from trying to 
 
1858-1859.] ADDRESS AT ESSEX-STREET CHURCH. 339 
 
 open, if we can open, the clasped volume of that elder, if 
 it may be that obscurer Scripture ? What is there to 
 hinder us from studying the science of the stars, from 
 going back with the geologist to the birthday of a real 
 creation, and thus tracing the line through the vestiges of 
 a real and a true creation down to that later and great 
 period of time, when the morning stars sang together, 
 exulting over this rising ball ? What is there to hinder 
 us, if we dare to do it, from going down with chemists 
 and physiologists to the very chambers of existence, 
 and trying thence to trace, if we may, the faint lines 
 by which matter rose to vitality, and vitality welled up 
 first to animals, and then to man ? What is there to 
 prevent us from trying to trace the footsteps of God in 
 history, from reading his law in the policies of States, 
 in the principles of morals, and in the science of gov 
 ernments, his love in the happiness of all the fami 
 lies of the human race, in animals and in man, his 
 retributions in the judgments that are abroad in all 
 the earth ? Is there any thing to hinder us, in the 
 faith we hold, from indulging the implanted sense of 
 beauty in watching the last glow of the summer eve, 
 or the first faint flush that precedes or follows the 
 glorious rising of the morning ? Because we happen 
 to believe that a written revelation is authoritative 
 upon every man, and that there is contained in it, dis 
 tinctly and expressly, the expression of the need of 
 reconciliation, is there any thing in all this, let me ask 
 you, my friends, which should hinder us from trying 
 to explore the spirit of Plato, from admiring the 
 supremacy of mind which is at last the inspiration 
 of the Almighty, that gives you understanding in 
 such an intellect as that of Newton, from looking at 
 
340 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 the camp-fires as they glitter on the plains of Troy, 
 from standing on the battlements of heaven with Mil 
 ton, from standing by the side of Macbeth, sympa 
 thizing with, or at least appreciating something of, the 
 compunction and horror that followed the murder of 
 his friend and host and king, from going out with 
 old Lear, gray hair streaming, and throat choking, and 
 heart bursting with a sense of filial ingratitude, from 
 standing by the side of Othello, when he takes the life 
 of all that he loves best in this world, not for hate, 
 but all for honor, from admiring and saddening to 
 see how the fond and deep and delicate spirit of Hamlet 
 becomes oppressed and maddened by the terrible dis 
 covery, by the sense of duty not entirely clear, by the 
 conflict of emotions, and by the shrinking dread of 
 that life to come, as if he saw a hand we could not 
 see, and heard a voice we could not hear ? Certainly 
 there can be no manner of doubt that our faith, such 
 as you profess it and such as you hold it, will give 
 direction in one sense to all our studies. There can be 
 no doubt, in one sense and to a certain extent, it bap 
 tizes and holds control over those studies ; certainly, 
 also, it may be admitted, that it creates tendencies and 
 tastes that may a little less reluctantly lead away a 
 man from the contemplation of these subjects ; but is 
 it incompatible with them ? Do you think that Agassiz, 
 that Everett, each transcendent in his own department 
 of genius, has become so, because he held, or did not 
 hold, a specific faith ? Because you believe the Old 
 Testament, as well as the New, cannot you read a 
 classic in the last and best edition, if you know how to 
 read it ? That is the great question at last, and I ap 
 prehend that the incompatibility of which we some- 
 
1858-1859.] LAST LAW CASE. 341 
 
 times hear, has no foundation in the things that are 
 to be compared. Did poor, rich Covvper think them 
 incompatible, one with another, when for so many 
 years he soothed that burning brow and stayed that 
 fainting reason, and turned back those dark billows 
 that threatened to overwhelm him, by his translation 
 of the Iliad and Odyssey ? What did he say of this 
 incompatibility himself ? Learning has borne such 
 fruit on all her branches, piety has found true friends in 
 the friends of science, even prayer has flowed from 
 lips wet with Castalian dews. I hold, therefore, 
 and I shall be excused by the friends of other denomi 
 nations, now and here present, if I deliberately repeat 
 and publicly record, that we have attended this 
 church, attached ourselves to this congregation, and 
 adhere to this form of faith, because we believe it to 
 be the old religion, the true religion, and the safest ; 
 and because, also, we have thought that there was no 
 incompatibility between it and the largest and most 
 generous mental culture, and the widest philanthropy, 
 that are necessary in order to complete the moral and 
 mental development and accomplishment of man." 
 
 In a strain quite unusual, he then, in drawing to a 
 close, commended and enforced the separation of party 
 politics from the ordinary services of the pulpit. 
 
 The next day, March 29, he made his last argument 
 before the full bench, in the case of Gage vs. Tudor. 
 The indisposition with which he had been troubled 
 during the winter weakness, lassitude, and a fre 
 quently returning nausea, the causes of which were 
 obscure, and not reached by medicines had gradually 
 increased and caused him more annoyance. His 
 friends were solicitous ; but he had frequently rallied 
 
342 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 from serious indisposition, and they hoped for the 
 best. He was able still to be at his office ; once more 
 appeared before a single judge in chambers upon a 
 question of alimony, and early in April, though really 
 much too ill for the exertion, went, at the earnest so 
 licitation of a junior, to look after a case in Salem. It 
 seemed a felicity of his life that the last time he ap 
 peared in court should be at that bar where, thirty-five 
 years before, he had commenced the practice of his 
 profession, the Bar of Essex County. It was a case 
 of a contested will, of considerable interest in itself, 
 the decision turning upon the state of health of the 
 testator. But those who were engaged in it were 
 struck at observing the turn given by Mr. Choate to 
 the examination of one of the medical witnesses, when, 
 after obtaining all the information necessary to the 
 point in hand, he proceeded with a series of questions 
 bearing evidently upon the nature of the disease under 
 , which he supposed himself laboring. No notice was 
 taken of it at the time ; but he subsequently al 
 luded to it in conversation with his junior counsel, 
 suggesting that he thought he had a disease of the 
 heart which might at any moment prove fatal. As the 
 cause proceeded he found himself unequal to the labor 
 of the trial, and withdrew from it before its close, re 
 turning home on Saturday the 16th of April. He 
 never went to his office again ; and with the exception 
 of once attending church, and going to the funeral of a 
 daughter of a much revered friend (Hon. Jeremiah 
 Mason), never again to any place of public assembly. 
 Books became more than ever his solace and delight. 
 He read as much as he was able, but more frequently 
 listened (his daughter reading aloud), not to whole 
 
1858-1859.] GOES TO DORCHESTER. 343 
 
 volumes or continuous discussions, but to a few pages 
 of Bacon, a scene in Shakspeare, a few lines of Homer, 
 a page of Wordsworth, a poem by Tennyson, and 
 oftener still to religious works ; to a parable or miracle 
 as expounded by Dr. Trench, a Hulsean lecture by the 
 same author, a discourse by Jeremy Taylor, or a chap 
 ter in " The Pilgrim s Progress." 
 
 His attention was now turned to a voyage to Europe 
 as a means of alleviating his disorder. It would at 
 any rate save him from all temptation to professional 
 labor, and he hoped to find solace, pleasure, and health, 
 in a quiet residence of a month or two in the south of 
 England; his thoughts turning especially to the Isle of 
 Wight. He accordingly secured a passage in the 
 steamer which was to leave Boston about the middle of 
 May. As the day drew near, however, he felt himself 
 unequal to the voyage, and accordingly deferred his 
 departure. The delay brought no material relief, and 
 for the sake of greater quiet, and the purer air of the 
 country, he went on the 24th of May, to the residence 
 of his son-in-law, Joseph M. Bell, Esq., in Dorchester. 
 The month that he remained in this delightful suburban 
 retreat was full of quiet enjoyment. His appetite good, 
 he suffered from nothing but weakness and occasional 
 sudden attacks of nausea. Every day he drove, some 
 times into town to get books, sometimes into the coun 
 try over the secluded and picturesque suburban roads 
 about Boston, but oftener to the sea, or to some point 
 from which he could get a view of the ocean. At 
 home, not seeming to be very ill, he enjoyed every thing 
 with a rare and intense delight. His love of Nature, 
 which had rather slumbered during the toils and anxie 
 ties of an active life, revived again as he looked upon 
 
344 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 her, undisturbed by the demands of a jealous profession. 
 He would sit for hours in the sun, or under the shade 
 of the veranda, or a tree near the house, watching the 
 distant city, or the smoke curling up from far-off chim 
 ney-tops, or the operations of husbandry going on all 
 about him, or listening to favorite authors, or to music 
 which he loved. Never had he seemed to enjoy every 
 object with a keener relish. " What can a person do," 
 he once said after looking long at a beautiful landscape, 
 " life is not long enough ." He still made some at 
 tempt at a methodical arrangement of occupations. 
 The early hours of the day were devoted to the Bible ; 
 then came the newspapers ; then whatever books he 
 might be interested in, from the Works of Lord Bacon 
 to the last Review, several different works usually being 
 read in the course of the morning. During this time he 
 suffered no pain, and but for weakness which ren 
 dered it a labor for him to walk the length of the yard, 
 or to ascend the stairs, he seemed as much like himself 
 as ever. He saw no company, not being able to endure 
 the fatigue of conversation, or dreading interruption by 
 the nausea. But with his family, he was never more 
 affectionate and playful, and never entered with fuller 
 zest into their occupations and enjoyments. In the 
 mean time the question of the voyage recurred, and he 
 was compelled to make a decision. It was evident 
 that the necessity somewhat weighed upon his mind, 
 and that it was almost equally difficult for him to de 
 termine to stay or to go. His disease was obscure; his 
 physicians anticipated no injury from the voyage, and 
 hoped for some relief. Three steamers had already 
 sailed, since he first thought of going; and it was evi 
 dent, if he hoped for benefit from a summer in Eng- 
 
1858-1859.] LETTER TO MR. EAMES. 345 
 
 land, that lie could not much longer delay his departure. 
 His reluctance to revoke a decision once fairly made, 
 
 especially as that would seem to be an acknowledg 
 ment of an illness more severe and immediately threat 
 ening than his friends or, perhaps, himself had allowed, 
 
 the prospect of rest, the hope of alleviation and 
 some enjoyment, and possibly of recruiting all urged 
 him to carry out his plan. At the same time, and 
 this perhaps was the slight consideration which turned 
 the scale, he knew that Halifax was less than two 
 days sail from Boston, and that if the voyage proved 
 disagreeable, or any way unfavorable, it was easy to 
 cut it short and return. Preparations were accordingly 
 made with apparent cheerfulness, though with a latent 
 sadness and misgiving. Books were chosen, he him 
 self making out the following list : The Bible ; Daily 
 Food ; Luther on the Psalms ; Hengstenberg s Psalms; 
 Lewis s Six Days of Creation ; Owen on Mark ; The 
 Iliad ; The Georgics (Heyne s Virgil) ; Bacon s Ad 
 vancement of Learning ; Shakspeare ; Milton ; Cole 
 ridge ; Thomson ; Macaulay s History ; Anastasius ; 
 The Crescent and the Cross. A few farewells were 
 said, and a few farewell notes written, breathing of 
 more, as it now seems, than a temporary separation. 
 The following, to the Hon. Charles Eames of Washing 
 ton, and another to Mr. Abbott, the District Attorney 
 for Essex, were written the day before he sailed : 
 
 " Boston, Tuesday, June 28, 1859. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, I borrow my son s hand to grasp yours 
 and Mrs. Eames s with the friendship of many years, and on 
 the eve of a departure in search of better health. God bless 
 you till I return, and whether I return. 
 " Yours very sincerely, 
 
 " R. CHOATE, JR., for RUFUS CHOATE. 
 " Hox. CHARLES EAMES." 
 
346 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 " HON. A. A. ABBOTT. Boston, Tuesday afternoon, June 28 [1859]. 
 
 "Mr DEAR SIR, It would puzzle a Philadelphia doctor 
 to say whether I am intrinsically better than when I saw you 
 last, but I am quite competent to pronounce for myself that I 
 love and esteem you, and Brother Lord, and Brother Ilun- 
 tington, quite as much as ever, and for quite as much reason. 
 Pray accept for yourself, and give to them all, my love, and 
 be sure that if I live to return, it will be with unabated regard 
 for all of you. I am yours most affectionately, 
 
 " RUFUS CHOATE, by R. C. JR." 
 
 On the 29th of June he went on board The Europa, 
 Capt. Leitch, accompanied by the members of his 
 family and a few friends, and immediately lay down on 
 the sofa in his state-room. The scene was necessarily 
 a sad one, yet he was quite calm and seemed better 
 than he had done, retaining his natural playfulness, 
 speaking jocosely of the smallness of his reception- 
 room in which so many were assembled, yet, with a 
 peculiar tenderness, wishing to keep them all near him 
 to the last. 
 
 When his friends left him as the hour for sailing 
 drew near, mindful of the responsibility that might 
 seem to devolve on his medical attendants, he sent 
 word by his daughter, Mrs. Bell, to Dr. Putnam, his 
 physician, that " whatever might be the event, he was 
 satisfied that every thing had been done for the best." 
 During the voyage to Halifax he lay in his state-room 
 still, almost like marble, and with no restlessness of 
 body or mind, conversing but little, and sutTering 
 somewhat from sea-sickness. On Thursday a bad 
 symptom showed itself, in the swelling of his hands. 
 The ship s surgeon, Dr. Bry, and another physician on 
 board, Dr. Tyler, of Brookfield, were consulted, and 
 came to the conclusion that it was hazardous for him 
 
1858-1859.] LETTER OF GEO. S. HILLARD. 347 
 
 to proceed, as, in their opinion, the excitement atten 
 dant upon any accident, or a severe storm, might cause 
 death at once. To the advice tendered by them and 
 other friends on board, after a little hesitation, he as 
 sented, apparently glad of a chance of relief, he was so 
 iv ear y. 
 
 The letter of a fellow-passenger, Hon. George S. 
 Hillard, describes the circumstances of the midnight 
 landing too graphically to be omitted or forgotten in 
 this narrative. " From the moment I first looked 
 upon him, on the morning of the day that we sailed," 
 says Mr. Hillard, writing from England, after hearing 
 of his death, " I felt assured that the hand of death 
 was on him. His berth was next to mine, and I saw 
 him many times during the short period he remained 
 on board. He was always lying at full length upon the 
 sofa, and perfectly quiet, though not reading or listen 
 ing to reading. This in itself, in one with so active a 
 brain and restless an organization as his, was rather 
 an ominous sign. In the brief moments of intercourse 
 I had with him, the feminine sweetness and gentleness 
 of manner which always characterized him was very 
 marked and very touching. The determination that 
 he should stop at Halifax was come to before dinner 
 on the 30th, and all preparations were duly made to 
 have him landed so soon as we should reach the port. 
 This was not accomplished until midnight ; the night 
 was very dark, and all that we could see of the town 
 was a mass of indistinct gloom, dotted here and there 
 with twinkling lights. We took on board a large 
 number of passengers, and you can well imagine the 
 distracting hurry and confusion of such a scene ; the 
 jostling of porters and luggage, the trampling of rest- 
 
348 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 less feet, and all the while the escape-pipe driving 
 one into madness with its ear-piercing hiss. Mr. 
 Choate walked to his carriage, leaning heavily on my 
 arm, his son s attention being absorbed by the care of 
 the luggage. He moved slowly and with some diffi 
 culty, taking very short steps. Two carriages had 
 been engaged, by some misunderstanding, but, on ac 
 count of the luggage, it was found convenient to retain 
 them both. Mr. Choate was put into one of them, 
 alone, without any incumbrance of trunk or bag. and 
 his son with the luggage occupied the other. When 
 the moment for driving off came, I could not bear to 
 see him carried out into the unknown darkness unac 
 companied, and I asked Capt. Leitch, who was with us, 
 and whose thoughtful kindness I shall never forget, 
 how long a time I might have to drive up into the 
 town ; and he replied, half an hour. Hearing that the 
 inn, or boarding-house, to which we were directed, was 
 but half a mile off, I entered the coach, sat by his side, 
 and off we went through the silent and gloomy streets. 
 The half-mile stretched out into a long mile, and when 
 we had reached the house, and I had deposited Mr. 
 Choate on a sofa in the sitting-room, the landlady ap 
 palled me by saying that she had not an unoccupied 
 bed in the house, and could not accommodate him. 
 Her words fell upon my heart like a blow. ... In the 
 mean time the inexorable moments were slipping away, 
 and I was compelled to leave the house. I heard an 
 airy voice calling me out of the darkness, and 1 could 
 not by a moment enlarge the captain s leave. I left 
 Mr. Choate upon the sofa, pale and exhausted, but 
 patient and uncomplaining, his luggage in the street 
 at the door, and his son at that midnight hour wander- 
 
1858-1859.] LANDING AT HALIFAX. 349 
 
 ing about the streets of Halifax, seeking a temporary 
 shelter for a dying father, with what result I have not 
 yet heard. What with the sense of hurry, the irrita 
 tion of this mischance, and the consciousness that I 
 had seen my eminent friend for the last time, I drove 
 back to the boat with a very sore heart. There are 
 some passages in our lives which stamp themselves 
 upon the memory with peculiar force and distinctness. 
 Such were my midnight experiences at Halifax : if I 
 should live to be a hundred years old, they would be 
 as fresh before the mind s eye as they are now." 
 
 After Mr. Hillard left, a room was secured in what 
 proved to be a very pleasant boarding-house, not far 
 distant from the one to which he first drove. It was in 
 the third story, and overlooked the harbor. Mr. 
 Choate was too weak to ascend the stairs that night, 1 
 but slept well in a lower room, and the next morning 
 was able to mount to his own. He immediately took 
 to his bed, which he never again left. At the sugges 
 tion of the American Consul, Dr. Domville, surgeon on 
 board the flag-ship of the Admiral then in command 
 of the British fleet on the North American station, 
 was called in, and through his prescriptions the most 
 unfavorable symptoms were soon alleviated. From 
 day to day he remained nearly the same, rising from 
 his bed only to have it made, talking but little, watch 
 ing with the old, habitual love of the sea as he 
 could without raising his head from the pillow, the un 
 loading of the ships, and the vessels moving in the 
 harbor. " If a schooner or sloop goes by," he once 
 said, when dropping into a doze, " don t disturb me, but 
 
 1 He was so feeble that, in going from one house to the other, he 
 fell forward in the carriage and was not able to raise himself. 
 
350 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 if there is a square-rigged vessel, wake me up." By 
 night his son sat by his side till he was sound asleep, 
 when, by his special request, he was left alone, and 
 usually slept well. Only one night did he seem at all 
 unlike himself, when being oppressed for breath, he 
 seemed to imagine that people were crowding round 
 the bed. His books were read to him: Shakspeare, 
 (The Tempest), Bacon s Advancement of Learning, 
 Macaulay s History, The Six Days of Creation, Gray s 
 Poem on Adversity (he selecting it), Luther on the 
 Psalms, and more variously and constantly than all, 
 the Bible. He talked much of home, making little 
 plans about the best way of getting there ; talked of 
 sending for his family to come to him, but thought he 
 should recruit so soon that it would be of no use ; 
 talked about Essex, of wanting to go down there and 
 having a boat built for him, discussing her size and rig. 
 He was constantly cheerful, pleasant, and hopeful, and 
 on the 12th of July, according to Dr. Domville, ap 
 peared better than on any previous day, and was led 
 to indulge the hope that he would shortly be sufficiently 
 restored to make a journey homeward or elsewhere. 
 It was otherwise ordered. The great shadow was fast 
 sweeping over him. 
 
 At his usual hour on that day, about five o clock, 
 he ate as hearty a dinner as usual, bolstered up in bed, 
 and conversing at the same time with his natural 
 vivacity. Shortly after he had finished, his son, who 
 was in the room, was startled by hearing him asking 
 for something indistinctly and in a peculiar tone ; and 
 going to him, inquired if he did not feel well. He 
 said, No that he felt very faint. These were the last 
 words he ever uttered. He was raised and supported 
 
1858-1859.] PROCEEDINGS OF PUBLIC BODIES. 351 
 
 in the bed ; the remedies at hand were freely applied, 
 and the physician at once summoned. But the end 
 was at hand. His eyes closed, opened again, but with 
 no apparent recognition ; a slight struggle passed over 
 his frame, and consciousness was extinguished for ever. 
 A heavy breathing alone showed that life remained. 
 It continued till twenty minutes before two o clock on 
 the morning of July 13, when it ceased, and all was 
 still. 1 
 
 Among strangers as he was, his illness had awakened 
 a general sympathy, and prompted the kindest atten 
 tions. " All classes, from the Governor, Lord Mul- 
 grave, down, proffered during his illness all that their 
 several resources afforded;" and his death, so sudden 
 and unexpected, " cast a gloom over the entire com 
 munity." 2 A meeting of the Bench and Bar of the 
 city, presided over by the venerable Chief Justice, Sir 
 Brenton Haliburton, was immediately held in testimony 
 of respect and sympathy. The sad tidings were at 
 once spread by telegraph over the United States, and 
 everywhere evoked a similar response. The press, of 
 all parties and persuasions, and in every part of the 
 country, was unanimous in its tribute of respect. 
 Meetings were held in many cities and towns in many 
 States, to give utterance to the general sorrow. Among 
 the letters which came from various parts of the coun 
 try, the following was received from President Bu 
 chanan : 
 
 1 An autopsy, made after the remains had reached Boston, showed 
 that the heart and lungs were entirely healthy. The kidneys were 
 affected with what is known to physicians as " Bright s disease." The 
 brain was not examined. 
 
 2 Letter from Dr. Domville. 
 
352 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 " WASHINGTON, 18th July, 1859. 
 
 "My DEAR SIR, I deeply regret the death of Mr. Choate. 
 I consider his" loss, at the present time, to be a great public 
 misfortune. He was an unselfish patriot, devoted to the 
 Constitution and the Union ; and the moral influence of his 
 precept and his example would have contributed much to re 
 store the ancient peace and harmony among the different mem 
 bers of the Confederacy. In him * the elements were so 
 combined, that all his acquaintances became his devoted 
 friends. So far as I know, even party malevolence spared 
 him. He was pure and incorruptible ; and in all our inter 
 course I have never known him to utter or insinuate a senti 
 ment respecting public affairs which was not of a high tone 
 and elevated character. Yours very respectfully, 
 
 "JAMES BUCHANAN." 
 
 But nowhere was there a deeper or more prevailing 
 feeling than among the members of the Essex Bar, with 
 whom he began and with whom he closed his labors, 
 and in Boston where his greatest legal triumphs were 
 achieved. Many clergymen noticed the loss in their 
 public discourses. The Mercantile Library Association ; 
 the Young Men s Democratic Club ; the Massachusetts 
 Historical Society ; the Municipal Corporation ; the 
 Courts of the State, and of the United States ; the Fac 
 ulty and Alumni of Dartmouth College, where he was 
 graduated just forty years before ; the Bar of New York, 
 and many other public bodies, met to express their sense 
 of the loss. The Suffolk Bar at once appointed a com 
 mittee to draw up and present a series of resolutions ; 
 and seldom has there been expression of sincerer or 
 deeper grief than at the meeting which followed. His 
 brethren of the Bar spoke with suffused eye and tremu 
 lous lip. Of the many addresses and communications, 
 difficult as it is to discriminate between them on the 
 score of fitness and general excellence, a few may be 
 selected as indicative of the spirit of all. 
 
1858-1859.] ADDRESS OF HON. C. G. LORING. 353 
 
 FROM THE ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES G. LORING, AT A MEET 
 ING OF THE SUFFOLK BAR. 
 
 " MR. CHAIRMAN, I am instructed by the commit 
 tee appointed at a meeting of which this is an adjourn 
 ment, to present for its consideration a series of reso 
 lutions, the adoption of which they recommend as com 
 memorative of the sense entertained by the members of 
 the Suffolk Bar, of the afflicting event which has recently 
 befallen them. And in discharging that duty, I crave 
 indulgence, as one of the eldest among them, to say a 
 few words upon the sad theme which fills our hearts, 
 though the state of my health would forbid any elab 
 orate attempt at adequate description of the marvellous 
 combination of genius, learning, and ability, charac 
 teristic of our departed brother, or any fitting eulogium 
 upon his life and character. 
 
 " Of his gifts and attainments as a lawyer and as an 
 orator, not only this bar, but the national forum and 
 the legislative halls of the Commonwealth, and of the 
 United States, have been witnesses ; while his scholas 
 tic efforts, on many varying occasions, have been heard 
 and read by admiring multitudes, whose remembrance 
 of them is still fresh and full. And if not relying 
 only upon our own affectionate and perhaps partial 
 judgments we may trust the general expression of 
 the press throughout the land, it is no unbecoming ex 
 aggeration to say that in the death of our friend the 
 nation has lost one of the most gifted and distinguished 
 lawyers and orators, and one of the most refined and 
 accomplished scholars, that have adorned its forensic, 
 legislative, or literary annals. 
 
 " Having been for more than twenty years after Mr. 
 
 23 
 
354 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 Choate came to this bar, his antagonist in forensic 
 struggles, at the least, I believe, as frequently as any 
 other member of it, I may well be competent to bear 
 witness to his peculiar abilities, resources, and manners 
 in professional service. And having, in the varied ex 
 periences of nearly forty years, not infrequently en 
 countered some of the giants of the law, whose lives 
 and memories have contributed to render this bar illus 
 trious throughout the land, among whom I may in 
 clude the honored names of Prescott, Mason, Hubbard, 
 Webster, and Dexter, and others among the dead, and 
 those of others yet with us, to share in the sorrows of 
 this hour, I do no injustice to the living or the dead 
 in saying, that for the peculiar powers desirable for a 
 lawyer and advocate, for combination of accurate mem 
 ory, logical acumen, vivid imagination, profound learn 
 ing in the law, exuberance of literary knowledge and 
 command of language, united with strategic skill, I 
 should place him at the head of all whom I have ever 
 seen in the management of a cause at the bar. 
 
 " No one who has not been frequently his antagonist 
 in intricate and balanced cases, can have adequate 
 conception of his wonderful powers and resources; and 
 especially in desperate emergencies, when his seemingly 
 assured defeat has terminated in victory. 
 
 " His remembrance of every fact, suggestion, or im 
 plication involved in the testimony, of even the remotest 
 admission by his adversary, his ready knowledge 
 and application of every principle of law called for at 
 the moment, his long forecast and ever watchful at 
 tention to every new phase of the case, however slight, 
 his incredible power of clear and brilliant illustra 
 tion, his unexampled exuberance of rich and glowing 
 
1858-1859.] ADDRESS OF HON. C. G. LORING. 355 
 
 language, his wonderfully methodic arrangement, 
 where method would best serve him, and no less won 
 derful power of dislocation and confusion of forces, 
 when method would not serve him, his incredible 
 ingenuity in retreating when seemingly annihilated, 
 and the suddenness and impetuosity with which, chang 
 ing front, he returned to the charge, or rallied in an 
 other and unexpected direction, and the brilliant 
 fancy, the peerless beauty, and fascinating glow of lan 
 guage and sentiment, with which, when law and facts 
 and argument were all against him, he could raise his 
 audience above them all as things of earth, while in 
 sensibly persuading it that the decision should rest 
 upon considerations to be found in higher regions, and 
 that a verdict in his favor was demanded by some 
 transcendent equity independent of them all, at times 
 surpassed all previous conceptions of human ability. 
 
