Very soon however his great ability, with his untiring
industry and his intense devotion to any cause in his hands, brought
the reputation which he deserved, and reputation brought clients.
industry and his intense devotion to any cause in his hands, brought
the reputation which he deserved, and reputation brought clients.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v06 - Cal to Chr
).
Of ten thousand evils, lewdness is the head.
Of one hundred virtues, filial piety is the first.
CONFUCIAN PROVERB.
There are three thousand offenses against which the five
punishments are directed, and there is not one of them greater
than being unfilial. - THE HSIAO KING, The Five Punishments.
Benevolence is man's mind and righteousness is man's path.
How lamentable is it to neglect the path and not pursue it,
to lose the mind and not know to seek it again. — MENCIUs, Kaou
Tsze (pt. i. , ch. xi. ).
Tsze Kung asked, saying, "What do you say of a man who
is loved by all the people of his village? " The Master replied,
"We may not for that accord our approval of him. " "And what
do you say of him who is hated by all the people of his vil-
lage? " The Master said, "We may not for that conclude that
he is bad. It is better than either of these cases that the good
in the village love him and the bad hate him. "- CONFUCIAN
AN. , Tsze Loo (ch. xxiv. ).
Men must be decided on what they will not do, and then
they are able to act with vigor in which they ought. -Mencius,
Le Low (pt. ii. , ch. viii. ).
Learn as if you could not reach your object and were always
fearing also lest you should lose it. -CONFUCIAN AN. , T'ae Pih
(ch. xvii. ).
King Wan looked on the people as he would on a man who
was wounded, and he looked toward the right path as if he
could not see it. -MENCIUS, Le Low (pt. ii. , ch. xx. ).
To nourish the heart there is nothing better than to make
the desires few. -MENCIUS, Tsin Sin (ch. xxxv. ).
When Heaven is about to confer a great office on any man,
it first exercises his mind with suffering, and his sinews and
## p. 3647 (#635) ###########################################
THE LITERATURE OF CHINA
3647
bones with toil. It exposes his body to hunger, and subjects
him to extreme poverty. It confounds his undertakings. By all
these methods it stimulates his mind, hardens his nature, and
supplies his incompetencies. -MENCIUS, Kaou Tsze (pt. ii. ch. xv. ).
You should ever stand in awe of the punishment of Heaven.
SHOO KING, ii. ; Prince of Leu on Punishments.
Great Heaven is intelligent and is with you in all your
doings. Great Heaven is clear-seeing, and is with you in all
your wanderings and indulgences. -SHE KING, ii. , Major Odes,
the Pan.
Ke Loo asked about serving the spirits of the dead. The
Master said, << While you are not able to serve men, how can you
serve their spirits? " Ke Loo added, "I venture to ask about
death. " He was answered, "While you do not know life, how
can you know about death? - CONFUCIAN AN. , Seen Tsin (ch.
xi. ).
-
For all affairs let there be adequate preparation. With prep-
aration there will be no calamities. -SHOO KING, Charge of Yue
(ch. i. ).
As to what the superior man would feel to be a calamity,
there is no such thing. He does nothing which is not according
to propriety. If there should befall him one morning's calamity,
the superior man does not account it a calamity. —MENCIUS, Le
Low (pt. ii. , ch. xxviii. ).
God is with you, have no doubts in your heart. -SHE KING,
Decade of King Wan II.
Beware. What proceeds from you will return to you again. -
MENCIUS, King Hwuy (pt. ii. , ch. xii. ).
Show reverence for the weak. - SHO0 KING, Timber of the
Tsze Tree (ch. iii. ).
When the year becomes cold, then we know how the pine
and the cypress are the last to lose their leaves; i. e. , men are
not known save in times of adversity. -CONFUCIAN AN. , Tsze
Han (ch. xxvii. ).
By nature men are nearly alike; by practice they get to be
wide apart. -CONFUCIAN AN. , Yang Ho (ch. ii. ).
## p. 3648 (#636) ###########################################
3648
THE LITERATURE OF CHINA
All are good at first, but few prove themselves to be so at
the last. SHE KING, ii. , Major Odes, the Tang.
-
In serving his parents a son may remonstrate with them, but
gently; when he sees that they do not incline to follow his
advice he shows an increased degree of reverence, but does not
abandon his purpose; and should they punish him he does not
allow himself to murmur. -CONFUCIAN AN. , Le Yin (ch. xviii. ).
The Great God has conferred on the inferior people a moral
sense, compliance with which would show their nature invariably
right. -SHOO KING, Announcement of T'ang (ch. ii. ).
Confucius said: "There are three things which the superior
man guards against. In youth when the physical powers are not
yet settled, he guards against lust. When he is strong and the
physical powers are full of vigor, he guards against quarrelsome-
ness. When he is old and the animal powers are decayed, he
guards against covetousness. "-CONFUCIAN AN. , Ke She (ch. vii. ).
-
He who stops short where stopping short is not allowable, will
stop short in everything. He who behaves shabbily to those
whom he ought to treat well, will behave shabbily to all. -MEN-
CIUS, Tsin Sin (pt. i. , ch. xliv. ).
Men are partial where they feel affection and love; partial
where they despise and dislike; partial where they stand in awe
and reverence; partial where they feel sorrow and compassion;
partial where they are arrogant and rude. Thus it is that there
are few men in the world who love and at the same time know
the bad qualities of the object of their love, or who hate and
yet know the excellences of the object of their hatred. - THE
GREAT LEARNING (ch. viii. ).
