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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (April 19, 1901)
wWpT' TF" WSK5j)P!TWPfl,nW'll!BH1 !ffj r The Commoner. 10 PJIpWWWPWy'WPp! William JVL Evarts. The following is an abstract o a sketch of the lato Will am M. Evarts, written by Albert Shaw and pub lished in tho April number of tho Iteview of Itcvlowf. Tho mother of William M. Evarts was the daughter of Roger Sherman. A sterling patriot was Roger Sher man, a Massachusetts, handicrafts man in his young daytf, who became a man of education, an able lawyer, an honored citizen of New. Haven, treasuror of Yale Collego, mayor c. tho town, assistant govornor of tho state for a long period, a member of tho Continental Congress amitotic of the committee that drew up the Dec laration of Independence, an active member of the Constitutional Conven tion, a prominent figure in Congress till the day of his death, and, more than all those things, a man of re mralcablo traits of personal charac ter, in whom were blended the classi cal Roman virtues and the purest Christian faith. The daughter of Roger Sherman was qualified by in heritance and training to rear a re markable son. The father of William M. Evarts was a distinguished grad uate of Yale Collego who studied law, but subsequently left the bar to be come an editor in Boston, and a power in the moral and religious world. The paper which Jeremiah Evarts for some time edited in Boston, the Panoplist, was merged in the Missionary Hora'ld, which ho thenceforth conducted as the organ of what was the foremost mis sionary body of this country, tho fam ous American Board of Commissioners for foreign missions. For a long time Mr. Evarts served as one of the prin cipal executive officers of the Ameri . can board. His scholarship was am ple, and his sympathies wore broad. Several of the secretaries of the Amer ican boar,d have been "men of states manlike talents and of wide knowl edge of affairs at home and abroad. Jeremiah Evarts was a great citizen of this type. He died in 1831 at the ago of fifty, when his son William was thirteen years old. Joremiah Evarts had been precoc ious, and it is said of him that reading was his favorite amusement before ho was three years old. His son William was predisposed toward books and study, and entered the Boston Latin School at the ago of ten. I-Je entered Yale College at fifteen, it having been his father's wish that ho should bo sent to his own college at New Haven rather than to Cambridgo. This would naturally also have been his mother's wish, in view of the very great promi nonce of her family at New Haven, where she herself had grown up. Mr. Evarts graduatod in tho class of 1837. Ho was, of course, a good scholar, ranking well in his studies. He was not one of the three anen who took highest honors, but he came next, and was one of the three "high oration" men. The other two were Morrison R. Waite, afterward Chief Justlco of the United States, and Mr. Edwards Pier repont, who became United States Minister to England, and was emi nent in other ways. It has dome sign ificance that the three highest honor men of that class were afterward quite eclipsed by the three men who stood next below them. Evarts, Waite and Plerrepont, instead of concentrating wholly upon class work, were gaining a broader foundation for life. Thus Evarts while in collego was tho principal founder and editor of the Yale Literary Magazine, and gave sys tematic attention to acquiring? the art of public speech and debate, "and to writing of essays and the formation of a facile style. He had inherited the type of mind that in those days found its appropriate place at the bar and in public life. The son of Jeremiah Evarts and the grandson of Roger Sherman was so manifestly" destined to study law and to take a high rank that he was not hampered-by any of the disadvantages of uncertainty as to a career. He entered the Harvard Law School after his graduation at Yale, and left Harvard two years later when twenty-one years of age to take a place in tho office of an eminent New York lawyer, Mr. Daniel Lord, a Yale alumnus whom Evarts had met at New Haven. Two years later he was admitted to the New York bar, and two years later still, in 1843, at the age of twenty-five, he was married to a daughter of Governor Wardner of Vermont. His own father, Jeremiah Evarts, had been born in "Vermont, and. circumstances had. early attached him to the neighborhood of Windsor, on the Connecticut river'. With' his slight frame and his intense' and ard uous professional life, it is not unlike ly that the maintaining of his beauti ful homo at Windsor as a summer residence had