382
The Green Bag
venerabile, who was an Associate Justice at the time of Judge Wallace’s service
as Chief Justice.
Speaking of Judge
Norton, he said :—
firmament is stamped the ghostly mark
of mortality. Stability and permanence is but an Utopian dream if ascribed to the work of human hands. But not
“His nature was earnest, his convictions deep, his purpose firm; he had a comprehen sion of his whole duty, in which, as Seneca thought, is to be found the true felicity of life, and with the spirit of that great philoso pher, he might with confidence have appealed
so with great principles.
to the Gods, both as the witnesses and the
razure of oblivion” go for naught. The opinions of Lord Mansfield, Stowell
judges of his words and deeds . . . The records of the courts in which he sat will forever attest the public services he rendered, and tradition handing him down to posterity will repeat his eulogy and embalm his memory as a learned judge and an honest man."
What instinct or what limner’s spirit inspired Judge Wallace, when in painting
the picture of those two distinguished
The laws of
Justinian live in our decisions and books today; the lofty structure from whence they were promulgated is dust;
but
with principles “the tooth of time and
and Lord Eldon and other great English judges,
covered
with
the
débn's
of
many generations, are as frequently quoted today in our courts as at any time succeeding their rendition; and so it is with the decisions of our great American judges of whom in un
men, he imparted to the canvas his own
challenged supremacy, John Marshall
lofty characteristics?
Who will say
stands at the head. And so generations
that the attributes ascribed in the fore going quotations to these men do not properly pertain to any truthful pre sentation,of the lineaments and traits
to come will point to Judge Wallace
of character of William T. Wallace? It would be a labor of love, perhaps here of supererogation, to point out
and dwell upon his various opinions
as being one of the great masters of
juridical science. His fame is written with an “iron pen" in our judicial history, and detraction, if its hiss is ever
heard, shall never shake the foundations upon which it rests. Judge Murasky has remarked that as a constitutional
contained in the eleven volumes of
expounder Judge Wallace
Reports of this state, wherein by his unequaled diction and his inexorable logic as well as legal knowledge, he was enabled to impart to cherished princi
same relation to the constitution of the state of California that Judge Marshall bears to the federal Constitution. He was a lawyer and it was from the altar of the law that his orisons ascended. His conceptions of professional ethics
ples the force of established law, but
time does not permit. But the work speaks for itself; panegyric may stimu late the memory, but the sheen of his
bears
the
constitute a high moral code. If there were any element of resent
genius, as seen from those opinions, will
ment—-any disposition to Draconian
continue to glow and sparkle as genera
judgment existing in his composition,
tions of men shall pass.
nothing could so efiectually call it into action as professional turpitude. With the tricky, vulpine practitioner he
and
The decisions
opinions of great judges seem,
more than anything else of earth unless we except poetry and oratory, to defy the ravages of time. Generally speaking the sad truth cannot be gainsaid, that evanescence attaches to all of earth— upon everything beneath the bending
had no patience, although such a thing as a passionate or wrathful exhibition of temper from the bench never escaped him. Calm, cool, judicial in demeanor
and
urbane withal,
his
equilibrium
