been most insistent that everybody must obey the law, and must yield to every other man his rights under the law."

Agreeably situated upon the bench in a great circuit, pleasantly dwelling upon and managing an almost baronial estate, knowing that he could never be so agreeably employed in the larger and higher duties, feeling to the full the responsibilities involved, and far from being an eager aspirant, he simply felt that no lawyer and judge, with a sense of duty and responsibility and a pardonable pride in doing well his part in life, could decline. His name had been mentioned before as one that might be presented. He said that he had the better and the pleasanter place, one that brought him more in contact with the people, the bar and the world, and where he was happier than he could be upon the supreme bench. When it came actually within reach, he said that he had no burning thirst for the place; but he added that no man with that bright goal in sight could fail to do what he ought to reach it; it would be a crime to himself, and to his duties, to fail to round out his profession, and his life, and his career. He was not unambitious, not unmindful of the high honor, not lacking at all in the quiet exultation of a calm and self-contained nature; but he lost no sleep, and spent no hours of yearning for it. He exhibited no elation, no satisfied vanity, when it was won. He seemed to be impressed almost solely by the grave responsibilities of the high station.

From the date of his appointment to the day of his death Judge Jackson had filled out but barely two years and six months upon the supreme bench. He died at his home, West Mead, near Nashville, on the eighth day of August, 1895. Within that brief space of time he had thoroughly established his reputation as one of the first judges upon that great bench. Lofty position, like obscurity, has its own peculiar isolation. It would be idle adulation of the great dead to say that his death stirred the mind and heart of the great masses like that of some hero of battle and carnage. It filled thoughtful minds and hearts with profound sorrow. It was the earthly end of a great career in the very hour of demonstration of its usefulness. In the press

and in meetings of the court and bar throughout the country solemn voice was given to universal regret and sorrow. The peo

ple of his own home and the surrounding country came in crowds to the last sad rites, the funeral services at the home of his brother, Gen. Wm. H. Jackson, Belle Mead, near Nashville, which were also attended by members of the supreme court and representative public men of the bar, the judiciary, and the political branch of the government, throughout the country.

It has been said of Judge Jackson that he leaned upon the bench towards the protection of property. So he did. The honest accumulations of the merchant, the farmer, and the capitalist were safe in his hands against all communistic assaults; but he guarded with equal hand the rights of the humble taxpayer against all efforts to escape the burdens of taxation. His last opinion showed how scrupulously he maintained the rights of the poor and humble, as others showed how he scorned and despised the assaults of demagogy upon the right of every man to accumulate and to enjoy his own. When the necessities of the country, justice in taxation, and every consideration of a public nature, called upon him to resolve a knot created by a court divided upon the income tax law, he went with a clear knowledge that he was going to his death. Notwithstanding the state of his health, no private consideration, no thought of himself, of family, or his earthly affairs, moved him. Duty called and he obeyed. In doing so he gave the country by far the most judicial, in tone and spirit, of the dissenting opinions. But one sentence of his clear, concise, conclusive, and masterly presentation of the issue is needed here where he said of the majority opinion:

"The practical operation of the decision is not only to disregard the great principles of equality in taxation, but the further principle that, in the imposition of taxes for the benefit of the government, the burdens should be imposed upon those having the most ability to bear them. This decision, in effect, works out a directly opposite result, in relieving the citizens having

the greater ability, while the burdens are made to fall most heavily and oppressively upon those having the least ability.”

In his dying moments, the hand of death then upon him, he reached out and foretold the policy which he believed must be adopted. He had unbounded courage, both moral and physical. He looked only to the law in deciding cases, and never to the consequences, regarding these as belonging to the legislative, and not to the judicial department. In that last opinion he believed that he was declaring the law and also that he was furnishing a suggestion for the restoration of the law, to be made after a brief taste of its pernicious overthrowal.

Judge Jackson was not what is called a learned lawyer. His mind was not stored with bits of antiquated learning. He had a thorough knowledge of the history of the law, of its principles, and of the political institutions of England and the United States. He had sought and stored away only the useful.

