York he possessed still a controlling citi zenship in that first State." Free soil triumphed, and the slaves were set free by the Court of Appeals, Demo cratic Judge Denio joining in the opinion of Republican Judge Wright, and there being no dissent. The argument had been in tently watched over North and South. Newspapers discussed the question pro and con, and Southern secessionists claimed the habeas corpus proceedings to be a fresh attack of Northern fanaticism upon Southern property rights. In the same year which heard the Lemmon slavery argument, Mr. Evarts had been one of the notable oratorical delegates to the Chicago Convention which nominated Abraham Lincoln. He had also, in the next year, been a candidate in the Republi can legislative caucus for United States senator, to succeed Mr. Seward, who had resigned to assume a cabinet place under President Lincoln. The legislature was di vided into the Horace Greeley and the Thurlow Weed factions. That great editor was the candidate of the one, and Mr. Evarts of the other. I was, being then holder of a political office, one of a private caucus of Mr. Evarts' friends, held on the day before the election. A proposition was made in it that financial reasons could be brought to bear in his favor upon his opponents. I recall the remark of Simeon Draper, who was present : " No use, gentlemen, for if it were done and successful, such are the su premacy of Mr. Evarts' principles, that when he discovered the means he would not ac cept." And Mr. Evarts himself suggested the compromise of voting upon Judge Ira Harris, as senator, which was accom plished. But as will presently,' be told, he was destined to become the "Victorious tor toise in the same species of'race a quarter century later. ,'/' Again the forum of the Bar, 1862, heard Mr. Evarts' great argument in the Supreme Court at Washington, in what are known as
the piracy cases, growing out of circum stances affected by the commencement of the Civil War. When that war was ended he made another renowned argument against the constitutionality of a State taxing Fed eral bonds — an argument that would have delighted the shades of Webster and Story could they have been permitted to spirit ually hear it. It is notable that Mr. Evarts should during his career have been invited so often into the novel and untraveled regions of jurisprudence. He delighted in their exploration, and cared little for follow ing beaten paths of litigation. For instance, he obtained, by ingenious distinctions of cases and differentiations of apparently con flicting statutes, the constitutional formula tion of a novel statute of New York State, creating an appointed State police over an amalgamation of its counties, while the Constitution seemed to forbid local officers to be otherwise than elected or named by purely local authority. Here he was op posed by Charles O'Conor, as in the Lemmon case. I was junior with Mr. Evarts in the argument, and never before or since have I listened to such rare illustrations, such subtle distinctions, and such an aggre gation of constitutional lore as scintillated in his elaborate and persuasive speech. The Albany court-room was crowded. Before argument began, I polled the consensus of lawyers whom the importance of the litiga tion between city and State had attracted, and scarcely one believed that our conten tion would succeed. The presiding judge was an especially strict constructionist of constitutional provisions, yet he wrote the opinion : establishing on the Evarts brief and argument the Metropolitan Police District that for a quarter century protected the city of New York as it had never before, nor ever since, been protected in person and property, and which in 1863 saved it from despoil by an infuriated mob when a military draft was being enforced. Mr. Evarts is therefore entitled to rank
