The Sinking
Fund Cases (99 U. S. 700), which involved the validity of
the act of Congress known as the Thurman Act, requiring the
Pacific Railroad Companies to make annual payments for a
sinking fund to meet the bonds loaned to them by the Government;--
Tennessee _v._ Davis (100 U. S. 257), as to the right of a
United States officer to be tried in the Federal courts for
killing a person in self-defence whilst in the discharge of
his official duties;--The Civil Rights case of Strander _v._
W. Virginia and others (100 U. S. 303-422), in which were
settled the rights of all classes of citizens, irrespective
of color, to suffrage and to representation in the jury box,
and the right of the Government of the United States to interpose
its power for their protection;--Neal _v._ Delaware (103 U.
S. 370), by which it was decided that the right of suffrage
and (in that case) the consequent right of jury service of
people of African descent were secured by the 15th Amendment
to the Constitution, notwithstanding unrepealed state laws
or constitutions to the contrary.

In all these cases and many others the arguments of the Attorney-
General were presented with distinguished ability and dignity,
and with his habitual courtesy and amenity of manner; whilst
his broad and comprehensive views greatly aided the court
in arriving at just conclusions. In all of them he was successful;
and it may be said that he rarely assumed a position on behalf
of the Government, in any important case, in which he was
not sustained by the judgment of the court. His advocacy
was conscientious and judicial rather than experimental--
as is eminently fitting in the official representative of
the Government. It best subserves the ends of justice, the
suppression of useless litigation, and the prompt administration
of the law.

I can only add that the members of the Supreme Court parted
with Attorney-General Devens with regret. Of him, as of so
many other eminent lawyers, the reflection is just, that the
highest efforts of advocacy have no adequate memorial. Written
compositions remain; but the noblest displays of human genius
at the bar--often, perhaps, the successful assaults of Freedom
against the fortresses of Despotism--are lost to history and
memory for want of needful recordation. _Vixere fortes ante
Agamemnona;_ or, as Tacitus says of the eloquent Haterius,
"Whist the plodding industry of scribblers goes down to posterity,
the sweet voice