The Green Bag VOL. XVII.
No. 12
BOSTON
DECEMBER, 1905
JAMES C. CARTER BY WILLIAM B. HORNBLOWER I SHALL not attempt to give a biograph ical sketch of Mr. James C. Carter; I have not sufficient personal familiarity with the facts of his earlier career to enable me to give such a sketch with any accuracy or completeness. I can only undertake to give a sketch of Mr. Carter's personal and pro fessional characteristics as I observed them during the later years of his life. He was already a man who had achieved position, and, if not at the zenith of his fame and ability, he had arrived at the full maturity of his powers when I was admitted to the Bar in 1875. It was, however, my privilege to come much in contact with him person ally, as well as professionally, from that time until his death, in the early part of the present year; and I am thus enabled to give at first hand an estimate of one who was among the leading men of his genera tion in our profession. A brief rdsumd of the leading facts of Mr. Carter's life must suffice. He was born in Massachusetts in 1827 and inherited the sturdy moral fiber of his Massachusetts ancestors. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1850, and at the Harvard Law School in 1853. Coming to New York City and being admitted to the Bar of New York State, he was for half a century an active member of the profession, rising to the posi tion of one of the acknowledged leaders of the Bar of the United States, and dying while still in the full possession of his facul ties in the early part of 1905. He became known to the public by his participation as counsel in many notable litigations, and by his services as a member of the Commission, appointed by Governor Tilden in 1875, to
plan municipal government for cities of New York State; as a member of the Commission of 1890, appointed under authority of the legislature to suggest amendments to the Judiciary Article of the State Constitution, and as one of the counsel appointed by President Harrison to represent the United States before the Behring Sea Tribunal at Paris, in 1893. He was, however, better known to his brother lawyers and to the judiciary by his daily professional life which brought him into constant contact with Bench and Bar, and won from them respect, esteem, and admiration. Mr. Carter was a splendid representative of the highest type of the Anglo-Saxon bar rister. He was combative, aggressive, force ful; he had the gaudium certaminis; he "re joiced as a strong man to run a race." When he had become satisfied as to the righteousness of his clients' cause, or as to the correctness of his clients' legal position, his zeal became intense and his devotion unbounded. He spared no labor to master the case in which he was engaged. Intense and con tinuous application to the subject in hand was his watchword in his professional work. So closely would he concentrate his atten tion upon the particular case upon which he was engaged, that he has been known for days at a time to leave his correspondence not only unanswered, but unopened, while he gave his undivided attention to the prepara tion of a brief or the examination of the facts and the law of the case in hand. He was a standing reln:ke to those members of the profession who think their entire duty to their clients is performed when they have