not a little to do with the conservation of his forces to a great age. Mr. Evarts' advancement in public life was due in no sense to he prac tice of the arts of the politician. He was. even less the politician, if possi ble) than the late President' Harrison. Like this distinguished son of Ind iana, Mr. Evarts made his way by sheer force of profess'onal and intel lectual superiority. It was evident almost from the beginning of his ca reer that he was destined to become a great leader of the American bar. He had no occasion to use the smaller arts and devices of the legal profes sion, because he handled with such unerring skill the higher and greater means or success. He had the gift of incessant application, the habit of deep study, a grasp of first principles, the power of analysis, and a retentive memory that gave him ready use of a largo fund of classical, literary and historical knowledge and allusion, as woll as the lore of a technical and pro- fessional nature. All this equipment was made available by remarkable gifts of public speech and a flow of dry wit and quaint humor that never failed on any occasion. Mr. Evarts utterances were elaborate and com plex, but never either heavy or dull. If,, like certain machinery, they were intricate, there was system rather than confusion in it alii ;and every word or qualifying phras'o Wd Its use and meaning. Thus, iiiUi Evarts' .arguments and pubiic a&esses, quite as;; in ;hose of Mr. Gladstone, there was rare dignity and stateliness, and. no lack of lucidity. Such a style, how ever, serves better its primary pur posethat of impressing the listening audience than any subsequent pur pose of print. m Without knowing anything about the facts, one could have reasoned in fallibly to the conclusion that Evarts must have been a supporter and friend of William II. Seward. Mr. Seward's talents were of a kind that Mr. Evarts would naturally have appreciated. A great lawyer and scholar, a statesman of lofty ideals and bold imagination, the foremost figure in the republican party, and the leader of the anti-slavery forces in the United States Senate, Mr. Seward was worthy of the admira tion and support of the republican lawyers of New York. In the conven tion at Chicago that nominated Abra ham Lincoln, William M. Evarts led the New York delegation, worked faithfully for the nomination of Sew ard, and made the nominating speech. But the honorable duty fell to his lot of moving to make the nomination of Abraham Lincoln unanimous. Probably, however, the very greatest personal, service that William Maxwell Evarts rendered to the people of the United States was that which he per formed as principal counsel for Presi dent Johnson in the great impeach ment trial in 1868. Whatever policy Mr. Lincoln In his second term might have chosen to pursue in uealihg with, the south, after tne termination of the war, it is likely enough that he could have carried with him the public opin ion of the country and th support of Congress. But his assassination re sulted in elevating to the presidency an ill-qualified and stubborn man be tween whom the great' republican ma jority in Congress there was an ever widening breach. This reached its climax when Johnson summarily re moved Mr. Stanton frdra the office of secretary of war. Congress had prev iously passed- a tennre-of-office act, re quiring the consent df tho Senate i the dismissal of any such high official as a cabinet officer. The l ouse of Rep resentatives immediately . . .olved upon impeachment, and, as provided by the Constitution, the Senate pre pared to hear1 the charges under the presidency of Chief Justice Chase. Nearly all the members of the Senate were republican, ana the sentiment in favor of sustaining the charges was overwhelming. There followed the greatest impeachment trial in all his tory. Congress was impelled in its action against Johnson by sincere conviction, and its leaders were men of such unity and force of purpose as we havd not seen In Congress at any time since then. A two-thirds vote of the Senate was required to convict. This out come failed by a single vdte. It is reasonable to say that to Mr. Evarts was due a result that all Republicans have since learned to regard as most wise and fortunate. Andrew John son's behavior was unbecoming and vexatious, but he was not guilty of "high crimes;" and to have removed him from office would have been a RANIER GRAND HOTEL Seattle. "Washington European Plan. Ratos $1.00 and upward. ?25 rooms. 75 rooms with bath. Finost Cafe.in tho northwest, noted for tho peculiar oxcoHdnco of its Cuisino. RANIER GRAND HOTEL CO. , H. B. 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