WILLIAM PINKNEY, MARYLAND.

(1764-1822.)

Orator, lawyer, statesman, diplomatist. Called by Wirt, "The Maryland Lion." Born at Annapolis, Maryland, March 17, 1764, died in Washington, D. C., February 25, 1822, aged fifty-seven. His father's property was confiscated on account of his Toryism, but the son was loyal. His early education was imperfect. Chose medicine, but relinquished it for law. Read with Samuel Chase one of his three idealsDulany, Martin, Chase. Admitted at twenty-two. Member of the Maryland convention at twenty-four, which ratified the Federal Constitution; member of Legislature; Attorney General of Maryland, 1805; Minister to England, 1806; Attorney General of the United States, 1811, resigning, 1814, because compelled to live in Washington.

He was one of the most accomplished men of his age, and except John Randolph, of Roanoke, the best read in general literature. Was engaged in all the nisi prius cases in Maryland, in every important case in its Court of Appeals and in the United States Su

preme Court. During his journeys, he had his carriage fitted up with book-shelves and a select library, and briefed his cases while traveling. He never argued a cause until all its details were mastered. He spoke with vehemence, even ferocity-rushing from thought to thought, his eyes fiery, his nostrils distended, and his lips covered with froth; frequently sweeping his right arm along his side, his right foot advanced, and his body alternately thrown back, as if about to spring upon his adversary, big drops of sweat all the while coursing down his face. Choate pronounced him the most consummate master of an exuberant diction to whom he had ever listened. "The greatest legal reasoner I ever heard," said Marshall. "Led away the understanding," added Story. "Has enlarged my admiration of the capacity of the human mind," declared Rufus King.

He was elegant, refined, fastidious-changing his toilet twice a day; robust, vehement, overwhelming, and always well prepared. Of his oratory, Wirt said: "He wielded the club of Hercules adorned with flowers."

Constructive Treason.

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"Gracious God! In the nineteenth century to talk of constructive treason! Is it possible that in this favored land-this last asylum of liberty-blest with all that can render a nation happy at home and respectable abroad-this should be law? No. I stand up as a man to rescue my country from this reproach. [Judge Duvall, one of the judges before whom the argument was made, had decided that Hodges' delivery of prisoners to the enemy was treason. Mr. Pinkney appeared for the accused, Mr. Hodges.] I say there is no color for this slander upon our jurisprudence. Had I thought otherwise, should have asked for mercy, not for law. would have sent my client to the feet of the Presi dent, not have brought him, with bold defiance, to confront his accusers, and demand your verdict. He could have had a nolle prosequi. I confirmed him in his resolution not to ask it, by telling him that he was safe without it. Under these circumstances, I may claim some respect for my opinion. My opportunities for forming a judgment upon this subject, I am compelled to say, by the strange turn which this cause has taken, are superior to those of the Chief Justice. I say nothing of the knowledge which long study and extensive practice enabled me to bring to the consideration of the case. I rely upon this: my opinion has not been hastily formed since the commencement of this trial. It is the result of a deliberate examination of all the authorities, of a thorough investigation

of the law of treason in all its forms, made at leisure and under a deep sense of a fearful responsibility of my client. It depends upon me whether he should submit himself to your justice, or use with the Chief Magistrate the intercession of the grand jury, which could not have failed to have been successful. You are charged with his life and honor, because I assured him that the law was a pledge for the security of both. I declared to him that I would stake my own life upon the safety of his; and I declare to you now, that you have as much power to shed the blood of the advocate as to harm the client whom he defends. * opinion which the Chief Justice has just delivered is not, and I thank God for it, the law of the land." (In treason and libel, the jury are the judges of both the law and the fact). The jury, without hesitation, brought in a verdict of not guilty.-Extract from Pinkney's argument in the United States v. Hodges, 2 Wheeler's Cr. Cas., 477, in U. S. Circuit at Baltimore, 1815.

Immortality.

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"We shall meet again in purity and joy the friends who are every day falling around us."-Extract from a letter from London, 1809, to his sister-inlaw, Mrs. Ninian Pinkney, on the loss of a child.

False Reputation at the Bar.

"The bar is not the place to acquire or preserve a false or fraudulent reputation for talents."

Ambition as a Lawyer.

"I do not desire to live a moment after the standing I have acquired at the bar is lost, or even brought into doubt or question."

Committed Fine Passages.

"I never read a fine sentence in any author without committing it to memory."

Greatness.

"Greatness and humanity are the parents of conciliation; but stubbornness and obstinacy are the effects of causeless barbarity."-From speech in Maryland Legislature, when twenty-four, upon a law prohibiting the voluntary emancipation of slaves.

The Theory of Our Government.

Pinkney favored the admission of Missouri into the Union as a slave State in 1820, arguing that "the Constitution of the United States proceeds upon the truth of the doctrine laid down by Vattel that 'Nature has established a perfect equality of rights between the dependent nations,' and that 'whatever the quality of a free sovereign nation gives to one, it gives to another; that it takes the States as it finds them, free and sovereign alike by nature; that it receives from them portions of their power for the general good, and provides for the exercise of it by organized political bodies; that it diminishes the individual sovereignty of each, and transfers, what it substracts, to the