 " In manner and deportment at the bar, as every 
 where, our deceased brother was not only unexception 
 able, but an eminent example of what a lawyer should 
 be. Always dignified and graceful in his bearing to 
 wards his professional brethren, and deferential to the 
 court, and always self-possessed in the stormiest seas, 
 his intensity of language being, as I ever thought, 
 the effect of a strongly excited imagination, combined 
 with peculiar nervous energy, rather than arising from 
 otherwise deep emotions or excited feelings he rarely 
 permitted himself to indulge in personalities, and never 
 in those of an offensive and degrading nature, the in 
 dulgence of which is ever to be deplored, as alike dis 
 creditable to the individual and the profession, of which, 
 for the time being, every advocate should feel himself 
 to be the public representative. 
 
356 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 " Nor can I leave this theme without thus publicly 
 reaffirming, what it has been my constant pleasure to 
 say of him throughout all our long years of exasperat 
 ing conflicts, that he was the best tempered and most 
 amiable man in controversy whom I ever encountered ; 
 nor will I hesitate to add that his example has at times 
 winged the arrow of self-reproach that it was not better 
 followed. 
 
 "Of Mr. Choate s power and attainments as a scholar, 
 so conspicuous and extensive, I forbear to speak further 
 than to say that the bar of the whole country owes to 
 him the debt of gratitude for exhibiting an example so 
 illustrious of the strength, dignity, and beauty which 
 forensic discussion may draw from the fields of litera 
 ture and art, with whose treasures he often adorned 
 his arguments in rich exuberance, though never with 
 the slightest savor of pedantry or affectation. 
 
 " We have fought many hardly contested forensic 
 fields, but ever met, as I trust and believe, on neutral 
 ground, in mutual, cordial good-will and many are 
 the delightful hours I have passed in his society in 
 the enjoyment of his genial nature, fascinating exuber 
 ance of fancy and learning, and exquisite wit ; but the 
 silver cord is loosed, the golden bowl is broken, and 
 the wheel broken at the cistern ; and it is only left for 
 me to lay a worthless, fading chaplet on his grave." 
 
 " Hon. George Lunt, chairman of the sub-committee 
 of the Suffolk Bar, presented the following resolutions, 
 prefacing them with a few remarks, in the course of 
 which he said, 
 
 " Of those who have cultivated deliberative eloquence as an 
 art, no doubt there have been others his equals, possibly in 
 
1858-1859.] REMARKS OF HON. GEO. LUNT. 357 
 
 some respects his superiors. And though his style of oratory, 
 in its composition, could scarcely be compared with any thing 
 except the grand and lofty periods of Milton in his works of 
 prose, yet it had many of the characteristics of Burke, whom 
 he admired, and of another great man of our own country 
 Fisher Ames whom no successor has surpassed. But at the 
 bar, when and where was there ever one like him in the union 
 of all things which constituted his power, and gave him that 
 sort of magnetic influence, felt by all who approached him, 
 and which courts, juries, and audiences so often found irresisti 
 ble ? It was in this, I feel disposed to say, that Mr. Choate 
 was the most peculiar, that his soul imbued his thoughts 
 and gave them life and action, and to him more than to any 
 man, and now with sad significance, are applicable those de 
 scriptive lines of Dryden : 
 
 A fiery soul that, working out its way, 
 Fretted the pigmy body to decay, 
 And o er-informed the tenement of clay. 
 
 For his soul became incorporated, as he spoke with his living 
 presence, and he had enough of the spiritual element for a 
 whole generation of ordinary members of the bar. 
 " With your permission I will read the 
 
 RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 " Resolved, That the members of this Bar, submissively and 
 solemnly acknowledging the dispensation of Divine Provi 
 dence, in removing by death their late eminent leader and 
 beloved associate, the Honorable Rufus Choate, recognize 
 that mournful event with emotions of the profoundest sorrow, 
 and sincerely feel that no language could adequately express 
 their exalted estimation of his character as a lawyer, a citizen, 
 and a man, or their affectionate respect and veneration for his 
 memory. 
 
 " Resolved, That the professional character of our departed 
 brother exhibited the rarest and most admirable qualities, sel 
 dom if ever before so singularly united in the same person ; 
 that while unrivalled in all the learning of the law, entirely 
 familiar with the principles, the doctrines, and the philosophy 
 of the science to which his life was devoted, and thoroughly 
 acquainted with the minutest requirements of its practice, the 
 manly strength and capacity of his intellect were combined 
 
358 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 with a grace, an elegance, and a brilliancy of conception and 
 expression totally unexampled ; that while he brought to the 
 pursuits of his profession the most extraordinary quickness 
 and clearness of apprehension, and the best faculties of sound 
 and solid reasoning, these incomparable powers were bright 
 ened and enriched by a facility and fertility of illustration no 
 less remarkable, drawn from nature, art, literature, the re 
 sources of his own imagination, and the Scriptures which he 
 so loved and reverenced ; and by a spontaneous flow of im 
 passioned and matchless eloquence, which animated, instructed, 
 and inspired reason captivating it, yet subject to it using 
 the noblest language in which thought could clothe itself, va 
 ried often, and enlivened by a quaint and original felicity of 
 expression, which cheered the gravest proceedings, while it 
 illuminated his meaning showing him, confessedly, among 
 all men, the very genius of the Bar ; yet with all its amplest 
 treasuries of knowledge at his command, by the exercise of a 
 power of application, not usually attributed to genius, and by 
 habits of careful and laborious study, in which no man sur 
 passed and few equalled him manifesting a real and most 
 earnest sympathy in every case entrusted to him, to the 
 smallest indifferently with the largest, by a sort of resolute in 
 stinct of nature, but which always co-operated with principle, 
 and was sustained by it thus, always doing justice to his 
 client, himself, and the occasion, and never found even par 
 tially unprepared but before a single judge, with no au 
 dience, upon a question claiming little public interest, as 
 learned, as eloquent, as choice, copious, and accurate in lan 
 guage, and equally as fervent in business, as if surrounded 
 by an admiring crowd, so often kindled by the thrilling utter 
 ance of his lips for he was still there, doing his duty his 
 vigor, his fire, his zeal ever the same so that it was the 
 spirit of the man within which led him on, and made him true 
 to all time and place, and thus able to turn time, occasion, 
 circumstance, all things, to the immediate and overpowering 
 purpose which impelled him, as few men are impelled, to do 
 witli his might whatever his hands found to do. 
 
 "Resolved, That while looking to him constantly as one of 
 the great lights of the profession honoring him without 
 reservation as its unquestioned leader, with recollections full 
 of that enchanting eloquence which always fascinated by a 
 freshness, a brilliancy, an ardor, and an originality peculiarly its 
 own, and of a learning equally sound, extensive, and ready 
 
1858-1859.] REMARKS OF HON. GEO. LUNT. 359 
 
 always gathering new stores by the unceasing study and re 
 flection of every day our long association with him, in the 
 kindest, most agreeable, and most friendly relations, as mem 
 bers of the Bar, and in the ordinary intercourse of life, recalls 
 the impression of his personal characteristics with vivid dis 
 tinctness and poignancy at this moment of severe and unaf 
 fected grief; and revives him in our memory as, of all men 
 whom we have known, one of the most truly amiable and esti 
 mable ; and with hearts overflowing with the sense of that 
 amenity and unforced courtesy now buried with him for 
 ever so graceful and uniform, since it was a part of his very 
 nature of that transparent tenderness of feeling peculiarly 
 distinguishing him and an unassuming kindness of demeanor, 
 rendered to the lowest equally with the highest in his com 
 pany, showing him humane and true to humanity in the 
 broadest acceptation of the word, as he was profoundly inter 
 ested in all which might concern a man and though without 
 any of the familiarity which lessens, yet equally at home with 
 the humblest and most cultivated, and in the poorest as the 
 grandest place ; and everywhere and in all companies free 
 from the slightest indelicacy of expression, and apparently 
 unconscious of it by a certain innate nicety of mind and 
 gratefully remembering him as a true gentleman, because gen 
 tle both by nature and culture, and as the highest ornament 
 of his profession, and an honor to his race, we cherish his 
 memory with an affection, admiration, and respect, scarcely to 
 be disturbed in this generation by another example of quali 
 ties and gifts so noble and extraordinary, as to make him in 
 many singular respects in genius, learning, and eloquence 
 in perfection of the reasoning powers, and taste, fancy, and 
 imaginative faculties not often in concord with them ; and in 
 fidelity to his client and his cause never excelled justly en 
 titled to the reputation, likely to become still more extensive, 
 of the marvel of his time. 
 
 ** Resolved, That, while the decease of this great and excel 
 lent man is universally regarded by this community as an ir 
 reparable calamity, to be only deepened by experience, as we 
 become more and more sensible of a vacant place so difficult 
 worthily to fill, the loss to the Commonwealth and the 
 nation cannot be too keenly deplored ; that as a citizen of the 
 State and of the United Republic, his whole life evinced that 
 wise interest in and generous devotion to public affairs, be 
 coming his station, profession, character, and understanding, 
 
360 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 discussing them before the people on suitable occasions, with a 
 spirit and a power of thought and language seldom equalled 
 thus affording the strongest and surest pledge of an honest 
 and unflinching patriotism, which won for him, even from 
 those hostile to his opinions, a confidence in his political in 
 tegrity seldom felt or granted to a statesman by those opposed 
 to him ; and that while the public services rendered by him 
 in the past entitle his memory to our veneration, we may well 
 anticipate future exigencies of the country, when to iniss the 
 invaluable aid of such an illustrious counsellor, guide, and ex 
 ample, will be only to renew our grief, as we look in vain for 
 that steady and shining light now so prematurely and sadly 
 extinguished. 
 
 " Resolved, That the members of this Bar, sorrowfully and 
 respectfully, beg leave to tender to the bereaved family of 
 their lamented friend the most heartfelt sentiments of condo 
 lence and sympathy ; and feeling that the occasion rarely 
 arises in which private grief is so cleeply and justly shared by 
 all, and peculiarly by their own profession, they ask permission 
 to unite with the family of their departed brother, in attending 
 his remains to their last earthly resting-place. 
 
 "Resolved, That a eulogy be pronounced at such convenient 
 time as may be hereafter determined upon, and that Hon. 
 Caleb Gushing be invited to deliver the same before the Bar. 
 
 " Resolved, That these resolutions be presented to the Su 
 preme Judicial Court of this Commonwealth, with a request 
 that they be entered upon its records. 
 
 REMARKS OF RICHARD H. DANA, JR., ESQ. 
 
 " MR. CHAIRMAN, By your courtesy, and the cour 
 tesy of this bar, which never fails, I occupy an earlier 
 moment than I should otherwise be entitled to ; for 
 the reason, that in a few hours I shall be called upon 
 to take a long leave of the bar and of my home. I 
 cannot do that, Sir, I cannot do that, without rising 
 to say one word of what I know and feel upon this sad 
 loss. 
 
 " The pressure which has been upon me in the last 
 
1858-1859.] REMARKS OF R. H. DANA, JR. 361 
 
 few days of my remaining here, has prevented my 
 making that kind of preparation which the example of 
 him whom we commemorate requires of every man 
 about to address a fit audience upon a great subject. 
 I can only speak right on what I do feel and know. 
 
 " ; The wine of life is drawn. The golden bowl is 
 broken. The age of miracles has passed. The day 
 of inspiration is over. The Great Conqueror, unseen 
 and irresistible, has broken into our temple and has 
 carried off the vessels of gold, the vessels of silver, 
 the precious stones, the jewels, and the ivory ; and, 
 like the priests of the Temple of Jerusalem," after the 
 invasion from Babylon, we must content ourselves, 
 as we can, with vessels of wood and of stone and of 
 iron. 
 
 " With such broken phrases as these, Mr. Chairman, 
 perhaps not altogether just to the living, we endeavor 
 to express the emotions natural to this hour of our 
 bereavement. Talent, industry, eloquence, and learn 
 ing there are still, and always will be, at the Bar of 
 Boston. But if I say that the age of miracles has 
 passed, that the day of inspiration is over, if I can 
 not realize that in this place where we now are, the 
 cloth of gold was spread, and a banquet set fit for the 
 gods, I know, Sir, you will excuse it. Any one who 
 has lived with him and now survives him will excuse 
 it, any one who, like the youth in Wordsworth s 
 ode, 
 
 by the vision splendid, 
 Is on his way attended, 
 At length . . . perceives it die away, 
 And fade into the light of common day/ 
 
 " Sir, I speak for myself, I have no right to speak 
 for others, but I can truly say, without any exag- 
 
362 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 geration, taking for the moment a simile from that 
 element which he loved as much as I love it, though it 
 rose against his life at last, that in his presence I 
 felt like the master of a small coasting vessel, that 
 hugs the shore, that has run up under the lee to speak 
 a great homeward bound Iiidiaman, freighted with 
 silks and precious stones, spices and costly fabrics, 
 with sky-sails and studding-sails spread to the breeze, 
 with the nation s flag at her mast-head, navigated by 
 the mysterious science of the fixed stars, and not un 
 prepared with weapons of defence, her decks peopled 
 with men in strange costumes, speaking of strange 
 climes and distant lands. 
 
 " All loved him, especially the young. He never 
 asserted himself, or claimed precedence, to the injury 
 of any man s feelings. Who ever knew him to lose 
 temper ? Who ever heard from him an unkind word ? 
 And this is all the more strange from the fact of his 
 great sensitiveness of temperament. 
 
 " His splendid talents as an orator need no com 
 mendation here. The world knows so much. The 
 world knows perfectly well that juries after juries 
 have returned their verdicts for Mr. Choate s clients, 
 and the Court has entered them upon the issues. 
 The world knows how he electrified vast audiences 
 in his more popular addresses ; but, Sir, the world 
 has not known, though it knows better now than 
 it did, and the testimony of those better competent 
 than I am will teach it, that his power here rested 
 not merely nor chiefly upon his eloquence, but rested 
 principally upon his philosophic and dialectic power. 
 He was the greatest master of logic we had amongst 
 us. No man detected a fallacy so quickly, or exposed 
 
1858-1859.] REMARKS OF R. H. DANA, JR. 363 
 
 it so felicitously as he, whether in scientific terms to 
 the bench, or popularly to the jury ; and who could 
 play with a fallacy as he could ? Ask those venerated 
 men who compose our highest tribunal, with whom all 
 mere rhetoric is worse than wasted when their minds 
 are bent to the single purpose of arriving at the true 
 results of their science, ask them wherein lay the 
 greatest power of Rufus Choate, and they will tell you 
 it lay in his philosophy, his logic, and his learning. 
 
 " He was, Sir, in two words, a unique creation. He 
 was a strange product of New England. Benjamin 
 Franklin, John Adams, Samuel Dexter, Daniel Web 
 ster, and Jeremiah Mason seem to be the natural 
 products of the soil ; but to me this great man always 
 seemed as not having an origin here in New England, 
 but as if, by the side of our wooden buildings, or by 
 the side of our time-enduring granite, there had risen, 
 like an exhalation, some Oriental structure, with the 
 domes and glittering minarets of the Eastern world. 
 Yet this beautiful fabric, so aerial, was founded upon 
 a rock. We know he digged his foundation deep, and 
 laid it strong and sure. 
 
 " I wished to say a word as to his wit, but time 
 would fail me to speak of every thing. Yet, without 
 reference to that, all I may say would be too incom 
 plete. His wit did not raise an uproarious laugh, but 
 created an inward and homefelt delight, and took up 
 its abode in your memory. The casual word, the un 
 expected answer at the corner of the street, the re 
 mark whispered over the back of his chair while the 
 docket was calling, you repeated to the next man you 
 met, and he to the next, and in a few days it became 
 the anecdote of the town. When as lawyers we met 
 
364 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 together, in tedious hours, and sought to entertain our 
 selves, we found we did better with anecdotes of Mr. 
 Choate than on our own original resources. 
 
 " Besides his eloquence, his logical power, and his wit, 
 he possessed deep and varied learning. His learning 
 was accurate, too. He could put his hand on any Massa 
 chusetts case as quick as the judge who decided it. 
 
 " But if I were asked to name that which I regard 
 as his characteristic, that in which he differed from 
 other learned, logical, and eloquent men of great emi 
 nence, I should say it was his aesthetic nature. 
 
 " Even under the excitement of this moment, I 
 should not compare his mind in the point of mere 
 force of understanding (and, indeed, he would not 
 have tolerated such a comparison) with Daniel Web 
 ster ; and yet I think we have a right to say that, in 
 his aesthetic nature, he possessed something to which 
 the minds of Franklin, Adams, Dexter, Mason, and 
 Webster, were strangers. 
 
 " But I ask pardon of the bar. I am not desirous 
 of making these comparisons. 
 
 " I need not say, Sir, Rufus Choate was a great 
 lawyer, a great jurist, a great publicist, but more than 
 all that and I speak of that which I know his 
 nature partook strongly of the poetic element. It was 
 not something which he could put on or off , but it was 
 born with him I will not say died with him, but is 
 translated with him. 
 
 " Shakspeare was his great author. I would have 
 defied even the Shakspeare scholar to refer to any 
 passage of Shakspeare that Mr. Choate would not have 
 recognized instantly. Next to Shakspeare, I think I 
 have a right to say he thought that he owed more to 
 
1858-1859.] REMARKS OF R. H. DANA, JR. 365 
 
 Wordsworth than to any other poet. He studied him 
 before it was the fashion, and before his high position 
 had been vindicated. 
 
 " Then he was, of course, a great student of Milton, 
 and after that, I think that those poets who gained the 
 affections of his youth, and wrote when he was young, 
 
 Byron, Scott, Coleridge, Southey, had his affec 
 tions chiefly ; though, of course, he read and valued 
 and studied Spenser and Dryden, and, as a satirist 
 and a maker of epigrams, Pope. This love of poetry 
 with him was genuine and true. He read and studied 
 always, not with a view to make ornaments for his 
 speeches, but because his nature drew him to it. We 
 all know he was a fine Greek and Latin scholar ; was 
 accurate ; he never made a false quantity. Who ever 
 detected him in a misquotation ? He once told me he 
 never allowed a day to go by that he did not write out 
 a translation from some Greek or Latin author. This 
 was one of the means by which he gained his affluence 
 of language. Of Cicero he was a frequent student, 
 particularly of his ethical and philosophical writings. 
 But Greek was his favorite tongue. 
 
 " One word more, Sir. It is not so generally known, 
 I suppose, of Mr. Choate, that, certainly during the 
 last ten years of his life, he gave much of his thoughts 
 to those noble and elevating problems which relate to 
 the nature and destiny of man, to the nature of God, 
 to the great hereafter ; recognizing, Sir, that great 
 truth so beautifully expressed in his favorite tongue 
 
 in sacred writ, Ta py f&exopwa aiawa things not 
 seen are eternal. He studied not merely psychology ; 
 he knew well the great schools of philosophy ; he knew 
 well their characteristics, and read their leading men. 
 
366 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 I suspect he was the first man in this community who 
 read Sir William Hamilton, and Mansel s work on 
 4 The Limits of Religious Thought ; and I doubt if 
 the Chairs of Harvard and Yale were more familiar 
 with the English and German mind, and their views 
 on these great problems, than Mr. Choate. 
 
 " He carried his study even into technical theology. 
 He knew its genius and spirit better than many divines. 
 He knew in detail the great dogmas of St. Augustine ; 
 and he studied and knew John Calvin and Luther. Ho 
 knew the great principles which lie at the foundation 
 of Catholic theology and institutions, and the theology 
 of the Evangelical school ; and he knew and studied 
 the rationalistic writings of the Germans, and was 
 familiar with their theories and characteristics. 
 
 " With all those persons whom he met and who he 
 felt, with reasonable confidence, had sufficient eleva 
 tion to value these subjects, he conversed upon them 
 freely. But beyond this as to his opinions, his re 
 sults I have no right to speak. I only wished to 
 allude to a few of the more prominent of his charac 
 teristics ; and it is peculiarly gratifying to remember, 
 at this moment, that he had the elevation of mind so 
 to lay hold upon the greatest of all subjects. 
 
 " I meant to have spoken of his studies of the Eng 
 lish prose-writers, among whom Bacon and Burke had 
 his preference. But he read them all, and loved to 
 read them all ; from the scholastic stateliness of Mil 
 ton, warring for the right of expressing thoughts for 
 all ages, to the simplicity of Cowper s Letters. 
 
 " But all this is gone for us ! We are never to see 
 him again in the places that knew him. To think that 
 he, of all men, who loved his home so, should have 
 
1858-1859.] ADDRESS OF HON. B. R. CURTIS. 367 
 
 died among strangers ! That he, of all men, should 
 have died under a foreign flag ! I can go no further. 
 I can only call upon all to bear witness now, and to 
 the next generation, that he stood before us an ex 
 ample of eminence in science, in erudition, in genius, 
 in taste, in honor, in generosity, in humanity, in 
 every liberal sentiment, and every liberal accomplish 
 ment." 
 
 ADDRESS OF HON. BENJAMIN R. CURTIS ON PRESENTING TO 
 THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT THE RESOLUTIONS OF THE 
 SUFFOLK BAR. [Sept. 20, 1859.] 
 
 " May it please your Honor : 
 
 " I have been directed by the Bar of the County of 
 Suffolk, to present to the Supreme Judicial Court cer 
 tain resolutions adopted by them, upon the decease 
 of their lamented and distinguished brother, Rufus 
 Choate, and to request the Court to have these resolu 
 tions entered on record here. They were adopted at 
 a meeting of the members of this bar, held in this 
 place on the 19th day of July last, since which time 
 the Supreme Judicial Court is now first in session 
 for the business of the County of Suffolk. With the 
 leave of the Court I will ask the clerk to read the 
 resolutions. [The clerk read the resolutions, which 
 have been published heretofore.] 
 
 " This is not the occasion, nor is it devolved on me, 
 to pronounce a eulogy on the subject of these resolu 
 tions, whose death in the midst of his brilliant and 
 important career has made so profound an impression 
 on his brethren of the bar and of the community at 
 large. The Court will have noticed that by one of 
 the resolutions I have read, other suitable provision 
 
368 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CIIOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 has been made for that tribute of respect to him, and 
 for doing justice to their sense of their own and the 
 public loss. But the relations which Mr. Choate long 
 sustained to this Court have been too conspicuous and 
 too important to me to be wholly silent here respecting 
 them. The bench and the bar are mutually dependent 
 on each other for that co-operation which is essential 
 to the steady, prompt, and successful distribution of 
 justice. Without the assistance and support of a 
 learned, industrious, able, and honest bar, it is not too 
 much to say that no bench in this country can sustain 
 itself, and its most strenuous exertions can result only 
 in a halting and uncertain course of justice. Without 
 a learned, patient, just, and courageous bench, there 
 will not for any long time continue to be a bar fitted 
 for its high and difficult duties. 
 
 " When, therefore, one of their number, who for 
 many years has exerted his great and brilliant powers 
 in this forum, has been removed by death, we feel that 
 in its annunciation to this Court, we make known a 
 fact of importance to itself, and that we may be sure 
 of its sympathy, and of its appreciation of what is in 
 deed a common loss. You have witnessed his labors 
 and know how strenuous, how frequent, how great, 
 how devoted to his duty they have been. You have 
 been instructed by his learning and relieved by his 
 analysis of complicated controversies. You have 
 doubtless been delighted by his eloquence and informed 
 and interested by the fruits of his rich and liberal cul 
 ture. And when his brethren of the bar come here 
 to make known their sense of their loss, they cannot 
 be unmindful that to you also it is a loss, not in one 
 day to be repaired. 
 
1858-1859.] ADDRESS OF HON. B. R. CURTIS. 369 
 
 " We are aware that it has sometimes been thought, 
 and by the thoughtless or inexperienced often said, 
 that from his lips With fatal sweetness elocution 
 flowed. But they who have thought or said this have 
 but an imperfect notion of the nature of our judicial 
 controversies, or of the ability for the discovery of 
 truth and justice which may be expected here. 
 
 " Such persons begin with the false assumption that 
 in the complicated cases which are brought to trial 
 here, one party is altogether right and the other alto 
 gether wrong. They are ignorant, that in nearly all 
 cases there is truth and justice and law on both sides ; 
 that it is for the tribunal to discover how much of 
 these belongs to each, and to balance them, and ascer 
 tain which preponderates ; and that so artificial are 
 the greater portion of our social rights, and so complex 
 the facts on which they depend, that it is only by 
 means of such an investigation and decision that it 
 can be certainly known on which side the real justice 
 is. That, consequently, it is the duty of the advocate 
 to manifest and enforce all the elements of justice, 
 truth, and law which exist on one side, and to take 
 care that no false appearances of those great realities 
 are exhibited on the other. That while the zealous 
 discharge of this duty is consistent with the most de 
 voted loyalty to truth and justice, it calls for the exer 
 tion of the highest attainments and powers of the 
 lawyer and the advocate, in favor of the particular 
 party whose interests have been intrusted to his care. 
 And if from eloquence and learning and skill and 
 laborious preparation and ceaseless vigilance, so pre 
 eminent as in Mr. Choate, there might seem to be 
 danger that the scales might incline to the wrong side, 
 
 24 
 
370 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 some compensation would be made by the increased 
 exertion to which that seeming danger would natu 
 rally incite his opponents ; and I am happy to believe, 
 what he believed, that as complete security against 
 wrong as the nature of human institutions will permit, 
 has always been found in the steadiness, intelligence, 
 love of justice, and legal learning of the tribunal by 
 which law and fact are here finally determined. 
 
 " I desire, therefore, on this occasion, and in this 
 presence, and in behalf of my brethren of this bar, to 
 declare our appreciation of the injustice which would 
 be done to this great and eloquent advocate by at 
 tributing to him any want of loyalty to truth, or any 
 deference to wrong, because he employed all his great 
 powers and attainments, and used to the utmost his 
 consummate skill and eloquence, in exhibiting and en 
 forcing the comparative merits of one side of the cases 
 in which he acted. In doing so he but did his duty. 
 If other people did theirs, the administration of justice 
 was secured. 
 
 " A trial in a court of justice has been fitly termed 
 a drama in which the actors, the events, and the pas 
 sions were all realities ; and of the parts which the 
 members of the legal profession play therein, it was 
 once said, by one who, I think, should have known 
 better, that they are brawlers for hire. I believe the 
 charge can have no general application certainly not 
 to those who, within my experience, have practised at 
 this bar, where good manners have been as common 
 as good learning. At all events, he of whom I 
 speak was a signal example that all lawyers are not 
 brawlers. 
 
