xt7wh707xb71 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7wh707xb71/data/mets.xml  1884  books b92-143-29442043 English S.I.M. Major, Public Printer, : Frankfort, Ky. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Elliott, John Milton, 1820-1879. Judges United States Biography. Oration and addresses on the life and character of John Milton Elliott, a judge of the Appellate Court of Kentucky  : delivered in the hall of the House of Representatives of Kentucky, April 24, 1884. text Oration and addresses on the life and character of John Milton Elliott, a judge of the Appellate Court of Kentucky  : delivered in the hall of the House of Representatives of Kentucky, April 24, 1884. 1884 2002 true xt7wh707xb71 section xt7wh707xb71 














  ma     ON THE OCCASION OF UNVEILING THE   


STATE MONUMENT

         TO THE MEMORY OF


 JOHN MILTlZN ELLIOTT.

 This page in the original text is blank.

 



ORATION



AND ADDFRESSES



                ON THE



      ,Sifc ctnb C(haracter



                  OF



JOHN MLTON ELLIOrTT,



A JUDGE OF THE APPELLATE COURT OF KENTUCKY.



           DELIVERED IN THE




HALL OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
            OF KENTUCKY



          APRIL 24, i884.





   PUBLISHED BY ORDER 0F THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.





          FRANKFORT, KY.:
   -PRINTED AT THE KENTUCKY YEOMAN OFFICE.
       S. I. M. MAJOR, PUBLIC PRINTER.



1884.

 This page in the original text is blank.


 





             By sculptured marble white and cold,
             His worth, his virtue is not told-
             It resteth not with human art
             To carve a semblance of his.heart;
             The soul that spoke in eve and tone,
             Is not unveiled to speak from stone.-H. T. STANTON.

  By an act of the General Assembly of the Com-
monwealth    of Kentucky, the      sum  of 1,000    was
appropriated to erect a monument over the re-
mains of JOHN MILTON EI.LIOTT.
  His Excellency, Governor L. P. Blackburn, ap-
pointed Chief Justice Thomas F. Hargis, Judge WV.
S. Pryor, and General John- Rodman a committee
to carry into execution the will of the Legislature,.
which was done.
  The monument is a white marble shaft, twenty-
one feet in height, rising from a cubical base of the
same material, and all resting upon a granite sub-
base or foundation. It is surmounted by a life-size
statue of Justice.
  On the side of the cube facing to the north is a
medallion likeness of Judge Elliott.
  On the east side, the inscription:
                    JOHN M. ELLIOTT,
                    Born May 16, 1820.
       ASSIAATED FOR ItAVING DONE 1IS DUTY AS A JUDGE,
                     March 26, 1879.

  On the south side:
  "A statesman of stainless honor; he became a member of the Legis.
lature of Kentucky, served three terms in the Congress of the United
States, and two terms in the Confederate Congress; a judge of pure
heart, strong intellect, fearless, faithful, kind, and efficient; as a Circuit
Judge and Judge of the Court of Appeals lie served without reproach."'
  On the west side:
  "As a man he was ardent, social, genial; by nature a philanthropist,
he won the love of his fellowmen by his generosity and worth; devoted
as a husband; as a friend, faithful and just; a dutiful citizen, an upright
official, his crowning virtues were candor, integrity, and love of truth."'

 



.4  Ceremonies at Unvzeiling of Monument to



              The time that glorifies a State,
              It may be truly said,
              Is when ler living sons relate
              The virtues of her dead.-H. T. STANTON.

  On the 24th of April, i884, the monument was
unveiled. The ceremonies were imposing and
solemn.
  The procession formed about i i o'clock in front
of the State Capitol, and moved in the following
order:

         Chief Marsh'al Hugh Rodman.
Assistant Marshals John Milam, Jacob Corbett, and
                 George Payne.