Mr. Richard Olney comprehensively said of him at a meeting held in memoriam at the supreme court rooms in Washington: "Doubtless many have been more familiar with black letter and doubtless many have surpassed him in knowledge to be drawn from the infinite stores of ancient and modern legal literature. On the other hand, few lawyers or judges have ever had a firmer grasp of the essential principles that underlie the administration of justice in English-speaking countries. This is especially manifest in such of his written opinions as deal with questions of constitutional law. . . . One whose knowledge of the principles of our form of government is instinctive and ingrained, and whose command of the subject is complete."

The following extracts from a letter of Mr. Justice Henry B. Brown are the opinions of one who knew him well upon the cir cuit and upon the supreme bench:

"His manner upon the bench was the perfection of judicial courtesy, and it is not too much to say that, in the nine years of our acquaintance, I have never heard him made the subject of criticism. His manly generosity needs no other

illustration than the fact that he was the first to propose my own elevation to the supreme bench, and he took an active and earnest personal interest in it, although it involved the promotion. of a judicial officer of inferior rank. His services on the supreme bench scarcely exceeded one full term, but when he left us he was recognized as the peer of any man upon the bench. His opinions were the result of the most conscientious study, were luminous in style, exhaustive in learning, and unanswerable in logic. Although his entire judicial career did not exceed eight years, his opinions are more frequently cited than perhaps those of any judge of similar length of service. Many important cases were argued before him, but he showed himself master of them all.”

While he was strongly inclined to the Hamiltonian view of this government, Judge Jackson was a thorough states rights advocate in all that concerned the fundamental theories of states rights. In a case determined by him upon demurrer, just before he was appointed to the supreme bench-United States v. Patrick et al., charged with murder of United States officialsthe question was not whether the United States could exercise, but solely whether they had exercised their powers in sections 5508 and 5509, U. S. R. S. Many Republicans, ignorant of constitutional law and of the questions involved, hailed the opinion as hostile to all states rights views, but the ultra states rights attorney for the defense admitted that congress had the clear right to exercise the powers claimed, and only contended that it had rot done so. Judge Jackson would have gone much further than any democrat, perhaps, in exercising powers clearly granted to congress in the constitution, or clearly implied by its terms, or heretofore exercised and historically established, but he stopped there. When an application was before him for the appointment of deputy marshals under the election laws, he said to the chief supervisor, the writer of these lines: "I am sorry that the supreme court has already determined this question, so that I am bound by the decision. I would unhesitat

ingly declare the law unconstitutional, and I believe the supreme court, upon a thorough investigation, would sustain my decision." This was the law that was repealed in 1895.

As a man, Judge Jackson was serious, modest, and unassuming, with a quiet, playful humor and a keen enjoyment of wit and humor in others. Dignified and reserved, he was not easily approached by strangers, and yet he was one of the gentlest and kindliest of men when approached. No man knew better

the value of reticence, and yet, in speaking of public men and affairs, he was bold and frank, giving his opinions with perfect freedom, without the slightest trace of the politician's caution. His perfect candor in this respect was the wonder of his friends. While uniformly courteous, he was exceedingly gracious to the humble and kind and gentle with the younger members of the bar. He presided with a quiet dignity which was never presumed upon. Quiet and gentle and uniformly courteous as he was, he sometimes swept like a whirlwind through a case involving fraud or some mean conduct. In such cases his words burned and his sentences blistered like fire. He was not what is called a “good mixer;" he was no handshaker for popularity, and yet he attracted men to him and made friends to a remarkab'e degree.

He was first married to Sophia Malloy, daughter of a banker of Memphis, by whom he had four children, Henry, Mary, William H., and Howell E. His first wife died in 1873. In 1876 he married Mary E. Harding. Three children survive this union, Elizabeth, Louise, and Harding A.

Judge Jackson dwelt at West Mead, comprising about onehalf of the famous stock farm of the late Gen. W. G. Harding, a man foremost in the promotion of fine stock breeding, a man of the highest standing, and of the most lovable and admirable character. The other half, separated from West Mead by the Harding pike, is the celebrated Belle Mead, owned and managed by Gen. Wm. H. Jackson, brother of Judge Jackson, a graduate of West Point, one of Forest's brigadiers, and a splen