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justice amid a labyrinth of technicalities and special pleading. Yet few, if any, exceeded him in seizing on the strong points of a case, and with vigor and clearness applying to them the great principles of law. As a law yer, in criminal prosecutions, the case of his client always became his own, and he was considered one of the most eloquent and ef fective among his contemporaries. As a judge, his opinions were always clear, short and to the point, aiming at justice without the affectation of eloquence, or of superior learning. His retirement from the bench, continues Kendall, gratified only those who feared his justice, while it was deeply re gretted by a large majority of the com munity. Aaron Burr, who was a rare judge of men, describes Jackson, in his Journal, as "once a lawyer, then a judge, and now a planter, a man of intelligence; and one of those frank, prompt, ardent souls whom I love to meet." Burr was the first to mention Jackson as a suitable Candidate for the Presidency as early as 1815. In a letter to his son-in-law, Gov ernor Alston, Burr wrote: "Nothing is want ing but a respectable nomination before the proclamation of the Virgina caucus, and Jackson's success is inevitable. He is on the way to Washington. If you should have any confidential friend among the members of Congress from your State, charge him to caution Jackson against the perfidious caresses with which he will be overwhelmed at Washington." It was too late to act upon this suggestion at that time; but the seed was

planted which grew and spread over the whole country. Andrew Jackson died on the 8th of June, 1845, and a few weeks afterward, on the 2yth of June, George Bancroft delivered, at Washington, a eulogy on the illustrious dead, in which he characterized him as the lode star of the American people, declaring that no man in private life so possessed the hearts of all around him; that no public man of the country ever returned to private life with such an abiding mastery over thai affections of the people; no man with truer instinct re ceived American ideas; no man expressed them so completely, or so boldly, or so sin cerely; he united personal courage and moral courage beyond any man of whom history keeps the record. Not danger, not an army in battle array, not wounds, not widespread clamor, not age, not the anguish of disease could impair in the least degree the vigor of his steadfast mind. The heroes of an tiquity would have contemplated with awe the unmatched hardihood of his character; and Napoleon, had he possessed his disinter ested will, could never have been vanquished. Jackson never was vanquished. He was always fortunate. He conquered the wilder ness; he conquered the savage; he conquered the bravest veterans trained on the battle fields of Europe; he conquered everywhere in statesmanship; and when death came to get the mastery over him, he turned that last enemy aside as tranquilly as he had done the feeblest of his adversaries, and passed from earth in the triumphant consciousness of im mortality.