 " For, among other things most worthy to be re- 
 
1858-1859.] ADDRESS OF HON. B. R. CURTIS. 371 
 
 membered of him, he showed, in the most convincing 
 manner, that forensic strife is consistent with uniform 
 personal kindness and gentleness of demeanor ; that 
 mere smartness, or aggressive and irritating captious- 
 ness, have nothing to do with the most effective con 
 duct of a cause ; that the business of aii advocate is 
 with the law and the evidence, and not in provoking 
 or humbling an opponent; that wrangling, and the 
 irritations which spring from it, obstruct the. course of 
 justice ; and are indeed twice cursed, for they injure 
 him who gives and him who receives. 
 
 " I am sure I shall have the concurrence of the 
 Court when I say, that among all Mr. Choate s extra 
 ordinary gifts of nature and graces of art, there was 
 nothing more remarkable than the sweetness of his 
 temper and the courtesy of his manners, both to the 
 bench and the bar. However eager might be the strife, 
 however exhausting the toil, however anxious the care, 
 these were never lost. The recollection of them is 
 now in all our hearts. 
 
 " I need not repeat that I shall make no attempt to 
 draw even an outline of the qualities and attainments 
 and powers of this great advocate. Under any circum 
 stances I should distrust my own ability for the work, 
 and as I have already said, it is not expected of me 
 here. 
 
 " I have simply to move this Honorable Court to 
 receive these resolutions, and direct them to be entered 
 of record." 
 
 In accordance with the vote of the Suffolk Bar, the 
 resolutions were presented to the United States Dis 
 trict Court by the District Attorney, and the following 
 reply was made by Mr. Justice Sprague : 
 
372 MEMOIR OF KUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 " Notwithstanding the time that has elapsed since 
 the death of Mr. Choate, and the numerous demon 
 strations of respect by the bar, by judicial tribunals, 
 deliberative bodies, and popular assemblies, still it is 
 proper that such an event should not pass unnoticed 
 in this court. Others have spoken fully and eloquently 
 of his eminence and excellence in various depart 
 ments ; we may here at least appropriately say some 
 thing of him as a lawyer and an advocate. His life 
 was mainly devoted to the practice of his profession, 
 and this court was the scene of many of his greatest 
 efforts and highest achievements. I believe him to 
 have been the most accomplished advocate that this 
 country has produced. With extraordinary genius he 
 united unremitted industry, devoted almost exclusively 
 to the law, and to those literary studies which tend 
 most directly to accomplish and perfect the orator and 
 the advocate. The result was wonderful. His com 
 mand of language was unequalled. I certainly have 
 heard no one who approached him in the richness of 
 his vocabulary. This wealth he used profusely, but 
 with a discrimination, a felicity of expression, and an 
 ease and flow, which were truly marvellous. Although 
 to the careless or unintelligent hearer his words would 
 sometimes seem to be in excess, yet to the attentive 
 and cultivated every word had its appropriate place 
 and its shade of meaning, conducing more or less to 
 the perfection of the picture. To those who heard 
 Mr. Choate for the first time, it would seem as though 
 this ready outpouring of choice and expressive lan 
 guage must be the result of special preparation. But 
 those who have heard him often, especially in those 
 unforeseen emergencies which so frequently arise in 
 
1858-1859.] REMARKS OF JUDGE SPRAGUE. 373 
 
 the trial of causes, knew that the stream, which was 
 so full and clear and brilliant, gushed forth from a 
 fountain as exhaustless as Nature. 
 
 < Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis ; at ille 
 Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis sevum. 
 
 " But it is not to be understood by any means that 
 Mr. Choate s highest merit consisted in his rhetoric. 
 That, indeed, was the most striking. But those who 
 had most profoundly considered and mastered the sub 
 ject saw that the matter of his discourse, the thought, 
 was worthy of the drapery with which it was clothed. 
 His mind was at once comprehensive and acute. No 
 judicial question was too enlarged for its vision, and 
 none too minute for its analysis. To the Court he 
 could present arguments learned, logical, and pro 
 found, or exquisitely refined and subtle, as the occasion 
 seemed to require. But it was in trials before a jury 
 that he was pre-eminent. Nothing escaped his vigi 
 lance, and nothing was omitted that could contribute 
 to a verdict for his client. His skill in the examina 
 tion of witnesses was consummate. I have never seen 
 it equalled. The character of the jury, individually 
 and collectively, was not overlooked, and their opinions 
 and prejudices were not only respected, but soothed 
 and conciliated with the utmost tact and delicacy. 
 His quickness of apprehension and untiring applica 
 tion of all his energies to the cause in hand gave him 
 complete mastery of his materials. His self-possession 
 was perfect. However suddenly the aspect of his 
 cause might be clouded by unexpected developments, 
 he was never disconcerted. He had wonderful fertility 
 of resources, which were always at instant command, 
 
374 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 and seemed to multiply with the difficulties which 
 called them forth. Whatever the course previously 
 marked out, or however laboriously a position had 
 been fortified, they were without hesitation abandoned 
 the moment that a new exigency rendered it expedient 
 to take other grounds, and the transition was often 
 effected with such facility and adroitness that his op 
 ponent found himself assailed from a new quarter be 
 fore he had suspected a change of position. 
 
 " In his arguments, not only was each topic pre 
 sented in all its force, but they were all arranged with 
 artistic skill, so as mutually to sustain and strengthen 
 each other, and present a harmonious and imposing 
 whole. He usually began his address to the jury with 
 a rapid and comprehensive view of the whole trial, in 
 which he grouped and made strikingly prominent the 
 circumstances which would make the strongest im 
 pression of the fairness of his client and the justness 
 of his cause ; thus securing the sympathy and good 
 wishes of the jury, while he should take them with 
 him through that fulness of detail and that searching 
 analysis which was sure to follow. However pro 
 tracted his arguments, they were listened to through 
 out with eager attention. His matter, manner, and 
 diction created such interest and pleasure in what was 
 uttered, and such expectation of new and striking 
 thoughts and expressions to come, that attention could 
 not be withdrawn. With a memory stored with the 
 choicest literature of our own and other languages, 
 and a strong, vivid, and prolific imagination, his argu 
 ment was rarely decked with flowers. It presented 
 rather the grave and gorgeous foliage of our resplen 
 dent autumn forest, infinite in richness and variety, but 
 
1858-1859.] REMARKS OF JUDGE SPRAGUE. 375 
 
 from which we should hardly be willing to spare a leaf 
 or a tint. Such was his genius, his opulence of thought, 
 and intenseness of expression, that we involuntarily 
 speak of him in unmeasured and unqualified terms. 
 
 " The characteristic which perhaps has been most 
 dwelt upon by those who have spoken of Mr. Choate, 
 was his invincible good temper. This especially en 
 deared him, not only to his brethren of the bar, but, 
 also, to the bench. Anxious, earnest, and even vehe 
 ment, in his advocacy, and sometimes suffering from 
 disease, still no vicissitude or vexations of the cause, 
 or annoyance from opponents, could infuse into his 
 address any tinge of bitterness, or cause him for a 
 moment to forget his habitual courtesy arid kindness. 
 He never made assaults upon opposing counsel, and if 
 made on him, they were repelled with mildness and 
 forbearance. If, indeed, his opponent sometimes felt 
 the keen point of a pungent remark, it seemed rather 
 to have slipped from an overfull quiver than to have 
 been intentionally hurled. This abstinence was the 
 more meritorious, because the temptation of super 
 abundant ability was not wanting. 
 
 " We can hardly measure his power for evil if he 
 had studied the language of offence, and turned his 
 eloquence into the channels of vituperation. But 
 against this perversion he was secured by his kindly 
 nature. I am sure that it would have been to him a 
 source of anguish to believe that he had inflicted a 
 wound which rankled in the breast of another. 
 
 " No man was more exempt from vanity. He seemed 
 to have no thought for himself, but only for his client 
 and his cause. The verdict was kept steadily in view. 
 His most brilliant efforts had no indication of self- 
 
376 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 exhibition or display. Magnificent as they were, they 
 seemed to be almost involuntary outpourings from a 
 fulness of thought and language that could not be 
 repressed. From feeling, reflection, and habit, he 
 was a supporter of law, and of that order which is the 
 result of its regular administration. He was truly a 
 friend of the Court, and his manner to them was in 
 variably respectful and deferential. He took an en 
 lightened view of their duties, and appreciated their 
 difficulties ; and received their judgments, even when 
 adverse to his wishes, if not always with entire acquies 
 cence, at least with candor and graceful submission. 
 We cannot but sympathize with the bar in a bereave 
 ment which has taken from us such an associate and 
 friend, by whom the Court has been so often enlight 
 ened and aided in their labors, and whose rare gifts 
 contributed to make the i light of jurisprudence glad- 
 
 On Friday, the 22d of July, a public meeting of the 
 citizens of Boston was held in Faneuil Hall. The 
 darkened windows, the burning gas-lights, the pillars 
 and galleries covered with mourning drapery, the heavy 
 festoons stretching from the centre of the ceiling to 
 the capitals of the pillars, the quiet crowd weighed 
 down as by a general calamity, all spoke the one 
 language of bereavement and grief. Addresses were 
 made by many distinguished persons, and among 
 others, by Mr. Everett, who spoke as follows : 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. EVERETT. 
 
 "MR. MAYOR AND FELLOW-CITIZENS, I obey the 
 only call which could with propriety have drawn me at 
 
1858-1859.] ADDRESS OF MR. EVERETT. 377 
 
 this time from my retirement, in accepting your invita 
 tion to unite with you in the melancholy duties which 
 we are assembled to perform. While I speak, Sir, the 
 lifeless remains of our dear departed friend are ex 
 pected ; it may be have already returned to his bereaved 
 home. We sent him forth, but a few days since, in 
 search of health ; the exquisite bodily organization 
 over- tasked and shattered, but the master intellect still 
 shining in unclouded strength. Anxious, but not de 
 sponding, we sent him forth, hoping that the bracing 
 air of the ocean, which he greatly loved, the respite 
 from labor, the change of scene, the cheerful inter 
 course which he was so well calculated to enjoy with 
 congenial spirits abroad, would return him to us re 
 freshed and renovated ; but he has come back to us 
 dust and ashes, a pilgrim already on his way to 
 
 The undiscovered country, from whose bourne 
 No traveller returns/ 
 
 " How could I refuse to bear my humble part in the 
 tribute of respect which you are assembled to pay to 
 the memory of such a man ! a man not only honored 
 by me, in common with the whole country, but ten 
 derly cherished as a faithful friend, from the morning 
 of his days, and almost from the morning of mine, 
 one with whom through life I was delighted to take 
 sweet counsel, for whom I felt an affection never chilled 
 for a moment, during forty years since it sprung up. 
 1 knew our dear friend, Sir, from the time that he en 
 tered the Law School at Cambridge. I was associated 
 with him as one of the Massachusetts delegation in the 
 House of Representatives of the United States, between 
 whom and myself there was an entire community of 
 
378 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 feeling and opinion on all questions of men and meas 
 ures; and with whom, in these later years, as his near 
 neighbor, and especially when sickness confined him 
 at home, I have enjoyed opportunities of the most inti 
 mate social intercourse. 
 
 " Now that he is gone, Sir, I feel that one more is 
 taken away of those most trusted and loved, and with 
 whom I had most hoped to finish the journey ; nay, 
 Sir, one whom, in the course of nature, I should have 
 preceded to its end, and who would have performed for 
 me the last kindly office, which I, with drooping spirit, 
 would fain perform for him. 
 
 " But although with a willing heart I undertake the 
 duty you have devolved upon me, I cannot but feel how 
 little remains to be said. It is but echoing the voice, 
 which has been heard from every part of the country, 
 from the Bar, from the Press, from every Association 
 by which it could with propriety be uttered, to say 
 that he stood at the head of his profession in this 
 country. 
 
 " If, in his own or in any other part of the Union, 
 there was his superior in any branch of legal knowl 
 edge, there was certainly no one who united, to the 
 same extent, profound learning in the law, with a range 
 almost boundless of miscellaneous reading, reasoning 
 powers of the highest order, intuitive quickness of per 
 ception, a wanness and circumspection never taken by 
 surprise, and an imagination, which rose, on a bold and 
 easy wing, to the highest heaven of invention. These 
 powers, trained by diligent cultivation, these attain 
 ments, combined and applied with sound judgment, 
 consummate skill, and exquisite taste, necessarily 
 placed him at the head of the profession of his choice ; 
 
1858-1859.] ADDRESS OF MR. EVERETT. 379 
 
 where, since the death of Mr. Webster, he shone with 
 out a rival. 
 
 " With such endowments, formed at the best schools 
 of professional education, exercised with unwearied 
 assiduity, through a long professional life, under the 
 spur of generous ambition, and the heavy responsibility 
 of an ever-growing reputation to be sustained, if 
 possible to be raised, he could fill no second place. 
 
 " But he did not, like most eminent jurists, content 
 himself with the learning or the fame of his profession. 
 He was more than most men in any profession, in the 
 best sense of the word, a man of letters. He kept up 
 his Academical studies in after-life. He did not think 
 it the part either of wisdom or good taste to leave be 
 hind him at school, or at college, the noble languages 
 of the great peoples of antiquity ; but he continued 
 through life to read the Greek and Roman classics. 
 
 " He was also familiar with the whole range of Eng 
 lish literature ; and he had a respectable acquaintance 
 with the standard French authors. This wide and va 
 ried circle of reading not only gave a liberal expansion 
 to his mind, in all directions, but it endowed him with 
 a great wealth of choice but unstudied language, and 
 enabled him to command a richness of illustration, 
 whatever subject he had in hand, beyond most of our 
 public speakers and writers. This taste for reading 
 was formed in early life. While he was at the Law 
 School at Cambridge, I was accustomed to meet him 
 more frequently than any other person of his standing 
 in the alcoves of the library of the University. 
 
 " As he advanced in years, and acquired the means 
 of gratifying his taste in this respect, he formed a mis 
 cellaneous collection, probably as valuable as any other 
 
380 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 in Boston ; and he was accustomed playfully to say 
 that every Saturday afternoon, after the labor of the 
 week, he indulged himself in buying and bringing 
 home a new book. Thus reading with a keen relish, 
 as a relaxation from professional toil, and with a mem 
 ory that nothing worth retaining escaped, he became a 
 living storehouse of polite literature, out of which, with 
 rare felicity and grace, he brought forth treasures new 
 and old, not deeming these last the least precious. 
 
 " Though living mainly for his profession, Mr. 
 Choate engaged to some extent in public life, and that 
 at an early age, as a member of the Legislature of 
 Massachusetts, and of the National House of Represen 
 tatives, and in riper years as a Senator of the United 
 States, as the successor of Mr. Webster, whose entire 
 confidence he enjoyed, and whose place he, if any one, 
 was not unworthy to fill. In these different positions, 
 he displayed consummate ability. His appearance, his 
 silent demeanor, in either House of Congress com 
 manded respect. He was one of the few whose very 
 presence in a public assembly is a call to order. 
 
 " In the daily routine of legislation he did not take 
 an active part. He rather shunned clerical work, and 
 consequently avoided, as much as duty permitted, the 
 labor of the committee-room ; but on every great ques 
 tion that came up while he was a member of either 
 House of Congress, he made a great speech ; and when 
 he had spoken, there was very little left for any one 
 else to say on the same side of the question. I re 
 member on one occasion, after he had been defending, 
 on broad national grounds, the policy of affording a 
 moderate protection to our native industry, showing 
 that it was not merely a local but a national interest, 
 
1858-1859.] ADDRESS OF MR. EVERETT. 381 
 
 and seeking to establish this point by a great variety 
 of illustrations, equally novel and ingenious, a Western 
 member, who had hitherto wholly dissented from this 
 view of the subject, exclaimed that he < was the most 
 persuasive speaker he had ever heard. 
 
 " But though abundantly able to have filled a promi 
 nent place among the distinguished active statesmen of 
 the day, he had little fondness for political life, and no 
 aptitude whatever for the out-doors management, 
 for the electioneering legerdemain, for the wearisome 
 correspondence with local great men, and the heart 
 breaking drudgery of franking cart-loads of speeches 
 and public documents to the four winds, which are 
 necessary at the present day to great success in a po 
 litical career. Still less adroit was he in turning to 
 some personal advantage whatever topic happens for 
 the moment to attract public attention ; fishing with 
 ever freshly baited hook in the turbid waters of an 
 ephemeral popularity. In reference to some of the arts 
 by which political advancement is sought and obtained, 
 he once said to me, with that well-known characteristic 
 look, in which sadness and compassionate pleasantry 
 were about equally mingled, They did not do such 
 things in Washington s day. 
 
 " If ever there was a truly disinterested patriot, Rufus 
 Choate was that man. In his political career there 
 was no shade of selfishness. Had he been willing to 
 purchase advancement at the price often paid for it, 
 there was never a moment, from the time he first made 
 himself felt and known, that he could not have com 
 manded any thing which any party could bestow. But 
 he desired none of the rewards or honors of success. 
 On the contrary, he not only for his individual self, re- 
 
382 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 garded office as a burden an obstacle in the way of 
 the cultivation of his professional and literary tastes 
 but he held, that of necessity, and in consequence of 
 the strong tendency of our parties to assume a sectional 
 character, conservative opinions, seeking to moderate 
 between the extremes which agitate the country, must 
 of necessity be in the minority ; that it was the c mis 
 sion of men who hold such opinions, not to fill honor 
 able and lucrative posts which are unavoidably monop 
 olized by active leaders, but to speak prudent words on 
 great occasions, which would command the respect, if 
 they do not enlist the sympathies, of both the conflict 
 ing parties, and thus insensibly influence the public 
 mind. He comprehended and accepted the position : 
 he knew that it was one liable to be misunderstood, and 
 sure to be misrepresented at the time ; but not less 
 sure to be justified when the interests and passions of 
 the day are buried, as they are now for him, beneath 
 the clods of the valley. 
 
 " But this ostracism, to which his conservative opin 
 ions condemned him, produced not a shade of bitter 
 ness in his feelings. His patriotism was as cheerful as 
 it was intense. He regarded our Confederated Repub 
 lic, with its wonderful adjustment of State and Federal 
 organization the States bearing the burden and de 
 scending to the details of local administration, the 
 General Government moulding the whole into one 
 grand nationality, and representing it in the family of 
 nations as the most wonderful phenomenon in the 
 political history of the world. 
 
 " Too much a statesman to join the unreflecting dis 
 paragement with which other great forms of national 
 polity are often spoken of in this country, he yet consid- 
 
1858-1859.] ADDRESS OF MR. EVERETT. 383 
 
 ered the oldest, the wisest, and the most successful of 
 them, the British Constitution, as a far less wonderful 
 political system than our Confederated Republic. The 
 territorial extent of the country ; the beautiful play 
 into each other of its great commercial, agricultural, 
 and manufacturing interests ; the material prosperity, 
 the advancement in arts and letters and manners, al 
 ready made ; the capacity for further indefinite prog 
 ress in this vast theatre of action in which Providence 
 has placed the Anglo-American race, stretching from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Arctic circle to 
 the tropics, were themes on which he dwelt as none 
 but he could dwell ; and he believed that with patience, 
 with mutual forbearance, with a willingness to think 
 that our brethren, however widely we may differ from 
 them, may be as honest and patriotic as ourselves, our 
 common country would eventually reach a height of 
 prosperity of which the world as yet has seen no ex 
 ample. 
 
 u With such gifts, such attainments, and such a 
 spirit, he placed himself, as a matter of course, not 
 merely at the head of the jurists and advocates, but of 
 the public speakers of the country. After listening to 
 him at the bar, in the Senate, or upon the academic or 
 popular platform, you felt that you had heard the best 
 that could be heard in either place. That mastery 
 which he displayed at the forum and in the deliberative 
 assembly was not less conspicuous in every other form 
 of public address. 
 
 " As happens in most cases of eminent jurists and 
 statesmen, possessing a brilliant imagination, and able 
 to adorn a severe course of reasoning with the charms 
 of a glowing fancy and a sparkling style, it was some- 
 
384 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 times said of him, as it was said before him of Burke 
 and Erskine, of Ames and Pinckney, that he was 
 more of a rhetorician than a logician ; that he dealt in 
 words and figures of speech more than in facts or ar 
 guments. These are the invidious comments by which 
 dull or prejudiced men seek to disparage those gifts 
 which are farthest from their own reach. 
 
 " It is, perhaps, by his discourses on academical and 
 popular occasions that he is most extensively known in 
 the community, as it is these which were listened to 
 with delighted admiration by the largest audiences. 
 He loved to treat a pure literary theme ; and he knew 
 how to throw a magic freshness like the cool morn 
 ing dew on a cluster of purple grapes over the most 
 familiar topics at a patriotic celebration. Some of 
 these occasional performances will ever be held among 
 the brightest gems of our literature. The eulogy on 
 Daniel Webster at Dartmouth College, in which he 
 mingled at once all the light of his genius and all the 
 warmth of his heart, has, within my knowledge, never 
 been equalled among the performances of its class in 
 this country for sympathetic appreciation of a great 
 man, discriminating analysis of character, fertility of 
 illustration, weight of sentiment, and a style at once 
 chaste, nervous, and brilliant. The long sentences 
 which have been criticised in this, as in his other per 
 formances, are like those which Dr. Channing admired 
 and commended in Milton s prose, well compacted, 
 full of meaning, fit vehicles of great thoughts. 
 
 " But he does not deal exclusively in those ponderous 
 sentences. There is nothing of the artificial, Johnson 
 ian balance in his style. It is as often marked by 
 a pregnant brevity as by a sonorous amplitude. He 
 
1858-1859.] ADDRESS OF ME. EVERETT. 385 
 
 is sometimes satisfied, in concise, epigrammatic clauses, 
 to skirmish with his light troops and drive in the ene 
 my s outposts. It is only on fitting occasions, when 
 great principles are to be vindicated and solemn truths 
 told, when some moral or political Waterloo or Solferino 
 is to be fought, that he puts on the entire panoply 
 of his gorgeous rhetoric. It is then that his majestic 
 sentences swell to the dimensions of his thought, 
 that you hear afar off the awful roar of his rifled ord 
 nance, and when he has stormed the heights and 
 broken the centre and trampled the squares and turned 
 the staggering wing of his adversary, that he sounds 
 his imperial clarion along the whole line of battle, and 
 moves forward with all his hosts in one overwhelming 
 charge. 
 
 " Our friend was, in all the personal relations of life, 
 the most unselfish and disinterested of men. Com 
 manding, from an early period, a valuable clientage, 
 and rising rapidly to the summit of his profession, and 
 to the best practice in the courts of Massachusetts, and 
 in the Supreme Court of the United States, with no 
 expensive tastes or habits, and a manner of life highly 
 unostentatious and simple, advancing years overtook 
 him with but slender provision for their decline. He 
 reaped little but fame, where he ought to have reaped 
 both fame and fortune. A career which in England 
 would have been crowned with affluence, and probably 
 with distinguished rank and office, found him at sixty 
 chained to the treadmill of laborious practice. 
 
 " He might, indeed, be regarded as a martyr to his 
 profession. He gave to it his time, his strength, and 
 neglecting due care of regular bodily exercise and oc 
 casional entire relaxation, he might be said to have 
 
 25 
 
386 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. X. 
 
 given to it his life. He assumed the racking anxieties 
 and feverish excitements of his clients. From the 
 courts, where he argued the causes intrusted to him, 
 with all the energy of his intellect, rousing into cor 
 responding action an overtasked nervous system, these 
 cares and anxieties followed him to the weariness of 
 his midnight vigils, and the unrest of his sleepless pil 
 low. In fthis way he led a long professional career, 
 worn and harassed with other men s cares, and sacri 
 ficed ten added years of active usefulness to the inten 
 sity with which he threw himself into the discharge of 
 his duties in middle life. 
 
 " There are other recollections of our friend s career, 
 other phases of his character, on which I would gladly 
 dwell ; but the hour has elapsed, and it is not neces 
 sary. The gentlemen who have preceded me, his pro 
 fessional brethren, his pastor, the press of the country, 
 generously allowing past differences of opinion to be 
 buried in his grave, have more than made up for any 
 deficiency in my remarks. His work is done, no 
 bly, worthily, done. Never more in the temples of 
 justice, never more in the Senate chamber, never 
 more in the crowded assembly, never more in this 
 consecrated hall, where he so often held listening 
 crowds in rapt admiration, shall we catch the unearthly 
 glance of his eye, or listen to the strange sweet music 
 of his voice. To-morrow we shall follow him, the 
 pure patriot, the consummate jurist, the eloquent 
 orator, the honored citizen, the beloved friend, to 
 the last resting place ; and who will not feel, as we lay 
 him there, that a brighter genius and a warmer heart 
 are not left among living men ! " 
 
 During this meeting, the steamboat which brought 
 
1858-1859.] ADDRESS OF MR. EVERETT. 387 
 
 the remains from Nova Scotia came to anchor in the 
 harbor. The next morning, Saturday, July 23, a pri 
 vate funeral service was held at the house of the de 
 ceased, in Winthrop Place, and the body was then 
 taken to the Essex Street Church, where a funeral ad 
 dress was made by Rev. Dr. Nehemiah Adams. The 
 service was attended by the public functionaries of the 
 State, by the judges of the court, the members of the 
 bar, and a large concourse of people. These ceremo 
 nies over, the body was borne, with every testimonial 
 of respect, the booming of minute guns, the tolling 
 of bells, and the waving of flags hung at half-mast, 
 to its last resting place, under the shadows of Mount 
 Auburn. 
 
388 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XL 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Letter from Hon. John H. Clifford Reminiscences of Mr. Choate s 
 Habits in his Office Thoroughness of Preparation of Cases 
 Manner of Legal Study Intercourse with the Younger Members 
 of the Bar Manner to the Court and the Jury Charges and 
 Income Vocabulary Wit and Humor Anecdotes Eloquence 
 
 Style Note from Rev. Joseph Tracy Memory Quotations 
 
 Fondness for Books Reminiscences by a Friend Life at 
 Home Conversation Religious Feeling and Belief. 
 
 IT may be proper to present, in this concluding chapter, 
 a few additional testimonials, and briefly to indicate 
 some of the striking characteristics of Mr. Choate, 
 for which a place could not be found in the body of 
 the memoir without interrupting the course of the 
 narrative. 
 
 FROM HON. JOHN II. CLIFFORD. 
 
 " NEW BEDFORD, Mass., October 26th, 1860. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, It gives me pleasure to comply with 
 your request, and say an unstudied word of remembrance of 
 my professional associate and friend. 
 
 . " I do this the more readily, as I was prevented by circum 
 stances from participating in the public manifestations of 
 respect and sorrow, from my brethren of the bar, and other 
 associations, with which we were connected, which followed 
 immediately upon his death. 
 
