WILLIAM GASTON.

JUDGE WILLIAM GASTON was descended, on the paternal side, from an influential and distinguished Huguenot ancestry. On the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, they fled from France, and settled at Ballymore in Ireland. There, Doctor Alexander Gaston, the father of the present subject, was born. He studied medicine in the College of Edinburgh, was appointed to a surgeoncy in the English navy, and was present at the capture of Havana. Soon after that event he resigned his situation, sailed for America, and landed at Newbern, North Carolina, where he commenced the practice of medicine. In the spring of 1775, he married Margaret Sharpe, by whom he had three children; two sons and a daughter. William, the second child, was born, at Newbern, on the nineteenth of September, 1778. His brother died during infancy, and, in the summer of 1781, his father was murdered by a band of tories, who had joined the British standard; a short time previous borne in triumph throughout the southern colonies. The particulars of his tragical death will not be uninteresting in this place, and will verify the eloquent exclamation made by his son during an exciting Congressional debate, that "he was baptized an American in the blood of a murdered father." Mr. Gaston's biographer thus recounts the circumstances of the case :-Doctor Gaston was one of the most decided whigs in North Carolina, and as early as the month of August, 1775, was elected, by the Provincial Congress, a member of the committee of safety, for the district of Newbern. At various periods of the war he served in the army, generally in his professional capacity, and once, in the spring of 1776, as captain of a band of volunteers, marched to the aid of Wilmington, on the approach of the British forces under the command of Sir Henry Clinton. By his zealous and ardent support of the cause of freedom, he acquired the confidence of the patriots, and was distinguished by the bitter hatred of the loyalists, who, though in a minority, were still numerous in the vicinity in which he lived. In the month of August, 1781, Major James H. Craig,* of the British army, whose head-quarters were at Wilmington, marched at the head of a small detachment of regular troops, and a gang of tories, towards Newbern, with a view of investing that place. The tories were several miles in the advance, and rapidly entered the town. The whigs, thus surprised, had but little opportunity to make a regular stand, and after an ineffectual resistance, gave up the contest. Doctor Gaston, however, knew too well the hatred and ferocity of his foes, to surrender himself into their hands, and hurrying off his wife and children, endeavored to escape across the river Trent, and thus retire to his plantation on Bryce's creek. He reached the wharf, accompanied by his family, but before he could embark them in the light scow which he had seized, the tories in a body came galloping down, in their eager and bloody pursuit, and forced him to push off into the stream, leaving his wife and children unprotected on the shore. He was standing erect in the boat, which floated about forty yards from the bank, watching the situation of his wife, and while she, at the feet of his pursuers, with all the agony of anticipated bereavement, was imploring mercy for herself and life for her husband, a musket, levelled over her shoulder, was discharged and the victim fell dead.†

* Major Craig was Governor General of Canada in 1807. + National Portrait Gallery. Article William Gaston, LL.D.

By this sad occurrence the early training and education of young William devolved entirely on his mother. To this object she devoted herself with untiring and affectionate energy. Pure, high-minded, deeply religious, and noble in her own life, she left an impress of these sterling qualities on her son's character, which rendered him peculiarly eminent.

In the autumn of 1791, young Gaston was entered in the college at Georgetown, now of the District of Columbia, where he remained until the spring of 1793. At that time he abandoned his studies on account of severe illness, but a return to his native climate renewed his health, and he was placed under the superintendence of a private tutor, to prepare for college. After a few months' instruction he joined the junior class of Princeton College, from whence he received his degree, with the highest honors of the institution, in 1796. He studied law with Francis Xavier Martin, then a prominent practitioner; and subsequently a judge of the Supreme Court of Louisiana; and at the age of twenty years (1800) commenced practice. The next year, on arriving at his majority, he was elected a member of the senate of his native State. In 1808, he was chosen an elector of President and Vice President of the United States, and the same year became a member of the House of Delegates, from the district in which he resided. Soon after its assembling, he was chosen the presiding officer. In this position he rendered services valuable to his constituency and honorable to himself: among which was the preparation of the act regulating the descent of inheritances.

In 1813, he was elected to the lower House of the Congress of the United States, and continued there by re-election, until 1817, when he voluntarily retired to the less exciting and more agreeable pursuits of his profession and his home. His congressional career was distinguished by a sincere devotion to the interests of the country—a high moral and political rectitude. He was an ardent federalist, and, as the "acknowledged leader of that party," opposed the celebrated loan bill of 1815. In his speech on that question he manifests extensive views of national policy, and bases his arguments on the firm considerations of justice, honesty, and humanity.

