Page images
PDF
EPUB

RUFUS CHOATE.*

To give a strict analysis of a mind so complex, various, and richly gifted, as that of Mr. Choate, we feel to be a difficult and delicate task. What is peculiar in his genius and character is provokingly elusive; and though an unmistakable individuality characterizes all his productions as a lawyer, orator, and statesman, it is an individuality so modified by the singular flexibility of his intellect, that it can be more easily felt than analyzed. We propose to give a few dates illustrating his biography; to allude to some of his masterly expositions of national policy as a statesman; and to touch slightly that rare combination in his character of the poet and the man of affairs, by which the graces of fancy and the energies of impassioned imagination lend beauty and power to the operations of his large and practical understanding.

Mr. Choate was born in Ipswich, Mass., on the 1st day of October, 1799. He entered Dartmouth College in 1815, and was distinguished there for that stern devotion to study, and that love of classical literature, which have accompanied him through all the distractions of political and professional life. Shortly after graduating he was chosen a tutor in college; but, selecting the law

* American Review, January, 1847.

for his profession, he entered the Law School at Cambridge, and afterwards completed his studies in the office of Judge Cummins, of Salem. He also studied a year in the office of Mr. Wirt, Attorney-General of the United States. He commenced the practice of his profession in the town of Danvers, in 1824. But a considerable portion of the period between his first entry into his profession and his final removal to Boston, in 1834, was passed in Salem. He early distinguished himself as an advocate. His legal arguments, replete with knowledge, conducted with admirable skill, evincing uncommon felicity and power in the analysis and application of evidence, blazing with the blended fires of imagination and sensibility, and delivered with a rapidity and animation of manner which swept along the minds of his hearers on the torrent of his eloquence, made him one of the most successful advocates at the Essex bar. In 1825, he was elected a representative to the Massachusetts Legislature; and in 1827 he was in the Senate. He took a prominent part in the debates, and the energy and sagacity which he displayed gave him a wide reputation. In 1832 he was elected member of Congress from the Essex district. He declined a reëlection, and in 1834 removed to Boston, to devote himself to his profession. He soon took a position among the most eminent lawyers at the Suffolk bar, and for seven years his legal services were in continual request. In 1841, on the retirement of Mr. Webster from the Senate, he was elected to fill his place by a large majority of the Massachusetts Legislature, an honor which Massachusetts bestows on none but men of signal ability and integrity. Since Mr. Choate resigned his seat in the Senate, he has been more exclusively

devoted to his profession than at any previous period of his life. The only public office he now holds is that of Regent of the Smithsonian Institute. The country is principally indebted to his efforts for the promising form which that institution has now assumed.

Mr. Choate's powers as a statesman are to be estimated chiefly by his course while a member of the United States Senate, especially by his speeches on the Tariff, the Oregon question, and the Annexation of Texas. These appear to us among the ablest which were delivered during the agitation of those inflammable questions. Beneath an occasional wildness of style, there can easily be discerned a sagacious and penetrating intellect, well trained in dialectical science; capable of handling the most intricate questions arising under the law of nations and constitutional law; keen to perceive the practical workings of systems of national policy; possessed of all the knowledge relating to the topics under discussion; fertile in arguments and illustrations, and directing large stores of information and eloquence to practical objects. In his speech, March 14, 1842, on the right and duty of Congress to continue the policy of protecting American labor, he presents a lucid and admirable argument to prove that Congress has the constitutional power "so to provide for the collection of the necessary revenues of Government as to afford reasonable and adequate protection to the whole labor of the country, agricultural, navigating, mechanical, and manufacturing, and ought to afford that protection ;" and in the course of the argument he gives a review of the opinions current on the subject about the period of the adoption of the Constitution. This displays an extensive acquaintance with the political history of the time,

the result of original research. In this speech he declares the origin of the objection to the protective policy, based on the assumption of its unconstitutionality, to have arisen in "a subtle and sectional metaphysics;" and adds, in a short paragraph, well worthy to be pondered by all who are exposed to the fallacies springing up in the hot contests of party, that "it is one of the bad habits of politics, which grow up under written systems and limited systems of government, to denounce what we think impolitic and oppressive legislation as unconstitutional legislation. The language is at first rhetorically and metaphorically used; excited feeling, producing inaccurate thought, contributes to give it currency; classes of states and parties inweave it into their vocabulary, and it grows into an article of faith.”

The best and most characteristic of his speeches on the tariff, however, is that delivered in the Senate on the 12th and 15th of April, 1844. It shows a most intimate acquaintance with the history of our legislation on the question; the subject is taken up in its principles and details, and exhibited in new lights; it glows with enthusiasm for the honor, glory, and advancement, of the nation; and its illustrations, allusions, and arguments, have the raciness of individual peculiarity. The philosophy of the manufacturing system is given with great clearness in respect to principles, and at the same time is presented to the eye and heart in a series of vivid pictures. The problem, he says, which the lawgiver should propose to himself is this, How can I procure that amount of revenue which an economical administration of government demands, in such manner as most impartially and most completely to develop and foster the universal industrial capacities of the country, of

whose vast material interests I am honored with the charge?" We should like to quote the whole of that passage in which he enforces the importance of manufactures, on the ground that they give the laborer the choice between many occupations, and do not absolutely confine him to one or two. "In a country," he says, "of few occupations, employments go down by an arbitrary, hereditary, coërcive designation, without regard to peculiarities of individual character. But a diversified, advanced, and refined mechanical and manufacturing industry, coöperating with those other numerous employments of civilization which always surround it, offers the widest choice, detects the slightest shade of individuality; quickens into existence and trains to perfection the largest conceivable amount and utmost possible variety of national mind." He proceeds to illustrate this idea by supposing a family of five sons, who, in some communities, would all be compelled to follow one occupation, as fishermen, or farmers, or servants. He then sketches the history of four of these sons, in a community where the diversified employments of civilization give scope to the ruling passion of each. The allusion to the fifth boy is as honorable to the statesman as the poet. "In the flashing eye, beneath the pale and beaming brow, of that other one, you detect the solitary first thoughts of genius. There are the sea-shore of storm or calm, the waning moon, the stripes of summer evening cloud, traditions, and all the food of the soul, for him. And so all the boys are provided for. Every fragment of mind is gathered up. The hazel-rod, with unfailing potency, points out, separates, and gives to sight every grain of gold in the water and in the sand. Every

« PreviousContinue »