 " In reply to your specific inquiry, respecting the selection 
 to be made from Mr. Choate s arguments, as the most valu 
 able for illustration of his powers and quality as an advocate, 
 I can only say, that a very inadequate and unsatisfactory im 
 pression of either can be derived from any of the meagre 
 reports of his preat efforts at the bar. To those who wt j re 
 familiar with his wonderful genius, his wealth of learning, 
 
CHAP. XL] LETTER FROM HON. J. H. CLIFFORD. 389 
 
 his genial humor, and his unparalleled combinations of the 
 most brilliant rhetoric with the most massive logic, the at 
 tempts that have been made to reproduce them have been 
 painfully disproportionate to their subject ; while upon others 
 they can hardly fail to produce a belittling and disparaging 
 impression of his great powers. I fear that, in this respect, 
 his fame must share the melancholy fate of most great law 
 yers and advocates, to be taken upon trust, and as a tradition 
 of posterity, rather than to be verified to it by its own critical 
 judgment of his recorded labors. 
 
 " In regard to Mr. Choate s * theory of advocacy, there has 
 been much ignorant and unconsidered criticism since his 
 death, as there was, indeed, during his life. In the remarks 
 of Judge Curtis to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachu 
 setts, upon the presentation of the resolutions adopted by the 
 Bar at the time of Mr. Choate s decease, there is a just and 
 most satisfactory exposition of the true theory of advocacy. 
 Assuming the views expressed in that admirable address to 
 have been those entertained by Mr. Choate, as I have no 
 doubt they were in substance, it seems to me that the flippant 
 denunciations of what has been called the unscrupulousness 
 of his advocacy are the merest cant as unsound and un 
 tenable in the view which they imply of a lawyer s duty, as 
 they are unjust to his memory. 
 
 " I had opportunities of observation for many years, of the 
 practical application by him of his views of professional obli 
 gation in this respect, both in civil and criminal cases, almost 
 always as an adversary, though occasionally as an associate. 
 I believe that a conscientious conviction of his duty led him, 
 at times, to accept retainers in the latter class of cases, when 
 the service to be performed was utterly repugnant and dis 
 tasteful to him. As a striking confirmation of this opinion, I 
 may state that, in 1853, when I vacated the office of Attorney- 
 General, to assume the administration of the Executive De 
 partment of the government, it was intimated to me by a 
 common friend that the place would be agreeable to Mr. 
 Choate. I, of course, had no hesitation in promptly availing 
 myself of this opportunity of making the conceded chief of 
 the Bar its official head. Upon tendering to him the appoint 
 ment, which was unhesitatingly and gracefully accepted, I 
 learned that one of the principal inducements leading him to 
 assume the post, while he was under the weightiest pressure 
 of private practice, was the avenue of escape which it afforded 
 him from the defence of criminal causes. Regarding the pro- 
 
390 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 fession of his choice as an office, and not as a trade, he felt that 
 he was not at liberty, when pressed by the friends of parties 
 accused of crime, to refuse his services to submit their defence 
 to the proper tribunal, merely because this department of pro 
 fessional labor was not agreeable to him, while the acceptance 
 of the post of public prosecutor would give him an honorable 
 discharge from this field of practice. 
 
 " It is rare for a person whose life, like his, had been spent 
 almost exclusively in the practice of his profession, to secure 
 the affectionate attachment of so large and diversified a body 
 of friends. Much as he was devoted to books, he saw more 
 of the various classes of men, from every one of which there 
 were sincerer mourners over his bier, than falls to the lot of 
 most great lawyers. This arose from his varied and exten 
 sive clientage, and the broad range of his practice. An Eng 
 lish barrister, who is confined almost exclusively to a particular 
 circuit, and under their system of minute subdivision of labor, 
 frequently to one class of causes, can with difficulty compre 
 hend the life of one who, like Mr. Choate, was familiar with 
 all the judicial tribunals of a country like ours, from the 
 highest to the lowest, Federal and State, and with every de 
 partment of the law, in all its diversified relations to * the 
 business and bosoms of men. Still more difficult is it for 
 him to conceive how a practitioner in such a wide field as 
 this could be, as Mr. Choate incontestably was facile princeps, 
 wherever he appeared. 
 
 " The highest proof of his superiority is to be found in the 
 united testimony of those who * stood nearest to him. And 
 no one who witnessed the manifestations of respect for his 
 great powers, and of affection for the man, which were ex 
 hibited by his brethren of the bar, upon receiving the sad 
 intelligence that he was to be with them no more on earth, 
 can doubt the sincerity with which they assigned to him the 
 first place among this generation of American lawyers. 
 
 " For myself, I count it as one of the privileges and felici 
 ties of my professional life, that Rufus Choate was my con 
 temporary, associate, and friend. 
 
 " I am, dear Sir, with sincere respect, truly yours, 
 
 "JOHN H. CLIFFORD. 
 PROF.. S. G. BROWN." 
 
 Mr. Choate s business was almost wholly connected 
 with cases in court. It might be said that he had no 
 conveyancing, almost no drawing up of contracts or 
 
CHAP. XI.] HABITS IN HIS OFFICE. 391 
 
 wills, and very rare occasions for giving written opin 
 ions. Comparatively few cases were commenced in 
 the office. Most of his business was the result of out 
 side retainers in cases commenced, or to be com 
 menced, by other counsel, or in defending cases already 
 commenced. 
 
 Of Mr. Choate s habits in his office and in the 
 courts, a memorandum, by his son-in-law and partner, 
 Joseph M. Bell, Esq., will afford the best possible in 
 formation. 
 
 " When I went to him," says Mr. Bell, " in January, 
 1849, we took an office at 7J- Tremont Row, then en 
 tirely out of the range of the fraternity. His habits 
 then were these : Regularly at nine o clock (or, if 
 to go into court, a trifle earlier) he came to the office, 
 and spent the morning there. Generally his room 
 was filled with clients. If not, he was busily engaged 
 in preparing his cases for trial or argument ; or, if no 
 immediate necessity existed for this, a careful exami 
 nation of the latest text-books and reports was made, 
 or a course of study, already marked out, pursued. 
 He was rarely idle for a moment, and by this I mean 
 that he was rarely without book and pen in hand. He 
 studied pen in hand, rarely sitting down with book 
 alone. He had an old, high, pine desk, such as were 
 in lawyers offices many years ago, which he specially 
 prized. It had been used by Judge Prescott, the 
 father of William H. Prescott, in Salem, and per 
 haps by other lawyers before him. Upon its top there 
 was a row of pigeon-holes for papers. A tall counting- 
 house chair, with the front legs some three inches 
 shorter than the back ones, so as to incline the seat 
 forward, enabled him to keep in nearly a standing 
 
392 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 position at the desk, and there, and in that position, 
 come upon him when you might, he was to be found, 
 pen in hand, hard at work. He was patient of inter 
 ruption, beyond any man I ever met. Unless specially 
 engaged upon matters which brooked no delay, his 
 time and learning were at the disposal of the poorest 
 and most ignorant. It was very rarely indeed that I 
 heard him say to any one, I cannot attend to you 
 now. 1 The old desk, alluded to, I succeeded in getting 
 out of his office ; but one not much better took its 
 place. If a person came into his office with a case, 
 his invariable habit, when possible, was to converse 
 with him pen in hand, and write down every particular 
 bearing upon it. If the case involved doubt, as soon 
 as the client had gone, he made, aut per se aut per 
 alium, a strict examination of the law, of which he 
 made a careful record. He may be said to have studied 
 all his cases all the time. He never seemed to have 
 one of them out of mind for an instant. If, in read 
 ing law, or any thing else, diverse* intuito, any thing 
 occurred which could be useful in any of his numerous 
 cases, down it went upon some of the papers Greek 
 to the world, but clear to him. And this leads me to 
 say that in all the apparent confusion of his papers, 
 there was the utmost regularity, after his kind. He 
 was a great lover of order, and strove hard for it, but 
 there seemed to be a certain mechanical dexterity of 
 which he was destitute. I think it would h ave been 
 impossible for him to fold regularly half a dozen sheets 
 of paper. His papers were tied together in a confused 
 mass ; but they were all there, and he could find them. 
 Untie and arrange them in order, and he liked it ; but 
 the first time the parcel was re-opened by him it re- 
 
CHAP. XI]. HABITS IN HIS OFFICE. 393 
 
 turned to its original condition. But this was want of 
 manual dexterity only. He was ever striving to have 
 his office regular and orderly, like other offices, but 
 without effect. 1 
 
 " For a year or so after going in with him, I rarely 
 saw him at the office in the afternoon. He was in the 
 habit of going to the Athenaeum, and other places 
 where books were to be found. After that time, he was 
 at the office afternoon as well as forenoon, unless occu 
 pied in the law outside. His cheerfulness was con 
 stant ; and he never appeared in greater spirits than 
 when every thing seemed tangled and snarled beyond 
 extrication. Little things sometimes troubled him ; 
 real difficulties, never. He did and wanted every 
 thing done on the instant ; and if this could not be 
 brought about, he would often seem to lose all interest 
 in it. I have often been astonished at his willingness 
 to perform every one s work. That never seemed to 
 trouble him ; and it was a rare thing to hear him com 
 plain of others. In regard to his court engagements, 
 he was promptitude itself. No one ever knew him a 
 minute behind time, if by possibility he could come at 
 all. He had a method of imparting instruction, pecu 
 liar to a race of legal giants now passed away, by 
 short, pithy, or sarcastic and ironical sentences. You 
 were often to determine his meaning rather by what 
 he did not say than from what he did. I have heard 
 him talk an hour in this way ; and if one had taken in 
 
 1 He was entirely aware of this himself. Speaking once of the 
 officer known to the English Court of Common Pleas as the Filacer, 
 or Filazier, so called because he files those writs on which he makes 
 out process, he playfully remarked, " There would be little use for 
 such a person in our office." And yet he generally could put his hand 
 at once upon what he wanted. 
 
394 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 sober earnest what he said for what he meant, he 
 would have made a slight mistake. The gravest law 
 talk, with one who could understand him, was fun 
 alive. 
 
 " With his vast command of language, he delighted 
 to use some expressive slang phrase in familiar con 
 versation. I remember one that tickled him hugely. 
 A man in the office told him a story of some fight that 
 he was a witness of ; and after describing it graphically, 
 said, And then the stones flew my way, and I duff. 
 He never could resist the use of this last expression, 
 and never used it without laughing heartily. And 
 this reminds me that I rarely I may say never 
 heard him laugh out loud. He would throw his head 
 back, open his mouth wide, and draw in his breath 
 with a deep respiratory sound, while his whole face 
 glowed with fun. 
 
 " He rarely left his office to pass a half-hour in 
 another s, except on business. He took a great many 
 papers and periodicals at the office, but seldom read 
 one. Sometimes they went into the fire in the origi 
 nal wrappers. 
 
 " Mr. Choate s method of preparing his cases for 
 trial and argument depended so much upon the vary 
 ing circumstances of the cases, that it is very difficult 
 to say that he had any particular plan. But this al 
 ways was his practice, when he had time for it : 
 
 " If for the plaintiff, a strict examination of all the 
 pleadings, if the case had been commenced by others, 
 was immediately made, and, so far as practicable, per 
 sonal examination of the principal witnesses, accu 
 rate study of the exact questions raised by the plead 
 ings, and a thorough and exhaustive preparation of 
 
CHAP. XL] PREPARATION OF CASES. 395 
 
 all the law upon those questions. This preparation 
 completed, the papers were laid aside until the day of 
 trial approached. At that time a thorough re-exami 
 nation of the facts, law, and pleadings had to be made. 
 He was never content until every thing which might 
 by possibility bear upon the case had been carefully 
 investigated, and this investigation had been brought 
 down to the last moment before the trial. 
 
 " If for the defence, the pleadings were first exam 
 ined and reconstructed, if in his judgment necessary, 
 and as careful an examination of the law made as in 
 the other case. 
 
 " In his preparation for the argument of a question 
 of law, he could never be said to have finished it until 
 the judgment had been entered by the court. It com 
 menced with the knowledge that the argument was to 
 be made ; and from that time to the entry of the judg 
 ment, the case never seemed to be out of his mind ; 
 and whenever and wherever a thought appropriate to 
 the case occurred to him, it was noted for use. It 
 would often happen that the case was nearly reached 
 for argument at one term of the court ; every possible 
 preparation having been made and the brief printed ; 
 yet the term would end and the case not come on. 
 The former preparation then made but a starting point 
 for him. At the next term a fuller brief appeared ; 
 and this might happen several times. The finished 
 brief of the evening had to be altered and added to in 
 the morning ; and it frequently went into the hands of 
 the court with the undried ink of his last citations. 
 If, after argument, a case uncited then was discovered, 
 or if a new view of it occurred to him, the court was 
 instantly informed of it. 
 
396 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XL 
 
 " And so in the trial of a case at nisi prim. Every 
 intermission called for a full examination of every law- 
 book which could possibly bear upon questions already 
 before the court, or which he purposed to bring before 
 it. No difficulty in procuring a book which treated 
 upon the question before him ever hindered him ; it 
 was a mere question of possibility. 
 
 " He had a plan for the trial of every case, to which 
 he clung from the start, and to which every thing bent. 
 That plan often appeared late in the case, perhaps upon 
 his filing his prayer to the court for special rulings to 
 the jury. But that plan was at any time no matter 
 how much labor had been put into it instantly thrown 
 over, and a new one adopted, if, in his judgment, it 
 was better. He bent the whole case to his theory of 
 the law of it ; and, if accidentally a new fact appeared 
 which would enable him to use a clearer principle of 
 law, the last from that moment became his case. I 
 remember perfectly an example of his quickness and 
 boldness in this respect. In an insurance case, we 
 were for the plaintiff. A vessel had been insured for 
 a year, with a warranty that she should not go north 
 of the Okhotsk Sea. Within the year she was burned 
 north of the limits of the Okhotsk Sea proper, but 
 south of the extreme limits of some of that sea s ad 
 jacent gulfs. The defendant set up that there was no 
 loss within the limits of the policy ; and numerous 
 witnesses had been summoned by both parties, on 
 our side to show that by merchants the Okhotsk Sea 
 was considered to include the bays and gulfs ; on the 
 other side, to prove the contrary. A protracted trial 
 was expected, and every thing had been prepared. As 
 we were walking to the court-house, he said, 4 Why 
 
CHAP. XI] PREPARATION OF CASES. 397 
 
 should we prove that we were not north of that sea ? 
 - why not let them prove that we were ? What do 
 you think of it? 4 It seems to be the right way, 
 certainly, said I. Let us do it, open the case on 
 that idea. I did so, and put on the mate to prove the 
 burning at a certain time within the year. No cross- 
 examination followed, and we rested our case. The 
 other side were dumbfounded. They had expected that 
 we should be at least two days putting in our case on 
 the other theory, and had no witnesses at hand. They 
 fought our plan stoutly ; but the court was with us, 
 and they were obliged to submit to a verdict in our 
 favor. The case lasted one Jwur. 
 
 " In many cases I have known him to dismiss wit 
 nesses that had been summoned for proof of particular 
 facts, because he had changed his plan, and would not 
 require them. 
 
 " One of the most striking characteristics of Mr. 
 Choate was the tenacity with which he persisted in 
 trying a case once commenced, under no matter what 
 disadvantages. If a case seemed untenable, and in 
 deed always before suit, he was very willing to settle. 
 Divorce cases and family disturbances, and suits be 
 tween friends, he strained every nerve to adjust before 
 they became public, and even after. But when a case 
 was fairly before the court, he seemed absolutely to 
 hate the idea of a compromise, and never felt the case 
 lost so long as there was standing in court. No matter 
 how hopeless seemed the chance of success, he would 
 say, 4 It will never do to say die, and plunge boldly 
 into the trial. And it was astonishing to find him so 
 often successful where there seemed no hope. While 
 a trial was going on in court, every word of every wit- 
 
398 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XL 
 
 ness was taken down, and every legal incident noted. 
 This was taken home, and before the court opened the 
 next day, arranged and studied, and his argument 
 commenced and kept along with the days of trial, often 
 changed and re-written. He kept loose paper by him in 
 court, on which were jotted down questions for wit 
 nesses, and ideas of all kinds connected with the case.". 
 
 As might be inferred from this, his notes were gen 
 erally very ample and complete. To a student who 
 was going to take the depositions of some witnesses 
 where he could not be present, he said, " Take down 
 every adjective, adverb, and interjection that the wit 
 nesses utter." His brief, too, was always full, though 
 in addressing a jury he was entirely untrammelled, 
 and often hardly referred to it. In addressing the 
 court he sometimes seemed to follow his notes closely, 
 almost as if he were repeating them, laying aside page 
 after page as he proceeded. 
 
 In determining the theory of his case, he was never 
 satisfied until he had met every supposition that could 
 be brought against it. But he had no love for a theory 
 because it was his own, however great the labor it had 
 cost him, but was perfectly ready to throw it aside for 
 another, when that appeared better. This change of 
 front he sometimes made in the midst of the trial, 
 under the eye of the court, and in the face of a watch 
 ful and eager antagonist. He was never more self- 
 possessed, nor seemed to have his entire faculties more 
 fully at command, nor to exercise a more consummate 
 judgment, than when in the very heat of a strongly 
 contested case, where a mistake would have been fatal. 
 In the preparation of a case he left nothing to chance ; 
 
CHAP. XI.] HIS MANNER IN COURT. 399 
 
 and his juniors sometimes found themselves urged to a 
 fidelity and constancy of labor to which they had not 
 been accustomed. 
 
 In his cases, it was not the magnitude of the interests 
 involved, and certainly not the hope of fame or of pe 
 cuniary reward, that seemed to move him, so much as 
 a certain inward impulse, a spirit and fire whose ener 
 gy was untiring and resistless. The action of his mind 
 was its own reward. He was like a blood horse. Once 
 on the course, the nervous force was uncontrollable 
 whether thousands were at stake or it was a mere 
 movement for pleasure. Hence into cases of compara 
 tively little consequence, before referees, or a commis 
 sioner, or a judge in chambers, with no audience to 
 stimulate him, he threw the whole force and brilliancy 
 of his powers. Nothing less would satisfy himself, 
 however it might be with court or client. 
 
 " One of the last times I heard him," says his honor 
 Chief Justice Chapman, " was in a matter relating to 
 the railroad crossings and depots in the northern part 
 of Boston. It was before commissioners, in one of the 
 rooms of the Boston and Maine depot, with the oppos 
 ing counsel and two or three officers of railroad corpo 
 rations present ; and he displayed on that occasion some 
 of the richest and most beautiful specimens of his ora 
 tory. It would have charmed a popular audience." 
 
 In intercourse with junior counsel, no one could be 
 more unselfish and generous. He assumed their diffi 
 culties, protected them if necessary, often insisting to 
 the client that the junior was fully equal to the case, 
 and after the case was won yielding to him a full share 
 of the honor. 
 
 " He was the best senior counsel," said an eminent 
 
400 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 lawyer, 1 " that ever lived. Other men almost always 
 make you feel that you are second ; he so made sug 
 gestions that you seemed to come to the knowledge of 
 your own motion. If you came to him with a proposi 
 tion which could not be sustained, instead of saying, 
 < That s not the law, he would begin by asking you 
 questions, or by making statements to which you at 
 once assented, till he led you round to a point just the 
 opposite of that from which you started." 
 
 " How often I think of Choate ! " writes one of the 
 most distinguished of the younger members of the bar, 
 a few months after his death. " You do not know 
 what a hold he had on me, or rather what a necessity 
 of life he had become to me. When I have seen any 
 thing peculiar in the development of human nature, of 
 social or political systems, I have thought, I will tell 
 that to Choate and then, Is he indeed dead? 
 gone never to be seen, or heard, or conversed with 
 again ? All that wisdom and wit, that kindness to 
 me, as of a father or elder brother? Is it possible? I 
 tell you, my dear friend, if I pass the rest of my life at 
 the Boston Bar, life will be a different thing to me 
 without Choate." 
 
 Never assuming pre-eminence, or standing upon his 
 dignity, he was on the kindest and most familiar terms 
 with his brethren at the bar. The morning after his 
 letter to the Whigs of Maine appeared in the news 
 papers, a brother-lawyer a Democrat suddenly 
 opened the door of his office, and saluted him with the 
 question: " Well, Mr. Choate, how was it, money 
 down, or bond and mortgage ? " No one relished such 
 a sally more than he. 
 
 1 Mr. Justice Lord. 
 
CHAP. XL] HIS MANNER IN COURT. 401 
 
 It did not disturb him to interrupt him. When you 
 came into his office, he would turn from his papers 
 with some joke, a cant phrase or word (such as " flab 
 bergasted"), recreate himself by some witty speech, 
 quiz you a little playfully, and then turn back again to 
 his work. 
 
 During the progress of a trial, though intently watch 
 ful of all the procedings, he was abounding in good 
 nature and courtesy. " If his wit and pleasantry in 
 the court-room," said one of the most eminent of his 
 profession, " could be gathered up, they would be un 
 surpassed in all the annals of the law." His addresses 
 to the jury were singularly impassioned; every muscle 
 of his frame quivered with emotion ; the perspiration 
 stood in drops even upon the hair of his head. 1 Yet 
 he was always dignified and conciliatory, as if speaking 
 to friends. To witnesses lie was unfailingly courteous, 
 seldom severe even with the most reluctant, but draw 
 ing from them the evidence by the skill of his exami 
 nation. In cross-examining, he knew by instinct when 
 a witness testified to what he knew, or only what he 
 thought he knew. To the latter point he always di 
 rected his inquiries so as to bring out the exact state 
 of the case. To the Bench he was remarkable for 
 deference in manner, and quietness, felicity and pre 
 cision in language. I happened once to go into the 
 Supreme Court-room, when not more than a dozen per 
 sons were present, and many of them officials, but all 
 the judges were upon the bench, and Mr. Choate was 
 standing at a table before them, arguing a question of 
 
 1 Always after speaking he was obliged to wrap himself up in two 
 or three overcoats to prevent taking cold, and almost always after a 
 strong effort suffered from an attack of sick-headache. 
 
 26 
 
402 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 law. He stood erect and quiet, made no gesture ex 
 cept a slight movement of the right hand from the 
 wrist, nor changed his position except when necessary 
 to obtain a book for an authority, but spoke for more 
 than an hour in a low, clear, musical voice, with a fe 
 licity of language, a logical precision, a succinctness of 
 statement, a constantly expanding and advancing 
 movement of thought, and a gentle, slightly exhilarat 
 ing warmth of feeling, which I never heard equalled, 
 and which was even more fascinating than his appeals 
 to the jury. His motions and gestures were, as I have 
 said, vehement, but not affected nor ungraceful. They 
 were a part of himself, one with his style and method. 
 The sweep of his arm, the tremulous hand, the rising 
 and settling of his body, the dignified tread, the fasci 
 nating eye, the tone, gentle, musical, persuasive, vehe 
 ment, ringing, never querulous, never bitter all 
 sprang from the nature of the man, spontaneous and 
 irrepressible. Never was there a speaker less artificial. 
 Mr. Choate s knowledge of his profession never grew 
 more rapidly and more solidly than during the last 
 ten years of his life. In the midst of ever-increasing 
 labors, he found time for constant and careful study of 
 the science of the law. On the appearance of a new 
 volume of the Massachusetts Reports, he was accus 
 tomed to take every important case on which he had 
 not been employed, make a full brief upon each side, 
 draw up a judgment, and, finally, compare his work 
 with the briefs and judgments reported. This was a 
 settled habit for many years before he died. To say 
 that he had a high sense of professional honor, would 
 only ascribe to him a virtue that is not rare in the 
 American Bar; yet few, perhaps, have had a clearer 
 
CHAP. XL] CHARGES AND INCOME. 403 
 
 or more refined and delicate apprehension of the pro 
 prieties and ethics of the profession. He held an 
 exalted idea of the office and duties of an advocate. 
 " The order of advocates is as ancient as the office of 
 the judge, as noble as virtue, and as necessary as jus 
 tice." So wrote the great jurist of France, D Agues- 
 seau; and so have ever felt the wisest and most upright 
 judges of law and equity. 
 
 During the latter part of his career, he was more re. 
 luctant to undertake doubtful criminal cases. Though 
 accepting every clear duty of his profession, he held 
 himself more in reserve. This was partly because of 
 his constant and intense occupation, partly because his 
 tastes led him to other branches of the profession, and 
 in part, perhaps, because he had to contend against his 
 own fame, and instinctively shrunk from annoying and 
 vulgar criticism. When solicited to defend Dr. Web 
 ster, he argued with the friend who consulted him, that 
 it would be really better for the accused to have other 
 counsel. 
 
 Up to the year 1849, notwithstanding his large busi 
 ness, Mr. Choate had been too careless, both in charges 
 and in collections, to realize an adequate return for his 
 services. He seemed, indeed, to be the only person 
 who placed a low estimate upon the value of his own 
 labors. The client almost determined for himself what 
 he should pay, and several cases actually occurred 
 where the advocate rated his services so ridiculously 
 low that the client would not be satisfied until the 
 charges were doubled. The amount of the fee never 
 affected Mr. Choate s willingness to take a case, or the 
 earnestness with which he threw himself into it. It 
 was the case, and not the reward, which stimulated his 
 mind. 
 
404 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cnxr. XI. 
 
 On first opening his office lie kept no book of ac 
 counts. Being, however, at one time, apparently, 
 struck with a sudden fit of economy, he obtained a 
 proper book, and entered, as the first item of an orderly 
 expenditure, the office debtor to one quart of oil, 37 J 
 cents. The next entry was six months later, and 
 closed the record. 
 
 He was generous to a fault. Whoever asked re 
 ceived. Any one, almost literally any one, could draw 
 from him five or ten dollars ; and his office was some 
 times quite besieged with solicitors of charity. To 
 some objects he gave regularly. Among these was a 
 very worthy man, but indigent, and a confirmed in 
 valid. " On one occasion," says the gentleman who 
 often acted as the almoner of his bounty, " he requested 
 me to call at his office at the earliest opportunity. 
 After making the usual inquiries about our friend and 
 his sufferings, and expressing his sympathy, he said : 
 * I believe I have been neglectful of his wants for a year 
 or two past. Then, with one of his nervous shudders, 
 he seized his pen and filled out a check for fifty dollars ; 
 and he would not make the least abatement, though I 
 assured him our friend did not stand in any present 
 need of such a munificent donation." 
 
 Many came to borrow of him, and almost always 
 successfully, if he were not himself pressed for money. 
 Of these he frequently took neither note nor obligation 
 of any sort in return, and the transactions were fre 
 quently forgotten. When asked why he did not try to 
 collect of his borrowers, " Ah," he replied, " many of 
 them are cologne bottles without any stoppers." 
 
