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 The Vol. XIX.

Green

No. 10

BOSTON

JACOB

M.

Bag October, 1907

DICKINSON

By S. S. Gregory IT is indeed a great professional distinc tion to be chosen to the presidency of the American Bar Association; for while many accomplished lawyers are not mem bers, nevertheless this Association contains the very flower of the American Bar and in its list of presidents, for the nearly thirty years of its existence, will be found the names of many of the great leaders of the Bar. The method, too, of selection for this high office is essentially non-political and highly professional. Each state and terri tory is entitled to one member of the General Council of the Association. This member is to be selected at each annual meeting by the members of the Association present from each state and territory from among their number. The General Council nomi nates through the Association candidates for the various offices, including the presi dency, and it becomes therefore exceed ingly improbable that any lawyer not con spicuously qualified will be selected for such a high honor. The wisdom of the methods thus pursued finds its best vindication in the uniformly high character and attain ments of those who have heretofore filled this position. Those who know him best can feel no doubt, that in the selection of Jacob McGavock Dickinson of Chicago to this honorable suc cession at the last meeting of the Association, there was no departure from the best tradi tions of our organization. An accom plished lawyer, a cultivated and scholarly gentleman, an upright, brave and truehearted man, a son of the South, and by adoption of the West as well, he meets to

the fullest extent the just requirements of this high position. Judge Dickinson was born at Columbus, Mississippi, January 30th, 1851. His father was Henry Dickinson, a descendant of an ancestor of the same name who came from England to Virginia in 1654. Henry Dick inson was a lawyer of eminence at the Bar of Mississippi, a chancellor for many years, a presidential elector and also one of the commissioners sent by his state to Delaware for conference on the question of secession. Judge Dickinson's mother was Anna McGavock, the eldest daughter of Jacob McGavock and Louisa McGavock, who resided at Nashville, Tennessee. Louisa McGavock was the daughter of Felix Grundy, an eminent lawyer and statesman of his day, a senator of the United States from that state and Attorney-General of the United States. Judge Dickinson passed his childhood at Columbus and there just before the close of the Civil War, and at the early age of 14, he volunteered in the Confederate service and was under the command of General Ruggles, in the vicinity of Columbus. He is a member of the Isham Harris Bivouac, Confederate States of America, at Columbus. At the close of the war he became a resident of Nashville, where he continued to reside until November, 1899, when he went to Chicago. He acquired his education at the public schools of Nashville, Montgomery Bell Academy there, and the University of Nashville, of which at the time Gen. E. Kirby Smith was chancellor. Judge Dick inson there took the degree of Bachelor of