The Green Bag
Vol. II. No. 12. BOSTON. December, 1890.
WILLIAM AUGUSTUS BEACH.
By Horace Russell.
FOR more than forty years William A. Beach was a conspicuous figure — one of the most conspicuous — at the bar of the State of New York. He was engaged in a larger number and a greater variety of cases than any of his contemporaries, and it is not too much to say that his reputation as a forensic orator was second to that of no other man. Others, a few, had greater reputation for profound learning in the law, or as subtle reasoners or sagacious advisers; but for forensic eloquence, whether in trials before juries or arguments before appellate courts, he confessedly stood at the head of the bar of his State. His reputation was won and maintained in the forum alone. With the exception of the office of District Attorney of Saratoga County, which he occupied from 1843 to 1847, when he was comparatively a young man, he never held public office. He made no political speeches; he delivered no occasional addresses. His life and labors were concerned with his profession alone. He had no taste or ambition for any other career or employment. Indeed, it may be doubted whether he had any ambition, as such, in his profession, beyond the earnest desire to do all that in him lay in the service of the clients by whom he was retained. In that service he found ample scope for the exercise of all his great powers.
Of posthumous fame he was utterly care less. He never wrote out a speech either before or after its delivery. The record of his work can be found only in the meagre abstract of his " points " in the published reports, and the stenographers' notes of those trials which were of sufficient public importance to demand their publication.
Mr. Beach was born at Saratoga Springs, Dec. 9, 1809. His father, Miles Beach, was a reputable and wealthy merchant of that village. His mother, Cynthia Warren, the sister of Judge Warren, was a woman of rare mental endowments, possessing an acute and well-trained intellect, singular force of character, a wonderful command of language, with an ability for clear and accurate expression, which were inherited by her distinguished son.
Such scholastic training as Mr. Beach had was obtained at Partridge's Military School, at Norwich, Vt. Upon leaving that school, he at once entered upon the study of the law in the office of his uncle Judge Warren, and was, in due course, admitted to the bar in August, 1833.
College-bred men are apt to think a college education an indispensable prerequisite to eminence in the higher walks of the forum; and certainly its advantages, are not to be disparaged or depreciated. Yet many of the most eminent of the past generation of lawyers at the bar of New York had not such advantages. Charles O'Conor, Nicholas Hill, James T. Brady, John H. Reynolds, Roscoe Conkling, and William A. Beach (not to mention many others whose names at once rise to memory) were conspicuous examples of great lawyers — not only profoundly versed in the technical learning, philosophy, and ethics of the law, but pre-eminently great