 He was, indeed, most indifferent to money ; careless 
 of keeping it, and losing, without question, thousands 
 
CHAP. XI.] HIS GENEROSITY. 405 
 
 of dollars every year from neglecting to make any 
 charge at all for his services. " I remember," says a 
 gentleman who studied with him, " that one morning 
 he came rushing into his office for $500, remarking, 
 in his sportive way, My kingdom for $500 ; have I got 
 it ? He went to his blue bank-book, looked at it, and 
 said, i Not a dollar, not a dollar, and was going out, 
 either to borrow or collect, when I stopped him. The 
 old book had been filled, and the teller had given him 
 a new one without entering in it the amount to his 
 credit, the month not being ended when the accounts 
 were usually balanced. I showed him the old book, 
 and there was a balance in his favor of $1,200. He 
 looked surprised, and said, Thank God. But if the 
 $1,200 had disappeared, he never would have been the 
 wiser." 
 
 It could be no surprise, then, to those who knew his 
 habit, that in his early career he accumulated very 
 little property. For the last ten years of his life, 
 through the care of his partner, his affairs were man 
 aged with more method, and with growing prosperity. 
 Even then, however, when it became necessary for Mr. 
 Choate himself to fix the scale of his remuneration, it 
 fell about to the old standard, until his junior learned 
 to regulate the amount of their charges by those of the 
 eminent counsel to whom they were generally opposed. 
 
 The average annual receipts of his office for the 
 eleven years from 1849 to 1859, inclusive, were nearly 
 $18,000. The largest receipts were in 1852, when 
 they amounted to more than $20,000 ; in 1855, when 
 they were nearly $21,000 ; and 1856, when they some 
 what exceeded $22,000. In only one year of the eleven 
 did they fall below $13,000. The largest fee Mr. 
 
406 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 Choate ever received was 82,500. An equal one was 
 given, so far as is known, on but four occasions. A 
 fee of from $1,500 to 82,000 was more frequent; and he 
 once received a retaining fee of $1,500. During these 
 eleven years his engagements in actual trials, law 
 arguments, and arguments before the legislature, 
 amounted to a yearly average of nearly seventy. 
 
 Always free of his services, there was one which, 
 however great or costly to himself, was always rendered 
 without charge. I refer to his exertions in political 
 contests. He was frequently importuned to receive 
 compensation, as the labor was frequently most weari 
 some and exhaustive. But as a matter of character, 
 and to keep himself pure from the semblance of stain, 
 and broad and independent in his public course, he 
 uniformly refused. He prided himself on his honor 
 and purity in his relations to the State. 
 
 When approaching the argument of a great cause, or 
 the delivery of an important speech, his mind was ab 
 solutely absorbed with it. The lights were left burning 
 all night in his library, and after retiring he would 
 frequently rise from his bed, and, without dressing, 
 rush to his desk to note rapidly some thought which 
 flashed across his wakeful mind. This was repeated 
 sometimes ten or fifteen times in a night. Being once 
 engaged in the trial of an important case in an inland 
 county of Massachusetts, his room at the tavern hap 
 pened to open into that of the opposing counsel, who, 
 waking about two o clock in the morning, was surprised 
 to see a bright light gleaming under and around the 
 loosely fitting door. Supposing that Mr. Choate, who 
 had retired early, might have been taken suddenly ill, 
 he entered his room and found him dressed and stand- 
 
CHAP. XI.] MANNER TO A JURY. 407 
 
 ing before a small table which he had placed upon 
 chairs, with four candles upon it, vigorously writing. 
 Apologies and explanations at once followed, Mr. 
 Choate saying that he was wakeful, had slept enough, 
 and the expected contest of the morrow stimulated him 
 to every possible preparation. 
 
 Every important and difficult cause took such pos 
 session of him that he would get no sound sleep till it 
 was finished. His mind, to use his own illustration, 
 became a stream that took up the cause, like a ship, 
 and bore it on night and day till the verdict or judg 
 ment was reached. It is not surprising, then, that he 
 came from a trial so much exhausted. Almost every 
 considerable case was attended or followed with a se 
 vere attack of sick-headache. But his recuperative 
 power was as wonderful as his capacity for work. A 
 friend once asked how long it took him to recover from 
 the wear of a heavy case, and how long to enter into a 
 new case with full force. He said, that often three or 
 four hours were enough to recover in, and almost 
 always a day. As to getting into a case, he said, that 
 the moment his eye- struck a book, or legal paper, the 
 subject lifted him, and that five minutes were sufficient 
 to give him full power for work and command of his 
 faculties. He was then in full sail. 
 
 Although so familiar with the courts, and always 
 master of himself, he was often filled with a nervous 
 agitation when approaching the argument, sometimes 
 saying that he " should certainly break down ; every 
 man must fail at some time, and his hour had come." 
 However deeply absorbed in the cause before him, he 
 seemed to see every thing that was going on in the 
 court-room. As he was once addressing a jury, a 
 
408 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 woman in a distant part of the court-room rose and 
 went out, with some rustling of silk. Being asked 
 afterwards if he noticed it, " Noticed it ! " he said, 
 " I thought forty battalions were moving." 
 
 With a vocabulary so rich, and a fancy so lively, it 
 is not surprising that he sometimes gave license to his 
 powers, and now and then " drove a substantive and 
 six," but no one could at will be more exact, or more 
 felicitously combine the utmost precision with the most 
 delicious music of words. Ever alive to the ludicrous, 
 he often dexterously caught up cant phrases, or popu 
 lar terms of the day, and eviscerating them of every 
 thing like vulgarity, forced them for a moment into his 
 service all redolent of the novel odors of the field, 
 the market, or the fireside, where they had their birth 
 and then dismissed them for ever. 
 
 " His wit," says one who knew him well, " was of 
 the most delightful kind, playful and pungent, and his 
 conversation was full of the aptest quotation, always, 
 however parce detorta, so as to take off any possible 
 tinge of pedantry, and generally witli a more or less 
 ludicrous application. He was fond of bringing out 
 the etymology of words in his use of them, as, for ex 
 ample, when speaking of a disappointed candidate for 
 an important nomination, he said, the convention 
 " ejaculated him out at the window ;" and of new and 
 odd applications of their figurative meanings, as when 
 he said of a very ugly artist who had produced a too 
 
 faithful representation of himself, " Mr. has 
 
 painted his own portrait and it is & flagrant likeness." 
 
 His wit and humor were fresh and peculiar ; seldom 
 provoking loud laughter, but perpetually feeding the 
 mind with delight. He never prepared nor reserved 
 
CHAP. XL] HIS WIT AND HUMOR. 409 
 
 his good things for a grand occasion, and to those who 
 knew him best was as full of surprises as to a stranger. 
 In the little office of a justice of the peace, in a re 
 tired room of a railroad depot, in presence of a few in 
 terested members of the corporation, before two or 
 three sensible, but not brilliant, referees in the hall of 
 a country tavern, he displayed nearly the same abun 
 dance of learning, the same exuberance of language, 
 and felicity of allusion, the same playfulness and beau 
 ty, as when he spoke before the most learned bench, or 
 the elegant and cultivated assemblies of Boston. This 
 might seem like a reckless expenditure of unnecessary 
 wealth. In one sense, perhaps, it was so ; yet he had 
 a marvellous faculty of adaptation, as well as the higher 
 power of drawing all to himself, and I doubt if anybody 
 ever listened to him with greater delight and admira 
 tion than plain, substantial yeomen who might not be 
 able to understand one in a hundred of his allusions. 
 They understood quite enough to delight and convince 
 them, as well as to afford food for much laughter, and, 
 if they chose, for much meditation. 
 
 The sweetness of his temper so pervaded and con 
 trolled every thing that he said, that although peculi 
 arities of character, or circumstances, or manner, or 
 appearance, sometimes drew down the flash of his 
 pleasantry, as the unguarded spire the lightning from 
 the surcharged cloud, it was a harmless bolt, unless 
 (which was very rarely the case), he was provoked by 
 injustice or harshness to give proof of his power. Say 
 ings of his, innumerable, have been current among the 
 members of the bar, but I never heard of a man who 
 felt aggrieved by any of them. His regard for Chief 
 Justice Shaw amounted to veneration. " With what 
 
410 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 judge," he once, in substance, said, " can you see 
 your antagonist freely conversing, without the slightest 
 apprehension, as you can with him ? " Looking once 
 at an engraving of Sir Matthew Hale, " A very great 
 judge," he said, " but not greater, I think, than the 
 Chief," as Judge Shaw was familiarly called. An 
 eminent lawyer, engaged with him in a case, was once 
 rising to contest what seemed an unfavorable, if not 
 an unfair, ruling. Mr. Choate drew him back and 
 whispered in his ear, " Let it go. Sit down. Life, 
 liberty, and property are always safe in his hands." 
 One anecdote has been often told incorrectly, and so as 
 to convey a wrong impression, which I am able to give 
 in the words of an eminent lawyer, who was himself 
 an actor in the scene. " It was in the East Cambridge 
 court-house, at the law term. The full Bench were 
 present ; a tedious argument had been dragging its 
 weary length along for an hour -or two; the session 
 had lasted several hours, and the Chief Justice had 
 yielded for a moment to drowsiness, being no more 
 than mortal. Mr. Choate and I were sitting in the 
 bar, being concerned in the next case. As I looked 
 up at the Bench, the large head of the Chief Justice 
 presented itself settled down upon his breast about as 
 far as it could go, his eyes closed, his hair shaggy and 
 disordered, having on a pair of large black spectacles 
 which had slid down to the very tip of his nose, and 
 his face seeming to have discharged, for the time, every 
 trace of intelligence, 
 
 QfCUTJC K {JUKOTOV TE TIV* Cft/UCVai, U<ppOVU T CLVTUf. * 
 
 I looked, and then looked at Mr. Choate, whose eyes 
 had followed mine, and then said to him, that not- 
 
 i Iliad, III. 220. 
 
CHAP. XL] HIS WIT AND HUMOR. 411 
 
 withstanding the curious spectacle he sometimes fur 
 nished us, I could never look at the Chief Justice 
 without reverence. 7 i Nor can I, he replied. < When 
 you consider for how many years, and with what 
 strength and wisdom he has administered the law, 
 how steady he has kept every thing, how much we 
 owe to his weight of character, I confess I regard 
 him as the Indian does his wooden log, curiously 
 carved ; I acknowledge he s ugly, but I bow before a 
 superior intelligence ! You can imagine the twinkle 
 of the eye, and the parenthetical tone with which the 
 i I acknowledge he s ugly came in. I hope you will 
 be able to get together many of Mr. Choate s felicities ; 
 they must abound in all memories." 
 
 As an instance of his pleasant way of announcing 
 what might seem to be an ordinary fact, a member of 
 the Massachusetts Bar l writes : " While a student in 
 the office of the late Benjamin F. Hallett, of Boston, I 
 went into the Law Library to deliver some message to 
 him. I found him engaged in preparing his points in 
 a cause that was then about to be heard at a law term 
 of the Supreme Court. Mr. Choate was in the case 
 then being heard ; Mr. Hallett s being the next in 
 order. When Mr. Choate s cause was finished, he 
 notified Mr. Hallett just putting his head inside the 
 door in these words : Mr. Hallett, there is nothing 
 now between you and that justice which you seek. 
 The manner in which this was said was so happy, his 
 voice so musical, that it made an impression upon my 
 mind I shall never forget." 
 
 His pleasantry was exuberant and unfailing, in 
 defeat as well as in victory. It was a safeguard against 
 
 1 Charles P. Thompson, Esq., of Gloucester. 
 
412 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cnxp. XL 
 
 depression and discouragement. Receiving, one morn 
 ing, a note from a gentleman engaged with him in a 
 cause at Washington, informing him that the Court 
 had decided against them, he at once wrote back : 
 
 " DEAR SIR, The Court has lost its little wits. Please 
 let me have 1. Our brief (for the law). 2. The defend 
 ant s brief (for the sophistry). 3. The opinion (for the 
 foolishness), and never say die. R. C." 
 
 He was rather fond of talking of his contemporaries, 
 but rarely spoke of any of them otherwise than kindly 
 and favorably, lingering upon their merits, and 
 passing over their failings. Occasionally, after speak 
 ing of others, he would refer to himself in the same 
 connection. Conversing one day with a young friend 
 about Mr. Franklin Dexter, then just deceased, he 
 eulogized him as a most able, faithful, and conscien 
 tious prosecuting officer, who never pressed an indict 
 ment for the sake of victory, nor unless he believed 
 that a verdict against the accused would fulfil the 
 highest ends of justice. He then proceeded to speak 
 in general terms of the responsibility of a public pros 
 ecutor, and of his own deep sense of this responsibility 
 while Attorney-General. He was solemn and earnest, 
 and left a profound impression that never while hold 
 ing that office was he entirely free from anxiety that 
 nothing should be done by him, or through his means, 
 by which a possibly innocent prisoner should lose his 
 legal chances of acquittal. 
 
 When talking with a client, respecting a defence, 
 his rule was, never to ask him whether he did the act ; 
 yet he was very watchful for signs of innocence or 
 guilt. After an interview with a person who consulted 
 
CHAP. XL] ANECDOTES. 413 
 
 him as to a disgraceful imputation under which he was 
 laboring, he remarked, " He did it, he sweats so." 
 
 Although one could hardly converse with Mr. Choate 
 for five minutes without hearing some remark striking 
 for its beauty, or novelty, or humor, yet few of these 
 sayings have been recorded, and in most cases, where 
 the thought has remained, the rare felicity of language 
 which graced it has escaped the memory, and the 
 strange, indescribable fascination of manner with which 
 it was accompanied no one can reproduce. Any one 
 who has a fresh recollection of the impression pro 
 duced at the time by some sudden flash of his mind, 
 will be the more reluctant to repeat what invariably 
 loses in the process. I have been able to gather up 
 but a few of these unpremeditated sayings. Those 
 who knew Mr. Ghoate must supply for themselves the 
 tone and manner. 
 
 The qualifications of a certain office-holder being 
 discussed in his presence, Mr. Choate said, " Yes, Sir, 
 you may sum them up by asserting that he is self- 
 sufficient, all-sufficient, and ^sufficient." 
 
 A copy of the " Poetry of the East," by Rev. Mr. 
 Alger, had been sent to him. Meeting the author at a 
 party soon after, he remarked to him, " I examined 
 your i Poetry of the East with a great deal of in 
 terest. The Orientals seem to be amply competent 
 to metaphysics, wonderfully competent to poetry, 
 scarcely competent to virtue, utterly mcompetent to 
 liberty." 
 
 For the following I am indebted to the kindness of 
 Mr. Ticknor : " Mr. Choate was of counsel in the 
 case of the Federal-Street Church, and I was sum 
 moned as a witness. Sitting with him in the bar, 
 
414 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [HAP. XI. 
 
 after I had been examined, my eye fell accidentally on 
 his notes, which, you are aware, were somewhat remark 
 able, so far as the handwriting was concerned. It 
 struck me, however, while I was looking at them, that 
 they much resembled two rather long autograph letters 
 which I preserve in my small collection of such curiosi 
 ties ; one by Manuel the Great of Portugal, dated in 
 1512, and the other by Gonzalvo de Cordova, the 
 Great Captain, written, I suppose, a little earlier, but 
 with no date that I can make out. I could not help 
 telling Mr. Choate that I possessed these specimens of 
 the handwriting of two such remarkable men, who 
 lived three hundred and fifty years ago, and that they 
 strongly resembled his notes, as they lay on the table 
 before us. Remarkable men, no doubt, he replied in 
 stantly ; they seem to have been much in advance of 
 their time ! " 
 
 This, said with his peculiar suavity and droll ex 
 pression, the singularity of the comparison and the 
 grounds of praise, was like a little flash of sunlight 
 through a cloud 
 
 Taking an early morning walk he met Mr. Prescott, 
 whose " Philip II." had been for some time impatiently 
 expected. " You are out early," said the historian. 
 " I wish," he replied, " I could say the same of you, 
 who are keeping the whole world waiting." 
 
 A celebrated lecturer meeting him, said that he was 
 thinking of writing a lecture on one of the ancient 
 generals. " That is it," said Mr. Choate ; " Hannibal 
 is your man. Think of him crossing the Alps in win 
 ter, with nobody at his back but a parcel of Numidians, 
 Moors, Niggers, riding on horses without any bridles, 
 to set himself against that imperial Roman power ! " 
 
CHAP. XL] ANECDOTES. 415 
 
 Attending the opera on one occasion, and being but 
 indifferently amused by the acting and music, which 
 he did not understand, he turned to his daughter and 
 said, with grave formality : " Helen, interpret to me 
 this libretto, lest I dilate with the wrong emotion ! " 
 
 " He objected once to an illiterate constable s return 
 of service, bristling all over with the word having, on 
 the ground that it was bad. The judge remarked that, 
 though inelegant and ungrammatical in its structure, 
 the paper still seemed to be good in a legal sense. < It 
 may be so, your Honor/ replied Mr. Choate, l but, it 
 must be confessed, he has greatly overworked the 
 participle. " : 
 
 In replying to a lawyer who had been addressing 
 the Court in a loud and almost boisterous manner, Mr. 
 Choate referred playfully to his " stentorian powers." 
 To his surprise, however, the counsel took it in dud 
 geon, and as soon as possible rose to protest against the 
 hostile assault. " He had not been aware of any thing 
 in his mode of address which would justify such an 
 epithet ; he thought it unusual and undeserved," &c., 
 &c. Going on thus, his voice unconsciously soon rose 
 again to its highest key, and rung through the court 
 house as if he were haranguing an army ; when Mr. 
 Choate half rose, and stretching out his hand with a 
 deprecatory gesture, said, in the blandest tones, " One 
 word, may it please the Court ; only one word, if my 
 brother will allow. I see my mistake. I beg leave to 
 retract what I said!" The effect was irresistible. 
 The counsel was silent ; the Court and spectators con 
 vulsed with laughter. 
 
 Of a lawyer at once pugnacious, obstinate, and dull- 
 
 1 Essays by E. P. Whipple, vol. ii. p. 167. 
 
416 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 witted, he remarked that he seemed to be a bull-dog 
 with confused ideas. The description was compre 
 hensive and perfect. 
 
 During the trial of Crafts, Mr. Choate was pressing 
 the Court to make what he thought a very equitable 
 and necessary order in relation to taking a certain depo 
 sition. The Court, finding no precedent for it, sug 
 gested that the matter be suspended till the next day, 
 " and then," added the judge, " I will make the order, 
 if you shall be able to furnish me with any precedent 
 for such proceeding." " I will look, your Honor," re 
 plied Mr. Choate, in his most deferential manner, 
 " and endeavor to find a precedent, if you require it ; 
 though it would seem to be a pity that the Court 
 should lose the honor of being the first to establish so 
 just a rule." 
 
 " I met him once," said a member of the New York 
 Bar, 1 " at the United States Hotel, in Boston, when he 
 was boarding there. As we were walking np and 
 down the hall of the house after dinner, I happened to 
 see hanging on the wall a map of a piece of property 
 in Quincy, and remarked that that reminded me of one 
 whom I must regard as the most remarkable man of 
 our day (John Quincy Adams). He said, Yes, I 
 think he is. We have no man as much so, and I think 
 they have none in England. The Duke I think is less 
 wonderful, all things considered. I spoke of his re 
 markable memory, his vast knowledge, and his marvel 
 lous facility in using it, and alluded to his recent 
 efforts in the House of Representatives at Washington, 
 where something had been said about impeaching him, 
 and remarked, that without waiting to assume the de- 
 
 1 From the memorandum of Hon. Charles A. Feabody. 
 
CHAP. XI.] HIS ELOQUENCE. 417 
 
 fensive, or say any thing for himself, he had rushed 
 upon his accusers and well-nigh demolished them, 
 bringing from the treasures of his memory every in 
 cident of their lives that could be useful to him, and 
 drawing as from an armory every variety of weapons 
 practicable for their destruction. Yes, he replied, 
 he has always untold treasures of facts, and they are 
 always at his command. He has peculiar powers as 
 an assailant, and almost always, even when attacked, 
 gets himself into that attitude by making war upon his 
 accuser; and he has, withal, an instinct for the jugular 
 and the carotid artery, as unerring as that of any carniv 
 orous animal . " 
 
 On one occasion Mr. Choate was engaged in a patent 
 case where a great number of witnesses had been ex 
 amined by his opponent, and he was at the same time 
 a delegate to the Whig convention, which was to choose 
 between several candidates for the Presidency, of whom 
 Mr. Webster was one. In closing the case, when he 
 came to comment on the witnesses of the opposite 
 party, he said, "The defendant has such an array of 
 witnesses on this point, that I hardly know where to 
 begin with them ; but if your Honor pleases, I think I 
 will take them up, as we shall have to do by and by in 
 canvassing for candidates for the Presidency, alphabet 
 ically ; and hence I will do here as I should wish to 
 do there, reverse the alphabet and begin with the 
 W. s." The allusion was instantly appreciated by 
 Court, jury, and audience ; and as most of them were 
 Massachusetts men, and friends of Mr. Webster, it 
 came near provoking a very audible demonstration. 
 
 Mr. Choate s eloquence was of an extraordinary 
 nature, which one who never heard him can hardly 
 
 27 
 
418 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XL 
 
 understand. It was complex, like his mind ; at once 
 broad and subtle ; easily understood but impossible to 
 describe ; compact with all the elements of beauty and 
 of power ; a spell composed of all things rich and 
 strange, to fascinate, persuade, and convince. It was 
 not by accident that he reached such success as an ad 
 vocate, but through profound study and severe training. 
 Not to speak of that which lies at the basis of all perma 
 nent success at the bar, a thorough knowledge of the 
 law as a science, as well as in its forms, he was remark 
 able for sound judgment in the preparation and manage 
 ment of a cause. He knew instinctively what to affirm 
 and what to yield. He chose the point of attack or de 
 fence with consummate skill ; and if he did not succeed, 
 it was because success was not possible. His mind 
 moved like a flash, and an unguarded point, a flaw in 
 an argument, an unwise theory of procedure, a charge 
 somewhat too strong or a little beside the real purpose, 
 were seized upon with almost absolute certainty and 
 turned with damaging effect against his opponents. In 
 the preparation of a case he left nothing to accident 
 which he could fix by care and labor. In determining 
 a theory of defence, he was endless in suggestions and 
 hypotheses till the one was chosen which seemed im 
 pregnable, or at any rate the best that could be found. 
 In consultation he generally looked first at his oppo 
 nent s side, then at his own ; stating in full force every 
 unfavorable argument, and then endeavoring to answer 
 them, thus playing the whole through like a game of 
 chess. In these cases his attention was given not only 
 to a general proposition but to all its details. A 
 person once prosecuted the city to recover damages for 
 injuries received by a fall in consequence of a defect 
 
CHAP. XL] HIS ELOQUENCE. 419 
 
 in a bridge. At the first meeting for consultation with 
 the junior counsel he spent an hour in determining 
 exactly how one could so catch his foot in a hole as to 
 be thrown in the way to produce the specific injury, 
 till by means of the fender and coal-hod, with the tongs 
 and shovel, he constructed a rude model of the dilapi 
 dated bridge, and satisfied himself of .the precise man 
 ner in which the accident happened. No man was 
 ever more courageous than he for his client. Some 
 times he seemed to run prodigious risks ; but he knew 
 his ground, and when once taken, nothing would beat 
 him from it. His plea of somnambulism in Tirrell s 
 case subjected him to a thousand innuendoes, to the 
 bantering of the newspapers and the ridicule of the 
 vulgar. The jury themselves said that in coming to 
 their verdict, they did not consider it. But in the 
 second trial he brought it forward with just as much 
 assurance as ever. 
 
 His knowledge of human nature was intuitive. At 
 a glance he formed a judgment of the jurymen, and 
 governed himself accordingly, sometimes addressing 
 each individual according to his perception of their 
 several characteristics, repeating and varying his argu 
 ments till every mind was reached. However forcible 
 or strong, he never was harsh or coarse. In no orator 
 were the elements of conviction and persuasion so 
 beautifully blended. His conviction was persuasive ; 
 his persuasion, convincing. More truly than was said 
 of Fox, " his intellect was all feeling, and his feeling 
 all intellect." No juryman was ever weary with his 
 argument. The driest matter of fact was enlivened 
 by some unexpected turn of humor, or unthought-of 
 illustration. His logic never assumed technical forms, 
 
420 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XL 
 
 but was enveloped and carried onward in narrative 
 and illustration. 
 
 In his arguments to a jury, his openings were nat 
 ural, easy, and informal. He glided into a subject so 
 gently that you hardly knew it. He, oftener than 
 otherwise, began with a general statement of the whole 
 case, making a cjear and definite outline, which no one 
 could fail to understand and remember. He then pro 
 ceeded to a careful and protracted analysis of the evi 
 dence ; his theory of the case, in the mean time, had 
 been pretty broadly broached, and his propositions, 
 perhaps, laid down, and repeated with every variety of 
 statement which seemed necessary for his purpose. 
 Often his theory was insinuated rather than stated, 
 and the jury were led insensibly to form it for them 
 selves. His skill in narrative was equal to his cogency 
 in argument. He had a wonderful power of vivid 
 portraiture, of compressing an argument into a 
 word, or phrase, or illustration. 
 
