Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 03.pdf/346

The Golden Days of the Maryland Bar.

315

King did not answer it; but while Pinkney that State. He had essentially what is called was speaking, he said he could not shake " a legal mind," and relied upon the law of off the feeling that he (King) must be the case for success in every cause which he wrong. William Pinkney died on the 25th conducted. He used neither the flowers of of February, 1822, falling, as was said, like rhetoric nor the graces of oratory, but his a brilliant star, just as he had reached the language was always chaste and classical. William Wirt said that " nothing he dreaded zenith of his professional fame. We have the high authority of Reverdy so much to encounter at the bar as Taney's Johnson for saying that when the bar of apostolic simplicity." Before he had reached

middle life, his reputa Maryland was adorned tion was so great that by Luther Martin, he was employed in William Pinkney, Rob every important case ert Goodloe Harper, in every county of and others less known, the State, and in the but perhaps not less Maryland Court of learned, — that, in Appeals. Inthiscourt those golden days of of final resort he fre the Maryland Bar, quently encountered Roger Brooke Taney William Pinkney, was the equal of any whom Wirt called and all of these. Al "the Maryland lion;" though his only aim and the latter found in life was in the line the future Chief-Jus of his profession, he tice a worthy foeman. was called to impor The declining health tant political positions of Martin and the before he was placed death of Pinkney left at the head of the a large opening at the American b.irasChiefJusticeof the Supreme bar of Baltimore, and Court of the United Taney determined to States. At the begin remove from the lit ning of his professional tle town of Frederick, WILLIAM WIRT. career, he was elected Md., and establish to the House of Dele himself in the leading gates of Maryland, and afterward to the city of the State. In 1823 he removed to State Senate; later, he was appointed At Baltimore, where he at once took his posi torney-General of Maryland by a governor, tion as the leading lawyer of its bar. Up and confirmed by a council, opposed to him to this time his fame had been confined in politics, having been recommended by the almost exclusively to Maryland, but from entire bar of Baltimore for the position. Al this time his practice in the Supreme though that office was the stepping-stone to Court of the United States opened to him the highest judicial position in the country, a field whereon he was to shine so lon^ he said he had no desire to hold any office as its chief. His life of incessant study is but that of Attorney-General of Maryland. an example to ambitious young lawyers During his professional career in Mary who wish to enjoy the honors of their pro land he was employed in most of the im fession, but are unwilling to spend days and portant cases in the Court of Appeals of nights in hard work.