L. О. С. Lamar.
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Chief-Justice Fuller, to whom this remark purchase by trustee of trust property at sale was repeated, said, " His decisions, if written brought about by third party, — he finds with difficulty, do not show any traces of it." occasion to declare : " The language em ployed by the text-writers does not present a While no case which came before him (except, perhaps, that of Neagle) called for the thorough and perfect generalization of the "amplest exploitation of his powers," yet it essential principles pervading the decisions may be confidently said that his opinions, on this subject." Excellent examples of his judicial work numbering precisely one hundred, from 125 U. S. to 145 U. S. inclusive, are worthy of are found in the following cases : Kidd v. the great court of whose records they form Pearson, 128 U. S., holding constitutional the statute of Iowa providing that intoxicat a part. From the point of view of the " Green Bag," ing liquors may be manufactured and sold — to wit, that of entertaining, — the leading within the State, for certain purposes and no case that came before Justice Lamar was that other; McCall v. California, 136 U. S. 104, of Anderson v. Miller, 129 U. S. 71, in which holding that an agency of a line of railroad the question was infringement of a patent on between Chicago and New York, established "re-enforced drawers." This was the case in San Francisco, for the purposes of induc in which John S. Wise so successfully waged ing passengers going from San Francisco to war against the gravity of the court. The take the line at Chicago, but not engaged in patentee was a male citizen of Virginia. The selling tickets for the route, or receiving or defence was want of novelty. Brandishing paying out money on account of it, is an a sample of the bifurcated garments before agency engaged in interstate commerce; the court, Mr. Wise argued that it was a Howard v. Still well & Bierce M'f'g Co., 139 £reat reflection on the famous wives and U. S. 199, deciding when profits which would mothers of the grand old Commonwealth for arise from the performance of a contract may any man to pretend that he had invented an be recovered as damages for the breach improvement on drawers that was not already thereof; McLish ï'. Roff, 141 U. S. 661, to known to these good matrons. It is said the effect that a writ of error will not lie to that, for the first time in its history, the the Supreme Court ou a question of juris whole court was convulsed; but it is to be diction, under the act establishing Circuit regretted that no trace of the fun of the argu Courts of Appeal, until final judgment in the ment appears in the decision. Circuit Court. The work of his predecessors Most of Justice Lamar's decisions are in in the great court which is the glory of the cases involving surveys and boundaries of Constitution, he happily characterized as a land, land grants, etc., indicating that his ex " century of wise and patriotic analysis" perience in the Department of the Interior (135 U. S. 82). had given him a familiarity with these ques Of his dissenting opinion in the Neagle tions which led his associates, perhaps, to case, Mr. Carson well says : — clefer to him on these subjects. "The logical power of Mr. Justice Lamar, his In one case where the question was whether a negotiable instrument, signed by striking talents as a rhetorician, his clearness of an officer of a corporation, imported a cor vision in detecting the true point in controversy, and his tenacious grasp upon it through all the in porate liability or an individual contract of volutions of argument, his familiarity with adjudged the signer, he speaks of " the vast conflict — cases, his well defined conception of the nature of we had almost said anarchy — of the authori the general government and the distribution of its ties bearing on the question under consid powers under the Constitution, are best displayed eration " (128 U. S.). in his dissenting opinion on Re Neagle, in which, In Allen v. Gillette, 127 U. S. 596, — unswayed by horror or resentment at the atrocious