 No one could make a more clear, convincing, and 
 effective statement ; none held all the resources of the 
 language more absolutely at command. His power 
 over the sympathies, by which, from the first word he 
 uttered, you were drawn to him with a strange and 
 inexplicable attraction, was wonderful. Court, jury, 
 and spectators seemed fused into one mass of willing 
 and delighted listeners. They could not help being 
 influenced by him. Calming the hostility of his hear 
 ers by kindness, conciliating their prejudices, convert 
 ing them into friends, bending their will to his in 
 delightful harmony, he moved on with irresistible 
 force, boiling along his course, tumultuous but beauti 
 ful, lifting them bodily, bearing all with him, and 
 
CIIAP. XI.] HIS SELF-POSSESSION. 421 
 
 prostrating all before him. His pleasantry and wit, ^ 
 his grotesque exaggerations, never gross or vulgar, 
 served to wake up a sleepy juryman, or relieve a dry 
 detail. They lubricated the wheels of a long train of 
 discussion. He often put himself so far as he could, 
 really or jocosely yet half in earnest, into sympathy 
 with his opponents themselves. In the Dalton case he 
 professed at the outset that he spoke in tlfe interest of 
 both parties. In the case of Shaw vs. The Boston and 
 Worcester Railroad, which was contested with a good 
 deal of feeling, coming to the close of his argument 
 he said, turning round and facing the President of the 
 road, " My friends, the President and Directors of the 
 Boston and Worcester Railroad, honorable and high- 
 minded men as I know them to be, have probably con 
 sidered that they should not be justified in paying to 
 the plaintiff the large sum of money claimed in this 
 case without the protection of a judgment in a suit at 
 law ; but I have no doubt, gentlemen, if you establish 
 the liability, every one of them would lay his hand on 
 his heart and say, Give her all that she asks, and 
 God bless her ! " 
 
 Mr. Choate never lost self-possession. He seemed 
 to have the surest mastery of himself in the moment 
 of greatest excitement. He was never beside himself 
 with passion or anxiety, and seldom disconcerted by 
 any accident or unexpected posture of affairs, so 
 very seldom indeed, that the one or two cases where he 
 was slightly so, are pretty distinctly remembered. 
 One instance occurred in the trial of a question of 
 salvage. It was the case of The Missouri, an Ameri 
 can vessel stranded on the coast of Sumatra, with 
 specie on board. The master of the stranded vessel, 
 
422 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 one Dixey, and Pitman, the master of the vessel thai 
 came to her aid, agreed together to embezzle the greatei 
 part of the specie, and pretend that they had been 
 robbed of it by the Malays. Mr. Choate was cross 
 examining Dixey very closely to get out of him the 
 exact time and nature of the agreement. The witness 
 said that Pitman proposed the scheme, and that he 
 objected to it, among other reasons, as dangerous. 
 To which, he said, Pitman made a suggestion in 
 tended to satisfy him. Mr. Choate insisted on know 
 ing what that suggestion was. The witness relucted 
 at giving it. Mr. Choate was peremptory, and the 
 scene became interesting. " Well," said Dixey at 
 last, " if you must know, he said that if any trouble 
 came of it we could have Rufus Choate to defend us, 
 and he would get us off if we were caught with the 
 money in our boots." It was several minutes before 
 the Court could go on with the business. For a few 
 moments Mr. Choate seemed uncertain how to take it. 
 He did not relish the nature of the compliment, and 
 yet it was a striking tribute to his fame that two men, 
 at the antipodes, should concoct a great fraud relying 
 upon his genius to save them ; and so the opposing 
 counsel, Mr. Dana, put it, in his argument, aptly quot 
 ing the QUCB regio in terris. 
 
 His wit, his ludicrous representations, his sublime 
 exaggerations, were never without a purpose. They 
 were hot the result of a taste which delighted in such 
 things as beauties or felicities, but of a desire to attract 
 the wandering attention, to fasten a thought by a lu 
 dicrous picture, to relieve the mind of the weary jury, 
 or to show by an illustration the absurdity of the propo 
 sition he was combating. 
 
CHAP. XI.] HIS POWER OVER AN AUDIENCE. 423 
 
 Iii an argument before a committee of the Legisla 
 ture in 1860, in behalf of the petitioners for a railroad 
 from Salem to Maiden, he drew one of those pictures 
 with which he was accustomed to amuse, but, also, 
 much more than merely to amuse, a jury. One argu 
 ment in favor of the new road was, that it would enable 
 travellers to avoid the East Boston Ferry, and to gain 
 in speed. In reply, the beauties of the prospect in the 
 harbor, and the pleasure of meeting friends on the 
 boat, were referred to, as an offset. 
 
 "The learned though somewhat fanciful gentleman," 
 said Mr. Choate, " has eloquently set forth the delight 
 which must be felt by all in catching an occasional 
 glimpse of the harbor, as they cross in the boat ; as if 
 the business people of Danvers, Lynn, or Saugus, would 
 care to stop, or think of stopping, to gaze upon the 
 threadbare and monotonous beauties of Boston Harbor 
 when hurrying to transact their affairs. Unfortunately, 
 too, for the gentleman s case, in this respect, it so hap 
 pens that these same people have compelled this com 
 pany to arch their boat all over, and wall it up all 
 round, so that nothing at all can be seen. Then the 
 delight of meeting and shaking hands with an old 
 friend ! Conceive, gentlemen, the pastoral, touching, 
 pathetic picture of two Salem gentlemen, who have been 
 in the habit of seeing each other a dozen times a day for 
 the last twenty-five years, almost rushing into each other s 
 arms on board the ferry-boat ; WHAT TRANSPORT ! We 
 can only regret that such felicity should be so soon 
 broken up by the necessity of running a race against 
 time, or fighting with each other for a seat in the 
 cars." 
 
 During the trial of Tirrell, a certain police officer 
 
424 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XL 
 
 who was called by the government, took occasion sev 
 eral times to give his opinion very flippantly and out 
 of place on several points of the case. This was soon 
 after the discovery of a new planet, and the appear 
 ance of several learned papers on it by Prof. Peirce, of 
 Cambridge. In the course of Mr. Choate s argument, 
 and when he came to review the testimony of the wit 
 ness, he said, " And then, gentlemen, the witness, not 
 content with coloring and distorting the facts, gravely 
 and sententiously gives us his opinion on this and that 
 point with all the assurance of an expert. I wonder 
 what he thinks of the new planet, I am dying to know 
 his opinion of Prof. Peirce s theory of the aberration 
 of light touching that stranger in the heavens." 
 
 The following ludicrous exaggeration long held its 
 place among the stories about the Court : 
 
 In April, 1847, the Joint Commissioners of Massa 
 chusetts and Rhode Island, appointed to ascertain and 
 establish the boundary line between the two States, 
 made an agreement and presented it to their respective 
 Legislatures. 
 
 Parties living in Massachusetts, whose rights were 
 affected by this decision, petitioned the Legislature 
 against the acceptance of the Commissioners" report. 
 Mr. Choate appeared for these remonstrants. A por 
 tion of the boundary line was described in the agreement 
 as follows: "Beginning," <fcc., <fcc., "thence to an 
 angle on the easterly side of Watuppa Pond, thence 
 across the said pond to the two rocks on the westerly 
 side of said pond and near thereto, then westerly 
 to the buttonwood tree in the village of Fall River," 
 &c., &c. 
 
 In his argument, commenting on the boundary, 
 
CHAP. XI.] HIS STYLE. 425 
 
 Mr. Choate thus referred to this part of the descrip 
 tion : 
 
 " A boundary line between two sovereign States de 
 scribed by a couple of stones near a pond, and a button- 
 wood sapling in a village. The Commissioners might 
 as well have defined it as starting from a blue jay, 
 thence to a swarm of bees in hiving-time, and thence to 
 five hundred foxes with firebrands tied to their tails !" 
 
 Mr. Choate s style was peculiar, and entirely his own. 
 Its exuberance, its stateliness and dignity, its music 
 and its wealth, were as fascinating as they were inim 
 itable. One can hardly fail to recognize, even in the 
 least characteristic of his speeches, a true nobleness, a 
 touch of imperial grace, such as has been vouchsafed 
 only to the supreme masters of the language. His style 
 has sometimes been criticised by those who have for 
 gotten that his speeches were meant for hearers rather 
 than for readers, and that a mind of such extraordinary 
 affluence and vigor will, of necessity, in many respects, 
 be a law to itself. He was, however, quite aware that 
 a style of greater simplicity and severity would be 
 necessary for a writer ; and this, probably, was one 
 thing which prevented him from entering seriously on 
 those literary labors which were evidently, at one time, 
 an object of real interest. 
 
 I am glad to be able to introduce here some subtle 
 and suggestive remarks on this subject by an observant 
 and thoughtful critic, Rev. Joseph Tracy. 
 
 " I do not know," he says, " that I can describe 
 suitably, on paper, that peculiarity of Mr. Choate s 
 style of which we were speaking, and which is so 
 marked in his famous long sentences. Many have 
 observed that it was not wordiness. He had words 
 
426 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 and used them, in rich abundance; but if you examine 
 even the most sounding of his long sentences, you find 
 in them no redundant words. Each of its several 
 members is made up of such words, and of such only, 
 as were needed for the perfect expression of the 
 thought. 
 
 " Nor was it in that cumulative power by which one 
 idea, image, or argument, is piled upon another, so as 
 to make up an overwhelming mass. He had this 
 power in a remarkable degree ; but so had many others 
 perhaps almost all great orators. Cicero has left 
 some splendid examples of it. 
 
 " It was rather the result of the peculiar logical 
 structure of his mind ; for in him logic and rhetoric 
 were not separate departments, but one living process. 
 He instinctively strove to present an idea, a thought, 
 in its perfect completeness, the thought, the whole 
 thought, and nothing but the thought ; so to present it 
 that there would be no need of adding to his statement 
 of it, subtracting from it, or in any way modifying it, 
 after it had once been made. He seemed to use words 
 not exactly to convey ideas to his hearers, but rather 
 to assist and guide their minds in the work of con 
 structing the same ideas that were in his own. In 
 carrying their minds through this process, he must 
 give them, not merely the idea which had been the re 
 sult of his own thinking, but its elements, their propor 
 tions, their limitations, their bearings on the results. 
 In this process, clauses of definition, of discrimination, 
 of limitation, were often as necessary as those of a 
 contrary character. Any element of thought which 
 contributed to the result only in some qualified sense 
 must be mentioned with the proper qualification, lest 
 
CHAP. XI.] HIS STYLE. 427 
 
 there should remain a doubt whether it ought to be 
 mentioned at all. It is in this respect that his long 
 sentences seem to me to differ, characteristically, from 
 the long sentences of other orators, which are merely 
 cumulative. The practical effect was, that the hearer 
 found himself not merely overwhelmed by the multi 
 tude of grand things that had been said, but also led, 
 by a safe logical process, to the desired conclusion. 
 
 " How else can we account for the effect which his 
 long sentences certainly did produce on even common 
 minds ? Could such minds, after hearing one of them, 
 recollect and appreciate all the particulars contained 
 in it ? But few, even of educated men, who read them, 
 can do that. The effect is produced by the logic which 
 runs through them and does its work during the prog 
 ress of the sentence, so that when the sentence is ended 
 the conclusion is reached. 
 
 " A remarkable example of such long sentences as I 
 have tried to describe, is found in Mr. Choate s remarks 
 at the meeting of the Suffolk Bar on the death of Mr. 
 Webster. I have often thought that studying that ad 
 dress, so as thoroughly to master it (and the same 
 may be said of his Eulogy on Mr. Webster, and other 
 elaborate performances), would be a good exercise for 
 a theological student, about to enter on the study of 
 Paul s Epistles, where he will find many long sentences 
 which seem to be made long on the same principle, 
 and as a result of the same logical instincts. Paul s 
 parentheses, like those of Choate, are put in, that the 
 reader, when he arrives at the end of a sentence, may 
 have constructed in his own mind exactly the right 
 idea, with all the limitations, qualifications, and appur 
 tenances which are essential to its identity and com 
 pleteness." 
 
428 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 Mr. Choate s memory was exact and tenacious. He . 
 could generally repeat considerable portions of what 
 he had recently read ; was always ready with an apt 
 quotation, and able to correct those who made a wrong 
 one. An interesting illustration of this occurred dur 
 ing the trial of William Wyman, in 1843, for embez 
 zling the funds of the Phoenix Bank. An array of 
 counsel was assembled such as is rarely seen, and the 
 court-house was crowded with intensely interested 
 spectators. " In the course of the trial, and in a most 
 exciting passage, when all the counsel appeared to be 
 intent upon the case and nothing else, Mr. Webster 
 wrote on a slip of paper a favorite couplet of Pope, 
 and passed it to Mr. Choate, 
 
 Lo where Mseotis sleeps, and softly flows 
 The freezing Tanais through a waste of snows. 
 
 Mr. Choate wrote at the bottom i wrong. 
 
 Lo where Mteotis sleeps, and hardly flows 
 The freezing Tanais through a waste of snows. 
 
 Mr. Webster rejoined, right, and offered a wager. 
 A messenger was despatched for Pope, when it ap 
 peared that Mr. Choate was right. Mr. Webster 
 gravely wrote on the copy of Pope, spurious edition, 
 and the subject was dropped. All this while the spec 
 tators were in the full belief that the learned counsel 
 were in earnest consultation on some difficult point of 
 law." i 
 
 The profound admiration which Mr. Choate felt for 
 Mr. Webster was sincerely reciprocated. During this 
 trial some ladies said to Mr. Webster that they longed 
 
 1 Law Reporter, January, 1844. 
 
CHAP. XI.] HIS FELICITY OF QUOTATION. 429 
 
 for the arguments to come on, as they wished to hear 
 him. To which he replied to the effect that he was a 
 matter-of-fact old man, and that if he ever had the 
 power of interesting, it had gone. He then spoke with 
 great warmth and earnestness of Mr. Choate, charac 
 terizing him as the genius of the American Bar. He 
 afterwards spoke of Pinkney, and said that Choate was 
 the only American lawyer who had equalled him, both 
 as a lawyer and an advocate, and that he surpassed 
 him. " In the past," said Mr. Webster, " the question 
 was asked of a rising lawyer, < how near Pinkney is 
 he ? In the future it will be, how near Choate ? 
 As a mere dry lawyer, he is equal to himself as an 
 advocate, and what more can be said ? " 
 
 One will not unfrequently notice in Mr. Choate s 
 speeches and writings, as they might have in his 
 conversation, fragmentary quotations, half-lines of 
 poetry, a single catchword of a wise maxim, a par 
 tially translated proverb, which harmonized with his 
 thought, but which to those familiar with them were 
 suggestive of much more than was said. An instance 
 of his readiness in felicitous quotation is given by Mr. 
 Parker in his " Reminiscences," which I am permitted 
 to extract. 
 
 " In the winter of 1850, a large party was given in 
 Washington, and many illustrious personages were 
 present, who have since, like Mr. Choate, gone down 
 to the grave amid the tears of their countrymen. The 
 Senate, at that time worthy of the name, was well rep 
 resented on this occasion of festivity, and the play and 
 airy vivacity of the conversation, with the cups which 
 cheer but not inebriate, relaxed at intervals even sena 
 torial dignity. During the evening the subject of 
 
430 MEMOIR OF RU*US CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 4 Young America was introduced, his wayward 
 ness, his extravagance, his ignorance, and presumption. 
 Mr. Webster observed, that he hoped the youth would 
 soon come to his senses, and atone, by the correctness 
 of his deportment, for his juvenile dissipation. At 
 the same time, he added, that, in his opinion, the only 
 efficient remedy for the vice and folly of the lad would 
 be found in early religious training, and stricter paren 
 tal restraint. Mr. Choate declared, that he did not 
 view the hair-brained youth in the same light with his 
 illustrious friend ; that every age and every country 
 had, if not their Young America, at least something 
 worse. The character of Trajan, the best and purest 
 of Roman emperors, said he, was unable, with all its 
 virtue and splendpr, to check the Young Italy of 
 that day. Our lads would seem to have sat for the 
 picture which has been drawn of the Roman youths, 
 by the hand of one who seldom colored too highly. 
 Statim sapiunt, statim sciunt omnta ; neminem verentur, 
 imitantur neminem, atque ipsi sibi exempla suntj which, 
 translated, reads thus, From their cradles they know 
 all things, they understand all things, they have 
 no regard for any person whatever, high or low, rich or 
 poor, religious or otherwise, and are themselves the 
 only examples which they are disposed to follow. Mr. 
 Benton thought the quotation too happy to be genuine, 
 and demanded the author. Mr. Choate, with the ut 
 most good humor, replied, that his legal habits had 
 taught him the importance of citing no case without 
 being able to give his authorities ; he called for the 
 younger Pliny, and triumphantly showed the passage, 
 amid the admiration of that brilliant assembly, in the 
 23d letter of the 8th book. Our informant remarks, 
 
CHAP. XI.] HIS LOVE FOR BOOKS. 431 
 
 that the history of literature, perhaps, cannot show an 
 equally felicitous quotation." 
 
 His fondness for books was a striking characteristic. 
 The heart of his home was his library. Hither he re 
 treated from the distractions of business, and the dis 
 appointments of politics, to discourse with the great 
 spirits of other times ; yielding with unfailing delight 
 to the lofty stimulus of great minds, and communing 
 with them as with friends. He reposed among his 
 books. He bought them freely, generally for use, 
 though in some departments, and with some favorite 
 authors, he allowed free scope to his tastes, and 
 adorned his shelves with choice editions. In a city he 
 gravitated toward a bookstore or a public library, as if by 
 a fixed and unvarying law of nature. . During the earlier 
 years of his residence in Boston, when professional 
 occupation allowed him leisure, he was often found in 
 Burnham s Antiquarian Bookstore, poring over the 
 heterogeneous treasures of that immense depository. 
 
 Shortly after his death there appeared in the " New 
 York Times " a communication from a well-known 
 dealer in old and rare books, 1 which merits preserva 
 tion, as a simple, unvarnished statement of the truth. 
 
 "RuFus CHOATE S LOVE FOR BOOKS. 
 
 " The death of this illustrious man brings to my 
 mind certain reminiscences of him, which I think 
 worthy of keeping in remembrance. 
 
 " About ten years ago, when on a visit, or passing 
 through this city, Mr. Choate called at my store, about 
 ten o clock, A.M., and introduced himself as a lover of 
 
 1 William Gowans. 
 
432 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CiJAr. XI. 
 
 books and an occasional buyer, and then desired to be 
 shown where the Metaphysics, and the Greek and Ro 
 man Classics, stood. He immediately commenced his 
 researches, with great apparent eagerness ; nor did he 
 quit his toil till he was compelled to do so by the store 
 being shut up, thus having been over nine hours on a 
 stretch, without food or drink. He remarked that he 
 had quite exhausted himself, mentally as well as 
 bodily. He had been greatly interested, as well as 
 excited, at what he had seen ; for, continued he, I 
 have discovered many books that I have never seen be 
 fore, and seen those that I had never heard of; but, 
 above all, I have been more than overjoyed at discover 
 ing, in your collection, a copy of the Greek bishop s 1 
 famous commentary on the writings of Homer, in 
 seven volumes, quarto, a work that I have long had an 
 intense desire to possess. He afterwards purchased 
 the precious volumes. I had the seven volumes bound 
 in three, in handsome and appropriate style. These 
 works no doubt still grace his library. W. G." 
 
 To the last he was studious of letters, full of sym 
 pathy with literary men and their works, and especially 
 fond of the classics, and of imaginative literature. 
 During the most busy period of his professional labor 
 he managed to secure at least an hour every day res 
 cued from sleep, or society, or recreation for Greek 
 or Latin, or some other favorite study. He sometimes, 
 
 1 Eustathius (Archbishop of Thessalonica) was born in the twelfth 
 century at Constantinople. He was the author of the well-known 
 voluminous commentary on Homer, written in the same language as 
 the Iliad. His commentaries were first printed at Home, 1550, in two 
 volumes folio. Besides these commentaries, he was the author of 
 several other critical works. 
 
CHAP. XI.] HIS LOVE FOR BOOKS. 433 
 
 at the commencement of a college term, would mark 
 out his course of study by the curriculum as laid down 
 in the catalogue, and thus keep on pari passu with one 
 or two of the classes. He was indifferent to ordinary 
 amusements, had no love for horses, or field sports ; 
 and seemed hardly to desire any other rest than that 
 which came from a change of intellectual action. In 
 the later years of his life he undertook the study of 
 German with one of his daughters, learning the gram 
 mar during his morning walks, and reciting at table. 
 
 If the question were asked, to what pursuits Mr. 
 Choate s tastes, unobstructed, would have led him, I 
 am inclined to think the answer would be to letters 
 rather than to the law. Books were his passion. His 
 heart was in 
 
 " The world of thought, the world of dreams," 
 
 with philosophers, historians, and poets ; and had his 
 fortune allowed, he would have endeavored to take 
 rank with them, to illustrate, perhaps, some great 
 period of history with a work worthy of the best learn 
 ing and the widest culture ; or to unfold the sound and 
 deep principles of a true political philosophy. He 
 might not, indeed, have avoided, but rather have sought, 
 public life ; for he felt its fascinations, and fairly esti 
 mated its grand opportunities. His ambition might 
 have been to move in the sphere of Burke (of whom 
 he sometimes reminds one) or Macaulay, rather than 
 that of Erskine or Eldon. Hence, though bringing to 
 the Law marvellous aptitude, wonderful diligence, and 
 entire self-devotion, sacrificing, as some thought, in the 
 sharp contests of the bar, powers which might better 
 have graced another and higher sphere, he was never 
 
434 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 a mere lawyer. And yet, so absorbed was he in his pro 
 fession, it was a necessity, and at least a second love, 
 that with the exception of a few columns in the 
 newspapers, a brief article in the " North American 
 Review/ a few speeches and orations, I know not that 
 he fully prepared any thing for the press. 
 
 He cared nothing for money ; little, too little per 
 haps, for society, beyond his own immediate friends ; 
 and less than any able and brilliant man I ever knew, 
 or almost ever heard of, for fame ; but study, books, 
 intellectual labor and achievements, poetry, truth 
 these were controlling elements of his life. However 
 prostrated or worn, a new intellectual stimulus would 
 raise him in an instant. " One day," says a former 
 student of his, 1 " he came into the office tired and sick ; 
 the great lines of his face yellow and deep ; his eyes 
 full of a blaze of light, yet heavy and drooping. Throw 
 ing himself exhausted on the sofa, he exclaimed, 4 The 
 law to be a good lawyer is no more than to be a good 
 carpenter. It is knack, simply running a machine. 
 Soon after a man came^in with a splendid edition of 
 Sir William Hamilton s Reid, fresh from London. 
 He was changed in a moment. Springing from the 
 sofa, he glanced admiringly over the philosophy, say 
 ing, Here s food ; now I will go home and feast. 
 There s true poetry in these metaphysicians. And 
 so he went off to refresh himself with that light read 
 ing." 
 
 The following recollections of Mr. Choate are from 
 a gentleman who saw him frequently and familiarly : 
 
 1 Rev. J. M. Marsters, to whom I am indebted for many interest 
 ing particulars. 
 
CHAP. XI.] HIS CONVERSATION. 435 
 
 " DEAR SIR, The principal reason for my neglect 
 to send you any reminiscences of Mr. Choate is, that 
 when I have tried to put them into shape, they have 
 seemed too meagre and insignificant to be worth your 
 notice. Indeed, I think that the recollections of his 
 daily life, retained by any one who saw. him familiarly 
 c in his habit as he lived, are extremely difficult of de 
 velopment in words. Every thing which he said pro 
 duced an impression on the hearer ; but an attempt to 
 repeat the saying, and reproduce the impression on 
 one who did not know him, results in failure. The 
 flavor is gone. It proceeded from the time, the occa 
 sion, the manner, the tone, the personal magnetism of 
 the man. There were some subjects on which Mr. 
 Choate always liked to talk, about his contempora 
 ries, or on his favorite classics, or to young men about 
 their studies, or the best preparation for practical suc 
 cess, or the true ends and aims of life, and the ways 
 and means of civil and professional activity and use 
 fulness. 
 
 " I used, when I knew Mr. Choate to be at leisure 
 and alone, to stroll from my room into his, and start 
 some topic. He would at once enter into it with all 
 interest, and as if that were the very subject he had 
 been studying most carefully and recently. You may 
 imagine, I was always inclined to hear rather than to 
 be heard. Still, his remarks were always suggestive 
 of answers ; and it was easier to talk with him really 
 to converse, not merely to listen than with any man 
 of note whom it has been my fortune to meet. He 
 did not lecture nor preach. Frequently he drew out 
 the knowledge or opinions of the person conversing 
 with him, whether young or old, learned or other- 
 
436 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 wise, by direct questions ; and in such cases he al 
 ways seemed to be actually seeking information, not 
 attempting to find out, like a tutor at a recitation, how 
 much the catechised individual knew. I always felt, 
 after spending ten minutes with him, as if I had been 
 not only stocked with fresh stores, but developed, 
 quite as much educated as instructed. Then, what he 
 said was so stimulant and encouraging. One always 
 went away, not depressed by the sense of his own in 
 feriority, but determined to know more about what he 
 had been talking of, and confident that he had been 
 put in the right way to learn more. 
 
 " Nothing pleased his young friends so much as the 
 deference with which he received what they had to say. 
 I remember his once asking what I thought of a point 
 which he was about to argue to the Bench, and about 
 which I had very imperfect ideas. I made some sort 
 of vague reply ; but was agreeably surprised, shortly 
 afterwards, by hearing my exact words introduced to 
 the full Court in an abundance of good company, and 
 in a connection which gave them some significance. 
 The junior associate in a case could not whisper to 
 him in the middle of an argument without his saying 
 to judge or jury, ; My learned brother has just sug 
 gested to me, and the suggestion, or something like 
 it, would come forth, freed from error and crudity, il 
 lustrated and made telling. 
 
 " His serious conversation was always exact and 
 terse in expression, and he disliked any looseness in 
 that respect in others. He asked me once what the 
 judge had charged the jury in a certain case. I an 
 swered That they must find the fact thus and so, 
 meaning that they were charged, unless they found 
 
CHAP. XI.] HIS CONVERSATION. 437 
 
 it so, not to bring in a verdict for the plaintiff. He re 
 plied very quickly, i I suppose he told them to find it 
 as it was really, didn t he ? In grammar and pronun 
 ciation he was precise even in his peculiarities ; and 
 any error he would reprove by introducing the same 
 into his next sentence with as you call it. 
 
 " Mr. Choate s playful conversation it seems impos 
 sible to put into a book, and retain the sparkle. And 
 yet his quaintness was perhaps his most distinguishing 
 characteristic to those with whom he was intimate. 
 They remember him asking after his only grand-daugh 
 ter with How is the boy ? or coming into a room 
 with a question or a remark wholly incongruous with 
 the time and the surroundings ; or interspersing the 
 business of a trial with all sorts of ludicrous remark 
 and by-play, audible and visible only to those just 
 around him in the bar ; or speaking of a husband, 
 from whom he had just obtained a settlement for his 
 client, an injured but not very amiable wife, as a sin 
 ner, and adding, Mrs. is a sinner, too, then 
 
 immediately correcting himself with, No, Sir, she is 
 not a sinner, for she is our client, but she is certainly a 
 very disagreeable saint ; or ingeniously harassing 
 a nervous legal opponent, in private consultation upon 
 a compromise, until he rushed from the room in dis 
 traction, and then quietly finishing the sentence to the 
 nervous gentleman s associate, as if it had been origi 
 nally addressed to him, and his friend s departure had 
 not been noticed; or, when afflicted with the dis 
 order of sight which produces a wavy illusion before 
 the eyes, suddenly stopping a friend in the street, and 
 astounding him with the statement, l Mr. H., you look 
 like two great snakes ! All these things, amusing 
 
438 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 and puzzling when seen as well as heard, are flat and 
 stale in the mere relation. 
 