The next great effort of Mr. Gaston in Congress, was made in 1816, during the exciting and able discussions on the motion of Mr. Stanford of North Carolina, to expunge the previous question from the rules of the House. In this debate Mr. Gaston was opposed by Mr. Clay, in one of his most powerful speeches, and to him, in the main, he directed his reply. A short extract will give the character of the argument he used on that occasion. After a brief and clear exordium, he remarked:-" And, sir, I rejoice equally at the opposition which the motion of my colleague has encountered. If this hideous rule could have been vindicated, we should have received that vindication from the gentleman who has just resumed his seat, Mr. Clay. If his ingenuity and zeal combined, could form for the previous question no other defence than that which we have heard, the previous question cannot be defended. If beneath his shield it finds so slight a shelter, it must fall a victim to the just, though long delayed vengeance of awakened and indignant freedom. If Hector cannot defend his Troy, the doom of Troy is fixed by fate. It is indispensable, before we proceed further in the consideration of this subject, that we should perfectly understand what is our previous question. Gentlemen may incautiously suppose that it is the same with what has been called the previous question elsewhere. This would be a most fatal mistake. Our previous question is altogether sui generis, the only one of its kind; and to know it, we must consider not merely what is written of it in our code, but what it has been rendered by exposition and construction. Our previous question 'can only be admitted when demanded by a majority of the members present.' It is a question, 'whether the question under debate should now be put.' On the previous question 'there shall be no debate;'‘until it is decided, it shall preclude all amendment and debate of the main question.' If it be decided negatively, viz., that the main question shall not now be put, the main question is, of course, superseded; but if it be decided affirmatively, that the main question shall now be put, the main question is to be put instantaneously, and no member can be allowed to amend or discuss it. The previous question is entitled to precedence over motions to amend, commit, or postpone the main question, and therefore, when admitted, puts these entirely aside. This, according to the latest improvement, is now our rule of the previous question; and certainly in your patent office there is no model of a machine better fitted to its purposes, than this instrument for the

ends of tyranny. It is a power vested in a majority, to forbid at their sovereign will and pleasure, every member not of that majority, from making known either his own sentiments, or the wishes or complaints of his constituents, in relation to any subject under consideration, or from attempting to amend what is proposed as a law for the government of the whole nation." Mr. Gaston continued in this impassioned and vehement manner to the end, and at once excited the astonishment and admiration of the House.

After his retirement from Congress until 1834, he was generally engaged in the duties of his profession; but, during the same time, was for a long period a member of the North Carolina assembly. In that body, it is said, he delivered many of his ablest and most brilliant speeches; two of which are mentioned with peculiar approbation: one, on the currency of the State, delivered in 1828; the other in defence of the constitution of North Carolina. Of the latter, one of his contemporaries says:-"That speech will long be remembered. The Constitution of the State is a venerable instrument. It came down to the present generation, from the sages of the Revolution, and is loved and venerated in North Carolina for its very antiquity. It was a fit subject for the exhibition of his learning, eloquence and patriotism, and these resources of his mind he poured forth with the most brilliant profusion.

In 1834, Mr. Gaston was elevated to the bench of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, where he remained until his death. His judicial decisions evince the most profound acquaintance with the science of the law, and are ranked, by competent authority, among the ablest legal arguments of the United States. In the prosecution of his duties as judge he was affable, patient and devoted. On the day of his death, January the twenty-third, 1843, he took his seat as usual, though he had for several days experienced quite severe illness. He remained on the bench until nearly two o'clock in the afternoon, giving attention to a case then under consideration, when he was attacked with faintness, and other violent symptoms. He was then taken to his room, and soon relieved; he became quite cheerful, and conversed freely with his friends. In the course of the evening he related several anecdotes, and gave a description of a party he attended in Washington many years previous. Speaking of one whom he met on that occasion, who declared himself a free-thinker in matters pertaining to religion, he said, "From that day I always looked on that man with distrust. I do not say that a free-thinker may not be an honorable man, or that he may not, from higher motives, scorn to do a mean act; but I dare not trust him. A belief in an All-ruling Divinity, who shapes our ends, whose eye is upon us, and who will reward us according to our deeds, is necessary. We must believe and feel that there is a God; all-wise and almighty." As he was uttering the last sentence, he rose to give it greater emphasis, when he suddenly fell back and expired.*

SPEECH ON THE LOAN BILL.

This speech, on a bill to authorize a loan of twenty-five millions of dollars, was delivered by Mr. Gaston, in the House of Representatives of the United States, on the eighteenth and nineteenth days of February, 1814.

Mr. CHAIRMAN: I fear I am about to engage in a very injudicious attempt-I fear that the patience of the committee is exhausted, and that it would be idle to hope for their attention. It was originally my wish to claim their notice at an early stage of the debate; but I found this

* National Intelligencer, 1843: American Almanac, 1845: MS. Letter of J. S. Eustace in the possession of the editor.

wish was not to be effected but by a competition for the floor, and I thought such a competition not justified by the nature of the remarks which I had to submit. Under these impressions I had made up my mind to wait until some favorable unoccupied interval should be presented; and I should not now have presumed to anticipate other gentlemen who seem disposed to address you, but for some extraordinary observations which have just been uttered, and which in my opinion demand immediate animadversion.

