OLIVER ELLSWORTH.

OLIVER ELLSWORTH was a Senator in Congress from the State of Connecticut at the time the Senate refused to confirm Mr. Rutledge in the office of Chief-Justice. As a member of the Federal party he of course contributed to defeat the nomination of his predecessor; but no one has ventured to question the purity of motive which prompted his action on that occasion. From his known reluctance to accept the vacant place, it is probable that he himself was the last member of the Senate who could have anticipated that the judicial robe was about to fall from Judge Rutledge's shoulders on his

own.

Chief-Justice Ellsworth brought to that high tribunal, over which, for a brief period, he presided, a valuable experience both as a lawyer and a judge. Called to the bar a few years previous to the revolution, he had attained a respectable professional position before his business was interrupted by those great political events which summoned him into the public service; and when, at the close of the revolution, he returned to his native State, it was to take his seat upon the bench of the Connecticut Superior Courts, in which station he continued until the Federal Convention, and the organization of the new government opened to him a wider and more extended field of usefulness. He came to the bench of the Federal Courts, therefore, under the most favorable auspices; for he added the experience of the statesman

to that of the advocate and the jurist. He possessed, in a felicitous combination, remarks a very judicious writer, "those qualities which make up a great judge, and which afterwards, through a much longer career, were displayed by his eminent successor. His mind, naturally exact and comprehensive, had been disciplined by severe study and by the exercises of an extended practice. He went into public life just at that period, when the intellect, not yet so settled in the professional mold as to lose its natural malleability, is able to adapt itself to its new and more liberal pursuits with tenacity and precision, but without the stiffness attendant on long service at the bar." * He remained, it is true, but a few years on the bench of the Supreme Court; but, like his predecessor, Jay, he retired with honor, and left the impress of his mind upon the early history of the federal judiciary.

I have not been able to collect materials for any very detailed account of the early years of Mr. Ellsworth's life. In this respect, indeed, he has but little advantage of the great majority of his brethren of the old Supreme Court, of whom scarcely a notice remains. Nor, perhaps, could this be expected. The life of a plain New England lawyer must have glided on smoothly and quietly enough until broken in upon by the stormy scenes of the revolution; and whatever of local interest may have attached to it, we could scarcely hope, even were it possible to retrace the record, to meet with many of those personal recollections which serve at once to illustrate the character, and to indicate the temper and talents of the future judge. Nor should we expect to find in these earlier years of his life a narrative replete with those striking incidents or great enterprises, which sometimes sparkle on the page of biography, and never fail to attract the public gaze. There is nothing of this in the early history of Oliver Ellsworth. Indeed, that history may be said to commence with his appointment to the Continental Congress in 1777. With little to

*Notes to Wharton's Am. State Trials, p. 37.

interest, and nothing to excite previous to this period, we shall, thenceforth, on every hand, encounter interesting traces of the labors and services of the pains-taking and judicious statesman, and the discreet and careful judge, in the various departments of civil life which he filled, legislative, diplomatic, and judicial. From this point then I shall take up the narrative; first, however, presenting the reader with a summary of the earlier years of his life, as it is sketched by the graceful pen of one who seems to have thoroughly understood and appreciated the character of his subject.*

"Oliver Ellsworth was born at Windsor, a village in the interior of Connecticut, April 29th, 1745, of respectable, but not very wealthy parents. He was brought up in the simple, regular, and frugal mode of life which at that time universally prevailed throughout the province, and which is still, although in a less degree, a striking characteristic of the domestic manners of Connecticut.

"The state of manners and of education in New England about this period, was, perhaps, of all others, the best calculated to rear up men fitted to struggle through the toils, the difficulties, and the dangers of a great revolution, without endangering the safety of those republican institutions for which they contended, either by turbulent violence, or unprincipled ambition. A greater proportion of the whole population of the country had received a liberal education, than was probably the case in any other part of the civilized world. Thus, in addition to the number of men, not, indeed, profoundly learned, but competently instructed for any ordinary purpose of active life, a great mass of general information was diffused, and a universal activity of mind excited throughout the whole community. The bigotry and fanaticism which occasionally disgraced the elder puritan settlers had died away; much, too, of their

* From an original memoir of Chief-Justice Ellsworth, published in the Analectic Magazine for 1814, Vol. III, page 382, and republished a few years since in Vol. III, American Law Journal.

rigid virtue and high-toned principle had gradually decayed with them; but enough was left to keep up a very general regard to moral and religious character, and an habitual reference to principle, in the conduct and opinions of the great body of the people. Above all, the peculiar state of the country, which had just emerged from the hardships of a new and half-peopled colony, while it excluded most of the luxuries and many of the refinements of civilized life, had a strong tendency to train up the youth in those habits of simplicity and privation, of personal independence, and of constant activity of mind and body, which, however ill the parallel may accord with the magnificent illusions of classical prejudice-in fact constituted the most essential part of that education which formed the heroes and patriots of republican antiquity. Sanctos illis, horrida, mores— tradidit domus, ac veteres imitata Sabinas.

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In this state of society was Mr. Ellsworth's character formed, and the early impressions of his youth may be traced through the whole uniform tenor of his public and private life. His youth was passed alternately in agricultural labors, and in the elementary studies of a liberal education. At the age of seventeen he entered Yale College; but after some residence there, in consequence of a boyish disgust or irregularity, he removed to Princeton, where he completed his academic course, and received the degree of A. B. in 1766.

"His standing as a student was sufficiently respectable; but he is said to have been much more remarkable for his shrewdness and adroit management in all the little politics of the College, than for any uncommon proficiency in science or literature. Within two or three years after his leaving college, he was admitted to the bar in Connecticut, and commenced the practice of his profession in the county of Hartford.* The jurisprudence of

* I find the following anecdote related of his early practice at the bar. "His father presented him with a small farm, situated in the south-western corner of Windsor, and in the management of this and the few suits with which his acquaintances and friends entrusted him, his ardent and active