Heaven's plan in the production of mankind is this: that they
who are first informed should instruct those who are later in
being informed, and they who first apprehend principles should
instruct those who are slower to do so. I am one of Heaven's
people who first apprehended. I will take these principles and
instruct this people in them. - MENCIUS, Wan Chang (pt. i. , ch.
vii. ).
From The Proverbial Philosophy of Confucius': copyrighted 1895, by Forster
H. Jennings; G. P. Putnam's Sons, Publishers
## p. 3649 (#637) ###########################################
3649
RUFUS CHOATE
(1799-1859)
BY ALBERT STICKNEY
UFUS CHOATE, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of
advocates who have appeared at the English or American
bar, was one of the most remarkable products of what is
ordinarily considered hard, prosaic, matter-of-fact New England. He
was a man quite apart from the ordinary race of lawyers or New-
Englanders. He was as different from the typical New-Englander as
was Hawthorne or Emerson. He had the imagination of a poet; and
to his imagination, singular as it may seem,
was largely due his success in handling ques-
tions of fact before juries.
He was born of good old English stock,
in the southeastern part of the town of
Ipswich, in the county of Essex and State
of Massachusetts, on the first day of Octo-
ber, 1799.
His ancestors had lived in Essex
County from a very early date in its history
and had filled important public positions.
He was born and bred in sight of the sea,
and his love for it stayed with him through
life. One of his most eloquent addresses
was on The Romance of the Sea. ' And in
his last illness at Halifax, his keenest pleas-
ure was to watch the ships sailing in front of his windows. Drop-
ping into sleep on one occasion, a few days before his death, he
said to his attendant, "If a schooner or sloop goes by, don't disturb
me; but if there is a square-rigged vessel, wake me. "
Mr. Choate had the ordinary education then given in New Eng-
land to young men who had a love of learning. He began with the
district school; from there he went to the academy at Hampton,
New Hampshire; and later he entered Dartmouth College, where he
graduated the first scholar in his class, in 1819. It is hard to find
an accurate standard of comparison between the scholarship of that
period and that of the present. No doubt, in our New England
colleges of to-day there is a larger number of young men who have
a considerable store of knowledge on many subjects of classical
learning. But it is very doubtful if the graduates of Harvard and
RUFUS CHOATE
VI-229
## p. 3650 (#638) ###########################################
3650
RUFUS CHOATE
Yale of to-day are able to read the standard classic authors at the
day of their graduation, with the ease and accuracy of Mr. Choate
at the end of his active professional career in the year 1859. His
continued devotion to the classics is shown by the following extract
from his journal in the year 1844, while he was a member of
Congress:-
"1. Some professional work must be done every day.
Recent
experiences suggest that I ought to be more familiar with evidence and
Cowen's Phillips; therefore, daily for half an hour, I will thumb conscien-
tiously. When I come home again, in the intervals of actual employment, my
recent methods of reading, accompanying the reports with the composition of
arguments upon the points adjudged, may be properly resumed.
"2. In my Greek, Latin, and French readings — Odyssey, Thucydides,
Tacitus, Juvenal, and some French orator or critic-I need make no change.
So, too, Milton, Johnson, Burke- semper in manu-ut mos est.
To my
Greek I ought to add a page a day of Crosby's Grammar, and the practice of
parsing every word in my few lines of Homer. On Sunday, the Greek Testa-
ment, and Septuagint, and French. This, and the oration of the Crown,
which I will completely master, translate, annotate, and commit, will be
enough in this kind. If not, I will add a translation of a sentence or two
from Tacitus. »
A similar extract from his journal under the date of December
15th, 1844, reads:
"I begin a great work,- Thucydides, in Bloomfield's new edition,— with
the intention of understanding a difficult and learning something from an
instructive writer,- something for the more and more complicated, interior,
inter-State American politics.
"With Thucydides, I shall read Wachsmuth with historical references aud
verifications. Schomann on the Assemblies of the Athenians, especially, I am
to meditate, and master Danier's Horace, Ode 1, 11th to 14th line, translation
and notes, -a pocket edition to be always in pocket. "
Throughout his life Mr. Choate kept up his classical studies. Few
of the graduates of our leading colleges to-day carry from Com-
mencement a training which makes the study of the Greek and Latin
authors either easy or pleasant. Mr. Choate, like nearly every law-
yer who has ever distinguished himself at the English bar, was a
monument to the value of the study of the classics as a mere means
of training for the active practical work of a lawyer.
Mr. Choate studied law at Cambridge in the Harvard Law School.
Nearly a year he spent at Washington in the office of Mr. Wirt, then
Attorney-General of the United States. This was in 1821. There-
after he was admitted to the bar, in September, 1823. He opened his
office in Salem, but soon removed to Danvers, where he practiced for
four or five years.
## p. 3651 (#639) ###########################################
RUFUS CHOATE
3651
During these earliest years of his professional life he had the
fortune which many other brilliant men in his profession have expe-
rienced, that of waiting and hoping. During his first two or three
years, it is said, he was so despondent as to his chances of profes-
sional success that he seriously contemplated abandoning the law. In
time he got his opportunity to show the stuff of which he was made.
His first professional efforts were in petty cases before justices of
the peace.
Very soon however his great ability, with his untiring
industry and his intense devotion to any cause in his hands, brought
the reputation which he deserved, and reputation brought clients.