             Frankfort Brass Band.
         Frankfort Police in full uniform.
               MlcCreary Guards.
               Nuckols Guards.
           Governor's Light Artillery.
Hon. Isaac Caldwell, Hon. XV. J. Hendrick, Hon.
     J. C. Beckham, and Hon. C. U. McElroy
                  in carriages.
         Governor and staff in carriages.
Judges of the Court of Appeals and Superior Court
                    on foot.
     Members of the Assembly in carriages.
       Frankfort City Council in carriages.
         The Frankfort Fire Department.
              Citizens in carriages.
                Citizens on foot.

  It moved down Broadway to Washington, down
Washington to Main, and out Main to the ceme-

 


            Judge Jo/hn AM. El/iolf.

tery, arriving at the State's ground about twenty
minutes past twelve o'clock.
  The ceremony of unveiling was simple, and occu-
pied but a short time.
  Prayer by Rev. George Darsie, Pastor of the
Frankfort Christian Church, as follows:
  "0, thou great and eternal God, Creator and
Ruler of the heavens and the earth. Author of life
and all its blessings, in reverence and humility do
we approach Thee this day, here amid the fresh,
unfolding loveliness of natuire, under the canopy
of the sky, in this solenin city of the dead.
  "\V'e thank Ihee that no true and good and useful
life can ever be buried in a (grave. WVe rejoice that,
while the earth receives and holds the sacred dust
of our beloved and honored ones vho have passed
away, the whork they have done and the results they
have achieved for the progress and, enrichment of
humanity bear mighty witness to the fact that,
though dead, the) yet speak and yet live.
  W\\Te thank Thee, 0 God, for the life of him
whose mortal form sleeps beneath this mound of
earth, and to whose memory we are met to-day to
unveil and dedicate this shaft of monumental mar-
ble. \Ve pray Thee that the power of this life, in
its noble and heroic adherence to conviction, to
principle, and to justice, may continue to be felt
and remembered throughout our State and Nation,
even until that far-off future day wlhen this monu-
ment shall have crumbled to dust. Grant, 0 God,
to deeply and indelibly engrave and impress upon
the hearts and memories of our people, to untol4

 


6   Ceremonies at Unveiling of Monument to



generations, the warning lessons of that fearful
crime against the well-being and safety of human
.society which the tragic and martyred end of this
lamented life has left behind it.
  " May we never forget that unpunished deeds of
lawlessness and violence mean the inevitable over-
-throw of domestic peace, social order, and of civil
government. May we ever remember that the only
guaranty for the protection and security of our lib-
erties, our homes, and our lives, is the certain,
permanent, and impartial administration of the laws
of our land. God grant us, therefore, a renewed
sense and appreciation of the majesty of the laws,
an increased regard and reverence for its methods
and decisions, and for the exalted and inviolable
sacredness of its officials. Remove from our midst
the wvide-spread and lawless spirit which would right
wrongs and redress grievances by acts of personal
vengeance. Correct, 0 God, the vicious public sen-
timent among us, which justifies and encourages
such acts. And hasten, 0 hasten the time when
murder, violence, and crime shall cease to stalk
abroad unrebuked and unpunished, and when in
their stead law and order, righteousness and peace,
virtue and religion, shall everywhere prevail, filling
our hearts, our lives, our homes, our State, and our
land writh joy and blessing.
    Remember thy servants, the President of the
United States and the Governor of our Common-
wealth, with their associated and constitutional ad-
visers, and all in high place and low place who are
in any way connected with the enforcement of the

 

Judge John M. Elliott.



laws of our country, to the end that our people
everywhere may lead quiet and safe and peace-
able lives in all godliness and honesty.
  "Bless, 0 loving Father, the sad and stricken
heart who sits to-day in the sable weeds of discon-
solate widowhood, robbed by a murderous hand of
him who was the pride, the light, the hope, and the
joy 6f her life. Grant unto her richly of Thy grace
and strength, to comfort and cheer her on her deso-
late and lonely way, and to guide her safely to the
end.
  "Bestow thy divine favor and approval upon the
exercises of this day, upon all who shall participate
therein, upon the speakers and upon the hearers,
that in all things said, and in all things done, the
blessed name of God may be honored and glorified,
to whom, through the Lord Jesus Christ, be praises
forevermore. Amen."

