THOMAS J. SEMMES, LOUISIANA.

(1824

•)

One of the leading living lawyers of the South. Born in Georgetown, D. C., December 16, 1824, of an old Maryland Catholic family; graduated at Georgetown College at eighteen, and at Harvard Law School under Story and Greenleaf at twenty-one; practiced in Washington till 1851; member of the Louisiana Legislature, 1855-8, serving two years as chairman of the judiciary committee; appointed by Buchanan United States Attorney for Louisiana, 1858; Attorney General of his State, 1859-61; elected to Confederate senate, 1861, serving on the committee of fif teen, which prepared the ordinance of secession. His property was confiscated, while in service, by the United States. He returned to New Orleans, 1865; was a member of the constitutional convention of 1879; Professor of Civil Law in the University of Lou isiana for several years, resigning, 1882, but in 1890 accepted the chair of Common, Equity and Constitutional Law in Tulane University of Louisiana, and still occupies that position. He was President of the

American Bar Association, 1886, and delivered an address before the World's Fair Law Congress, 1893.

To give a list of his leading cases would be to write the judicial history of Louisiana, not only in its own courts, but those in the United States courts. Among others are, the Gas, Water-works, Slaughter House, Lottery, City Railroad and State bond cases; the celebrated Gaines litigation; the contest of Louisiana in settlement of the Saloy estate, and in numerous cases involving the validity of different bonds issued by the City of New Orleans.

As a practitioner, he easily stands at the head of the Louisiana bar. In argument he is quiet, with pleasing voice of almost uniform pitch, and of calm and dignified demeanor. His command of language is surpassed only by his gift of ideas. It has been said that if every lawyer of the State were to give his views on the simplest proposition of law, Mr. Semmes could still say something new on the subject. To young lawyers he is a guide, a counselor and a friend. His knowledge of the civil law is unsurpassed, and as a chancery pleader he is equally effective.

JOHN SERGEANT, PENNSYLVANIA.

(1779-1852.)

For more than half a century one of the most honorable and learned members of his profession, and its acknowledged leader in Philadelphia. Born in Philadelphia, December 5, 1779; died there November 23, 1852, aged seventy-two. His father, Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant, was an eminent lawyer and a delegate to the Continental Congress. The son graduated at Princeton when sixteen, had a brief mercantile experience, studied law, together with Horace Binney, in the office of Jared Ingersoll, and was admitted at twenty. Two years later Jefferson appointed him Commissioner in Bankruptcy. He served several terms in the Legislature, and entered Congress in 1815, where he was active in securing the passage of the Missouri Compromise. In 1826 he was appointed one of two envoys to the abortive Panama Congress, and in 1830 was president of the State constitutional convention. He put forth a volume of "Select Speeches" in 1832, and the same year shared Clay's defeat, being a candidate with him for the Vice

Presidency. In 1841 he declined a mission to England, and after his great argument in the Girard will case, President Tyler offered a Supreme Court Justiceship, first to Sergeant and then to Binney. Each declined it, alleging he was over sixty, and requested that the place be offered to the other; but each wished the fact of his having been offered the position and his reason for declining it to be kept a secret. It was finally given to Mr. Justice Grier. Sergeant appeared with Wirt in the Cherokee Nation case to restrain the State of Georgia from forcing them to the Indian Territory, in violation of treaty stipulations. Mr. Sergeant's last public act was as arbitrator in a controversy between the Government and the State of New Jersey.

Says Horace Binney: "He stood pre-eminent in criminal law, and on more than one occasion rose to the highest degree of excellence in the class of Constitutional questions." He was quick in thought, great in grasp, skilful in argument and logical in conclusions.

Horace Binney on Sergeant.

"The range of Mr. Sergeant's mind was just as wide as the whole circle of his professional necessities. He knew the bearings of every part of the law, although he had not penetrated into every nook and corner of it. But he could draw his resources from every part with equal ease, when it was necessary. And it was often a matter of doubt in my own mind with what branch of the law he was most conversant. He had acquired an early training in criminal law, and in that he not only went before his contemporaries, but he stood on one side of them, walking a different line. He was, of course, generally accomplished. But if he had any predilection—and I think he had the discursiveness of his mind inclined him to such questions as would not fetter him by the claims of authority, but would suffer him to choose for himself the path in which his own powers could work freely. Upon more than one occasion he rose to the highest degree of excellence in the class of Constitutional questions. They were best suited to him. But he worked with ease and vigor in many fields.” -Horace Binney's remarks to the bar of Philadel phia, November, 1852.