 " I have mentioned how much Mr. Choate liked to 
 talk upon the classics. His reputation as a classical 
 scholar was, as you know, very high, and I think de 
 servedly so. He had all the qualifications, except 
 time, for fine scholarship in this department, an ar 
 dent love of the subject, a fondness for the general 
 study of language, a vast and accurate memory, and 
 great assiduity and minuteness in investigation.! You 
 know how rich his library was in classical works ; and 
 I always used to see upon his office-table the German 
 periodical catalogues of new editions and philological 
 publication. I do not suppose that he equalled the 
 linguists of the universities in thoroughness and pre 
 cision of learning. This was not compatible with the 
 variety and pressure of his other pursuits. But dur 
 ing the few minutes which he daily bestowed upon 
 Latin and Greek, he studied rather than read, spend 
 ing the time upon one sentence, not upon several 
 pages. With half a dozen editions of his authors 
 open before him, and all the standard lexicons and 
 grammars at hand, he referred to each in turn, and 
 compared and digested their various authority and 
 opinion. I imagine he always translated (not content 
 ing himself with the idea in its original dress) for the 
 sake of greater precision of conception, and also of 
 practice in idiomatic English. You will notice in his 
 written translations how he strives to find a phrase 
 which will sound as familiar to an English ear, as the 
 original to that of a Greek or Roman. When he uses 
 an ancient idiom, in translation or original composi 
 tion, it seems intentional, and as if he thought it would 
 bear transplanting. 
 
CHAP. XL] HIS SCHOLARSHIP. 439 
 
 " Iii his scholarship, as in other things, lie was anx 
 ious to be accurate, and spared no pains in investigat 
 ing a disputed point. In this, as in law, the merest 
 novice could put him upon inquiry, by doubting his 
 opinion. He was not positive at the outset, but set 
 himself to studying at once ; and when he had finally 
 reviewed his position no one could stir him from his 
 final conclusion. I remember once showing him a new 
 Quintilian which I had bought. He opened it, and 
 began translating aloud. Disagreeing with his trans 
 lation of some technical word, I called his attention to 
 it. He heard what I had to say, and said little in re 
 turn. The next day he came armed with authorities, 
 and challenged me to support my position. I found 
 some authorities on my side ; but I think he did not 
 let me rest for weeks, nor until we had between us 
 brought every thing in the books to bear upon the ques 
 tion. The result was, that I was convinced he was 
 right at first. 
 
 " Nothing pleased him more than to bring his classics 
 to bear upon his daily pursuits. He quoted Latin and 
 Greek to juries, sometimes much to their astonishment. 
 He wished to be such a legal orator as Demosthenes 
 and Cicero. He used to say that if he desired to form 
 a nisi-prius lawyer, he should make him, above all, 
 study Quintilian. He delighted in Thucydides as il 
 lustrating the great question of confederation or dis 
 union between small republics. These authors, and 
 Homer and Horace for relaxation, and Tacitus for 
 comparison with Thucydides as a philosophical histo 
 rian, were his favorite and principal classical reading. 
 
 " Greek history was a constant study with him. I 
 have no doubt that at one time he meditated a work 
 
440 MEMOIR OF RUPUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 upon it, and sketched some plans and collected some 
 materials. He was always enthusiastic upon this sub 
 ject. I shall never forget the animation with which, 
 finding his son, Rufus, and myself reading the part of 
 Herodotus preceding the first Persian war, he broke 
 out with, < You are just seeing the curtain rising on 
 the great drama. 
 
 " Mr. Choate s activity was, as you know, perfectly 
 restless. He could not endure any thing that seemed 
 like trifling with time. Formal dinner-parties, unless 
 they were also feasts of reason, he studiously eschewed. 
 The mere conventionalities of society bored him. 
 
 " Unceasing as was his labor, he was, nevertheless, 
 a great procrastinator. He could not prepare his cases 
 for trial weeks and months in advance, as is the habit 
 of some of our lawyers, He said to me once, I can 
 not get up the interest until the struggle is close at 
 hand, then I think of nothing else till it is over. He 
 has sometimes been known not to have put a word of 
 an oration on paper, at a time when the day of delivery 
 was so near that an ordinary man would have thought 
 the interval even too short for mere revision and cor 
 rection. But he was seldom caught actually unpre 
 pared. The activity of the short period of preparation 
 was intense ; and as at some time or other in his life 
 he had studied almost every thing, and as he never 
 forgot any thing that he once knew, his amount and 
 range of acquisition gave him a reserved force for every 
 emergency, which could be brought into instant use. 
 Moreover, his grasp of a subject was so immediate, that 
 he did as much in a moment as another could in a day. 
 He would sometimes be retained in a cause just going 
 to trial, and before his junior had finished his opening, 
 
CHAP. XL] HOME-LIFE. 441 
 
 Mr. Choate would seem to know more about that case 
 than any other man in the court-room. His mental 
 rapidity showed itself in every thing. It was wonderful 
 to see him run through the leaves of a series of digests, 
 and strike at a glance upon what would most strongly 
 avail him, and reject the weak or irrelevant. So in all 
 his reading he distilled the spirit (if there was any) 
 instantly from any dilution." 
 
 I shall venture to give here a few familiar reminis 
 cences of Mr. Choate s home-life, exactly as they were 
 written by a daughter, for the amusement of one of 
 his grand-children, without thought of their serving any 
 other purpose. 
 
 " Whoever had seen your grandpapa with any of 
 us children would have soon found that with all his 
 study and hard work, he always had time to make 
 home happy, and romped and played with us to our 
 hearts content, laughed at our dolls and cats, 
 read our compositions, heard our lessons, and when 
 a leisure evening came would join us in our games of 
 Royal Goose, and Loto, which was his especial favorite. 
 I am afraid because, for some unknown reason, he al 
 ways got the candy in the pool ! . . . But we thought 
 the best game of all with him was tag, and that al 
 ways came off just after dinner before he went back to 
 his office. There never could be again such a noise 
 as we made, and your poor grandmamma would have to 
 shut her ears and hide herself from the tumult. We 
 always ended by rushing after him, sometimes far into 
 the street, and would not give up until he allowed him 
 self to be tagged the last. But although he was so 
 frolicsome and bubbling up with fun when with us 
 
442 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XL 
 
 alone, he would change wholly if any < outsider by 
 any chance were with us. If one of our playmates 
 came in during our game of tag, he at once stopped the 
 game, took his green bag and was off. 
 
 " And he was just as fond of playing with you as he 
 ever was with us ; and when you were brought into 
 the city from Dorchester and were the centre of an ad 
 miring group of uncles and aunts, grandpapa would 
 dart in and catch you up and run with you in his arms 
 to the library, and then he would lock the door so as 
 to have you all to himself, and sometimes we would 
 peep in and see him lying on the floor to let you have 
 a free pull at his curls, or he. would show you pictures, 
 or chase you about the room ; until having expended 
 from half an hour to an hour in this way he would 
 return you to me, saying he didn t think much of you 
 any way, and couldn t for his life see what there was 
 about you that attracted people ; that he d had you in 
 the library for an hour, and there was nothing satis 
 factory about you. 
 
 " He used to love to have us sing to him, and there 
 was hardly a day when he did not steal a little time to 
 hear some of his favorites, and never a Sunday evening 
 passed without our singing, all together, the hymns and 
 chants he loved so well. I can hear him now calling 
 for one after another, and for the last, Now, children, 
 let us have China : sing up loud and clear. And 
 such good times we used to have at dinner with him, 
 and how with all the fun he would try to teach us 
 something, and often he would call out, Not a child 
 at this table, I suppose, can tell me where this line 
 comes from ; and then he would repeat it, and perhaps 
 one of us would be fortunate enough to know, and if 
 
CHAP. XI.] HOME-LIFE. 443 
 
 all did, which sometimes happened, you can imagine 
 what a noise we made, calling it out all together. It 
 did not trouble him at all when we would talk and 
 discuss among ourselves, and he would take an interest 
 in each one s particular views from oldest to youngest. 
 
 " He wanted us to like books, and always gave them 
 to us for our Christmas and birthday presents, and he 
 made these come round pretty often too. I remember 
 feeling something hard under my pillow one night, and 
 took out a book, which proved to be a beautiful Eng 
 lish edition of Miss Edgeworth s Moral Tales, bound 
 in purple morocco ! How often he used to say to us, 
 4 Be good children ; be accurate and honest, and love 
 your books. 
 
 " He was always so sympathizing and generous when 
 any one was in trouble or difficulty, and would never 
 fail to help them if they applied to him, and some times 
 he helped the wrong one. We used to laugh at him a 
 great deal whenever he was imposed upon. Once espe 
 cially I remember, when we were all seated at the dinner- 
 table, the servant handed him a card upon which was 
 written a gentleman s name, with his title 6 Chief Jus 
 tice of Arkansas. So grandpapa left the table and 
 went into the library where the gentleman was waiting, 
 and after being absent a short time returned, and told 
 us that the Chief Justice seemed very glad to meet him 
 again, and said he remembered seeing him very often in 
 Washington. I shall never forget how troubled an ex 
 pression he had when he said to grandmamma, i Helen, 
 I was mortified that I had quite forgotten him ; and 
 then he went on to say that the Chief Justice had been 
 very unfortunate in losing his money, and as he was 
 quite a stranger he had no one to call upon, and apolo- 
 
444 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 gized over and over again for the liberty he was taking, 
 which your grandpapa wouldn t listen to at all, and 
 assured him that it was a pleasure to assist him. So 
 the Chief Justice retired with renewed thanks, prom 
 ising to repay just as soon as he should hear from his 
 friends, which would be in a day or two. But days 
 and months and years rolled away, and the gentleman 
 quite forgot his promises, or else never heard from his 
 friends, which is quite sad to think of. In the mean 
 time we were never tired of asking him, Have you 
 heard lately from your friend the Chief Justice of Ar 
 kansas ? 
 
 " Whenever he went away from home, which he 
 often had to do, he would send us such nice letters ; and 
 he tried to print them for us, as his writing was just a 
 little bit hard to read. Many wiser heads than ours 
 would have puzzled long even over his printing, but in 
 the great red seal of the letter we would almost always 
 find a silver quarter of a dollar, which seemed a for 
 tune to us. 
 
 " He never was too weary, or busy, or sick, to have 
 us near him ; and one of the earliest memories I have 
 is that of seeing him at his high desk, where he always 
 wrote standing, with my little three-year-old sister, 
 whom you never saw, sitting on his shoulder playing 
 with his curls, her golden hair floating about her face 
 and his. 
 
 " We children used to have very fierce wordy war 
 fare with our playmates as to the merits of eur re 
 spective parents ; and I well remember that one little 
 girl (whom I m afraid I quite hated for it) convin 
 cingly showed her father to be taller and stronger, and 
 that he had more hair, and longer whiskers, and more 
 
CHAP. XL] HOME-LIFE. 445 
 
 of all the other virtues, than your grandpapa, when I 
 brought the dispute to a triumphant conclusion by de 
 claring that my father could repeat the story of The 
 House that Jack "built quicker than her father could, 
 which she was unable to deny, because her father had 
 never told it to her at all, and so, all comparison being 
 out of the question, since my father could do some 
 thing well which her father never had done in any 
 way, I remained the victor. 
 
 " When your grandmamma went away on a visit, the 
 amusing of us children and keeping us happy was 
 grandpapa s work. And pretty hard work it must 
 sometimes have been, for we would insist on his writ 
 ing stories and songs ; and on one occasion he kept us 
 very merry the whole evening till bed-time, by writing 
 a parody on Wordsworth s 4 Pet Lamb, writing a 
 verse when we had got to be unusually turbulent, and 
 thus stilling the tempest of noise during the time we 
 took to read and learn it. We all thought that he had 
 unlimited powers, and that Scott was poor compared 
 with the stories which he composed. I should really 
 like very much to read one of them now, and see what 
 it was that so fascinated us. 
 
 " He was very particular as to the books we read, 
 and it used to seem to me as though almost every 
 novel I could lay my hands upon had a 4 bad tone 
 to it. Our staples were Scott, Barbauld, and Edgeworth. 
 He always lured us to read poetry, especially the 
 Bible, Shakspeare, Cowper, and Wordsworth. He al 
 ways contrived to give us the idea, that when a boy he 
 was very fond of these mature writers, but once con 
 fessed that he perfectly well remembered his thrill of 
 pleasure upon taking up a novel which began with 
 
446 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 "Villain, beware," exclaimed a voice ! When we were 
 older we read and were very fond of Tennyson, and 
 Mr. and Mrs. Browning, whom he, to vex iis, and 
 pretending not to know, would always call the Brown- 
 riggs. He would gently stimulate our enthusiasm by 
 denying their merits, and making us find out and ex 
 press in language the reason for the faith that was in 
 us ; and then, after a hard contest, he would always 
 give in and say, Well, well, there is something in 
 these Brownriggs, after all, and adding, in poetry 
 there are many mansions. Then he would make us 
 read again such passages as had struck him. He al 
 ways, or almost always, realized such lines by applying 
 them to. some action or some person ; as, for example, 
 he stopped me at Mr. Browning s lines, 
 
 Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, 
 Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, 
 Made him our pattern to live and to die/ 
 
 and said, " What a picture of Mr. Webster that is ! " 
 To the last day of his life he teased us in a good- 
 natured way, and we teased back again ; but my re 
 membrance is that he almost always came off victor. 
 On one occasion your Aunt Helen had sat up quite late 
 in the evening to finish a composition, which she handed 
 to him the next morning for correction and criticism, 
 saying she was so wearied in writing it that she had 
 slept after it for twelve hours. He read it carefully, 
 and handed it to her, saying, with great gravity, I 
 don t wonder at your long sleep after such an effort : 
 history has but one parallel, the sleep of the elder 
 Pitt after one of his great speeches. 
 
 " He worked more continuously than any one I have 
 
CHAP. XI.] , HOME-LIFE. 447 
 
 ever seen, so that, finally, incessant labor got to be a 
 necessity. Nothing in the shape of pleasure would in 
 duce him to be away from his library for more than a 
 day or two at a time ; and when we wanted him, when 
 quite ill, to pass a week with us in the middle of the 
 summer at the seashore, he said A week ! why in 
 forty-eight hours the only question left would be, 
 Where is the highest rock and the deepest water ? " 
 
 One cannot help seeing from these pictures for a child 
 that Mr. Choate s life at home was the most hearty, 
 cheerful, and affectionate that could be imagined. He 
 was kind, familiar, and playful with his children, full 
 of jocoseness, sensitive, and with a feminine suscep 
 tibility and tact. When his daughters, from out of 
 town, came into the house, if he were in his library, 
 unless they came to see him at once, he would gener 
 ally walk to the head of the stairs, and call their at 
 tention for a moment to himself, by uttering some 
 jocose remark, or a familiar quotation, a little changed 
 to suit his purpose, such as " Did Ossian hear a voice ? " 
 then, after exchanging a few words, would retreat to 
 his work. 
 
 This same affectionateness of nature, as of a woman, 
 was warmly manifested towards all his relatives. His 
 mother was tenderly reverenced and loved, and he 
 never failed to minister in all possible ways to her 
 comfort. On her death, though not unexpected, since 
 she had attained the advanced age of more than eighty, 
 he wrote to his brother, " I am stricken with this news, 
 as if I had*Lot known it was so inevitable and so near. 
 Dear, dear mother, the best of human beings, the 
 humblest, most patient, truest to every duty of her 
 
448 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XL 
 
 lot. My heart bleeds that I could not have seen her 
 again." 
 
 He was very fond of music, especially sacred 
 music. Every Sunday evening, after tea, he would 
 gather his children around the piano, and occa 
 sionally joining, have them sing to him the old psalm- 
 tunes and chants. In his last illness, when at Dor 
 chester, his children would sing to him almost every 
 night. It was not thought of till he had been there 
 for a week or two, but one evening they all sang at his 
 request, and he slept much better after it than he 
 had done for a long time. Every night after that the 
 concert was repeated. He loved martial, stirring 
 music, too. " The Marseillaise," and " God save the 
 Emperor," and all national airs, were favorites. A 
 Turkish march (so called) always pleased him, be 
 cause, under its little spell, he saw " The Turkish 
 moons wandering in disarray." It always troubled 
 him that there was no Italian national air. His imag 
 ination gave life to whatever he read, and he instinct 
 ively realized the pictures of poets and the narratives 
 of historians. Reading Campbell s " Battle of the 
 Baltic," he remarked on the line, 
 
 " It was ten of April morn by the chime," 
 
 how vividly it brought to one s mind the peaceful, calm 
 proximity of the city, the water s unruffled surface, 
 the piers crowded with anxious faces to witness the 
 great sea-fight, as the sound of the bells of Copenhagen 
 came over the waters. 
 
 One of his daughters said to him, that " The Sol 
 dier s Dream " was a sad thing to her, owing to the 
 uncertainty whether the dream was ever realized. He 
 
CHAP. XI.] GENTLENESS. 449 
 
 said his understanding of it was, that " Thrice ere the 
 morning I dreamt it again " signified that it came to 
 pass, referring in proof to some popular belief in a 
 dream thrice dreamed before morning coming true. 
 
 He often read aloud passages from the newspapers 
 which interested him, interspersing them with remarks 
 or familiar quotations. At the time of Louis Phil 
 ippe s flight, he read the account at table, uttering 
 after every few sentences, as if it were in the paper, 
 " What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue ! " 
 So, after the death of Nicholas he read it aloud, add 
 ing in the same tone a verse of the Psalms : " I have 
 said ye are gods, but ye shall die like men and perish 
 like one of the princes." 
 
 He had more than a feminine sensitiveness to phy 
 sical suffering. From this, some presumed to doubt 
 his courage, though I know not with what reason. 
 His moral courage certainly could not be questioned. 
 He was bold enough for his clients, and his independ 
 ence in forming and maintaining his political creed 
 was thought by some of his friends to be carried even 
 to an extreme. 
 
 It seemed as if nobody was ever so gentle and 
 sweet-hearted and tender of others as he. And when 
 we consider the constant provocations of his profession, 
 
 his natural excitability, the ardor with which he 
 threw himself into a case, the vigor and tenacity of 
 purpose with which he fought his battles, as well as 
 his extreme sensitiveness to sharp and unkind words, 
 
 it seems little less than a miracle. "He lavished 
 his good nature," it was truly said, " upon all around 
 him, in the court and the office, upon students, 
 witnesses, servants, strangers." He was so reluctant 
 
 29 
 
450 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 to inflict pain that he would long endure an annoyance, 
 as of a troublesome and pertinacious visitor, or 
 put himself to considerable inconvenience in escaping 
 from it, rather than to wound the feelings of another 
 by a suggestion. 
 
 Though sometime ruffled, he 
 
 " Carried anger as the flint bears fire, _ 
 
 Which, much enforced, shows a hasty spark, 
 And straight is cold again." 
 
 He never spoke ill of the absent, nor would suffer others 
 to do so in his presence. He was affectionate, obliging, 
 desirous to make every one about him happy, with 
 strong sympathy for any one in trouble. Hence it 
 was almost impossible for him to refuse a client in 
 distress who strongly desired his aid. 
 
 Dr. Adams, in his Funeral Address, tells a character 
 istic little anecdote. " He had not walked far, one 
 morning a few years ago, he said, and gave as a reason, 
 that his attention was taken by a company of those 
 large creeping things which lie on their backs in the 
 paths as soon as the light strikes them. * But of what 
 use was it for you to help them over with your cane, 
 knowing that they would become supine again ? ! 
 gave them a fair start in life, he said, and my re 
 sponsibility was at an end/ He probably helped to 
 place more people on their feet than otherwise ; and 
 no one has enjoyed it more than he." 
 
 Though friendly with all, he had few or no intimates. 
 He did not, as has been said, permit himself to in 
 dulge freely in what is called " society," finding the 
 draught too much upon his leisure and his strength ; 
 yet few received or conferred more pleasure in the un 
 restrained freedom of conversation. 
 
CHAP. XI.] CONVERSATIONAL POWER. 451 
 
 " Mr. Choate s conversational power," says Chief 
 Justice Chapman, " was scarcely less remarkable than 
 his forensic power. It was by no means limited to the 
 subject of oratory. Indeed, so far as my acquaintance 
 with him is concerned, he never made that a prominent 
 topic of conversation ; but I recollect one of his con 
 versations on eloquence. He was talking of Burke s 
 speeches, of which he was known to be a great admirer, 
 and remarked to a friend of mine who was extolling 
 Burke above all other men, that he thought on the 
 whole that the most eloquent and mellifluous talk that 
 was ever put together in the English language was the 
 speech of Mr. Standfast in the river. I went home 
 and read the speech soon afterwards, and I confess I 
 appreciated John Bunyan s eloquence as I never had 
 done before. 
 
 " But it never occurred to me that Mr. Choate had 
 any conversational hobby of any kind. He was inter 
 ested in all current topics, political, social, moral, 
 or religious, and there seemed to be nothing in liter 
 ature, history, philosophy, or jurisprudence, that he did 
 not know ; and in his private conversation I always 
 thought he was very frank. When I called on him, 
 whether alone or with a friend, I generally found him 
 standing at his desk, pen in hand. The moment he 
 left it, he turned with freshness to whatever topic came 
 up ; generally throwing himself upon his lounge, and 
 entering into general conversation, or the details of a 
 new case, as if it were a recreation. He was remark 
 ably original and brilliant in his badinage ; and I have 
 thought he was rather fond of saying in playfulness 
 what he would not have said seriously, and what it 
 would be unjust towards him to repeat, though he 
 
452 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 never transcended the limits of delicacy and good 
 taste. On a few occasions his conversation turned on 
 religious faith and doctrines. I have never met with 
 a layman whom I thought to be more familiar with 
 theological science than he. I am sure he understood 
 the points on which the debates of the present day 
 turn, and the arguments by which controverted doc 
 trines are supported. I think he was a thorough be 
 liever in the doctrines preached by his pastor, Rev. 
 Dr. Adams. He was an admirer of Edwards, and on 
 one^ occasion he spoke familiarly of his History of 
 Redemption and his i Treatise on the Will. He had 
 at his tongue s end a refutation of Pantheism, and 
 talked freely of its logical and moral bearings. Yet, 
 while he seemed to be master of all the subtleties of 
 polemic debates, he never seemed inclined to contro 
 versy ; and I can readily believe that he would grace 
 fully and skilfully turn the subject aside when in 
 conversation with a gentleman holding theological 
 opinions widely different from his own. . . . 
 
 " Among other things I have heard him express a 
 high opinion of the ecclesiastical organization and 
 theological system of the old Puritans, as having con 
 tributed largely to stamp upon New England character 
 the best of its peculiar features." 
 
 It is undoubtedly true that among his many studies 
 he had not neglected a somewhat critical examination 
 of the Holy Scriptures. He was quite familiar with 
 the arguments for the genuineness and authenticity of 
 the various books, even to the minor Epistles of Paul ; 
 and not many clergymen probably could readily bring 
 up such an array of learning on this subject as he had 
 at perfect command. 
 
CHAP. XI.] HIS HANDWRITING. 453 
 
 Mr. Choate s handwriting was famous for obscurity. 
 It was impossible for one not familiar with it to deci 
 pher its intricacies, and in his rapid notes, with abbre 
 viations and unfinished words, for any one but himself 
 to determine the meaning ; and even he, when the sub 
 ject was forgotten, sometimes was at a loss. And yet, 
 when closely examined, it will be seen not to be a 
 careless or stiff or angular scrawl ; each letter is gov 
 erned by a law and seems striving to conform to the 
 normal type ; and it has been observed by one much 
 accustomed to criticise penmanship, the lines have cer 
 tain flowing, easy, and graceful curves, which give a 
 kind of artistic beauty. 
 
 " Mr. Sprague (now Judge Sprague) and I," wrote 
 a distinguished member of the Boston bar, Hon. C. G. 
 Loring, " were trying a case against Mr. Choate. 
 Coming into the Court one morning we found a sheet 
 of paper with his scrawls upon it, and I tried to read 
 it, and as I thought made it out. I handed it to S., 
 and after some difficulty he read it, but quite differently. 
 Mr. C. P. Curtis coming along I handed it to him, and 
 he read it, but unlike both of us. Choate entering, I 
 said to him, What in the world is this which we can t 
 make out ? Why, said he, what s the trouble ? 
 That s as plain as Roman print; and proceeded to 
 read it differently from us all" 
 
 Mr. Choate was a little more than six feet in height ; 
 his frame robust, strong, and erect ; his walk rapid, 
 yet easy and graceful, and with a force, too, that 
 seemed to bear onward not only himself but all about 
 him ; his head was covered with a profusion of black 
 curling hair, to the last with but a slight sprinkle of 
 gray ; his eye was dark, large, and, when quiet, with 
 
454 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE, [CHAP. XI. 
 
 an introverted, meditative look, or an expression 
 dreamy and rapt, as of one who saw afar off what you 
 could not see; 1 his smile was fascinating, and his 
 whole manner marked with peculiar and inimitable 
 grace. " He gave you a chair," said Rev. Dr. Adams 
 in his Funeral Address, " as no one else would do it. 
 He persuaded you at his table to receive something 
 from him, in a way that nothing so gross as language 
 can describe. He treated every man as though he 
 were a gentleman ; and he treated every gentleman 
 almost as he would a lady." His whole appearance 
 was distinguished ; and though he always, with in 
 stinctive modesty, avoided notice, he never failed to 
 attract it even among strangers. 
 
 With the exception of the time when he suffered 
 from the accident to his knee, he was never seriously 
 ill ; but during his whole life he was subject to frequent 
 and severe headaches, which for the time quite dis 
 abled him. His nervous system was always in a state 
 of excitement ; his brain was never at rest, the per- 
 fervidum ingenium allowing him no quiet. Liberal of 
 work, impatient of repose, intense in action, sparing of 
 recreation, the wonder is that his powers had not 
 earlier given way, perhaps with a sudden crash, or 
 with a longer, more wearisome, more mournful descent 
 to the dark valley. For many years before his death, 
 his countenance was haggard, and the lines became 
 deeper and deeper with age. A vague rumor began to 
 
 1 When aroused or interested, his eye gleamed and was very 
 powerful. A woman, who had some reputation as a fortune-teller, 
 once came to consult him. She had not proceeded far in her story 
 before she suddenly broke off with the exclamation, " Take them eyes 
 off of me, Mr. Choate, take them witch eyes off of me, or I can t 
 go on." 
 
CHAP. XL] HIS RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 455 
 
 assume consistency, that he indulged in the use of 
 opium. The conjecture was entirely false. His physi 
 cians have given me their direct testimony on this 
 point. A Dover s powder would at any time put him 
 to sleep. If farther proof were needed, we have it in 
 his never-ceasing labors, in the constant command of 
 his faculties, early and late, which failed only with his 
 life, and in his own positive denial of the truth of the 
 injurious report. He was temperate, and almost ab 
 stemious in eating and drinking ; rarely indulging 
 in stimulants, and never using them in excess. 
 