  The monument was then unveiled by Gen. John
Rodman.
  After the monument had been viewed by all as-
sembled, the procession moved back to the Capitol.
At a quarter past one o'clock, in the Hall of the
House of Representatives, Hon. Isaac Caldwell, of
Louisville, was introduced by Chief Justice Hargis,
in tiese words: "n Ladies and Fellow-citizens, I have
the honor of introducing, as the orator of the occa-
sion, a man whose best recommendation is his own
honored name-Isaac Caldwell," and delivered the
following oration:



7

 

8   Ceremonies at Unveiling of Monument to



     ADDRESS OF HOW. ISAAC CALDWELL.
  John M. Elliott, the distinguished and beloved
citizen, judge and friend, in honor of whose mem-
ory we are assembled, was born May i6, i820. He
was of English, Irish, and Scotch extraction. His
parents were John Lile' Elliott and Jane Elliott,
whose maiden name was Jane Ritchie, a relative
of Thomas Ritchie, of the Richmond Enquirer,
familiarly called in his day the "o Napoleon of the
American press." It was from his mother that
John derived his Scotch blood.  His paternaI
grandmother, wvife of James S. Elliott, was Han-
nah Scott, relative of Charles Scott, one of the
early Governors of Kentucky, and of Gen. Win-
field Scott. John Lile Elliott, father of John M.,
was born on Flat Creek, in Bath county, and
served in both branches of the General Assem-
bly of Kentucky.
  John MI. received a very good academic educa-
tion, and began the study of law in I842, in the
office and under the instruction of Henry C. Harris,
of Prestonsburg (the county seat of Floyd county),
Ky. In the following year, when 23 years old, he
was admitted to the bar, and entered upon the prac-
tice of his profession, with success from the begin-
ning, in Prestonsburg, his home for twenty years.
In i847 he was elected to the State Legislature as.
Representative from - Floyd county. In I848 he
married Susan, daughter of William Smith, of Pres-
tonsburg, to whom he was devoted until death. He
loved to call her "Queen of the Mountains," and
often introduced her by that appellation to his

 


Judge John M. Elliot.



friends. They had no children. In I853 he was
elected from the Sixth-called the Mountain-dis-
trict of Kentucky Representative in the Congress
of the United States, and was re-elected in I855
and in 1857. During his service of six years as a
member of Congress he acquired a national fame
as one of the distinguished Kentuckians in the pub-
lic service. In i86i he was again returned as a
Representative in the State Legislature, but did not
serve long, leaving his seat to join the Confederate
army under Gen. John S. Williams, between whom
and himself the warmest friendship lasted until his
death. In X862 he was chosen a member of the
Confederate Congress, and remained such until the
close of the war. He then returned to Kentucky,
and resumed the practice of his profession in Bath
county. In i868 he was elected Circuit Judge of
the Thirteenth Judicial District, and served the full
term of six years, and added much to his repute as
a lawyer. At the expiration of his circuit judicial
term he removed to Catlettsburg, in Boyd county,
and again resumed the practice of law. In i876 he
was elected Judge of the Court of Appeals for the
First Appellate District for the term of eight years.
He served as one of the four judges of this the
highest court of last resort in the State until his
death, on the 26th day of March, 1879. His wife
survives to mourn her bereavement, and to cherish
the many recollections of his kind and noble traits.
  Judge Elliott was a large-brained, large-hearted,
open-handed man, generous and brave, a true friend,
a formidable foe, who never sought or shunned a



9

 

