STEPHEN JOHNSON FIELD.

THIS distinguished jurist, for years the head of the

profession in California, is now one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Though a Democrat, he was elevated to that exalted position by President Lincoln. The following sketch of his life is printed by permission of the Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Company. We are guided by the wishes of Judge Field in presenting this sketch in lieu of a more extended one:

"Stephen Johnson Field, son of the Reverend David D. Field, D. D., was born at Haddam, Connecticut, November 4, 1816. In 1819 the family removed to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where he spent ten years of his boyhood.

"In 1829 he accompanied his sister to Asia Minor, her husband, the Reverend Josiah Brewer, having undertaken an educational mission to the Greeks. He remained two years and a half in the east, chiefly in Smyrna and Athens, and learned to speak and write with ease the modern Greek language. He entered Williams College in 1833, and graduated in 1837 with the highest honors of his class. In 1838 he began the study of law in the office of his brother David Dudley Field, in New York, and in 1841 became his partner, and so remained for seven years. In 1848 he traveled extensively in Europe. Shortly after his return he sailed for California, and arrived in San Francisco December 28, 1849. On the 18th of January following he was chosen Alcalde of Marys

ville. Under the Mexican law the Alcalde was an officer of very limited jurisdiction, but in the anomalous condition of affairs in California at the time he was called upon to exercise and did exercise very great power, both in civil and criminal matters and as an executive officer. Alcalde Field accordingly administered justice, punished crime, and made and enforced necessary police regulations until the election and appointment of officers under the new Constitution.

"He was elected to the Assembly of the second Legislature, which was the first one chosen after the admission of California into the Union, and was placed on the Judiciary Committee. He framed the laws creating the judicial system, regulating the Civil and Criminal Practice, defining the duties of sheriffs, creating the system of conveyancing and registry, and defining the rights and duties of attorneys and counselors. The Civil and Criminal Practice Acts were modeled upon the Codes of the New York Commission, then recently reported to the Legislature of New York. Of these, however, over three hundred sections were redrawn to suit the Constitution and conditions of California and over one hundred new sections were added. Among the new sections of the Civil Practice Act was one providing for the admission, in mining cases, of evidence of the customs, regulations and usages of miners in the vicinage of the claim, and declaring that when they were not in conflict with the Constitution and laws of the State or of the United States, they should govern the decision of the action; thus leaving the development of the mines to the regulations established by the miners themselves-a principle that has been adopted in other mining territory, and by the United States. He also incorporated in the same Act a provision exempting from force sale under execution, not only the few indispensable articles required for housekeeping which had long been so exempted by the statutes

of every state, but also implements, wagons and teams of a farmer, the tools of a mechanic, the instruments of a surveyor, surgeon and dentist, the professional library of a lawyer and a physician, and the articles used by the miner and laborer in doing their work. This was intended to secure all persons in the possession and use of those things by which, as necessary means and instruments, they could engage in their respective pursuits, and acquire the ability to pay the demands of their credi

tors.

"From 1851 to 1857 he practiced his profession, and was then elected a Judge of the Supreme Court of the State for the term of six years. He became Chief Justice in September, 1859. The most important of the opinions delivered by him in that Court related to the settlement of land titles, rights to mining claims, and the powers and duties of municipal corporations. He established the doctrine that gold and silver belonged to the owners of the soil in which they are found, and that the precious metals are entirely unconnected with whatever of sovereignty inheres in the State. As the United States originally owned the soil, so it owned all the gold and silver contained in the same, and this ownership passed to and vested in the grantee of the United States and their assigns. This was a reversal of the doctrine previously laid down by the Court, that, as in England the gold and silver in the soil belong to the Crown, so in this country they must belong to the State by virtue of its sovereignty.

"In 1863, before the expiration of his term on the State Bench, Judge Field was appointed by President Lincoln an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The appointment was made upon the unanimous recommendation of the Congressional delegation of the Pacific Coast, then consisting of four Senators and four Representatives, of whom five were

Democrats and three Republicans, all of them Union men. Upon his retiring from the Chief Justiceship of the State, Judge Joseph G. Baldwin, who had been his associate on the Bench for three years, said of him:

"He has, more than any other man, given tone, consistency and system to our judicature, and laid broad and deep the foundation of our civil and criminal law. The land titles of the State-the most important and permanent of the interests of a great commonwealth-have received from his hand their permanent protection, and this alone, should entitle him to the lasting gratitude of the Bar and the people.'

"In the United States Supreme Court he has, for nearly a quarter of a century, born his share of its labors. His opinions, among other things, relate to test oaths, military commissions, confiscations, pardon and amnesty, legal tender notes, legislative power of the insurgent states during the Civil War, protection of sealed matter in the mails from inspection by officials, power of the State to control compensation for use of private property, relations between General and State Governments, powers and liabilities of corporations, interstate commerce, taxation, trusts, character of directors of corporations, and the use of running waters in public lands.

Among the more important of these opinions the following may be mentioned: In the test-oath cases, Cummings v. Missouri, and Ex parte Garland. relating to interstate commerce, and the power of the State concerning it, Welton v. Missouri; County of Mobile v. Kimball; Gloucester Ferry Company v. Pennsylvania; Sherlock v. Alling; Ecanaba v. Chicago; Miller v. Mayor of New York; Cardwell v. American Bridge Company, and Huse v. Glover. In cases on questions growing out of the Civil War, such as the protection of the officers and men of the United States Army in the enemy's country against civil proceedings for damages,

the attempt of the Confederate states to confiscate debts due the citizens of loyal states, and the extent of liability of the United States for property taken or destroyed, Williams v. Bruffy; Coleman v. Tennessee; Pacific Railroad v. United States; Dow v. Johnson, and the "Tarble Case." In cases on Constitutional questions particularly affected by the Fourteenth Amendment, Barbier v. Connelly; Soon Hing v. Crowley; Missouri Pacific Railway Company v. Humes; Hayes v. Missouri. In cases on State, City and County bonded indebtedness, Pillsbury v. Louisiana; Hartman v. Greenhow; United States v. New Orleans; Broughton v. Pensacola. In cases on paents of the United States for lands and mining claims, Smelting Company v. Kemp; Steel v. Smelting Company. In cases on mining claims and water rights, Jennison v. Kirk; Atchison v. Peterson; Dasey v. Gallagher; on the power of a state to prescribe the conditions. on which foreign corporations may do business within its limits, Paul v. Virginia; on proceedings in state courts against non-resident debtors, Pennoyer v. Neff; on the invalidity of contracts for the use of influence with public officials, Oscanyan v. Arms Company; on Federal jurisdiction over lands used for public purposes of the United States Government within the states, Fort Leavenworth Company v. Lowe; on the responsibility of railroad corporations to their employes for injuries inflicted in consequence of negligence of train conductors, Ross v. Chicago and Milwaukee Railroad Company; on protection of sealed matter in the mails, Ex parte Jackson, on the exemption of a passenger in a public conveyance from liability for the negligence of the driver, Little v. Haskett, and on the right of the states to swamp and overflowed lands within their limits, Wright v. Rosebery.

"That Judge Field exercises an independent judgment in all cases is attested by his dissenting opinions in the