Consider, next, that his failing, if he failed, leaned to the side of public virtue. Between the people and the executive; between the master and the servant; between the constitution and those who forgot it, he declared for liberty and for the supreme law. Subserviency, cowardice, meanness, falsehood to himself, all counselled other action. These you may have for nothing. But will you discourage the nobler and the rarer qualities of public and official life?

Acknowledge, further, that if the question before him had been thought to be a question of doubt, as it was not, he but followed the universal habit and doctrine of the courts, that the actual possession is to stand for title, till it is clearly shown to be unlawful. There was an existing possession. The old officer was there. The old officer claimed, and pleaded the constitution and the law. That title he was obliged to examine. That title he was obliged to compare with the new and competing title. He did compare; his judgment was convinced that the old was best. But if he had doubted, should not the possession be maintained till the doubt was resolved? Is not this the doctrine of law, and the practice of the bench? What business was it of his, that a governor's commission was waved in his face? It was a conflict of right and demand between two private parties, one in possession, and the other out. Could he displace the possession till he found a better title? Is not possession title, as a general proposition of law?

Consider finally, that he conformed to the established and approved judicial habit and doctrine, and that he followed the precedents of Maine, from her first amendments of her constitution to this day. I do not say that these precedents conclusively construe these resolves. But I say that the judge who respects them as nisi prius; who accepts them as primâ facie evidence of the law; who pauses before he sets up his own judgment, or the judgment of the executive of the day against them, has given some proof of the possession of the qualities and character, of which our highest judicial tribunals are or ought to be composed. With these precedents you are all familiar. They go back to 1834, now twenty years; and they seem to demonstrate that heretofore no legislature has assumed to call itself "a party to "a change of the constitution; that every one instead, has simply designated a counting body,

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to whom the state of the vote was to be proved; that every one has regarded the count of the body so designated, as a making to appear," and regarded itself as having nothing at all to do but to declare what had already been made to appear, and what amendment had already been completely and certainly adopted. To have followed these precedents evinces the possession of judicial qualities, and exemplifies a judicial character, which entitle the respondent, if he stood in need of it, to the candor and indulgence of an assembly of honorable minds.

And now, Mr. President, the discussion is closed. It is an infelicity of the judicial office, that the judge does not, and can never come to his own day of trial attended and assisted by a demonstrative and sustaining popularity. The necessities of the great trust he stands in prescribes seclusion, and thought, and the study of books. They prescribe the duty, and they form the habit of looking less to the party than to the cause; the habit of meditations on rights more than of intercourse with men. He grows formal, therefore, and reserved, if not austere. In old age he becomes venerable by the establishment of an illustrious reputation, we rise up and bless him; we follow his footsteps and attend him to his grave, with tears, and reverence, and gratitude. But the earlier and middle life of the good judge, of the best judge, has won little of the popularity which follows; none at all of that which is run after. The respondent, thus, is here almost alone. I am told, and I believe, that if his self-respect and good taste would have permitted it, if the nature of the charge, if the necessities of the hour had allowed it, we might have shown you by the testimony of the bar over whom he has had opportunity to preside, by the testimony of all who have observed his brief, but studious and most busy official life, that already an ornament of the bench, he has a future of distinction and usefulness, which may justify any degree of hope of his friends and of the public. But here and now he seems alone, upheld by consciousness of his own innocence, and by trust in his judges, of this convention, and of the people. The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy are his. Some circumstances invest him and his position with extraordinary interest. He represents a grand doctrine of constitutional freedom, dear to Maine as

are the ruddy drops that visit her large heart. He represents that transcendent idea of a separation of departments of government, without which tyranny is begun already. He represents that element of security, without which liberty itself is an empty and dreary thing, and its worship a vain oblation, a security of right under an equal law, and a learned and incorrupt judge. He commands and he has that respect of God and man, which is yielded ever to him who strives to protect himself, and those he loves, from oppression and dishonor. Your kindness thus far he has experienced, and his counsel have experienced, in bountiful measure. This you might give or might withhold; but justice he has a right to demand; and justice even this high tribunal is bound to

render.

SPEECH "ON THE POLITICAL TOPICS NOW

PROMINENT BEFORE THE COUNTRY."

DELIVERED AT LOWELL, MASS., OCTOBER 28, 1856.

I HAVE accepted your invitation to this hall with pleasure although it is pleasure not unattended by pain.

to

To meet you, Fellow-citizens of Lowell and of Middlesex, between whom, the larger number of whom, and myself, I may hope from the terms of the call under which you assemble, there is some sympathy of opinion and feeling on the "political topics now prominent before the community; meet and confer, however briefly and imperfectly, on the condition of our country, and the duties of those who aspire only to be good citizens, and are inquiring anxiously what in that humble yet responsible character they have to do-to meet thus, and here—not as politicians, not as partisans, not as time-servers, not as office-seekers, not as followers of a multitude because it is a multitude, not as sectionalists, but as sons and daughters of our united and inherited America; who love her, filially and fervently for herself; our own-the beautiful, the endeared, the bounteous; the imperial and general Parent ! — and whose hearts' desire and prayer to God is only to know how we shall serve her best, this is a pleasure and a privilege for which I shall be very long and very deeply in your debt.

And this pleasure, there is here and now nothing to alloy. Differing as we have done, some of us, through half our lives; differing as now we do, and shall hereafter do, on means, on details, on causes of the evil, on men, on non-essentials non-essentials I would say in so far as the demands of these most rugged and eventful times are concerned- I think that

on the question, what is the true issue before us and the capital danger we have to meet; on this, and on all the larger ideas, in all the nobler emotions which ought to swell the heart and guide the votes of true men to-day-through this one sharp and dark hour we shall stand together, shoulder to shoulder, though we have never done so before, and may never do so again.

I infer this from the language of your invitation. The welcome with which you have met me, allows me to expect so much. The place we meet in gives assurance of it.

If there is one spot of New England earth rather than another, on whose ear that strange music of discords to which they are rallying the files-a little scattered and a little flinching, thank God! of their Geographical party must fall like a fire-bell in the night, it is here; it is in Middlesex; it is in Lowell!

If

If this attempt at combining States against States for the possession of the government has no danger in it for anybody, well and good. Let all then sleep on, and take their rest. it has danger for anybody, for you, Fellow-citizens of Lowell, more than for any of New England or as much, it has that danger. Who needs the Union, if you do not? Who should have brain and heart enough to comprehend and employ the means of keeping it, if not you? Others may be Unionists by chance; by fits and starts; on the lips; Unionists when nothing more exciting, or more showy, or more profitable, casts up. You are Unionists by profession; Unionists by necessity; Unionists always. Others may find Vermont, or Massachusetts, or New Hampshire, or Rhode Island, large enough for them. You need the whole United Continent over which the flag waves to-day, and you need it governed, within the limits of the actual Constitution, by one supreme will. To secure that vast, and that indispensable market at home; to command in the least degree a steady, uniform, or even occasional protection against the redundant capital, matured skill, pauper labor, and ebbing and falling prices of the Old World at peace; to enable the looms of America to clothe the teeming millions of America ; — you need a regulation of commerce, uniform, one, the work of one united mind, which shall draw along our illimitable coast