ao Ceremonies at Unveiling of Monument to



,quarrel, the idol of the people of his adored and1
adoring mountains. He was too noble to be un-
truthful, too magnanimous to be deceitful, and too
brave to conceal whatever he thought or did. These
traits gave him great leadership with the mountain
people, rendered him always powerful before juries,
and invincible at the polls. No man who has died
in our day has left a warmer place in the hearts of
his constituents.
   In politics he was a Democrat of the Jeffersonian
-school of strict construction, adhering to the teach-
ings of the great apostle in favor of an economical
government, honestly administered by public ser-
vants chosen for their competency and faithfulness,
to the end that the people, free from unnecessary
restraints or burdens, might enjoy the fullest fruits
of their industry, never forgetting that that is the
best government which governs least. Whether as
legislator or judge he was incorruptible and emi-
nently self-reliant. A true patriot he loved his
country; a true man he loved his countrymen. No
man could be truer to his friends or more generous
to his opponents; hence his friends were many, his
enemies few, his admirers all who knew him. Pos-
sessing a remarkably quick perception of the abili-
ties and motives of men, he was a ready and efficient
legislator, and, with an intuitive sense of justice,
guided by strong intellectual powers and perfect
fairness, he was a just and impartial judge.
  As Judge of the Court of Appeals he was cour-
teous and fair with his associate judges; dignified
.on the bench, and considerate of the rights of

 


,Judge John M. Elliott.



counsel and litigants. His opinions published in
12th, I3th, and I4th Bush's reports are compact,
pointed, and emphatic. His ideas clearly expressed
leave no room for doubt as to their meaning, and
through all a great regard for precedent is shaded
and controlled by strong common sense and ever
present love of justice.
  Thus I have summarized my knowledge and esti-
mate of the life of him whose monument you have
to-day unveiled. Kentucky has had many able,
faithful, and beloved judges who preceded him in
death, and some who have followed him, to whose
memory no monument has been erected by the
State and no ceremony of unveiling celebrated by
the executive, legislative, and judicial departments
of the Commonwealth. Why are we here more
than five years after the death of Judge Elliott to
pay this exceptional honor to his memory It is
because he was assassinated in the Capital of the
State, within a fewv hundred feet of the State House,
whence he had just come fresh from the discharge
of his official duties-ruthlessly shot down at the
door of his hotel by an assassin who claimed as
a grievance that the Court of Appeals had de-
cided a case against his interest or contrary to his
wishes-an assassination which paralyzed the peo-
ple with the most shocking sense of horror and
disgust. No word of quarrel, no word of warning,
instantly and without cause he was shot dead. The
people remember him as the Martyr Judge. His
friends of the mountains have not ceased to grieve
his loss. They feel that they are personally injured



I I

 


i 2 Ceremonzies at Unveilinqg of Monument to

and bereaved; and at their instance especially the
Commonwealth pays this just tribute to a distin-
guished son, thereby emphasizing the public loath-
ing of the assassination. Whether by a sane man
or a lunatic, Elliott was assassinated, without fault,
without offense-in cold blood assassinated. A jury
of his country on full trial presided over by an able
judge, have decided that the assassin was a lunatic.
Is it not a relief to think so Who that knew
Elliott can realize that any sane person could be so
depraved as to slay so generous and noble a man
without the slightest cause for offense or resent-
ment  As we love our race and would retain
respect for our species, shall we not accept the
verdict and let it go down to posterity that no one
responsible for his acts was mean enough to kill
Elliott, and that he fell the unfortunate victim of a
diseased and distempered brain But, whilst we
submit to the finding of the jury we must not for-
get the lesson it teaches.
  The case of Judge Elliott, enforced and revived
by recent events, forces the conviction upon the
minds of thinking men that the Judiciary of the
State deserves and needs more respect and greater
protection. The Judiciary of Kentucky merits a
high degree of respect from the people of the State.
Amid all the corruptions in politics, in finances,
in commerce, the alleged corruptions of juries,.
the peculations of officials. in all the States-in
our National Government - the robberies of
banks by presidents and cashiers, the purloining
and embezzlement of the treasure and property of

 


Judge John M. Elliott.



