Born in Athens, Tennessee, June 20, 1824, received an academic education chiefly in Alabama, where he has resided since he was nine; was Presidential Elector in 1860 and 1876; a member of the Alabama Secession Convention, 1861; a private in the Confederacy, 1861, and Brigadier General, 1865; United States Senator since 1877.

He studied law with his brother-in-law, William P. Chilton, late Chief Justice of the State, and was admitted in Talladega, 1845. Almost co-incident with his entrance, and when scarcely of age, removals and promotions, judicial and political, drew upon him a very extensive and profitable business, in the management of which he was phenomenally successful. About 1856 he removed to Selma. His sympathetic eloquence gives him wonderful power over juries; but his tastes and inclinations have always inclined him toward the more complicated studies and toils of the chancery courts.

Among his more notable professional achieve

ments are the great Darrington will case (1856); the litigation growing out of the reconstruction and bankrupt laws that followed the conclusion of the war between the States; the contests at the capital by which Governor Lindsay and those elected with him in 1870 gained possession of the State offices; and the celebrated Selma, Rome and Belton Railroad suits, involving several millions, in the State and Federal courts for half a score of years. He first appeared in the United States Supreme Court in 1874 in a motion to prohibit Richard Busteed, United States District Judge in Alabama from exercising a manifestly illegal jurisdiction. His appointment to represent the Nation in the Behring Sea arbitration was a just tribute from political opponents to his eminent talents and patriotism, and his recent exhaustive report in the Hawaiian troubles, so judicial in its temper and substance as to entirely satisfy parties to neither side of the contention, while all commend it, will be a lasting monument to his wisdom and research.

The Number of Supreme Judges Not Prescribed in

Constitution.

"The number of the judges of the United States Supreme Court is not prescribed in the Constitution. Indeed, no reference is made to the question whether the court is to be composed of one or more judges, except in the sixth section of the third article, in which the Chief Justice is required to preside on the trial of impeachment of the President of the United States. If it had been intended that the Supreme Court might be composed of a single judge, the office of Chief Justice would not have been mentioned eo nomine."-"Partisanship in the Supreme Court,” 132 Vol., North American Review, p. 176 (1881), by John T. Morgan.

An Independent Judiciary.

"The independence of the judiciary, when coupled with the supremacy of their power, and the inviolability of their decrees in the field of jurisdiction assigned to them, seems almost to lift them to a height of authority that is too autocratic for harmonious companionship with the other departments of a republican government. But these high powers conferred upon the judiciary are of the very essence of free government, because they are necessary to give practical force and effect to the laws which they themselves establish. It behooves a free people that their judges should be above the 'influence of fear,

favor, affection, reward, or the hope thereof,' so that justice shall not be denied to the poor or humble man, or sold to the rich; and that it be not biased by the hope of favor, or the fear of giving offense to popular sentiment, or political power.”—Idem.

Cases Which Have Impaired the Court's Independence.

"The Dred Scott decision, the Legal Tender cases, the decision of the Electoral Commission, and the cases construing the election laws, and the rights to punish State judges for obeying constitutional State statutes, have in their turn, greatly impaired the confidence of many people in the independence of the judges of the Supreme Court."-Idem.

Congress Should Not Be Allowed to Increase or Diminish the Number of Judges.

Mr. Morgan argues in this article that Congress should be deprived of the power to increase above a fixed basis, in ratable proportion to the increase of our population, and the number of States in the Union, or diminish the number of judges of the Supreme Court at its pleasure.

CHARLES O'CONOR, NEW YORK.

(1804-1884.)

The leader of the New York bar for twenty-five years. Born in New York city, January 22, 1804, died at Nantucket, Massachusetts, May 12, 1884, aged eighty. He was the son of a shiftless Irish immigrant. Had but two months schooling. Admitted at twenty, he started for himself with but twenty-five dollars, having devoured every obtainable law book. By his indefatigable industry, he was soon pitted against the leaders of the New York bar. Some of his noted cases are, that of the slave Jack, in 1835; the will cases of Lispenard in 1843, of Parrish in 1862, and of Jumel (involving $6,000,000) in 1872; the Lemmon slave case in 1856; the defense of young Walworth for patricide; Armstrong v. United States; the great Forrest divorce suit, being opposed by John Van Buren, and other eminent counsel, in which he won for the plaintiff-wife, and acquired a national reputation; the Almaden Mining company's case, in which his argument was one of the greatest ever made in the United States Supreme Court; and the Goodyear