In 1828 he removed to Salem. The Essex bar was one of great
ability. Mr. Choate at once became a leader. Among his contem-
poraries at that bar was Caleb Cushing. Mr. Choate at first had
many criminal cases. In the year 1830 he was, with Mr. Webster,
one of the counsel for the prosecution in the celebrated White murder
case.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
In 1830 he was elected to Congress as a member of the House of
Representatives, at the age of thirty-one years. At once he laid out
a course of study which was to fit him for the duties of his public
life. An extract from it reads as follows:-
:-
«Nov. 4, 1830.
« Facienda ad munus nuper impositum.
"1. Pers. quals. [personal qualities], Memory, Daily Food, and Cowper
dum ambulo. Voice, Manner, Exercitationes diurnæ.
«2. Current politics in papers. 1. Cum Notulis, daily,- Geog. , &c. 2.
Annual Reg. , Past Intelligencers, &c.
"4. Civil History of U. States-in Pitkin and original sources.
5. Exam. of Pending Questions: Tariff, Pub. Lands, Indians, Nullifica-
tions.
❝6. Am. and Brit. Eloquence,- Writing, Practice. »
Then follow in his manuscript upwards of twenty pages of close
writing, consisting of memoranda and statements, drawn from a mul-
titude of sources, on the subjects laid down by him at the beginning
as the ones to be investigated.
In Congress he found himself in competition with many men of
marked ability. Among the members of Congress then from Massa-
chusetts were Mr. Webster in the Senate; and in the House, John
Quincy Adams, Edward Everett, Nathan Appleton, George N. Briggs,
and John Davis. In the Senate, from other States, were Peleg
Sprague from Maine, one of the ablest jurists this country has pro-
duced; Samuel Prentiss, Mr. Marcy, Mr. Dallas, Mr. Clayton, Mr.
Clay, and Mr. Benton. In the House were James M. Wayne, Mr.
McDuffie, Mr. Polk, Mr. Corwin, and Mr. Verplanck.
## p. 3652 (#640) ###########################################
3652
RUFUS CHOATE
Among men of this calibre Mr. Choate at once, with ease, took
rank as one of the first. He made but two speeches during the
session; but these gave him a position which he ever afterwards held
among the most eloquent and convincing speakers in public life.
In April 1833 Mr. Choate was re-elected to Congress. At this
session he made a speech on the removal of the public deposits by
President Jackson from the Bank of the United States. The follow-
ing incident shows his power as an orator:—
Benjamin Hardin was then a member from Kentucky, of the
House of Representatives; and was himself intending to speak on
the same side of the question with Mr. Choate. In such cases, Mr.
Hardin's rule was to listen to no other speaker before speaking him-
self. Consequently when Mr. Choate began speaking, Mr. Hardin
started to leave the House. He waited however for a moment to
listen to a few sentences from Mr. Choate, and with this result, as
told in his own words:-"The member from Massachusetts rose to
speak, and in accordance with my custom I took my hat to leave,
lingering a moment just to notice the tone of his voice and the
manner of his speech. But that moment was fatal to my resolution.
I became charmed by the music of his voice, and was captivated by
the power of his eloquence, and found myself wholly unable to
move until the last word of his beautiful speech had been uttered. "
men.
At the close of this session Mr. Choate resigned his seat in Con-
gress and went to Boston, there to follow the practice of his profes-
sion. At the Boston bar he met a remarkably brilliant group of
There were Jeremiah Mason, whom Mr. Webster is said to
have considered the strongest man that he ever met in any legal
contest; Franklin Dexter; Chief Justice Shaw (then at the bar); Judges
Wilde, Hoar, and Thomas, afterwards of the Massachusetts Supreme
Court; Mr. Fletcher, Judge Benjamin R. Curtis, Sidney Bartlett.
Richard H. Dana, William D. Sohier, Henry W. Paine, Edward D.
Sohier, with others whose names are now almost forgotten. These
men formed a bar the like of which has seldom if ever been assem-
bled in any one jurisdiction. Here too Mr. Choate at once came to
the front. With every talent which could make a man a great advo-
cate, with a marvelous memory, a keen logical intellect, a sound
legal judgment, he had now acquired a large professional experience
and a very complete professional training. As has been seen, he had
a thorough classical training,- that is, of the kind best fitted to his
needs. His professional studies before beginning his professional
practice had been the best then attainable; very possibly, for him,
they were quite as good as can be had at any of the law schools of
to-day. His range of reading and information was extremely wide.
He had had several years of experience at Washington in Congress.
-
## p. 3653 (#641) ###########################################
RUFUS CHOATE
3653
And ever since leaving the law school his mere professional studies
had been most severe. It is hard to see how any man could be
better equipped for professional practice than Mr. Choate was at this
time.
His success at the Boston bar was phenomenal. He was in a con-
test with giants. Mr. Webster alone could be deemed to dispute
with Mr. Choate the place of supremacy. The general verdict has
been that for pure intellectual power Mr. Webster was the superior.
But it may well be doubted whether as an all-round advocate Mr.
Choate did not carry off the palm. The common idea of Mr. Choate
has been that his marvelous eloquence was his great source of
strength and success in his forensic contests. This is an error.
Eloquent he undoubtedly was; few men have ever been more so.
But unless in frontier communities, eloquence alone has never com-
manded great success at the bar-if indeed it has ever existed-
without strong logical power and sound judgment. The power of
convincing intelligent men always depends largely and mainly on
soundness of judgment in the selection of positions. Especially is this
so in the profession of the law. There have been, no doubt, many
instances where men of eloquence have captivated juries by appeals
to passion or prejudice. But in the vast majority of cases, success
as an advocate cannot be had without sound judgment in the selec
tion of positions, coupled with the power of clear logical statement.
