Death of Luther S. Dixon.

In his old circuit he has always been regarded with pride and affection. Particularly is this true of Columbia county, in which he spent the early years of his professional life. He surrounded himself during this interesting period with friends who have never forgotten his genial and lovable qualities. Indeed, his circle of personal friends in Portage embraced the entire community.

Many of the older citizens, who in the early times were delighted to meet him and to while away a pleasant hour in his company, have passed on before him; but there still linger not a few of the old guard who have never for an instant abated their interest in him or dismissed the happy memories which connect him with those earlier days. Outside the family circle, no hearts, I venture to assert, have been more deeply touched by this great bereavement, and none will continue to feel more keenly the pang of severed ties which reach back to early manhood and cover more than the history of a generation.

Judge DIXON will be remembered by the public for his great and valued public service but among those who knew him best he will be remembered also for companionship which was as sincere, as refreshing and delightful as the breath of June.

Charles E. Dyer, Esquire, then addressed the court as follows:

May it please the Court.-LUTHER S. DIXON, the eminent jurist, the accomplished lawyer, the just and true man, has finished his work and reached his journey's end. How true are the words of one of the world's great writers, that there is not a curfew bell but tolls at every evening hour the knell of some departing friend! It is the fate of Mortality. We go the way of our fathers. Nature hath so written it. Death is but submission to the law. The visitations of that dread Power, which sever all human relations and terminate all human experiences, are impartial because they are in obedience to law. If life is either lost or rescued, it is because the law of animate and inanimate existence, inexorably applied to existing events, unerring and never suspended in its operations, controls the ultimate result. In giving up his mortal life, therefore, our brother but submitted, as all men must do when "the mould of Nature's fabric" is broken, to Nature's final decree.

. Since his public services were so distinguished and his whole professional career so honorable, it is most fit that these memorial services should have been appointed, and in this high and sacred place it is most appropriate that his virtues should be commemorated. And here it is worthy of remark that it is rare, indeed, that the bench and bar of two states far distant from each other mingle their grief at the grave of one beloved in common by all. But it was Judge DIXON'S rare fortune to

Death of Luther S. Dixon.

have commanded the high respect and won the affectionate regard of the bar of Colorado and the bar of Wisconsin equally and alike. This was worth living for. This is the reward of a manly, noble, useful life. Better than great riches, better, far better, than any emoluments of political place, better than any other title of honor, is such achievement as this. To be thus enshrined in the memories of our fellow-men is to attain the summit of human endeavor and aspiration.

The work of Judge DIXON as chief justice of this court began in 1859 with the ninth volume of the Reports, and closed in 1874 with the thirtyfifth volume, covering a period of about fifteen years. Richly endowed with the qualities essential to success in judicial labor, his work as a member of this court has indelibly impressed his name upon the jurisprudence of the state. In mental as in physical stature he was commanding, broad, and strong, and his presence here will not be forgotten by any who ever came to present their causes to this court in his time. The bench was his place. He was through and through a judge. He adorned and honored the judicial office. He fulfilled its high requirements, and to say this of any man is to bestow upon him the most honorable eulogium. It is a serious thing, as your Honors know, to be the arbiter between one's fellow-men. No functions are more exalted, no duties more grave. He who trifles with judicial position, he who in the slightest degree by partisanship or otherwise dishonors its dignity, he who does not keep the ermine as white and spotless as virgin purity, is unworthy of any trust. This was the sentiment of our friend, and the name of DIXON is the synonym of Justice, Integrity, Truth, and Honor. These were virtues which illumined his character, radiant as the sunlight, shining as the stars.

His judgments are among the jewels of our jurisprudence. Without exception they bear the stamp of his penetrating and vigorous mind. None fail in that lucidity of statement, strength of diction, and cogency of argument which were his happy gifts. If his intellect was not what may be called brilliant, it was comprehensive and powerful. If he was sometimes wanting in that mental alertness and dexterity essential to emergencies in forensic strife, his masterly powers of deliberation and discrimination made him an ideal judge and a wise and safe counsellor. In his convictions he was resolute and courageous. When aroused by the needs of the occasion and by the conscious strength of the cause he advocated, I have more than once seen him summon to his command latent powers the exercise of which instantly gave him the mastery of the struggle. He needed a great cause to bring to the surface his whole strength. He loved legal investigation more than aught else, and he applied himself to it with unwearying diligence. Visiting his office in Denver one day during the past summer, I found it a veritable armory

Death of Luther S. Dixon.

of law and law books, and there, I was told, when in health he reveled in great questions and cases.

As both judge and practitioner, Judge DIXON appreciated the supreme rank of usefulness occupied by the true lawyer. His standard of professional conduct was lofty. It could not be otherwise and be in harmony with his own nature. He disdained the little things on which little men thrive, and he viewed with contempt every deviation from honorable purpose and conduct.

On the bench he was not much given to speech, for he believed in the saying of Lord COKE that "a much speaking judge is not a well tuned cymbal." When he interrupted it was to keep the argument to the point.

He had high respect for sound authority, but he believed also, as his opinions show, in original processes of reasoning. Some men have the faculty in the highest degree of stating with precision what the law is. Others have the faculty of stating what the law ought to be. DIXON knew what the law is, and could state it so accurately that it was dangerous to controvert his proposition. If as a judge he was convinced that he had committed error, no pride of opinion would stand in the way of its correction. For like Lord HARDWICKE he would think it "a much greater reproach to continue in error than to retract it."

