GENERAL RULES.

Law.

AMENDMENT TO RULE II.

THE last clause of the second rule of this court is amended so as to read as follows:

They shall respectively take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation: "I, do solemnly swear that I have never voluntarily borne arms against the United States since I have been a citizen thereof; that I have voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto; that I have neither sought, nor accepted, nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever under any authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States; that I have not yielded a voluntary support to any pretended government, authority, power, or constitution within the United States hostile or inimical thereto. And I do further swear (or affirm) that, to the best of my knowledge and ability, I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion.

"And I do further solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that I will demean myself as an attorney and counsellor of this court uprightly and according to law. So HELP ME GOD."

ORDER OF COURT.

Ordered, That all persons who have heretofore been admitted as attorneys and counsellors of the court may take and subscribe the oath or affirmation prescribed by second rule as amended, before the clerk of this court, or of any Circuit or District Court of the United States.

AMENDMENT TO RULE IX.

The third paragraph of the ninth rule of this court is amended so as to read as follows:

In all cases where the period of thirty days is mentioned in this rule, it shall be extended to sixty days in writs of error and appeals from California, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, New Mexico, and Utah.

AMENDMENT TO RULE XX.

The first paragraph of the twentieth rule of this court is amended so as to read as follows:

In all cases brought here on appeal, writ of error, or otherwise, the Court will receive printed arguments without regard to the number of the case on the docket, if the counsel on both sides shall choose so to submit the same within the first thirty days of the term; but twenty copies of the arguments, signed by attorneys or counsellors of this court, must be first filed; ten of these copies for the court, two for the reporter, three to be retained by the clerk, and the residue for counsel.

[These orders were promulgated March 10, 1865.]

AMENDMENT TO RULE XXI.

The sixth paragraph of the twenty-first rule of this court is amended so as to read as follows:

Twenty printed copies of the abstract points and authorities required by this rule shall be filed with the clerk by the plaintiff in error or appellant six days, and by the defendant in error or appellee three days before the case is called for argument.

[This order was promulgated February 9, 1865.]

MEMORANDA.

THE Honorable ROGER BROOKE TANEY, Esquire, of Maryland, Chief Justice of this Court, departed this life, in the 88th year of his age, on the evening of Wednesday, the 12th October, 1864, at his residence in the City of Washington, in vacation; having presided on this bench since the 15th March, 1836; a term of more than twenty-eight years.

On the opening of the Court at its present session, December 7, 1864, the Honorable Thomas Ewing, of Ohio, Chairman of a Committee of the Bar, and senior member attending, presented, with appropriate remarks, the proceedings of a meeting of that body, which had been held in the Capitol on the preceding day, and which, after a preamble, concluded with the following resolutions :

Resolved, That the members of this Bar and officers of this Court, deeply impressed by the great and good qualities and acquirements and illustrious life of the late Chief Justice ROGER BROOKE TANEY, deplore the decrce, inevitable at his advanced age, which has removed him from his place of usefulness, dignity, and honor here.

Resolved, That they will wear the usual badge of mourning during the

term.

Resolved, That the Chairman of this Committee move the Court, at its meeting to-morrow, to direct these proceedings to be entered on the minutes, and that a copy be transmitted to the family of the deceased Chief Justice, with the respectful assurance of the sincere sympathy of the Bar.

The resolutions having been read by Mr. Carlisle, of the District, mover of them in committee, the Honorable Mr. Justice WAYNE, Senior Associate of the Court, who had sat on this bench for a longer time than even the whole of the long term in which the late Chief Justice was here, and during absences of the deceased Chief Magistrate, in later times, incident to his. venerabie years, had presided with rare dignity and to universal. acceptance, replied:

"GENTLEMEN OF THE BAR: The Court receive with sensibility your resolutions commemorative of the life, the virtues, and the judicial eminence of our deceased friend and brother: we cherish his memory with affectionate recollections and with respectful veneration.

“Your tribute will be soothing to the hearts of his family, and with other notices of his death in the circuits, will be the memorial of a character which lawyers and judges may emulate with advantage.

"His life was honorable and useful. In early manhood it gave assurances that in both respects he would become distinguished. It disclosed the qualities and acquirements which were the foundation of his distinction. They were the anticipations of it.

"In a few years after his admission to the bar he was recognized to be a sound lawyer by the distinguished advocates of that day in the courts of Maryland, whose reputations were known in every part of the United States. His general demeanor, studious habits, and pure life, gave him the good-will and confidence of the people of the town and county in which he lived, and, without having been voluntarily a candidate, they elected him, at different times, their representative in places of trust and political interest, in which the whole State was concerned. In his discharge of them, he was marked to be one who could be relied upon in those public exigencies which it requires firm character and statesmanlike ability to manage and control successfully. In such public employments, and in the practice of his profession, it was admitted by his associates, and the able men who watched his course with interest and with expectation, that he had made himself familiar with the history of the law, in all its relations, for the organization of government for the preservation of human rights, and also with those principles which had, from the instincts of men as to right and wrong, or which had been arbitrarily made in ancient and later times, to rule the rights of property and the general conduct of persons in society in connection with their obligations to authority. He had read and reflected upon all that had been written concerning society and the control of it; also as to its actual condition, as made known by sacred and profane history, and the history of modern times. That course of reading and reflection familiarized him with the consideration of human rights, and strengthened his ability and disposition to maintain them. But he was no enthusiast. He thought that men had not been solely the victims of power, but of ircumstances, in all times, and in our day, before modern civilization had received the full impress of the principles and divine tendencies of Christianity, and when rulers and legislators forgot those obligations by permitting the violation of them for the advancement of State policy and trade. He thought that God had designed for men rights, whatever might be the condition of their humanity, which could not be taken from them by fraud, by violence, or by avarice, with impunity from God's chastisement. Under such convictions he gave freedom to the slaves he had inherited, aided them in their employments, and took care of them when they were in want. He often said that they had been grateful, and they had never caused him a moment's regret for what he had done.

"By temperament he was ardent. Its impulses, however, could only he