Mr. Choate was no exception to this rule. Mr. Henry W. Paine, one
of the leaders of the Boston bar in Mr. Choate's time,- himself one
of the most logical of men,- once said that he did not care to hear
Mr. Choate address a jury, but to hear him argue a bill of exceptions
before the full bench of the Supreme Court was one of the greatest
intellectual treats. With the ordinary twelve men in a jury-box Mr.
Choate was a wizard. His knowledge of human nature, his wide and
deep sympathies, his imagination, his power of statement, with his
rich musical voice and his wonderful fascination of manner, made
him a charmer of men and a master in the great art of winning
verdicts. So far as the writer is able to form an opinion, there has
never been at the English or American bar a man who has been his
equal in his sway over juries. Comparisons are often condemned, but
they are at times useful. Comparing Mr. Choate with Mr. Webster,
it must be conceded that Mr. Webster might at times carry a jury
against Mr. Choate by his force of intellect and the tremendous
power of his personal presence. Mr. O'Conor once said that he did
not consider Mr. Webster an eloquent man. "Mr. Webster," he said,
<< was an intellectual giant. But he never impressed me as being an
eloquent man. " The general judgment is that Mr. Webster had
eloquence of a very high order. But Mr. Choate was a magician.
## p. 3654 (#642) ###########################################
3654
RUFUS CHOATE
With any opponent of his time except Mr. Webster, he was irresistible
before juries. Mr. Justice Catron of the United States Court is
reported to have said of Mr. Choate, "I have heard the most eminent
advocates, but he surpasses them all. " His success came from a
rare combination of eloquence, sound logical judgment, and great
powers of personal fascination.
In another respect the common opinion of Mr. Choate must be
corrected. His great powers of persuasion and conviction undoubtedly
gave him some victories which were not deserved by the mere merits
of his cases. From this fact there went abroad the impression that
he was a man without principle, and that his ethical standards were
not high in his selection and conduct of cases. This impression is
quite contrary to the judgment of the competent. The impression
was due largely to his success in the celebrated defense of Tirrell.
Tirrell was indicted for the murder of a woman named Bickford, with
whom Tirrell had long associated, who was found dead in a house of
ill-repute. At about the hour when the woman lost her life, either
by her own hand or by that of Tirrell, the house caught fire. The
cause of the fire was not proved. Tirrell had been in her company
the preceding evening, and articles of clothing belonging to him.
were found in the morning in her room. Many circumstances seemed
to indicate that the woman had been killed by Tirrell. He was also
indicted for arson in setting fire to the house. In addition to other
facts proved by the defense, it was shown by reputable witnesses
that Tirrell had from his youth been subject to somnambulism; and
one of the positions taken by Mr. Choate for the defense was that
the killing, if done by Tirrell at all, was done by him while uncon-
scious, in a condition of somnambulism. Tirrell was tried under
both indictments and was acquitted on both. The indictment for
murder was tried before Justices Wilde, Dewey, and Hubbard. The
indictment for arson was tried before Chief Justice Shaw and Justices
Wilde and Dewey. The foreman of the jury stated that the defense
of somnambulism received no weight in the deliberations of the jury.
The judgment of the profession has been that the verdicts were the
only ones which could properly have been rendered on the evidence.
In the arson case the charge to the jury was by Chief Justice Shaw,
and was strongly in favor of the defense. No doubt the defense was
extremely able and ingenious. But the criticisms against Mr. Choate
for his conduct of those cases, in the opinion of those members of
the profession best qualified to judge, have been held to be without
good foundation. Lawyers—that is, reputable ones-do not manu-
facture evidence, nor are they the witnesses who testify to facts.
The severe tests of cross-examination usually elicit the truth. No
one ever charged Mr. Choate with manufacturing evidence.
And no
## p. 3655 (#643) ###########################################
RUFUS CHOATE
3655
lawyer of good judgment, so far as the writer is aware, has ever
charged him with practices which were not in keeping with the very
highest professional standards.
In the space here allotted, any attempt to give an adequate idea
of Mr. Choate's professional and public work is quite out of the
question. In addition to the conduct of an unusually large profes-
sional practice he did a large amount of literary work, mainly in the
delivery of lectures, which at that time in New England were almost
a part of the public system of education. Throughout his life he
took an active part in politics. He attended the Whig convention at
Baltimore in 1852, where General Scott received his nomination for
the Presidency, and where Mr. Choate made one of the most elo-
quent speeches of his life in his effort to secure the nomination for
Mr. Webster.
Mr. Choate finally killed himself by overwork. Though a man of
great physical strength and remarkable vitality, no constitution could
stand the strain of his intense labors in the different lines of law,
literature, and politics. His magnificent physique finally broke down.
He died on July 13th, 1859, being not quite sixty years. His death
was an important public event. In the public press, at many public
meetings throughout the country, and by public men of the highest
distinction, his death was treated as a public misfortune.
In his day
he rendered distinguished public services. He had the capacities
and the interests which fitted him to be a great statesman. Had
it not been for our system of short terms, and rotation in office,
Mr. Choate would probably have remained in public life from the
time of his entry into Congress, would have been a most valuable
public servant, and would have left a great reputatio as a states-
man. As it was, he left, so far as now appears, only the ephemeral
reputation of a great advocate.