,corporations and large business establishments by
trusted agents-amid all the corruptions incident to
a great civil war, although Kentucky was a border
State, and.was swept over first by one army and
then by another, the public morals degraded and
debauched, fortunes destroyed, the people plun-
dered-I say amid all this crime and ruin, I do not
know of a single sustained case of a Kentucky
judge who has been corrupt in his office. Why,
then, shall not the Judiciary of the State command
the respect, the admiration, and the gratitude of
the people 
  As the Judiciary merits a higher degree of re-
spect, it deserves better protection. As far as leg-
islation, well-advised, can be brought to bear, the
judges should be protected from the insults, the
assaults, and asssassination by those who conceive
themselves aggrieved by judicial decisions. This
is necessary to the preservation of the independ-
ence and purity of the judges. The administration
of justice should be without fear as well as without
favor, and honest litigants and innocent parties can
not be safe in their trials if the judges who preside
are in terror of personal violence from those whose
interests, whose passions, or whose prejudices may
be in opposition to a true and just decision. Judges
are conservators of the peace, and if they are to be
involved in personal brawls in defense of their ac-
tion on the bench, the dignity of the office will be
degraded, and justice rendered unsafe and uncer-
tain in its administration.
  I know the answer to this ready to leap to the
lips of the average Kentuckian, is: "1 Let the judge



I 3

 


14 Ceremonies at Unveiling of Monument to



off the bench take care of himself as other men do-
If he is insulted knock the man down; if he is
assaulted shoot him." But this answer will not
stand the test of right reason or good morals.
Judges should be selected for their qualifications
and attainments of learning in the law, sound judg-
ment, honesty, impartiality, and moral courage.
Now if we must add to this the additional qualifica-
tion of physical courage, the first objection is that
you render it more difficult to find a competent
man, and a greater objection is that if physical
courage is once fixed as a necessity to fit a man for
judge of a court, the proneness of mankind to ad-
mire this quality over all others would too often
result in the election of the best fighter over the
best lawyer. Moreover! if you fill your judgeships
with the gamest men in the State this will not pro-
tect them against assassination, for the case upper-
most in your minds this moment was the slaughter
of an exceptionally brave man, morally and physi-
cally.
  No! there is no safety short of such laws and
such universal and emphatic public sentiment as
shall throw around the judges the panoply of abso-
lute protection in their persons from assault or insult
because of their judicial decisions.
  As long as the case of Judge Elliott was an
isolated one the public mind had settled down to the
belief that such an unreasonable occurrence would
not happen again; but minor instances of the same
tendency to insult or intimidate judges have since
occurred in the State, and notably within a few days

 


Judge John M. Elliott.



past a Judge of the Superior Court, representing
to a great extent the same territory which Elliott
represented on the Appellate bench, has been
assaulted, not by a lunatic, not by a man who can,
claim that he did not have information or sense
enough to know the enormity of his offense, but by
a practicing lawyer-a lawyer of eighteen years'
experience in one of the richest and most enlight-
ened counties of the State, a lawyer of good stand-
ing we are told among an able bar. By such a mart
the Presiding Judge of the Superior Court, second
only in dignity and jurisdiction to the Court of Ap-
peals, was brutally assaulted with a hickory club,
and when the assaulted judge was stunned by heavy
blows, then lashed with a cowhide when he was
helpless, defenseless, alone, and unarmed. By such.
a man was this Judge assaulted in the most cowardly
and deceitful manner. His pretended friend, he
invited the Judge to his room on the pretense of
consulting with him over papers materially affecting
the interest of the Judge in a pending race for the
Appellate Bench. When he had the Judge in his
room alone and the door closed, he handed him a
paper, not the paper that they had gone into the
office to examine, but a petition for rehearing writ-
ten by the attorney of the offending lawyer and
asked the Judge to read it; and when he had him
seated, thus closed in, thus engaged in reading the
paper, he fell upon him with a heavy cane and then
with a cowhide. This was a cowardly assault as
well as brutal, and from the statements of the
offending lawyer in the public prints absolutely



15

 


