Section 44:  Return to Lawyering

It requires a good deal more than a lawyer to make a successful business man, but the experience of a lawyer, if properly utilized, gives him opportunities for profitable investments occasionally that many others do not possess. I had been brought in contact with nearly all the business in the western part of the state outside of Pittsburgh, and had formed an idea of the value of property I had -- had money invested in a store and a good many pieces of land, and in 1870 I became a stockholder and President of the Directors of the Discount and Deposit Bank of Clarion. We were merely a banking company without a charter and on the whole I made the investments pay pretty well.

In the meantime, my official term was running on and drawing to a close, and I gave more attention to outside operations. A year or two before my time ran out, I seriously contemplated not resuming the practice of law. I was worth a hundred thousand dollars, or thought I was, and I thought at fifty-eight I was or would be too old to regain and build up a new practice -- still did not form any definite opinion on the subject. I had an interest income of some five thousand dollars a year beside my salary, and I could live and educate my children, and I thought I was pretty well prepared for old age, but I felt that I still had some years of work in me but did not know how long this feeling would last; and so the time ran on and occasionally received flattering notices from members of the bar that they would regret my retirement from the bench, but I knew the Democratic party would elect a judge of their own political faith to succeed me and I had no ambition for further judicial honors, and I made not the slightest efforts for renomination. It is an honorable office, but requires labor, firmness and integrity and withal involves great responsibility.

After holding my last court in Jefferson County, without any intimation the following resolutions were sent to me by the members of the bar of that county:

"Brookville, Pa., December 15th, 1871. The members of the bar met at the Court House at 11 o'clock A. M. The meeting was called to order by electing the following officers -- Hon. W. P. Jenks, Prest., R. R. Means and Wm. Altman, Vice Prest's., J. M. Stick, Secretary. On motion of A. L. Gordon, Esqr., a committee of W. F. Stewart, Hon. I. G. Gordon and R. Arthurs were appointed to draft Resolutions. The following were read and unanimously adopted.

"Resolved -- That while we welcome with pleasure our new President Judge, it is with feelings of regret that we part with his predecessor, Hon. James Campbell.

"Resolved -- That we express our sincere thanks for the kind and courteous treatment we have always received from him. That the many pleasant associations connected with his ten years' administration will never be forgotten by the members of this Bar.

"Resolved -- That as members of the Bar and in behalf of the citizens of Jefferson County, we express our high appreciation of the wisdom, firmness and impartiality he has always shown in the discharge of his duties; that his profound legal knowledge, combined with purity of heart and entire freedom from political and selfish influences, has rendered this court a mighty ally in the cause of right and justice; that he bears with him the respect and high regard of all our citizens, having shown himself worthy the great confidence reposed in him. We hope his useful life may be long continued and he may be often the recipient of public favors and at last be gathered to his fathers to receive from his Master the plaudit of 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant.'"

These very complimentary resolutions were filed on record and a certified copy forwarded to me. I had no reason to doubt the sincerity of the above resolution with perhaps a few exaggerations by way of Lathy, but I knew all the commendation I was entitled to was honest effort to be right, and with the experience I had, if was not remarkable I should more frequently right than wrong. I returned a respectful answer to the communication, and that is the last I heard of it. The insertion of these resolutions may savor of conceit, but it is put here simply as an incident in my life, and I think I could have referred to other but less formal approval of my ten years on the bench.

In the fall of 1871, before I held my last courts, I was solicited to accept retainers in business coming on after my time would expire, and I think I had received a hundred dollars fees by the first of January, 1872, and almost without noticing it I was again in the practice, and during the year 1872 I took in nearly three thousand dollars in fees and I declined to take business outside of Clarion County. I recollect of refusing business in Venango and Jefferson Counties.

It is not uncommon to find an ex-judge going back to the practice not as successful as when he left it. Much of the skill and ability of the lawyer is shown in a thorough preparation and skillful arrangement of the facts. The judge on the bench has nothing of this kind to do or look after, and at the end of ten years he finds it annoying and vexatious to go to hunting up all the evidence and introducing it in the proper order, and with increasing age he may lose his keen appreciation of facts on the minds of the jury. There is not a doubt that a skillful lawyer in a close case often uses comparatively unimportant evidence with telling effect on a jury. The practice and duty of the judge is to call attentions to the leading facts and endeavor to draw the attention of the jury to the true merits of the case, and as the law requires, leave the facts to them. In this way a judge goes back to the bar at a disadvantage, and as a jury lawyer is rarely as successful as he was prior to going on the bench, while as a judge and expounder of the law he may be stronger.

The most striking instance of this kind that I recollect was Hon. Thomas White of the Indiana court. He went on the bench when he was a bright young lawyer, made an able and useful judge, went back to the practice at about 60 years of age, was industrious and indefatigable. I have tried cases with and against him, but after he left the bench he was not a strong lawyer. He argued a case to the jury much as he had charged the jury and several of the young lawyers of Jefferson County argued facts to the jury with more skill than the judge, though his knowledge of the law and practice was probably superior to any of them, and I have often enjoyed talking with him on legal questions and been instructed by his suggestions. This may have been to some extent the case with myself, though in the next fifteen years of my life I tried and assisted to try many important cases and as my paper books will show, prepared and argued a number of cases in the Supreme Court, a practice that I rather liked.

Many changes had taken place during the ten years I was on the bench. At the commencement of my term, many papers had accumulated in the office; among others the wills of eight or ten of my old clients had been prepared and left with me. At the close of my term all these wills had been called for, and my old friends were gone. Most of the business men of 1840 had dropped out and I noticed new faces attending the courts.

About the time I resumed the practice, G. W. Lathy, Esq., the last of the original set of lawyers who gathered around the council table in 1840, removed to Erie, Pennsylvania, and my subsequent practice was with a new generation who had come to the bar in later times. Buffington and Johnston of Kittanning, Purviance and Gilmore and Smith of Butler and Howe and Snowden of Franklin are all dead and all the members of the bar in Clarion with whom I contended and tried cases in my young days are dead and scattered, and I look back to those stirring days with regret and sorrow, and it is surprising to me how soon "time's effacing finger" has wiped out this energetic and talented race of men who so lately wielded no small power in the courts of these western counties.