This scanty sketch can best be closed by a quotation from the
address of Richard H. Dana at the meeting of the Boston bar held
just after Mr.
Of ten thousand evils, lewdness is the head.
Of one hundred virtues, filial piety is the first.
CONFUCIAN PROVERB.
There are three thousand offenses against which the five
punishments are directed, and there is not one of them greater
than being unfilial. - THE HSIAO KING, The Five Punishments.
Benevolence is man's mind and righteousness is man's path.
How lamentable is it to neglect the path and not pursue it,
to lose the mind and not know to seek it again. — MENCIUs, Kaou
Tsze (pt. i. , ch. xi. ).
Tsze Kung asked, saying, "What do you say of a man who
is loved by all the people of his village? " The Master replied,
"We may not for that accord our approval of him. " "And what
do you say of him who is hated by all the people of his vil-
lage? " The Master said, "We may not for that conclude that
he is bad. It is better than either of these cases that the good
in the village love him and the bad hate him. "- CONFUCIAN
AN. , Tsze Loo (ch. xxiv. ).
Men must be decided on what they will not do, and then
they are able to act with vigor in which they ought. -Mencius,
Le Low (pt. ii. , ch. viii. ).
Learn as if you could not reach your object and were always
fearing also lest you should lose it. -CONFUCIAN AN. , T'ae Pih
(ch. xvii. ).
King Wan looked on the people as he would on a man who
was wounded, and he looked toward the right path as if he
could not see it. -MENCIUS, Le Low (pt. ii. , ch. xx. ).
To nourish the heart there is nothing better than to make
the desires few. -MENCIUS, Tsin Sin (ch. xxxv. ).
When Heaven is about to confer a great office on any man,
it first exercises his mind with suffering, and his sinews and
## p. 3647 (#635) ###########################################
THE LITERATURE OF CHINA
3647
bones with toil. It exposes his body to hunger, and subjects
him to extreme poverty. It confounds his undertakings. By all
these methods it stimulates his mind, hardens his nature, and
supplies his incompetencies. -MENCIUS, Kaou Tsze (pt. ii. ch. xv. ).
You should ever stand in awe of the punishment of Heaven.
SHOO KING, ii. ; Prince of Leu on Punishments.
Great Heaven is intelligent and is with you in all your
doings. Great Heaven is clear-seeing, and is with you in all
your wanderings and indulgences. -SHE KING, ii. , Major Odes,
the Pan.
Ke Loo asked about serving the spirits of the dead. The
Master said, << While you are not able to serve men, how can you
serve their spirits? " Ke Loo added, "I venture to ask about
death. " He was answered, "While you do not know life, how
can you know about death? - CONFUCIAN AN. , Seen Tsin (ch.
xi. ).
-
For all affairs let there be adequate preparation. With prep-
aration there will be no calamities. -SHOO KING, Charge of Yue
(ch. i. ).
As to what the superior man would feel to be a calamity,
there is no such thing. He does nothing which is not according
to propriety. If there should befall him one morning's calamity,
the superior man does not account it a calamity. —MENCIUS, Le
Low (pt. ii. , ch. xxviii. ).
God is with you, have no doubts in your heart. -SHE KING,
Decade of King Wan II.
Beware. What proceeds from you will return to you again. -
MENCIUS, King Hwuy (pt. ii. , ch. xii. ).
Show reverence for the weak. - SHO0 KING, Timber of the
Tsze Tree (ch. iii. ).
When the year becomes cold, then we know how the pine
and the cypress are the last to lose their leaves; i. e. , men are
not known save in times of adversity. -CONFUCIAN AN. , Tsze
Han (ch. xxvii. ).
By nature men are nearly alike; by practice they get to be
wide apart. -CONFUCIAN AN. , Yang Ho (ch. ii. ).
## p. 3648 (#636) ###########################################
3648
THE LITERATURE OF CHINA
All are good at first, but few prove themselves to be so at
the last. SHE KING, ii. , Major Odes, the Tang.
-
In serving his parents a son may remonstrate with them, but
gently; when he sees that they do not incline to follow his
advice he shows an increased degree of reverence, but does not
abandon his purpose; and should they punish him he does not
allow himself to murmur. -CONFUCIAN AN. , Le Yin (ch. xviii. ).
The Great God has conferred on the inferior people a moral
sense, compliance with which would show their nature invariably
right. -SHOO KING, Announcement of T'ang (ch. ii. ).
Confucius said: "There are three things which the superior
man guards against. In youth when the physical powers are not
yet settled, he guards against lust. When he is strong and the
physical powers are full of vigor, he guards against quarrelsome-
ness. When he is old and the animal powers are decayed, he
guards against covetousness. "-CONFUCIAN AN. , Ke She (ch. vii. ).
-
He who stops short where stopping short is not allowable, will
stop short in everything. He who behaves shabbily to those
whom he ought to treat well, will behave shabbily to all. -MEN-
CIUS, Tsin Sin (pt. i. , ch. xliv. ).
Men are partial where they feel affection and love; partial
where they despise and dislike; partial where they stand in awe
and reverence; partial where they feel sorrow and compassion;
partial where they are arrogant and rude. Thus it is that there
are few men in the world who love and at the same time know
the bad qualities of the object of their love, or who hate and
yet know the excellences of the object of their hatred. - THE
GREAT LEARNING (ch. viii. ).