i6 Ceremonies at Unveiling of Monument to

without a pretense of justification. The shallow
pretext on which this unparalleled assault was made
is that the lawyer suspected the Judge of having
been false to him in a case decided by the Superior.
Court, in which the assaulted Judge took no part,
either in hearing or in decision. The opinion of the
Court rendered by two other Judges of the Supe-
rior Court held that this belligerent lawyer as
proven by the record had been guilty of a most
unprofessional and disgraceful fraud; and it is im-
possible to read all that he has written without com-
ing to the conclusion that his real cause of quarrel
was that the assaulted Judge had not abused his
place on the Bench to protect him from this public
exposure and disgrace.
  This case is sufficient to demand that the General
Assembly shall wait no -longer. If the recurrence
'of such cases is not arrested by efficient legislation
:and rigid enforcement of preventive penalties, each
case will be the fruitful parent of others until judges
-of the courts will be compelled to arm themselves
for protection against violence.
  But Kentucky is not alone in this apparent ten-
dency to offer violence to courts who have not pleased
litigants or the populace. In the sister State of
Ohio,. in the largest and most opulent city of the
Ohio valley, only a few weeks since, on the pretense
.that a court and jury had -only imprisoned a man to
solitary confinement and hard labor for a long term
of years, when the populace assumed to decide that
the punishment ought to have been death, a great
mob is raised, the jail is assaulted, its ponderous

 


Jiedge John M. Elliott.



doors are beaten down, policemen slain, the court-
house invaded, and the torch of the incendiary ap-
plied, and those who attempted to extinguish the
flames are killed in their tracks. In addition to the
loss of a building that less than half a million will
not replace, incalculable damage was done to the
people in their property rights and material interests
'by the destruction of public records, some part of
which perhaps can never be repaired. And more,
the finest law library west of the mountains, the
accumulated result of sixty or eighty years of ex-
penditure and care, was an especial object of their
vengeance, and was absolutely and totally destroyed
by the frenzy of this mob; and scores of people
were killed and maimed and wounded, our civiliza-
tion disgraced, and an example of violence and
crime set before the youth of the country to de-
bauch their morals and destroy their respect for law
and order. This was a stupendous and appalling
evidence of a want of respect by the populace for
the laws of the country and the administration of
the laws by the courts. The pretense was a shallow
-one. The jury had the discretion in law, if they
believed the accused guilty, to determine the de-
gree of his guilt, to decide whether he should be
-confined in the jail and penitentiary of the State,
-or hang by the neck until he was dead. In view
of this well-known fact, and of the further fact that
many of the best thinkers, wisest philosophers, most
humane and moral teachers for a hundred and fifty
years past, in Europe and America, have denied the
moral right of a human tribunal to take a human
       2                a



I17

 


i 8 Ceremonies at Unveiling of Monument to

life, this blood-thirsty collection of malcontents, and
communists, and idlers, and loafers, and thieves, and
robbers. and assassins, assembled in great numbers,
and under the guise of a holy horror that justice
was not administered with sufficient severity, per-
petrated all these great crimes, did these incalcu-
lable wrongs, about a case in which they were not
competent, either by having investigated the facts,
or by having the capacity to make an intelligent
investigation, ninety-nine out of one hundred of
them not knowing the definition of the word mur-
der, or the distinction between murder in the first
degree and murder in the second degree, utterly
incapable of giving any intelligent opinion about
the case of which they complained, make this lame
excuse to manifest in this bloody way their disre-
gard of the law, and their want of respect for the
courts of the country.
  These instances, not noticing others of less im-
port, occurring in such rapid succession, are well
calculated to alarm the patriot and puzzle the states-
man as to what is the remedy. That there is a
remedy I cannot doubt. I have an abiding faith in
the people. 1 cannot doubt or question that sooner
or later the people upon whose shoulders rests the
whole fabric of our government, and . who are ulti-
mately responsible for all that is omitted and all that
is neglected, will, through their representatives, find
a remedy, and that the Judiciary will be restored in
the confidence of the people, and that the law will
be administered in fairness, in intelligence and jus-
tice, unawed by the shot-gun of the assassin, by the

 


Ju dge John M. EllioIt.



