A Century of Federal Judicature.
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A CENTURY OF FEDERAL JUDICATURE. IX. BY VAN VECHTEN VEEDER. THROUGH a remarkable judicial career of nearly forty years' duration Justice Gray maintained the highest ideals of public justice. In 1854, three years after his admission to the bar, he was appointed re porter of the decisions of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, a position which had been dignified by the services of lawyers of such recognized capacity and learning as Gushing, Pickering and Metcalf. Justice Gray's seven years' service in this position undoubtedly contributed materially to his judicial equip ment in giving him that remarkable knowl edge of cases and precedents for which he was justly famed. In 1864 he was appointed an associate justice of the court, and nine years later was advanced to the chief justice ship. In 1881, after seventeen years' distin guished service in the highest court of his native State, he was appointed to the Su preme Court of the United States, where he served with indefatigable industry for twentyone years. The successful discharge of the duties of such conspicuous stations through so many years, necessarily implies a high order of mental ability and thorough profes sional equipment, and the value of Justice Gray's judicial labors has always been fully appreciated. But he was not a legal genius, and his conspicuous but plainly circumscribed powers are readily defined. He was not an original thinker like Marshall, nor in the sense in which that designation may be ap plied to his successor, Mr. Justice Holme?. In his mental characteristics he bore to a law yer like Benjamin R. Curtis, or to his col league, Justice Miller, a relation similar to that which Story bore to Marshall. He dealt, mainly, not with the creations of his own mind, but with the thought of others. One
may look in vain through his work for any distinctly original contributions to jurispru dence—any simple, subtle and illuminating statement of its difficult problems. He had not that intuitive insight into legal principles which enabled a genius like Lord Cairns to follow without reflecting upon the rule. His forte lay in the indefatigable industry and re search with which he levied upon the stores of existing knowledge, and in his accurate and logical arrangement and presentation of vast accumulations of material with refer ence to the issue involved. Before he be came a lawyer he was an accomplished na turalist, and in his legal work he habitually employed the inductive methods of natural science. He was a case lawyer in the highest sense of that term; he reached a conclusion, not so much through the luminous and suggestive inferences of his own mind, but rather by collecting, analyz ing, sifting and weighing all the arguments that had ever been brought to bear upon a subject. In the exercise of this inductive and historical method Justice Gray has sel dom been equalled. It may be doubterl whether his information was as well fused as Lord Bowen's. Some of his opinions (e. g., Opinion of the Justices on Money Bills, 126 Mass. 557—an advisory opinion,) would seem to exceed in wealth of historical illus tration the necessities of the occasion. How ever admirable as an argument or as an his torical disquisition, it is doubtful whether such elaborate displays of research are desir able in judicial opinions. Aside from these considerations, however, his work merits unqualified praise. His work is more accur ate and his material more thoroughly di gested than Story's. He did not pad his