 During the latter years of Mr. Choate s life, his 
 mind, never indifferent to religious subjects, was in 
 clined more than ever to the consideration of man s 
 nature and destiny, his moral duties, and his relations 
 to God. He had an implicit faith in the Christian re 
 ligion ; and felt a confidence so sure in that form of it 
 which he had been early taught, that he did not care 
 to disturb his belief by rash and objectless speculation. 
 He regarded the ancient symbols, especially as held by 
 the Fathers of New England, with profound respect 
 and acquiescence. He felt the need of some creed 
 or formula of religious belief which should hold the 
 mind firm and unwavering amidst the vagaries and 
 fluctuations of human opinions; and a serious devia 
 tion from the old and established ways was fraught 
 with he knew not how much error. 
 
 He retained also an instinctive regard for the old 
 habits and practices of his father s house. Though ex 
 tremely indulgent, he preferred to have his children at 
 home and quiet on a Saturday evening, and engaged in 
 thoughtful and serious employments. When prayers 
 were read in the family, he was particular that all 
 
456 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 should be present. Though never making a public 
 profession of religious faith, he often expressed satis 
 faction when others did so, and showed beyond mistake, 
 in many ways, his respect and veneration for a truly 
 religious character. His religious reading, not only of 
 speculative and philosophical, but of practical works, 
 was quite general, and for many of his later years, 
 constant and habitual. Unlike many men of eminence, 
 he was specially averse to conversing about himself. 
 There was a sacred chamber in his soul which he 
 opened only to a few of his most intimate friends, and 
 hardly to them. There he must be safe from the in 
 trusion, even of those who might have some claim to 
 enter. In personal intercourse, up to a certain point, 
 he seemed without reserve, as he really was ; beyond 
 it, the most astute diplomatist could not be more im 
 penetrable or elusive. This was not the result of cal 
 culation or of will, but instinctive, a part of his 
 idiosyncrasy. It was surprising, and almost wonder 
 ful, with what ease and certainty he repelled an at 
 tempt to penetrate the sanctuary of his feelings, and 
 yet with such gentleness that the intruder at first 
 hardly perceived it, and only discovered on reflection 
 that he had not succeeded. He seldom asked advice, 
 or depended on the judgment of others, in determining 
 his own course of action. If this was true with rela 
 tion to social or public life, it was more emphatically true 
 of his religious faith. His personal belief and hopes you 
 must infer from what he was, from the affections and sen 
 timents which he habitually expressed, from the serious 
 tenor of his life, and from his rare and casual conver 
 sations with the few who were most in sympathy with 
 him. To those with whom he disagreed he was always 
 
CHAP. XL] THE END. 457 
 
 courteous and deferential, and might sometimes even 
 appear indifferent as to theological opinions ; but a dis 
 cussion with such was impossible. The faith of his 
 father and mother was his to the last, and perhaps 
 more decidedly at the last than ever before. 
 
 He left us still in the prime and vigor of his days, at 
 an age when many retire from the heated strifes of the 
 summer of life to a serener autumn. But it is doubt 
 ful whether he could have been contented without 
 labor, and whether he would not of necessity have 
 continued at his post till mind or body gave way. He 
 was spared longer than many whose names will always 
 be cherished, longer than James Otis, longer than 
 Fisher Ames, longer than Alexander Hamilton, or 
 William Pinkney, or Samuel Dexter, or Justice Tal- 
 fourd. He died in the fulness of his fame, having 
 won the universal respect and love of his contempora 
 ries. He died before his patriotic fears were in any 
 measure realized ; the country which he so profoundly 
 loved still united ; no treason consummated ; no crime 
 against the fairest hopes of the world actually com 
 mitted ; no rash counsels carried over into desperate 
 act ; no stripe polluted or erased, no star blotted out, 
 from the flag which to the last was his joy and pride. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 SINCE the first edition of the Life of Mr. Choate was pub 
 lished, three members of his family, each of whom had ren 
 dered some special service in the preparation of it, have passed 
 away. First of these was Mrs. Choate. She was the daugh 
 ter of the Hon. Mills Olcott, of Hanover, N.H., for many 
 years a prominent member of the New Hampshire Bar, a 
 gentleman of great weight of character and influence, distin 
 guished for intelligence, sagacity, and wisdom in counsel, and 
 early taking a prominent part in enterprises tending to de 
 velop the resources of the State. He was remarkable also for 
 richness of humor, for urbanity and gentle courtesy, which 
 rendered his society extremely attractive. His acquaintance 
 with persons of distinction, both in and out of the State, was 
 large, and his house was the seat of constant and genial hos 
 pitality. 
 
 The native gentleness and refinement of Mrs. Choate s 
 mind, encouraged and developed under the influences of such 
 a home, were carried with her through life. Her uniform 
 self-control, serenity, and repose, diffused a beautiful quietness 
 and peace all around her, and served sometimes to conceal, 
 except from those who knew her intimately, the quick in 
 sight and sound judgment which gave weight and balance to 
 her mind. Added to this was a transparent sincerity and 
 singular pureness and disinterestedness, unaffected by change 
 of scene or circumstance, by prosperity or sorrow, which won 
 the confidence and respect as well as the love of all who knew 
 
460 APPENDIX. 
 
 her. Underlying all, was her religious faith and hope, early 
 assumed, simple and undoubting though unobtrusive, cover 
 ing her with a singular grace and beauty of character, and 
 perpetually shedding its happy influence over her household. 
 It is surprising what security and strength such a character 
 unconsciously imparts to all who come within its sphere. 
 " Always firm," it was truly said of her, <l always serene, she 
 was the sheet-anchor of strength and hope to all who clung 
 to her for happiness and courage through life." None felt 
 the blessing of this more than her husband, whose immense 
 nervous force, and constant and harassing labors, needed the 
 repose of such a home, and to rest, sometimes, upon the quiet 
 and inwardly sustained strength of such a pure spirit. 
 
 She died suddenly, after a brief illness, on the 8th of 
 December, 18G4. 
 
 Rufus Choatc, Jr., the only son, for whom his father had such 
 hopes, after graduating with honor at Amhcrst College, studied 
 the law and entered upon its practice in Boston. On the out 
 break of the war he enlisted in the Massachusetts Second, 
 and followed its fortunes, till a painful neuralgic affection, 
 from which he never fully recovered, compelled him to return 
 home. In the earlier skirmishes and battles, and in the still 
 more trying marches and disheartening delays, he failed in 
 no duty. He was in the fight at Cedar Mountain ; and, 
 though in the thickest of it, was one of the few who escaped 
 unharmed. " All our officers," says a correspondent of the 
 " New York Evening Post," in speaking of this battle, " be 
 haved nobly. Those who ought to have staid away wouldn t. 
 Goodwin, Gary, Choate, and Stephen Perkins were all quite 
 ill, but would not stay away from the fight. Choate is the 
 only one of the four not killed. Goodwin could not keep up 
 with the regiment ; but I saw him toiling up the hill some 
 distance behind, with the assistance of his servant. He had 
 hardly reached the front when he was killed. It was splendid 
 to see those sick fellows walk right up into that shower of 
 bullets, as if it were so much rain. 
 
APPENDIX. 461 
 
 " Yesterday I went over the battle-field with the General. 
 The first man I recognized was Gary. He was lying on his 
 back, with his head on a piece of wood. He looked calm and 
 peaceful, as if he were merely asleep. His face was beauti 
 ful, and I could have stood and looked at it a long while. 
 Next we found Captain Williams, then Goodwin, Abbott, 
 and Perkins. They had probably been killed almost in 
 stantly, while Gary lived until 2 P.M. of the day after the 
 fight. His first sergeant was shot in the leg, and lay by him 
 all the time. He says he was very quiet, spoke little, and 
 didn t seem to suffer. We found a dipper of water, which 
 some rebel soldier had brought. They took every thing from 
 him after he died, but returned a ring and locket with his 
 wife s miniature to the sergeant. 
 
 " All these five were superior men. Every one in the reg 
 iment was their friend. It was a sad day to us when they 
 were brought in dead, and they cannot be replaced. It is 
 hard to believe that we shall never see them again, after hav 
 ing been continually together more than a year. I don t re 
 member a single quarrel of any importance among our officers 
 during all that time." 
 
 Mr. Choate, who had been advanced to a Captaincy, was at 
 last obliged by repeated attacks of suffering, which entirely 
 disabled him, to resign his hardly won commission and leave 
 the army. He never recovered his full strength ; but, after a 
 lingering and very trying illness, died on the 15th of Jan 
 uary, 1866. 
 
 Major Joseph M. Bell married the eldest daughter of Mr. 
 Choate, and was for many years his partner in business. He 
 was the son of the Hon. Joseph Bell, for a long time one of 
 the most distinguished lawyers in New Hampshire, and for 
 the latter part of his life a resident of Boston. Major Bell 
 was graduated with honor at Dartmouth College, and after 
 wards studied his profession in Boston. Of quite a different 
 temperament and nature from Mr. Choate, it was well said, 
 
462 APPENDIX. 
 
 that " his thorough mastery of the law, sure discrimination, 
 and comprehensive grasp of mind were of the utmost value to 
 that great man in preparing and shaping his cases before the 
 full court," while his exact method and habits of business 
 were of great service in keeping the complicated affairs 
 of the office free from confusion, and moving in regular 
 order. 
 
 Although by education and conviction a Whig, he had 
 voted for Mr. Buchanan; but when the first sound of the 
 guns from Fort Sumter reached the North, he felt that the 
 constitutional doctrines of Webster must be defended at all 
 hazards, and he at once prepared to enter the service. When 
 General Butler went to New Orleans, Mr. Bell was selected 
 as a member of his staff, and soon came to occupy a very 
 prominent position. His knowledge of law, his power of 
 adapting himself to new and unexpected emergencies, his 
 absolute integrity, his decision of character, and independence 
 made him invaluable as a counsellor and judicial officer; and 
 he was almost immediately promoted to the responsible posi 
 tion of Provost Judge, which then included the most impor 
 tant judicial functions of the State. 
 
 " Before the war the administration of justice in New 
 Orleans had cost over $100,000 a year. For the pay of a Ma 
 jor of Cavalry, Mr. Bell, during General Butler s stay there, 
 administered justice, civil and military, with such ability and 
 fairness that he left with the highest respect of the ablest law 
 yers of the city who had practised before him. When he first 
 held his court, they asked him, to test his quality, under what 
 code he proposed to practise. His answer was, Mainly under 
 natural law and general orders. Questions of all kinds, 
 many of them novel and of large importance, especially those 
 affecting the rights of person and property of freedmen, 
 rebels, and aliens, he met with that vigor, directness, grasp, 
 and comprehensiveness which characterize only first-class fac- 
 
APPENDIX. 463 
 
 ulty. His mind was always most at home in discussing com 
 plicated cases in the light of prime governing principles." l 
 
 When General Butler was transferred to Virginia, Major 
 Bell went with him ; and it was while presiding over an im 
 portant trial at Norfolk, that he was struck with a partial 
 paralysis. He was able after a while to return home, but his 
 health was shattered. He remained an invalid till his death, 
 Sept. 10, 1868. 
 
 1 From an article in the " Boston Advertiser," bearing the signa 
 ture (W.) of a well-known and discriminating writer. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ABBOTT, ALFRED A., Letter to, 
 
 346. 
 AD ois, FAIRCIIILD v., Case of, 
 
 238. 
 
 ADAMS, J. Q. 416. 
 ADAMS, Kev. Dr. N., 335, 450. 
 ALGER, Rev. W. R., 413. 
 
 Baltimore, Whig Convention at, 
 
 250. 
 Bar of Essex, 35; Meeting of the, 
 
 352. 
 Bar of Suffolk, Meeting of the, 
 
 352. 
 
 BRIGHT, JESSE D., Letter to, 144. 
 BRINLEY, Mrs., Letter to, 149. 
 British Poets of the 19th Century. 
 
 Lecture on the, 289. 
 BUCHANAN, JAMES, Letter from, 
 
 352. 
 BUSH, Rev. GEORGE, Letters to, 
 
 62, 53, 56, 102. 
 
 CheroJcees, Mission to the, 55. 
 
 CHOATE, DAVID, Father of Rufus 
 Choate, 2. 
 
 CHOATE, DAVID, Brother of 
 Rufus, his Account of Rufus s 
 Boyhood, 4. 
 
 CHOATE, MIRIAM, Mother of Ru 
 fus, 3. 
 
 CHOATE, RUFUS. His Birth, 1 ; 
 Ancestry and Boyhood, 3 ; Col 
 lege Life, 11 ; Choice of a Pro 
 fession, 15 ; Is Tutor at Dart 
 mouth College, 21 ; Enters Law 
 School at Cambridge, 23; 
 Goes to Washington to study 
 with Mr. Wirt, 23; Death 
 of his Brother, Washington 
 Choate, 26 ; Returns to Essex, 
 26 ; Testimony of Mr. Wirt, 
 
 26 ; Admission to the Bar, 27 ; 
 Opens an Office in South Dan- 
 vers, 27 ; Letter to Mr. Marsh, 
 28 ; Marriage, 29 ; Removal to 
 Salem, 35 ; The Essex Bar, 85 ; 
 Counsel in the Knapp Case, 
 38 ; His Studies, 40 ; Letter to 
 President Marsh, 42 ; Nomi 
 nated as Representative to 
 Congress, 43; Is elected, 45; 
 Letter to President James 
 Marsh, 47; Enters Congress, 
 48 ; Speeches on Revolutionary 
 Pensions and on the Tariff, 49 ; 
 Letters to Dr. Andrew Nichols, 
 60 ; Letters to Professor George 
 Bush, 52, 53 ; Georgia and the 
 Missions to the Indians, 55 ; 
 Letter to Professor Bush, 56 ; 
 Re-elected to Congress, 67 ; 
 Speech on the Removal of the 
 Deposits, 58 ; Resigns his Seat, 
 59 ; Removes to Boston, 69 ; 
 Lectures on the Waverley Nov 
 els and on the Romance of the 
 Sea, 60; Death of his young 
 est Child, 62 ; His Professional 
 Advancement, 65; Letters to 
 Richard S. Storrs, Jr., 66, 67 ; 
 Chosen Senator in place of Mr. 
 Webster, 68 ; Death of General 
 Harrison, 68 ; Eulogy on Gen 
 eral Harrison, 68 ; Speech on 
 the McLeod Case, 69 ; The Fis 
 cal Bank Bill, 70 ; Collision with 
 Mr. Clay, 70, 77 ; Nomination of 
 Mr. Everett as Minister to Eng 
 land, 79 ; Letter to Mr. Sum- 
 ner, 81 ; Letters to his Son, 82 ; 
 Speech on providing Remedial 
 Justice in the United States 
 Courts, 84; Letters to Mr. 
 Sumner and Mr. Hillard, 87, 88 ; 
 
466 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 The North Eastern Boundary 
 Question, 89 ; Journal, 91 ; Ad 
 dress in New York, 100 ; Let 
 ter to Professor Bush, 102; 
 Letters to Mr. Sumner, 103; 
 Letter to his Daughters, 105, 
 Debate on the Tariff, 107 ; Re 
 ply to Mr. McDuffie, 110; Con 
 gress Adjourned, 117 ; Jour 
 nal, 117 ; Political Contest of 
 1844, 127 ; Speaks for Mr. 
 Clay, 127 ; Fragmentary Jour 
 nal, 128 ; Meeting of Congress, 
 135; Speech against the An 
 nexation of Texas, 136 ; Ad 
 mission of Iowa and Florida, 
 138 ; Establishment of the 
 Smithsonian Institution, 139 ; 
 Library Plan^ 140 ; Resignation 
 of his position as Regent, 144 ; 
 Letter to Hon. Jesse D. Bright, 
 144 ; Letters to Hon. Charles W. 
 Upham, 147 ; Illness and Death 
 of Dr. Sewall, 149 ; Letter to 
 Mrs. Francis Brinley, 149 ; Ad 
 dress before the Law School in 
 Cambridge, 151 ; Case of Rhode 
 Island Boundary, 159 ; Defence 
 of Tirrell, 160 ; The Smith Will 
 Case, 170 ; Speaks in favor of 
 General Taylor, 176 ; Offer of 
 a Professorship in the Cam 
 bridge Law School, 182 ; Offer 
 of a Seat upon the Bench, 188 ; 
 Lecture on the Puritans, 188 ; 
 The Phillips Will Case, 193 ; 
 Fragmentary Journal, 195 ; 
 Change of Partnership, 200; 
 Voyage to Europe, 200 ; Let 
 ters to Mrs. Choate, 201 ; Jour 
 nal, 206 ; Union Meetings, 232 ; 
 Address on Washington, 232; 
 The Case of Fairchild y. Ad 
 ams, 238; Methodist Church 
 Case, 242 ; Address before the 
 Story Association, 244 ; Letters 
 to his Son, 246, 247 ; Webster 
 Meeting in Faneuil Hall, 249 ; 
 India Rubber Case Argued, 
 250 ; Baltimore Convention, 
 250; Address to the Phi-Beta 
 Kappa Society in Burlington, 
 Vt., 260; Journey to Quebec, 
 263; Death of Mr. Webster, 
 
 264; Letter to E. Jackson, 
 Esq., 265 ; Letter to Harvey 
 Jewell, Esq., 2(55 ; Letters to 
 Mrs. Eames, 267, 271, 272, 277, 
 280; Offer of the Attorney- 
 Generalship, 268 ; Convention 
 to revise the Constitution of 
 Massachusetts, 268 ; Eulogy on 
 Daniel Webster at Dartmouth 
 College, 269 ; Letter to Mr. 
 Everett, 272 ; Letters to his 
 Son, 273, 275 ; Letters to his 
 Daughter, 270, 274, 276 ; Ad 
 dress at the Dedication of the 
 Peabody Institute at Danvers, 
 277 ; Letter to Mr. Everett, 
 277 ; Accident and Illness, 278 ; 
 Letter to Mr. Eames, 279 ; Let 
 ter to the Whig Convention 
 at Worcester, 284; Speaks at 
 Faneuil Hall, 287 ; Letter to 
 Rev. Chandler Robbins, 287; 
 Lecture on the Early British 
 Poets of this Century, 289; 
 Letters to Mr. Everett, 288, 
 323 ; Sir Walter Scott, 291 ; 
 Letter to Hon. William M. 
 Evarts, 301 ; Political Cam 
 paign of 1856, 300 ; Determines 
 to support Mr. Buchanan, 301 ; 
 Letter to the Whigs of Maine, 
 301 ; Address at Lowell, 308 ; 
 Letter to J. C. Walsh, 311; 
 His Library, 313 ; Lecture on 
 the Eloquence of Revolutionary 
 Periods, 314 ; Defence of Mrs. 
 Dalton, 315; Lecture on Jef 
 ferson, Burr, and Hamilton, 
 324 ; Oration before the Boston 
 Democratic Club, July, 1858, 
 832 ; Letter to Hon. George T. 
 Davis, 331 ; Failing Health, 
 334; Speech at the Webster 
 Festival, 1859, 335 ; Address at 
 the Essex Street Church, 335 ; 
 His last Law Case, 341 ; Goes 
 to Dorchester, 343 ; Decides to 
 go to Europe, 345 ; Letter to 
 Hon."Charles Eames, 345 ; Let 
 ter to Hon. A. A. Abbott, 346 ; 
 Embarks for Europe, 346 ; Ill 
 ness on Board, 346; Lands at 
 Halifax, 347 ; Letter from Hon. 
 George S. Hillard, 347; Sud- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 467 
 
 deii Death, 351; Proceedings 
 of Public Bodies at Halifax, 
 851 ; Meeting of the Essex and 
 Suffolk Bars, 352 ; Speeches of 
 Hon. C. G. Loring, II. H. Dana, 
 Jr., Judge Curtis, and Judge 
 Sprague, 353 ; Meeting in Fan- 
 euil Hall, 376 ; Address of Mr. 
 Everett, 376 ; Letter from Hon. 
 J. H. Clifford, 388; Habits in 
 his Office, 391; Method of 
 Preparation of Cases, 394; 
 Manner of Legal Study, 392 ; 
 Intercourse with the younger 
 Members of the Bar, 400 ; Man 
 ner to the Court, 401 ; Charges 
 and Income, 403; Manner to 
 the Jury, 407 ; Vocabulary, 
 408; Wit and Humor, 408; 
 Conversations and Anecdotes, 
 413; Eloquence, 417; Power 
 over an Audience, 420 ; Exag 
 gerations, 421 ; Style, 425; Let 
 ter from Rev. Joseph Tracy, 
 425; Memory, 428; Quota 
 tions, 429 ; Fondness for Books, 
 431 ; Favorite Pursuits, 432 ; 
 Conversation, 435 ; Scholar 
 ship, 431 ; Home Life, 441 ; 
 Fondness for Music, 448 ; Con 
 versational Power, 451 ; Gen 
 tleness, 449 ; Handwriting, 
 453 ; Appearance, 453 ; Gener 
 al Health, 454 ; Feelings upon 
 Religious Subjects, 455; Death, 
 457. 
 
 CHOATE, RUFUS, Jr., Letters to, 
 
 246, 247, 273, 275. 
 -CHOATE, SARAH B., Letters to, 
 270, 274, 276. 
 
 CHOATE, WASHINGTON, Death of, 
 26. 
 
 CLAY, HENRY, Mr. Choate s col 
 lision with, 70, 77. 
 
 CLIFFORD, J. H., Letter from, 388. 
 
 Constitution of Massachusetts, Con 
 vention to revise the, 268. 
 
 Convention of Whigs at Baltimore, 
 250. 
 
 Convention to Revise the Constitution 
 of Massachusetts, 268. 
 
 CROWNINSHIELD, BENJAMIN W., 
 44. 
 
 CURTIS, B. R., Address of, 367. 
 
 DALTON, Mrs., Defence of, 315. 
 DANA, R. H., Jr., Address of, 
 
 360. 
 DAVIS, GEORGE T., Letter to, 
 
 331. 
 Declaration of Independence, The, 
 
 Glittering Generalities of, 306. 
 Democratic Club, Oration before 
 
 the, 332. 
 
 EAMES, CHARLES, 279, 345. 
 EAMES, Mrs., Letters to, 267, 271, 
 
 272, 277, 280. 
 Eloquence of Revolutionary Periods, 
 
 314. 
 Essex Street Church, Address at, 
 
 335. 
 EVARTS, WILLIAM M., Letter to, 
 
 301. 
 EVERETT, EDWARD, Nomination 
 
 of, as Minister to England, 79 ; 
 
 Letters to, 272, 277, 288, 323 ; 
 
 Address of at Faneuil Hall, on 
 
 the Death of Mr. Choate, 376. 
 
 FAIRCHILD v. ADAMS, Case of, 
 
 238. 
 
 Faneuil Hall, Meeting in, 376. 
 Faneuil Hall, Speech at, 287. 
 Fiscal Bank Bill, Speech on the, 
 
 71. 
 Florida, Admission of, into the 
 
 Union, 138. 
 
 HARDIN, BENJAMIN, 58. 
 
 HARRISON, President, Inaugura 
 tion and Death of, 68 ; Eulogy 
 on, 68. 
 
 HILLARD, GEORGE S., Letter 
 from, 347 ; Letter to, 88. 
 
 HUNTINGTON, ASAHEL, Letter of, 
 32. 
 
 Independence. See Declaration. 
 
 India Rubber Case, 250. 
 
 Iowa, Admission of, into the 
 
 Union, 138. 
 Ipswich, Address at, 59. 
 
 JACKSON, E., Letter to, 265. 
 JEWELL, HARVEY, Letter to, 265. 
 
 KNAPP, J. F., Trial of, 38. 
 KOSSUTH, 260. 
 
468 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Law School, Cambridge, Address 
 delivered before, 161 ; Offer of 
 a Professorship in, 182. 
 
 LORING, C. G., Address of, 353. 
 
 Lowell, Speech at, 308. 
 
 LUNT GEORGE, 356. 
 
 MARSTERS, Rev. J. M., 484. 
 MARSH, Rev. Dr. JAMES, Letters 
 
 to, 28, 42, 47. 
 
 McDumE, Mr., Answer to, 110. 
 McLsoD, ALEXANDER, Case of, 
 
 69. 
 
 New-England Society of New York, 
 
 Address before, lOO. 
 NICHOLS, Dr. ANDREW, Letter to, 
 
 60. 
 North-Eastern Boundary Question, 
 
 OLCOTT, MILLS, 29. 
 
 OLIVER, STEPHEN, Letter from, 
 
 43. 
 Oregon Question, the, Speeches 
 
 upon, 76. 
 
 Peabody Institute, Address at the 
 Dedication of, 277. 
 
 Pensions, Revolutionary, Speech on, 
 49. 
 
 PERLET, Chief Justice, Eulogy 
 by, 18. 
 
 Phi-Beta Kappa Society of the Uni 
 versity of Vermont, Address be 
 fore the, 260. 
 
 Phillips s Will Case, 193. 
 
 Poland, Lecture on, 69. 
 
 Puritans of New England, their 
 Character, 188. 
 
 Remedial Justice, Speech on the, 
 providing further, in the Courts 
 of the United States, 84. 
 
 Rhode Island Boundary Case, 159. 
 
 ROBBINS, Rev. CHANDLER, Let 
 ter to, 287. 
 
 SCOTT,WALTER, His Genius, 291. 
 Sea, Romance of the, Lecture on, 60. 
 SEWALL, Dr., Death of, 149. 
 SHAW, Chief Justice, Letter of, 31. 
 SMITH, OLIVER, Will Case of, 
 
 170. 
 
 Smithsonian Institution, The, 139. 
 SPRAGUE, Judge, Address of, 372. 
 STORRS, RICHARD S., Jr., Letters 
 
 to, 66, 67. 
 Story Association, Address before 
 
 the, 244. 
 SUMNER, CHARLES, Letters to, 
 
 81, 87, 103. 
 
 Tariffs, Speeches upon the, 49, 
 
 107. 
 TAYLOR, General, Election of as 
 
 President, 176. 
 
 Texas, The Annexation of, 135. 
 TICKNOR, GEORGE, 413. 
 TIRRELL, ALBERT J., Defence of, 
 
 160. 
 
 TRACY, E. C., Testimony of, 12. 
 TRACY, Rev. JOSEPH, Letter 
 
 from, 425. 
 TYLER, Vice-President, assumes 
 
 Duties of the Presidency, 68. 
 
 UPHAM, CHARLES W., Letters to, 
 147. 
 
 WALSH, J. C., Letter to, 811. 
 
 WASHINGTON, Address on, 232. 
 
 Waverley Novels, Lecture on, 59. 
 
 WEBSTER, DANIEL, Appointed 
 Secretary of State, 68; Meet 
 ing in Eaneuil Hall in Honor 
 of, 249 ; Death of, 264. 
 
 Whig Convention at Baltimore, 250. 
 
 Whigs of Maine, Letter to, 301. 
 
 Whigs, Convention of, at Worces 
 ter, 284. 
 
 WHIPPLE, E. P., 415. 
 
 WINSLOW, Rev. HUBBARD, 62; 
 Letter to, 62. 
 
 WIRT, Hon. WILLIAM, Testi 
 mony of, 26. 
 
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