Hanson v. Eustace PAGE 653 Harmony et al. claimants of the Malek Adhel v. The United States Letson, The Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston, Rail-road Company v. 497 Lynn, Shriver's Lessee v. 43 United States, Harmony et al. claimants of the brig Malek Adhel v. Vidal et al. v. Girard's Executors 395 43 455 66 74 284 395 244 392 258 455 OBITUARY. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. January 10, 1844. On the opening of the Court this morning, Mr. Nelson, the Attorney General of the United States, made the following remarks: The proceedings of the members of the Bar, and the officers of this Court, held yesterday, have been placed in my hands this morning, with a request that I would communicate them to your Honours. They are designed to express the sentiments of profound regret and sorrow, with which the recent death of Mr. Justice THOMPSON has impressed those who have adopted them: to testify their admiration of his ability, integrity, and fidelity as a Judge, and of his urbanity, dignity, and virtues as a man. A large portion of the life of the deceased, as your Honours are aware, was dedicated to the discharge of the high duties of the Bench of which, for thirty-seven years, he was an honoured incumbent. As early as April, 1802, he took his seat in the Supreme Court of his native State, by the side of Lewis and Kent, and Radcliffe and Livingston; and when, in 1814, Chief Justice Kent was transferred to the Court of Chancery, Justice Thompson was called to preside over the deliberations of a tribunal, whose reputation is familiar to every American lawyer, and whose decisions, reported by Mr. Johnson, have largely contributed to lay, deep and broad, the foundations of American jurisprudence. From this sphere of eminent usefulness, he was withdrawn in 1819, when, by the invitation of Mr. Monroe, then President of the United States, he assumed the direction of the Department of the Navy, whence, in 1823, he was translated to this Court. From that time to the period of his death, full twenty years, he Jaboriously fulfilled all the obligations of his elevated station, which, it is no exaggeration to say, he illustrated and adorned, distinguished as he was "for every thing that can give a title to reverence." Of the assiduity, the patience, the energy, and singleness of purpose with which he discharged his arduous duties here, it does not become me to speak in this presence of all these your Honours are the witnesses; whilst of his genius, his attainments, and his intellectual vigour, the recorded judgments of this tribunal during the whole period of his distinguished service, furnish the imperishable attestation. A just appreciation of his qualifications and high claims, by those who have enjoyed the best opportunity of estimating their extent and magnitude, has dictated the tribute to his worth embodied in the resolutions which I have now the honour to present to the Court, and respectfully move that they be entered upon the minutes of its proceedings, "At a meeting of the members of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, and of the officers of the Court, at the Court room in the Capitol, on the 8th day of January, A. D. 1844— The Hon. Daniel Webster was appointed Chairman, and the Hon. Silas Wright, Secretary. Gen. Walter Jones, David B. Qgden, and John Sergeant, Esq'rs, were appointed a Committee to prepare resolutions expressive of the sentiments and feelings of the meeting on the melancholy event of the recent death of the Honourable SMITH THOMPSON, one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Whereupon Gen. Jones, in behalf of the Committee so appointed, presented the following preamble and resolutions, which were unanimously adopted by the meeting: The members of the Bar, and officers of the Supreme Court of the United States, having assembled to give a public and sincere testimony of their sense of the loss which they, in common with the Court and the country, have sustained by the death of Smith Thompson, one of the associate justices of the Court, and a public expression of their affectionate reverence for the memory of a citizen, distinguished in the grateful respect of his country for longcontinued, zealous, and eminently useful services in the important stations, both judicial and executive, to which the general confidence in his ability and spotless integrity had called him, and endeared to the affections of his friends no less by his private than his public virtues by the admirable qualities of his heart than of his mind. This meeting being so assembled under the influence of an all-per vading sentiment, whilst conscious how inadequately that sentiment can be expressed by any outward token of respect now in their power to manifest, have adopted the following resolutions: 1. That the members of this meeting wear the customary badge of mourning during the present term of the Court. 2. That the Chairman and Secretary communicate a copy of these proceedings to the family of the deceased, accompanied by assurances of the condolence of the members of this meeting in the heavy affliction with which they have been visited. 3. That the Attorney General be requested, in behalf of this meeting, to present these proceedings to the Supreme Court in session, and respectfully to ask that they may be entered in the minutes of the Court. DAN'L WEBSTER, Chairman. SILAS WRIGHT, Secretary." To which Mr. Chief Justice Taney replied as follows: "The Court are sensible of what must be the feelings of the Bar upon the loss of a Judge so distinguished as the late Judge THOMPSON: who possessed in an eminent degree every quality necessary to fit him for a high judicial station, and who for twenty years was one of the brightest ornaments of this Bench. His death is most painfully felt by the members of the Court, for he was not only their respected and honoured associate in the discharge of their offi. cial duties, but he was beloved as their friend, and endeared to every one of them by his frankness, his kindness, and his untainted honour. We deeply deplore his loss, and direct the proceedings of the Bar and the Court to be entered on the record, as an enduring testimony of our respect and affection for him." Thursday, Jan. 11, 1844. At the opening of the Court this morning, Mr. Nelson, the Attorney General of the United States, addressed the Court as follows: "My brethren of the Bar and the officers of this Court, have devolved on me the melancholy duty of presenting a series of resolutions, adopted by them yesterday, in relation to HUGH SWINTON LEGARE, late Attorney General of the United States. The death of this accomplished jurist, statesman, and scholar, as your Honours are aware, produced, at the time of its occurrence, an almost unprecedented sensation. In every portion of the confederacy, the evidences of the public grief were multiplied and signal. Under the pressure of the general distress, the voice of sorrow was heard from every rank, and even the stern prejudice of partisanship, under its softening influence, was subdued. Tributes of praise and of eulogy, to his memory and character, were freely offered by the gifted in letters, the illustrious in eloquence, and the eminently profound in the knowledge of the constitution and laws. I need not say to your Honours, that the subject of these commendations was meritorious of all that was uttered in his praise. It was meet that one, whose claims upon the admiration and affections of his countrymen were so various, dying in the nation's service, should be followed to the tomb by the nation's tears. The American Bar was not insensible to the loss sustained by the proud profession of which the deceased was so distinguished an ornament. Its members every where largely participated in the general grief, and those of them now assembled, with whom, during the latter period of his professional career, he was brought into more immediate association, have deemed it to be peculiarly appropriate, at this time, and here, before the august tribunal at whose pure shrine he so successfully ministered whilst living, to speak his praise; here, where by the extent of his diversified attainments, the richness of his rare eloquence, and the cogency of his vigorous reasoning, he laid the foundation of his most enviable fame-and where, had it pleased an all-wise Providence longer to have spared him, he, was destined to have won a more wide-spread, enduring, and imperishable renown. I respectfully move that your Honours will order the resolutions to be entered on the minutes of your proceedings." "At a meeting of the members of the Bar, and officers of the Supreme Court of the United States, at the Court room, in the Capitol, on the 8th day of January, 1844, to give expression to their feelings on the melancholy event of the death of HUGH S. LEGARE, late Attorney General of the United States : The Honourable Daniel Webster was called to the Chair, and the Hon. Silas Wright, appointed Secretary. The following resolutions were submitted by Reverdy Johnson, Esq., and unanimously adopted: Resolved, That the members of this Bar, and the officers of this |