Heaven's plan in the production of mankind is this: that they
who are first informed should instruct those who are later in
being informed, and they who first apprehend principles should
instruct those who are slower to do so. I am one of Heaven's
people who first apprehended. I will take these principles and
instruct this people in them. - MENCIUS, Wan Chang (pt. i. , ch.
vii. ).
From The Proverbial Philosophy of Confucius': copyrighted 1895, by Forster
H. Jennings; G. P. Putnam's Sons, Publishers
## p. 3649 (#637) ###########################################
3649
RUFUS CHOATE
(1799-1859)
BY ALBERT STICKNEY
UFUS CHOATE, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of
advocates who have appeared at the English or American
bar, was one of the most remarkable products of what is
ordinarily considered hard, prosaic, matter-of-fact New England. He
was a man quite apart from the ordinary race of lawyers or New-
Englanders. He was as different from the typical New-Englander as
was Hawthorne or Emerson. He had the imagination of a poet; and
to his imagination, singular as it may seem,
was largely due his success in handling ques-
tions of fact before juries.
He was born of good old English stock,
in the southeastern part of the town of
Ipswich, in the county of Essex and State
of Massachusetts, on the first day of Octo-
ber, 1799.
His ancestors had lived in Essex
County from a very early date in its history
and had filled important public positions.
He was born and bred in sight of the sea,
and his love for it stayed with him through
life. One of his most eloquent addresses
was on The Romance of the Sea. ' And in
his last illness at Halifax, his keenest pleas-
ure was to watch the ships sailing in front of his windows. Drop-
ping into sleep on one occasion, a few days before his death, he
said to his attendant, "If a schooner or sloop goes by, don't disturb
me; but if there is a square-rigged vessel, wake me. "
Mr. Choate had the ordinary education then given in New Eng-
land to young men who had a love of learning. He began with the
district school; from there he went to the academy at Hampton,
New Hampshire; and later he entered Dartmouth College, where he
graduated the first scholar in his class, in 1819. It is hard to find
an accurate standard of comparison between the scholarship of that
period and that of the present. No doubt, in our New England
colleges of to-day there is a larger number of young men who have
a considerable store of knowledge on many subjects of classical
learning. But it is very doubtful if the graduates of Harvard and
RUFUS CHOATE
VI-229
## p. 3650 (#638) ###########################################
3650
RUFUS CHOATE
Yale of to-day are able to read the standard classic authors at the
day of their graduation, with the ease and accuracy of Mr. Choate
at the end of his active professional career in the year 1859. His
continued devotion to the classics is shown by the following extract
from his journal in the year 1844, while he was a member of
Congress:-
"1. Some professional work must be done every day.
Recent
experiences suggest that I ought to be more familiar with evidence and
Cowen's Phillips; therefore, daily for half an hour, I will thumb conscien-
tiously. When I come home again, in the intervals of actual employment, my
recent methods of reading, accompanying the reports with the composition of
arguments upon the points adjudged, may be properly resumed.
"2. In my Greek, Latin, and French readings — Odyssey, Thucydides,
Tacitus, Juvenal, and some French orator or critic-I need make no change.
So, too, Milton, Johnson, Burke- semper in manu-ut mos est.
To my
Greek I ought to add a page a day of Crosby's Grammar, and the practice of
parsing every word in my few lines of Homer. On Sunday, the Greek Testa-
ment, and Septuagint, and French. This, and the oration of the Crown,
which I will completely master, translate, annotate, and commit, will be
enough in this kind. If not, I will add a translation of a sentence or two
from Tacitus. »
A similar extract from his journal under the date of December
15th, 1844, reads:
"I begin a great work,- Thucydides, in Bloomfield's new edition,— with
the intention of understanding a difficult and learning something from an
instructive writer,- something for the more and more complicated, interior,
inter-State American politics.
"With Thucydides, I shall read Wachsmuth with historical references aud
verifications. Schomann on the Assemblies of the Athenians, especially, I am
to meditate, and master Danier's Horace, Ode 1, 11th to 14th line, translation
and notes, -a pocket edition to be always in pocket. "
Throughout his life Mr. Choate kept up his classical studies. Few
of the graduates of our leading colleges to-day carry from Com-
mencement a training which makes the study of the Greek and Latin
authors either easy or pleasant. Mr. Choate, like nearly every law-
yer who has ever distinguished himself at the English bar, was a
monument to the value of the study of the classics as a mere means
of training for the active practical work of a lawyer.
Mr. Choate studied law at Cambridge in the Harvard Law School.
Nearly a year he spent at Washington in the office of Mr. Wirt, then
Attorney-General of the United States. This was in 1821. There-
after he was admitted to the bar, in September, 1823. He opened his
office in Salem, but soon removed to Danvers, where he practiced for
four or five years.
## p. 3651 (#639) ###########################################
RUFUS CHOATE
3651
During these earliest years of his professional life he had the
fortune which many other brilliant men in his profession have expe-
rienced, that of waiting and hoping. During his first two or three
years, it is said, he was so despondent as to his chances of profes-
sional success that he seriously contemplated abandoning the law. In
time he got his opportunity to show the stuff of which he was made.
His first professional efforts were in petty cases before justices of
the peace.
Very soon however his great ability, with his untiring
industry and his intense devotion to any cause in his hands, brought
the reputation which he deserved, and reputation brought clients.
