"This reason is not satisfactory to my mind. I think if a juror has made up a fixed opinion from a knowledge of the facts, although he has kept that opinion locked up in his own breast, he is not a competent juror; but if he has only fashioned in his mind an opinion from report, and has not given utterance to that opinion, it would not be sufficient to exclude him. An impartial juror is one whose mind is open to receive the impressions to be made by the testimony; one whose mind is poised upon the scales of indifference, and capable of weighing the testimony adduced on trial in opposition to floating rumors." Yet, with all due respect to the opinion of the learned judge, I must subjoin that it is difficult to perceive how any honest juror could be hindered in forming a true opinion from the true state of facts, by reason of a prior expression of an opinion "only fashioned in his mind" from mere rumor and report. The implication of this doctrine would assert that honesty must be sacrificed to a mere specious assumption, and the justice of conscience rendered subservient to a repugnant consistency. It would, in short, disqualify a very large majority of men for sitting upon an honest jury-a conclusion which if based on other grounds might not be far from the truth; for an evenhanded dispensation of justice under all circumstances is perhaps the most difficult task ever imposed upon frail humanity, and one in which none but the hand of Heaven is infallible. ALEXANDER MONTGOMERY. The subject of this sketch was born and reared at Natchez, in the Mississippi Territory. He possessed a brilliant intellect, and after having obtained the best education that the schools of his native town could afford, he applied himself to the study of law, which he prosecuted with such diligence and thoroughness that he became one of the most learned and profound lawyers at the bar of Mississippi. He had a peculiar aptitude for his profession: a keen sense of duty, a natural energy of temperament, and an inquisitive turn of mind that always descended into the very depths of investigation. He was not so much distinguished for any one predominant quality as for a copious blending of all such as enter into the character of a justly eminent lawyer. He devoted all his mental and physical powers to his profession, and consequently his knowledge of law was deep, and his success was the merited reward of his industry. His powers of perception were rapid and acute, his judgment sound and penetrating, and his reasoning powers were blended with a glowing imagination. To these intellectual traits Mr. Montgomery added the beauties of great moral worth. His integrity was superior to every influence, and his devotion to duty beyond the reach of all temptation. While his professional ethics were stern and dignified, his manners were softened by a complaisancy and polish that betrayed the well-bred gentleman, and kind and amiable man. In 1831 he was appointed to a seat upon the supreme bench of the State, but was superseded in 1832 by the provisions of the new Constitution, which introduced an elective judiciary. Judge Montgomery was an able jurist as well as an eminent advocate, and had he been retained upon the bench his career would doubtless have been as brilliant and exemplary as his success at the bar. On retiring from the bench Judge Montgomery resumed his practice of law in Natchez, in connection with his former partner, the distinguished Samuel S. Boyd, and the firm was among the most celebrated in the State. He continued his practice to a great age, and died a few years since at the home of a relative in Warren County. CHAPTER IV. THE BAR-EMINENT LAWYERS-1817-1832. ROBERT J. WALKER-WILLIAM SPENCE M. GRAYSON-ALEXANDER G. M'NUTT-WALTER LEAKE- EDWARD C. WILKINSON-EUGENE MAGEE-BUCKNER C. HARRIS- In treating of the characters of the distinguished gentlemen of the Mississippi bar whose eminence was based upon true merit ungarnished by the gloss of official significance, the author takes no shame to himself from the inadequacy of his ability to cope with the noble lessons and sublimity of his theme. To depict, in the style of aptitude and the language of felicity, those tran-. scendent qualities and traits of character which wrested the noblest achievements from the frowns of fate; the genius that hurled the gauntlet of triumph into the face of every vicissitude of fortune, and wrenched the meed of fame from the cruel clutches of adversity, would surely daunt the efforts of any pen undipped in the unction of eloquence and unhallowed by the benison of inspiration. But whatever may be his shortcomings, he yet cherishes the hope that, if he cannot scale the height of his subject, he can at least direct the eyes of admiration and the efforts of ambition to the dazzling gems that cluster on its brow. ROBERT J. WALKER. The subject of this sketch possessed par excellence one of the brightest intellects that adorn the history of the bar of Mississippi, and one that would have been an ornament to any bar, in any country, and in any age. Robert J. Walker was born in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, in July, 1801, emigrated to Mississippi in 1826, and joined his brother, who had preceded him, in the practice of law in the city of Natchez. Mr. Walker's education was thorough and comprehensive. He was well versed in most of the schools of science, and prior to his study of law had graduated at the celebrated medical school in Philadelphia. He was a fine linguist, thoroughly familiar with classical history, and had acquired no little proficiency in the polite literature of the French language. He soon achieved a high eminence at the bar of Mississippi, which he maintained with increasing lustre while he remained in the State. He was assiduous in the study of his profession, and became learned in all the branches of both the common and civil law a knowledge of the latter being necessitated by the conflict of tenures which so much perplexed our early courts. In 1828 he was appointed to report the decisions of the Supreme Court. This task he performed with fidelity and ability, and in 1832 presented the 1st Mississippi Reports, which embodied the decisions of the court from its establishment, in 1818, to that time. In this work he never failed to assail whatever he conceived to be an error of an important nature, and his reports are interspersed with many learned notes of this character. In 1836 he was elected to succeed Mr. Poindexter in the United States Senate, for a full term from the 4th of March, 1835, and in 1841 was re-elected for a full term, from the 4th of March of that year. During his career in the Senate he was characterized by the same fidelity, intellectual culture, and eloquence which had rendered him so eminent at the bar, and during that time became particularly distinguished by his arguments on the " Mississippi slavery question." He was a warm and strenuous advocate of the independence of Texas; and even after the fall of the Alamo and the butchery at Goliad, and when the Mexicans were apparently waging a war of extermination to all parts of that country, he did not for a moment despond or doubt the final result; and as early as the 22d of April, 1835, he called the attention of the Senate to the struggle, and suggested that whatever surplus funds were in the treasury should be reserved for the purpose of acquiring Texas from whatever might remain of the government de facto of that country, and declared that the people of the Mississippi Valley would never permit Texas to be again subjected to the dominion of Mexico. In 1845 Mr. Walker was appointed Secretary of the United States Treasury by President Polk, from which he retired in He was the author and the most able and efficient advoate of the revenue tariff of 1846. 1849. In 1857 he was appointed Governor of Kansas Territory by President Buchanan; but, having espoused the anti-slavery party, he resigned in 1858, in consequence of the adoption of the Lecompton Constitution, and its approval by the adminis tration. In 1861 Mr. Walker declared himself in favor of the preservation of the Union, and during the war resided in Europe as the financial agent of the Federal Government, whither he was sent chiefly to defeat the attempt of the Confederates to negotiate a foreign loan. This interception he effectuated by representing the Confederate President as being a citizen of Mississippi, and as having been a leader in its repudiation of the Union Bank bonds; and as these bonds were held by European capitalists, they were not slow to be instilled with the fear that a like result would attend any loan made to the Confederacy. This representation, while it was without foundation in truth, by thwarting the efforts of the Southern people to obtain money abroad, was no less destructive to their cause than the fatal recoil at Gettysburg. Indeed, it was the poisoned arrow from whose wound the Confederacy never recovered, and by which it was, in the beginning, shorn of half its strength. Mr. Walker was a lawyer of searching industry, and his success at the bar was due in a great measure to a careful and accurate preparation of his briefs. He left no leaf unturned that would enable him to sound his cases, and to anticipate and thwart his adversary, or strengthen the merits of his own side of the question; consequently he was never surprised or taken at a disadvantage. He was alert, discerning, and acute. His powers of perception could not easily be evaded, and his mem |