The gentleman from Tennessee, who has this moment resumed his seat, (Mr. Grundy,) seems a little sore that his doctrine of Moral Treason, which he promulgated at the last session, should have been so vehemently oppugned by the per

sons for whose benefit he had compiled it. I am not of the number of those, Mr. Chairman, who have deemed this doctrine worthy of examination. As originally understood, it was so preposterous and so repugnant to the principles of our constitution, that every intelligent freeman found its refutation in the consciousness of his own liberty. By subsequent explanations and definitions it has been so attenuated and subtilized, that what was never very distinct now almost eludes perception. According to the last attempt at exposition, if it have any meaning, it would seem to embrace systematic efforts to persuade capitalists not to lend money, and the unthinking youth not to enlist as soldiers to carry on the war against Canada. His denunciations of such a system-of the existence of which I know nothing; and which, if it exist, is innocent or criminal according to the motives from which it springs-pass by me altogether unheeded. But his unfounded imputations upon some of the best men and truest patriots of the country, and his attempt to support his doctrine by their example, ought to be repelled, and a very short notice will suffice for that purpose.

itself in actual war against the nation. It was altogether unnecessary, if there had been any common law applicable in the courts of the United States; for in every government under Heaven the acts which it describes are made punishable. A doubt whether the common law had a federal existence alone occasioned the passing of the law. Yet we are gravely asked if, in the year 1798, men had combined together to dissuade persons from lending money to the government, or from enlisting in the army; whether they could not have been punished under this law? No, sir.-No, sir. There was not a prosecuting officer in the United States so ignorant of his duty as to dare to bring forward an indictment upon such a pretext.

To the next sectica of this abused act the gentleman has given an interpretation as destitute of plausibility even as his exposition of the first section. To find a warrant for his doctrine of moral treason, or to lessen its odium by casting reproach on others, the gentleman has charged that this section subjected to indictment and punishment the publication of scandalous and malicious writings against the government, although The gentleman has referred to the act of 14th they might be true-and that had it not been July, 1798, the much misrepresented and abused for the third section of the act, which his presedition law. It is difficult for me to express decessor moved in the House of Representamy astonishment at the construction which he tives after the bill had passed the Senate, the affixes to the first section of this act. Need we truth would have afforded no defence on an wonder at any error, however gross, at any indictment for a libel against the government. prejudice, however irrational, prevailing in re- Sir, this position is utterly untenable. No part spect to party measures and party opinions, of it is true. The gentleman must be presumwhen we find a professional gentleman assigned to know, and ought to recollect, that when ing to a law a meaning which, but for what we an offence is created by statute, every word of have heard, would have been pronounced impos- the description of the offence is material and sible on the part of any man of ordinary good essential. What are the words describing the sense? The first section of this law declares, offence? "If any person shall write, print, or that if any persons shall conspire together with publish any false, scandalous and malicious wriintent to oppose any measures of the government ting against the government, &c." It is a neof the United States, and in pursuance of such cessary part of the offence that the writing intent shall counsel, or attempt to procure, insur- should be false. If it be not false, then the rections, riots, &c., they shall be deemed guilty crime has not been committed, the law has of a misdemeanor punishable by fine and impris- not been broken, and punishment cannot be inonment. Can it be necessary to ask what was flicted. Why then, I may be asked, was the meant in this law by the expression "with in- third section, moved by the gentleman's predetent to oppose any measures of the govern- cessor, inserted in the law? The answer is ment?" To oppose, in its plain original sense, to avoid all cavil, all real or pretended doubt, necessarily implies physical resistance the ex- all foundation for the charge that would have ercise of force. It is metaphorically used, in- been made had it been rejected. It might have deed, to signify dissuasion, as the word to com- been pretended that on an indictment for libel bat is applied to denote a controversy in argu- at common law, the truth or falsehood of the ment; and a law prohibiting single combats charge was not a matter of inquiry before the might as well be interpreted to forbid contro-jury, so on an indictment for libel under this versies in discourse, as a law prohibiting oppo- act, notwithstanding its plain words, the falsesition to the measures of government construed hood of the publication was not material to to interdict the expression of honest opinions constitute the offence; and had the proposed that may retard their operations. But the act amendment been rejected, from the specimen is still more explicit. To constitute crime, it we have this day had of the course of legal requires not only that the persons should com- thinking of one of the bar of Tennessee, there is bine "with intent to oppose the measures of a moral certainty, that the law would have been government," but that in pursuance of such in- there stigmatized as designed to prohibit the tent they should proceed to "counsel or attempt publication of truth. To adopt the amendment to procure insurrections, riots," &c. The design removed all pretext for such a misrepresentaof the act is unequivocal-it is to check and tion. It was accordingly incorporated into the punish incipient treason before it has manifested | law; and to show that it was not introductory