In 1828 he removed to Salem. The Essex bar was one of great
ability. Mr. Choate at once became a leader. Among his contem-
poraries at that bar was Caleb Cushing. Mr. Choate at first had
many criminal cases. In the year 1830 he was, with Mr. Webster,
one of the counsel for the prosecution in the celebrated White murder
case.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
In 1830 he was elected to Congress as a member of the House of
Representatives, at the age of thirty-one years. At once he laid out
a course of study which was to fit him for the duties of his public
life. An extract from it reads as follows:-
:-
«Nov. 4, 1830.
« Facienda ad munus nuper impositum.
"1. Pers. quals. [personal qualities], Memory, Daily Food, and Cowper
dum ambulo. Voice, Manner, Exercitationes diurnæ.
«2. Current politics in papers. 1. Cum Notulis, daily,- Geog. , &c. 2.
Annual Reg. , Past Intelligencers, &c.
"4. Civil History of U. States-in Pitkin and original sources.
5. Exam. of Pending Questions: Tariff, Pub. Lands, Indians, Nullifica-
tions.
❝6. Am. and Brit. Eloquence,- Writing, Practice. »
Then follow in his manuscript upwards of twenty pages of close
writing, consisting of memoranda and statements, drawn from a mul-
titude of sources, on the subjects laid down by him at the beginning
as the ones to be investigated.
In Congress he found himself in competition with many men of
marked ability. Among the members of Congress then from Massa-
chusetts were Mr. Webster in the Senate; and in the House, John
Quincy Adams, Edward Everett, Nathan Appleton, George N. Briggs,
and John Davis. In the Senate, from other States, were Peleg
Sprague from Maine, one of the ablest jurists this country has pro-
duced; Samuel Prentiss, Mr. Marcy, Mr. Dallas, Mr. Clayton, Mr.
Clay, and Mr. Benton. In the House were James M. Wayne, Mr.
McDuffie, Mr. Polk, Mr. Corwin, and Mr. Verplanck.
## p. 3652 (#640) ###########################################
3652
RUFUS CHOATE
Among men of this calibre Mr. Choate at once, with ease, took
rank as one of the first. He made but two speeches during the
session; but these gave him a position which he ever afterwards held
among the most eloquent and convincing speakers in public life.
In April 1833 Mr. Choate was re-elected to Congress. At this
session he made a speech on the removal of the public deposits by
President Jackson from the Bank of the United States. The follow-
ing incident shows his power as an orator:—
Benjamin Hardin was then a member from Kentucky, of the
House of Representatives; and was himself intending to speak on
the same side of the question with Mr. Choate. In such cases, Mr.
Hardin's rule was to listen to no other speaker before speaking him-
self. Consequently when Mr. Choate began speaking, Mr. Hardin
started to leave the House. He waited however for a moment to
listen to a few sentences from Mr. Choate, and with this result, as
told in his own words:-"The member from Massachusetts rose to
speak, and in accordance with my custom I took my hat to leave,
lingering a moment just to notice the tone of his voice and the
manner of his speech. But that moment was fatal to my resolution.
I became charmed by the music of his voice, and was captivated by
the power of his eloquence, and found myself wholly unable to
move until the last word of his beautiful speech had been uttered. "
men.
At the close of this session Mr. Choate resigned his seat in Con-
gress and went to Boston, there to follow the practice of his profes-
sion. At the Boston bar he met a remarkably brilliant group of
There were Jeremiah Mason, whom Mr. Webster is said to
have considered the strongest man that he ever met in any legal
contest; Franklin Dexter; Chief Justice Shaw (then at the bar); Judges
Wilde, Hoar, and Thomas, afterwards of the Massachusetts Supreme
Court; Mr. Fletcher, Judge Benjamin R. Curtis, Sidney Bartlett.
Richard H. Dana, William D. Sohier, Henry W. Paine, Edward D.
Sohier, with others whose names are now almost forgotten. These
men formed a bar the like of which has seldom if ever been assem-
bled in any one jurisdiction. Here too Mr. Choate at once came to
the front. With every talent which could make a man a great advo-
cate, with a marvelous memory, a keen logical intellect, a sound
legal judgment, he had now acquired a large professional experience
and a very complete professional training. As has been seen, he had
a thorough classical training,- that is, of the kind best fitted to his
needs. His professional studies before beginning his professional
practice had been the best then attainable; very possibly, for him,
they were quite as good as can be had at any of the law schools of
to-day. His range of reading and information was extremely wide.
He had had several years of experience at Washington in Congress.
-
## p. 3653 (#641) ###########################################
RUFUS CHOATE
3653
And ever since leaving the law school his mere professional studies
had been most severe. It is hard to see how any man could be
better equipped for professional practice than Mr. Choate was at this
time.
His success at the Boston bar was phenomenal. He was in a con-
test with giants. Mr. Webster alone could be deemed to dispute
with Mr. Choate the place of supremacy. The general verdict has
been that for pure intellectual power Mr. Webster was the superior.
But it may well be doubted whether as an all-round advocate Mr.
Choate did not carry off the palm. The common idea of Mr. Choate
has been that his marvelous eloquence was his great source of
strength and success in his forensic contests. This is an error.
Eloquent he undoubtedly was; few men have ever been more so.
But unless in frontier communities, eloquence alone has never com-
manded great success at the bar-if indeed it has ever existed-
without strong logical power and sound judgment. The power of
convincing intelligent men always depends largely and mainly on
soundness of judgment in the selection of positions. Especially is this
so in the profession of the law. There have been, no doubt, many
instances where men of eloquence have captivated juries by appeals
to passion or prejudice. But in the vast majority of cases, success
as an advocate cannot be had without sound judgment in the selec
tion of positions, coupled with the power of clear logical statement.
