e Fourteenth Amendment to the
Constitution was initiated and pressed by him:" of Rufus Choate, who
combined in more majestic and graceful proportions than any other
American lawyer, the ripe scholar and the successful advocate; who
with the beauty and power of his language could captivate a jury, a
popular audience, or the American Congress with equal facility; who
gave to English literature some of its most brilliant gems, and who in
his immortal eulogy upon Webster, in the opinion of competent judges,
gave to the world one of the most finished and impressive examples of
elegiac eloquence to which it has listened since the days of Pericles:
and of Salmon P. Chase, who, when our government needed, gave to it
the "sinews of war," and in the eloquent language of Evarts, "Whether
by interposing his strong arm to save Mr. Birney from the fury of a
mob; or by his bold and constant maintenance in the courts of the
cause of fugitive slaves, in the face of the resentments of the public
opinion of the day; or by his fearless desertion of all reigning
politics to lead a feeble band of protestants through the wilderness
of anti-slavery wanderings, its pillar of cloud by day, its pillar of
fire by night; or, as Governor of Ohio, facing the intimidations of
the Slave States, backed by Federal power and a storm of popular
passion; or in consolidating the triumphant politics on the urgent
issue which was to flame out into rebellion and revolt; or in his
serene predominance, during the trial of the President, over the rage
of party hate which brought into peril the co-ordination of the great
departments of government, and threatened its whole frame,--in all
these marked instances of public duty, as in the simple routine of his
ordinary conduct, Mr. Chase asked but one question to determine his
course of action,--'Is it right?'"

Nor should we forget others who have left a lasting impression upon
the jurisprudence of New England, and indeed our whole country. Among
them Samuel S. Wilde, who had few peers as an advocate in Maine, or as
a judge in Massachusetts; Ezekiel Webster, who as lawyer and statesman
left a monument in New Hampshire which shall never crumble; Richard
Fletcher, "whose legal acumen, clear, distinct, and precise statement,
closely reasoned argument, and conscientious mastery of his subject,
adorned the bench no less than the bar;" Joseph Bell, who as advocate
and legislator, in ability as in station, towered above most