bludgeon and cowhide of the bully, or by the de-
structive, sweeping violence of an irresponsible
mob.
  But delays are dangerous, and there is a duty
now devolving upon the Governor and General As-
sembly of Kentucky. The Judges have not the
law-making power. In many regards the Judiciary-
is the most defenseless of the three branches of our
government. The first step is to pass more potent
laws to punish offenders against the dignity, secur-
ity, and safety of the occupants of the bench; to
make laws more efficient to punish the leaders of
mobs, and the instigators, inciters, and promoters
of mob violence. I was gratified a few days since
to see that an act was already introduced into the
General Assembly of the State by Representative
Stone in the right direction. It is the duty of the
Judiciary Committee, in co-operation with that able
representative and other patriotic and enlightened
members to consider well and enact all the laws in
their power to arrest and avert the evils of which I
have been speaking.
  The press has here a great public duty to per-
form. The public prints of Kentucky seem aroused
to a sense of this by the recent outrage in Mount
Sterling. But in the matter of the Cincinnati riot
it was distressingly painful to witness the press of
the country half apologizing for the mob, and abus-.
ing the courts and juries and lawyers for not hang--
ing everybody that the rabble thought ought to be
hanged. This is next to an invitation for another
mob to tear down jails, burn court-houses and pub-

 


20 Ceremonies at Unveiling of Monumenm Ao

lic records and libraries, seize accused parties that
are the particular subjects of their wrath and mur-
der them by immediate death, and turn those -who
are not' the objects of their vengeance loose upon
society.
  There can be no defense, no palliation, no miti-
-gation of the enormity of the crimes committed by
the Cincinnati mob, and of the wrongs they wrought
and caused to be wrought. It is immaterial what
the court did and what the lawyers did and what the
jury did so far as the mob and its justification are
concerned. If the courts and juries are at fault, the
evil should be corrected in a lawful way, by lawful
means. The power and the means are in the hands
of the people. If competent judges are not secured
by the present mode of electing or choosing them,
adopt another. If juries are not honest and faithful,
seek a better system of selecting juries. If lawyers
abuse their privileges, bring them before the courts,
to be tried and disbarred. The evils complained of
can never be corrected by wanton, reckless, cruel,
and.destructive violations of the law.
  Cherishing the memory of our Martyr Judge, as
we admired and loved him in life, as we revere him
in death, in his name we appeal to the people,
through their trusted servants, to knit up this
raveled place in our laws. This we know they will
and can do, as they have so often provided reme-
dies for equally perplexing evils. As malefactors
find new devices in crime, new modes of redress are
demanded; as the " mills of God grind slowly, yet
-they grind exceeding small," so the people sooner or

 


Judge John M. Elliott.



later apply protecting remedies to all evils that
threaten the safety and efficiency of our matchless
institutions. With undoubting trust in God and the
people, we despair not, but with eyes of patriotic
faith look forward to ceaseless progress and trium-
phant success in the onward march and unbounded
spread of true liberty and human happiness under
free governments, founded in and resting upon the
consent of the governed.


  The Chief Justice then introduced Hon. J. C.
Beckham, who spoke as follows:
REMARKS OF HON. J. C. BECKHAM, OF SHELBY.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
  I must first thank the committee for the compli-
ment implied in the invitation to me to take part in
this solemn ceremony.
  There are many great events in history that have
been and are still commemorated. Events that
have changed the channels of human thought, and
have given direction and current to human affairs,
are very often long held in fond and sacred remem-
brance by the peoples affected by them. Not so,
however, with individuals. Few men furrow so
deeply as to leave lasting marks on the field of
time. Most of us are of mediocrity; most of us.
are so completely the creatures of education and
training; most of us have nothing not common to
all; so few of us rise superior to our surroundings,
that we pass the brief allotted span, moving hither
and thither like children chasing butterflies, and



2 r

 


22  Ceremonies at Unveiling of Monument to



then vanish, "d so soon forgotten when we are
gone.
  Occasions like this are exceedingly rare. It is
true indeed that only a few months ago all Chris-
tendom stopped and stood still that it might again,
after the lapse of even four hundred years, hold up
to the gaze of the world the picture of a single man.
But that man, stern, phlegmatic, heroic, had made
no common impression in his day. Lifting himself
out of and above his generation, he had liberated
thought, and sent it freely coursing and rejoicing
from his time to our own; but Martin Luthers are
very rare. Occasions like this are had only in
memory of those who have opportunity for the dis-
play of qualities that mark and set them apart from
others. They are especially rare in memory of
those who wear the straight-laced harness of the
judicial office. When before, sirs, did the entire
machinery of government pause WMhen before
did Executives leave their offices, Judg