of any new principle, it was expressed as declar- | do will avail nothing; but, sir, representing a atory of the preceding section, "And be it en- respectable portion of the American people who acted and declared, that it shall be lawful for are suffering with peculiar severity from the the defendant, on trial, to give in evidence, in pressure of this unfortunate and mismanaged his defence, the truth of the matter charged as war, who, with me, believe no good is to grow a libel." No, sir—the idea of punishing truth | out of it, and who apprehend, from its continwhen published against the officers of the gov- uance, evils, compared with which all they have ernment was reserved until more recent times yet suffered are but trifles light as air-I should -until the abused sedition law had expired, be unfaithful to them and myself, if I did not and the champions of a free press were safely interpose my best efforts to arrest the downhill fixed in power. Surely the gentleman has not career of ruin. In performing this duty I shall been so inattentive to the course of public pro- certainly say the things I do think. Endeavorceedings as never to have heard of the case of ing to use such language only as is consistent Harry Croswell. He, for an alleged libel on Mr. with self-respect and decency towards those Jefferson, was indicted at common law, not un- who differ from me in opinion, I mean freely to der the horrible sedition act; he was not per- exercise the right which belongs to my station. mitted to prove the truth of his publication, and was thus convicted!

Right! did I say, sir? The expression is inaccurate; once indeed there did exist in this I have done, sir, with the gentleman from House the right of free discussion. It was once Tennessee, his moral treason, and his exposition deemed a constitutional privilege for every of the sedition law-and will endeavor to call member to bring forward any proposition he your attention to subjects not altogether so for- deemed beneficial to the country, and support eign from the bill upon the table. The object it by whatever arguments he could adduce; to of the bill is to authorize a loan to the govern- offer amendments to the propositions of others, ment of the United States. The precise propo- so as to render them, in his judgment, more unsition before you is to declare what sum shall exceptionable; and to state the reasons of his be borrowed; "twenty-five millions of dollars." dissent from any measure on which he was Enormous as is the addition which is thus pro-called to vote, and endeavor to impress his posed to be made to our debts, could it be opinion on others. No doubt a vast portion shown to be necessary to accomplish any pur- of the good people of this republic yet believe poses demanded by the honor and welfare of that such is the course of proceedings here. the country, it assuredly would meet with no Little do they dream of the complicated maopposition from me. Is a loan wanted, or rev-chinery, by means of which every privilege, enue required to enable the government to pay except that of thinking, is made to depend on off its just engagements? to give security and the pleasure, the courtesy, the whim of the maprotection to any part of our territory, or any jority. By certain interpolations into our pracportion of our citizens? to afford to our gallant tice, but which nowhere show their hideous navy (that precious relic of better days) such front in our written code, the system of supencouragement and extension as may enable it pressing the liberty of speech is brought to a more effectually to vindicate our rights on the degree of perfection that almost astonishes its element where they have been assailed? My authors. A gentleman wishes to bring forward voice and assistance shall be cheerfully render- an original proposition-he must first state it, ed to obtain them. Let the present proposition and obtain permission from a majority of the be withdrawn, and let it be moved to fill the House to let it be considered, before he can blank with such sum as shall be adequate to show the propriety of adopting it, or ask even supply any deficiency of revenue wanted for for a decision upon it. Thus is annihilated the these purposes, and I will second the motion. right of originating a proposition. But a propoNay, sir, should the present proposition be re-sition is originated by others, it is passed through jected, (for while it is pending, a smaller sum cannot be moved,) and none of those who are most conversant with the state of our finances, should come forward with a further proposition, I will myself undertake to move the sum which shall appear competent to effect all these objects. But, sir, this enormous sum is wanted not for these purposes; it is avowedly not necessary, except to carry on the scheme of invasion and conquest against the Canadas. To this scheme I have never been a friend; but to its prosecution now, I have invincible objections, founded on considerations of justice, humanity, and national policy. These objections I wish to explain and enforce, and thus avail myself of an opportunity of discussing some of the most interesting topics which grow out of the alarming state of the nation. I fear that all I can

the ordeal of consideration, and he is desirous of amending its defects or of exposing its impropriety. This is, perhaps, deemed inconvenient by the majority. It may give them trouble, or bring forward a discussion which they do not wish the people to hear, or detain them too long from their dinners-a new species of legerdemain is resorted to. The previous question, utterly perverted from its original and legitimate use, is demanded; the demand is supported by a majority. In an instant all the proposed amendments disappear; every tongue is so fettered, that it can utter but aye or no, and the proposition becomes a law without deliberation, without correction, and without debate. And this process is called legislation! And the hall in which these goodly doings are transacted is sometimes termed the Temple of Liberty!