VOL. XVI.
No. 5.
BOSTON.
MAY, 1904.
FRANCIS SCOTT KEY AS A LAWYER, By EUGENE L. DIDIER. FRANCIS SCOTT KEY possessed in a singular and unusual degree the deli cate fancy of the poet, and the strong reason ing faculty of the lawyer. His fame as the author of the first of our national songs, "The Star-Spangled Banner," has dimmed his earlier reputation as a lawyer. He was thirty-five years old when he wrote his im mortal song, but he had already acquired a prominent place among those who flourished in what has been most appropriately called "the golden days of the Maryland bar," when such men as William Pinkney, Luther Mar tin, William Wirt, Robert Goodloe Harper, Reverdy Johnson and John Nelson formed an unrivalled galaxy of legal giants. Key was born in the midst of the Ameri can Revolution, on August i, 1779, and his father, Colonel John Ross Key, served with distinction in the Continental Army and con tributed liberally in money to the support of the glorious cause of American independ ence. After graduating at St. John's Col lege, Annapolis, Maryland, high in the class known as the "Tenth Legion," on account of the remarkable brilliancy of its members, young Key studied law in the office of his uncle, Philip Bar ton Key. He was admitted to the bar in 1801, and began to practise in Frederick, Maryland, in the county of which he was a native. Seeking a wider field for profes sional honors, he removed to Georgetown, D. C., and entered upon a successful career in Washington, Baltimore, Annapolis and other cities.
He frequently appeared before the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States where he distinguished himself by his chaste, elegant and finished eloquence. One of his ablest arguments before this high tribunal was made in March, 1825, upon a question involving the seisure, by a revenue cutter, and the confiscation of a vessel engaged in the African slave trade. Not only was there a large amount of money involved in the suit, but certain moral considerations of great delicacy. Mr. Key opened the case for the United States, having been engaged to assist the Attorney General, the cele brated William Wirt. On the other side were Charles J. Ingersoll, of Philadelphia, and John M. Berrien, of Georgia. The case attracted great attention, -and the Supreme Court was crowded by lawyers, politicians, members of Congress, fashionable women and idle men. Mr. Key, who was deeply in terested in the case from a moral as well as a professional point of view, made his opening argument with a force, an en ergy, a beauty of language, a power of logic, and a richness of fancy which astonished even his most admiring friends. He closed his speech with a picture of the horrors of the "middle passage," (after describing the unhappy lot of the poor wretches, who were seized and carried off from their homes, their families and friends) in a style of burn ing eloquence that might have done honor to a Pitt or a Wilberforce. Mr. Key was an enthusiastic promoter of the African Colonization Society whose ob
