These predictions, engendered by his far-seeing judgment and legal acumen, were fully verified, and the Government seemed to labor as hard to justify an escape from the issue as it had bustled to impress the resoluteness of its purpose; while Mr. Harrison was relieved from a defence in comparison with which, in view of the magnitude of its bearings, those of Warren Hastings and Queen Caroline would have dwindled into utter insignificance, as, indeed, would all others, scarcely excepting the frantic farces of the revolutionary tribunals which brought the heads of Charles I. and Louis XVI. to the block. But, rivalling the jewels of his intellectual crown, there were the shining qualities which decked the almost unsullied robes of his purity. While his life was one continual path of duty, it was the clear, cool, breezy walk of rectitude, arched over with the canopy of genius, and garlanded with the flowers of charity and benevolence. His professional ethics were pure, elevating, and exemplary, and while he was vehement and pertinacious in advancing and maintaining his positions, he was gentle and yielding to the rulings of the court, dignified and urbane towards his opponents at the bar, tender and conciliatory in the examination of honest witnesses, but peculiarly severe towards the prevaricating, evading, and contumacious. This last well-known characteristic enabled him, no doubt, to extract from fear many a truth in the promotion of justice which would otherwise have remained locked in the bosom of dishonesty. While he delighted to entrap them in technicalities, he was generous to the younger members of the bar, and always ready to give them aid and counsel. But he had no mercy on negligence and inexcus able ignorance. He thought that they should thoroughly qualify themselves before entering the bar, and was severe on those who entered through his examination. The author experienced his inquisitiveness in that respect. There were but few, if any, who dispensed more professional charity than Mr. Harrison. If he charged a poor man, it was but a nominal fee, and he always advised such to avoid litigation if possible. He had early in his professional life adopted two rules, to which he continued to adhere--not to charge a widow, nor to prosecute a man for his life. He said that during his early practice he once prosecuted a capital charge upon purely circumstantial evidence, and after conviction labored as hard to rescue the unfortunate man as he had done to convict him on the trial; which he succeeded in doing, but that the near approach of the execution gave him such a shock that he never afterwards had any faith in circumstantial evidence, and resolved never again to engage in a prosecution involving life. Among the many exhibitions of his genius he cherished a remarkable fondness for the science of geology, or rather for its objects, for his devotion to the study of law would not permit such an exacting rival; but he was fond of geologizing, and his cabinet of collections, which he arrayed in his law office, and to which he took pride in directing the attention of his visitors, was truly novel and interesting, and perhaps the most complete group of specimens possessed by any individual in the State. It was on one of these excursions, not long after the war, among the rocks of Noxubee County, that he received a wound from the fall of a large stone, which necessitated the amputation of a large portion of his right foot, a circumstance which caused him great suffering during the remainder of his life. He died at his residence in Columbus on the 22d of May, 1879. And here prudence would dictate that the curtain should fall upon this feeble narrative; but I must subjoin that, in addition to all these more public qualities of head and heart, Mr. Harrison maintained the most affectionate domestic relations. He was a fond husband, a doting father, and a devoted friend; and while the friendship he inspired needed but the mesmeric contact with his virtues to assume the growth of love, the golden chain was linked with the jewels of domestic felicity. To say that he was dear to his family and his friends would be to arrogate an unnecessary and gratuitous act of judgment, and to say how dear is not perhaps in the power of speech or thought. For such a character to have been free from every fault and failing of humanity would not have been human. Yet so few were his weaknesses that they weighed but little in the scale of his greatness. His glory gathered in his dawn, blazed with splendor in the meridian of his life, and gilded the horizon of his declining years. And while he has disappeared behind the sunset and the night, his fame will return with the morning, and ascend the current of the stream of time, until it is gathered, with all the bright things of earth, into the realms of eternal light, and receive its plaudits from the everlasting shores. Numerous and eloquent eulogistic speeches were made on the death of Mr. Harrison by his brother members of the bar, while the press of the State teemed with tributes to his memory. The following resolutions were adopted by the bar of Columbus: "The members of the Lowndes County bar, desirous of giving public expression to their feelings, and of the sense they entertain of the loss which the bar has sustained by the death of its oldest and most distinguished member, who for more than half a century has illustrated the virtues of the profession, adorned it by the exhibition of rare and eminent talents, and left to his survivors an example of spotless purity and integrity of life; and also to manifest the affectionate esteem in which they hold the memory of their venerated departed brother, as a citizen eminent for all the attributes that adorn citizenship, and as a man endeared to their affections, as well by his private as public life; by social qualities of heart, as well as by the vigor of his intellect, do adopt the following resolutions: "1. Resolved, That the members of the bar heard with deep and painful regret of the death of the Hon. James T. Harrison, and that we sincerely condole with the members of his family over the calamity which has befallen them, and the great loss sustained by the community. 66 2. Resolved, That, as a testimony of respect for the memory of the deceased, the judge's bench be draped in mourning during the remainder of the term. "3. Resolved, That, as a further token of respect, your Honor be requested to have the proceedings of the bar spread upon the minutes of the court, and that they be published in the city papers, and that the secretary furnish a copy to the family of the deceased." I will close this sketch with the following extracts from some of the eloquent addresses delivered on the occasion of Mr. Harrison's death by the gentlemen of the bar, and which I have selected only by virtue of a difficult discrimination in favor of literary excellence and metaphysical merit. |