BENJAMIN ROBBINS CURTIS THI 'HIS eminent lawyer was born in Watertown, Massachusetts, on the 4th day of November, 1809. At the age of twenty, he was graduated at Harvard Uni versity, and three years later was admitted to the Bar. For a short period he practiced in Northfield, and then removed to Boston. For nearly two decades he was one of the most prominent figures before the Courts of the country. When President Fillmore appointed Mr. Curtis an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, he was but forty-one years old, and his name for the high position was urged upon Mr. Fillmore by Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate. It was while Judge Curtis was on the Supreme Bench that the celebrated "Dred Scott" case was decided, in which he dissented from the majority of the Court, and his written opinion was a masterly argument; he declared his dissent "from that part of the opinion of the majority of the Court in which it is held that a person of African descent cannot become a citizen of the United States.' In 1857, Judge Curtis resigned his exalted position to resume the practice of his profession, and until his death his services were sought in all parts of the counHe appeared frequently before that Bar in the capital of the Nation, whose bench he had so graced by his talent and professional dignity. try. Politics had but very little charm for him, though after his retirement from the Supreme Bench, he served two years in the Massachusetts Legislature, and in 1874, was the Democratic caucus nominee for the United States Senate. In the Impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, Judge Curtis was of counsel for the defense. He was then nearly sixty years of age but ripe in the study of the law and one of the most prominent figures in that great State trial. At that time there was no lawyer who held higher rank at the American Bar, than Judge Curtis. In Blaine's "Twenty Years of Congress," he says: "On the 9th of April Judge Curtis, of the President's counsel, opened for the defense. He had no labored introduction, but went directly to his argument. He struck his first blow at the weak point in General Butler's strong speech. Judge Curtis said, 'There is a question involved which enters deeply into the first eight Articles of Impeachment, and materially touches two of the others; and to that question I desire in the first place to invite the attention of the Court, namely, whether Mr. Stanton's case comes under the Tenure-ofoffice Act? I must ask your attention therefore, to the construction and application of the first section of that Act, as follows: 'That every person holding an official position to which he has been appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and every person who shall hereafter be appointed to any such office, and shall become duly qualified to act therein, is, and shall be entitled to hold such office until a successor shall have been in like manner appointed and duly qualified, except as herein otherwise provided.' Then comes what is otherwise provided. 'Provided however that the Secretaries of the State, Treasury, War, Navy and Interior Departments, the Postmaster General and Attorney General, shall hold their offices, respectively for and during the term of the President by whom they may have been appointed and for one month thereafter, subject to removal by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.' ""The first inquiry which arises on this language,' said Judge Curtis, 'is as to the meaning of the words 'for and during the term of the President.' Mr. Stanton, as appears by the Commission which has been put in the case by the Honorable Managers, was appointed in January, 1862, during the first term of President Lincoln. Are these words, during the term of the President, applicable to Mr. Stanton's case? That depends whether an expounder of this law judicially, who finds set down in it as a part of the descriptive words, 'during the term of the President,' has any right to add 'and during any other term for which he may be afterward elected.' I respectfully submit no such judicial interpretation can be put on the words. Then, if you please, take the next step. 'During the term of the President by whom he was appointed.' At the time this order was issued for the removal of Mr. Stanton, was he holding during the term of the President by whom he was appointed? The Honorable Managers say, yes; because, as they say, Mr. Johnson is merely serving out the residue of Mr. Lincoln's term. But is that so under the provisions of the Constitution of the United States? Although the President, like the Vice-President is elected for a term of four years, and each is elected for the same term, the President is not to hold his office absolutely during four years. The limit of four years is not an absolute limit. Death is a limit. A 'conditional limitation,' as the lawyers call it, is imposed on his tenure of office. As when the President dies his term of four years, for which he was elected and during which he was to hold, provided he should so long live, terminates and the office devolves upon the Vice-President. For what period of time? For the remainder of the term |