Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 22.pdf/406

 382

The Green Bag

venerabile, who was an Associate Justice at the time of Judge Wallace’s service

as Chief Justice.

Speaking of Judge

Norton, he said :—

ﬁrmament is stamped the ghostly mark

of mortality. Stability and permanence is but an Utopian dream if ascribed to the work of human hands. But not

“His nature was earnest, his convictions deep, his purpose ﬁrm; he had a comprehen sion of his whole duty, in which, as Seneca thought, is to be found the true felicity of life, and with the spirit of that great philoso pher, he might with conﬁdence have appealed

so with great principles.

to the Gods, both as the witnesses and the

razure of oblivion” go for naught. The opinions of Lord Mansﬁeld, Stowell

judges of his words and deeds. . . The records of the courts in which he sat will forever attest the public services he rendered, and tradition handing him down to posterity will repeat his eulogy and embalm his memory as a learned judge and an honest man."

What instinct or what limner’s spirit inspired Judge Wallace, when in painting

the picture of those two distinguished

The laws of

Justinian live in our decisions and books today; the lofty structure from whence they were promulgated is dust;

but

with principles “the tooth of time and

and Lord Eldon and other great English judges,

covered

with

the

débn's

of

many generations, are as frequently quoted today in our courts as at any time succeeding their rendition; and so it is with the decisions of our great American judges of whom in un

men, he imparted to the canvas his own

challenged supremacy, John Marshall

lofty characteristics?

Who will say

stands at the head. And so generations

that the attributes ascribed in the fore going quotations to these men do not properly pertain to any truthful pre sentation,of the lineaments and traits

to come will point to Judge Wallace

of character of William T. Wallace? It would be a labor of love, perhaps here of supererogation, to point out

and dwell upon his various opinions

as being one of the great masters of

juridical science. His fame is written with an “iron pen" in our judicial history, and detraction, if its hiss is ever

heard, shall never shake the foundations upon which it rests. Judge Murasky has remarked that as a constitutional

contained in the eleven volumes of

expounder Judge Wallace

Reports of this state, wherein by his unequaled diction and his inexorable logic as well as legal knowledge, he was enabled to impart to cherished princi

same relation to the constitution of the state of California that Judge Marshall bears to the federal Constitution. He was a lawyer and it was from the altar of the law that his orisons ascended. His conceptions of professional ethics

ples the force of established law, but

time does not permit. But the work speaks for itself; panegyric may stimu late the memory, but the sheen of his

bears

the

constitute a high moral code. If there were any element of resent

genius, as seen from those opinions, will

ment—-any disposition to Draconian

continue to glow and sparkle as genera

judgment existing in his composition,

tions of men shall pass.

nothing could so eﬁectually call it into action as professional turpitude. With the tricky, vulpine practitioner he

and

The decisions

opinions of great judges seem,

more than anything else of earth unless we except poetry and oratory, to defy the ravages of time. Generally speaking the sad truth cannot be gainsaid, that evanescence attaches to all of earth— upon everything beneath the bending

had no patience, although such a thing as a passionate or wrathful exhibition of temper from the bench never escaped him. Calm, cool, judicial in demeanor

and

urbane withal,

his

equilibrium