Mr. Choate was no exception to this rule. Mr. Henry W. Paine, one
of the leaders of the Boston bar in Mr. Choate's time,- himself one
of the most logical of men,- once said that he did not care to hear
Mr. Choate address a jury, but to hear him argue a bill of exceptions
before the full bench of the Supreme Court was one of the greatest
intellectual treats. With the ordinary twelve men in a jury-box Mr.
Choate was a wizard. His knowledge of human nature, his wide and
deep sympathies, his imagination, his power of statement, with his
rich musical voice and his wonderful fascination of manner, made
him a charmer of men and a master in the great art of winning
verdicts. So far as the writer is able to form an opinion, there has
never been at the English or American bar a man who has been his
equal in his sway over juries. Comparisons are often condemned, but
they are at times useful. Comparing Mr. Choate with Mr. Webster,
it must be conceded that Mr. Webster might at times carry a jury
against Mr. Choate by his force of intellect and the tremendous
power of his personal presence. Mr. O'Conor once said that he did
not consider Mr. Webster an eloquent man. "Mr. Webster," he said,
<< was an intellectual giant. But he never impressed me as being an
eloquent man. " The general judgment is that Mr. Webster had
eloquence of a very high order. But Mr. Choate was a magician.
## p. 3654 (#642) ###########################################
3654
RUFUS CHOATE
With any opponent of his time except Mr. Webster, he was irresistible
before juries. Mr. Justice Catron of the United States Court is
reported to have said of Mr. Choate, "I have heard the most eminent
advocates, but he surpasses them all. " His success came from a
rare combination of eloquence, sound logical judgment, and great
powers of personal fascination.
In another respect the common opinion of Mr. Choate must be
corrected. His great powers of persuasion and conviction undoubtedly
gave him some victories which were not deserved by the mere merits
of his cases. From this fact there went abroad the impression that
he was a man without principle, and that his ethical standards were
not high in his selection and conduct of cases. This impression is
quite contrary to the judgment of the competent. The impression
was due largely to his success in the celebrated defense of Tirrell.
Tirrell was indicted for the murder of a woman named Bickford, with
whom Tirrell had long associated, who was found dead in a house of
ill-repute. At about the hour when the woman lost her life, either
by her own hand or by that of Tirrell, the house caught fire. The
cause of the fire was not proved. Tirrell had been in her company
the preceding evening, and articles of clothing belonging to him.
were found in the morning in her room. Many circumstances seemed
to indicate that the woman had been killed by Tirrell. He was also
indicted for arson in setting fire to the house. In addition to other
facts proved by the defense, it was shown by reputable witnesses
that Tirrell had from his youth been subject to somnambulism; and
one of the positions taken by Mr. Choate for the defense was that
the killing, if done by Tirrell at all, was done by him while uncon-
scious, in a condition of somnambulism. Tirrell was tried under
both indictments and was acquitted on both. The indictment for
murder was tried before Justices Wilde, Dewey, and Hubbard. The
indictment for arson was tried before Chief Justice Shaw and Justices
Wilde and Dewey. The foreman of the jury stated that the defense
of somnambulism received no weight in the deliberations of the jury.
The judgment of the profession has been that the verdicts were the
only ones which could properly have been rendered on the evidence.
In the arson case the charge to the jury was by Chief Justice Shaw,
and was strongly in favor of the defense. No doubt the defense was
extremely able and ingenious. But the criticisms against Mr. Choate
for his conduct of those cases, in the opinion of those members of
the profession best qualified to judge, have been held to be without
good foundation. Lawyers—that is, reputable ones-do not manu-
facture evidence, nor are they the witnesses who testify to facts.
The severe tests of cross-examination usually elicit the truth. No
one ever charged Mr. Choate with manufacturing evidence.
And no
## p. 3655 (#643) ###########################################
RUFUS CHOATE
3655
lawyer of good judgment, so far as the writer is aware, has ever
charged him with practices which were not in keeping with the very
highest professional standards.
In the space here allotted, any attempt to give an adequate idea
of Mr. Choate's professional and public work is quite out of the
question. In addition to the conduct of an unusually large profes-
sional practice he did a large amount of literary work, mainly in the
delivery of lectures, which at that time in New England were almost
a part of the public system of education. Throughout his life he
took an active part in politics. He attended the Whig convention at
Baltimore in 1852, where General Scott received his nomination for
the Presidency, and where Mr. Choate made one of the most elo-
quent speeches of his life in his effort to secure the nomination for
Mr. Webster.
Mr. Choate finally killed himself by overwork. Though a man of
great physical strength and remarkable vitality, no constitution could
stand the strain of his intense labors in the different lines of law,
literature, and politics. His magnificent physique finally broke down.
He died on July 13th, 1859, being not quite sixty years. His death
was an important public event. In the public press, at many public
meetings throughout the country, and by public men of the highest
distinction, his death was treated as a public misfortune.
In his day
he rendered distinguished public services. He had the capacities
and the interests which fitted him to be a great statesman. Had
it not been for our system of short terms, and rotation in office,
Mr. Choate would probably have remained in public life from the
time of his entry into Congress, would have been a most valuable
public servant, and would have left a great reputatio as a states-
man. As it was, he left, so far as now appears, only the ephemeral
reputation of a great advocate.
This scanty sketch can best be closed by a quotation from the
address of Richard H. Dana at the meeting of the Boston bar held
just after Mr.