At all times frank and courteous, every impulse of his nature was generous and noble. His heart was large, his society was congenial, his salutation was hearty. He was plain and unobtrusive. He affected nothing. On the bench and at the bar his demeanor towards his professional brethren was always that of kind and cordial recognition. I recall as a pleasant memory my first case in this court more than thirty years ago, when Mr. Justice LYON came with me as associate counsel and as my personal friend, for I found that the young lawyer was received by Chief Justice DIXON and his associates with the same consideration and kindness as was any veteran of the bar.

As a companion, Judge DIXON was delightful. Judge DRUMMOND who also sleeps the sleep of the just, and whose name I reverently speak was wont to say that it always was a pleasure to meet DIXON, he was such a likable man. Genial in temperament, cultured in literary acquirements, fond of anecdote, and abounding in great sense of humor, he possessed most happily those qualities which drive away dull care when the hours of serious occupation are past.

It is good that such men have lived, and that they will continue to live. They give hope and strength to other men. They cheer and brighten life's journey. When they go from us they leave rich memories of manly life and noble achievement. The recollection of their virtues inspires us anew to the performance of every duty, and prompts us to the emulation

Death of Luther S. Dixon.

of their example. One after another our companions in professional, business, and social life disappear from our presence. They leave us to struggle as they have done with the great problem of the Future. Forever, here, the evidence "of things unseen" may to many thoughtful men remain inconclusive; but such evidence as the human mind can grasp confirms the hope of another life where such shadows and griefs as cloud this mortal existence give place to higher and happier conditions. Reason as we may,

"The voice of Nature loudly cries,

And many a message from the skies,
That something in us never dies."

Since his time had inevitably come, it was a happy circumstance that the friend whom we mourn should come back to home, family, and friends to lay down life's burden. And it is most appropriate that within view of this capitol, in the state where he earned his greatest and his enduring fame, his mortal remains should rest in the keeping of those he loved and who loved him.

Naturally, this occasion must awaken in the mind of the present chief justice of this court impressive memories of the past. Doubtless some are sad, but many are delightful and happy. For more than thirty-six years he has sat upon this bench, administering justice to his fellow-men in a spirit and with a devotion perfectly consonant with his pure and stainless life. A record without a blemish! A name imperishably associated with the judicial annals of the commonwealth! Having been in earlier years the contemporary and associate of WHITON, SMITH, DIXON, PAINE and DOWNER, and thenceforward of RYAN and TAYLOR and the present members of this court, his memory covers a period of judicial history replete with interesting retrospect and reminiscence. Happy logic of events it was, that crowned such a career with the chief justiceship of a court which is the pride and glory of the state. With head whitened in the public service, he shall carry with him in his retirement not alone the reverent respect and high esteem of his brethren of the bench and bar, but he shall go laden with the spontaneous tributes of their affection and with their earnest wishes that many years of health and happiness may yet be his lot and portion.

And as time shall go on and changes shall multiply there shall be heard perpetually, as the voice of the whole people, the invocation, “God bless the Supreme Court of Wisconsin!"

F. C. Winkler, Esquire, spoke as follows:

May it please the Court.- The public service of Chief Justice DIXON coincides with the most memorable period of the judicial history of our state.

Death of Luther S. Dixon.

It fell in with a time of the most earnest and agitating of public discussion. The political questions of the day were in a great measure questions of constitutional law. It was no unusual thing to hear grave constitutional questions argued with masterly ability and acumen before popular audiences from the platform and even from the stump.

The questions of freedom and slavery, of the rights of the states, of the laws and proper government of the territories, of the powers of Congress, the attitude of the supreme court of the United States, the extent of its jurisdiction - the binding efficacy of its decisions upon the coordinate departments of government — were these bound by its interpretation of the constitution and the laws? These and all that pertains to them were the questions that possessed the public mind and were eagerly discussed in every corner of the land. Such a discussion before such a tribunal as "the country" could not, of course, remain unprejudiced, judicial, and unimpassioned. Political bias necessarily lent its hues to legal opinion, but it reached all classes. It stirred public sentiment in its deepest profundity.

The ques

To this the young state of Wisconsin was no exception. tion had here, in fact, taken a deeper hold and assumed a peculiar phase, owing to resistance to the enforcement of the obnoxious Fugitive Slave law. It had been brought into this court. It had there received consideration and decision.

At the June term, 1859, two new judges came to this court. Both were young. Both were men of conspicuous talent. They came by different commissions. BYRON PAINE had been in the heat of the public discussion. His love of liberty and hatred of slavery had led him when confronted by the hateful federal law to seize upon the theory which promised escape, the right of the state, the sovereign state, to sit in judgment and finally to pass upon the constitutionality of Congressional enactment. He had been the ardent and eloquent champion of this theory. It had been sanctioned by the decision of this court. It had been embraced by the great mass of the dominant party. He now came to this court, holding his commission directly from the people. He had been elected in April on this very issue. The right of the state, without appeal and without review, to decide upon the constitutionality of acts of Congress was the clearly defined and firmly avowed principle. It was the principle that had, under his advocacy, delivered the rescuers of the fugitive slave from imprisonment! "State rights and BYRON PAINE," was the campaign cry that had swept the polls. Many doubted the soundness of his principle, none his sincerity.

A few weeks after the spring election Chief Justice WHITON died, and it devolved upon the governor of the state to appoint a chief justice to hold until the next spring's election. LUTHER S. DIXON was then