Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 09.pdf/370

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The Late Mr. Justice Bushrod Washington. company with their nephew and niece. When about six miles out from Philadel phia she suddenly fell forward and expired before she could be removed from the car riage, dying, as was said, of a broken heart. Resolutions in memoriam of Judge Wash ington were passed and entered upon the minutes of the United States Supreme Court, January 25, 1830, Mr. Wirt presiding, Daniel Webster being the mover. The members of the Philadelphia bar also, in commemoration of his worth, placed over the judgment seat where he had so long pre sided, a tablet recording their " affection for him as a man and their respect for the learn ing, labor and wisdom of his long judicial life." In presenting this sketch of Judge Wash ington we have singled out one of a type, — a fair specimen of a body of public servants, whose services were rendered without obser vation and whose high office, in the very na ture of it, required them to remain deaf to

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the appeals of faction and of friendship and unmoved by popular demonstration. It was theirs to apply the old, unchangeable prin ciples of law to the new and ever-changing conditions of our advancing civilization and to methods peculiar to an undeveloped country. In doing this they were con tented to take for their reward the satis faction of an approving conscience, and to look for the vindication of their judgments in the unprejudiced mind of posterity. Were the past history of the American judiciary more deeply explored, and the learning, patience, integrity and courage of those upholders of the law and expounders of the Constitution more generally known, it would tend to develop in the present and succeeding generations a deep and lasting gratitude, a more exalted patriotism and a truer veneration of those underlying princi ples for which they stood, and upon which rests the fabric which contains our social destiny.