CORRESPONDENCE. FRANKIIN. A LETTER WRITTEN BY HALRY I NATE CROSS IN TA WINTER OF Brother Cross: I rceived your le attempted several times to reply, but have that I could not pursue the undertaking. I have J. weak Tlave tes secured the aid of another hud and hope to coupl to sor reply. I was very g. 1 to hear from you and I engre niste . infirmitics. "This letter, embodying M. B. a lawyer, a citizen and a petrint, Cross, at the latter's reques', wan Fierce as a lawyer, which Judte ( which was published in. Vol. 1 of the Bar Association, pp. 19-74. An exi. printed on pp. 79 and 71 of the sarue vo dress of Judge Cross. Judge Cross, the oldest living graclu t member of the New Hampshire bar w H Binghari, completing his course 11. 18, h's junior year. He served with ho of the Judiciary Commitice, and, withi frequently came in contact with h.. 1 Although differing polideally, the t ugs of sincere regard and esteem al address on the late Preziden leader, shoul! have sought so pes to have been expected. Ar m. CORRESPONDENCE. FRANKLIN PIERCE. A LETTER WRITTEN BY HARRY BINGHAM TO DAVID CROSS IN THE WINTER OF 1899-1900.* Brother Cross: I received your letter a long time ago. I have attempted several times to reply, but have found myself so weak that I could not pursue the undertaking. I have now secured the aid of another hand and hope to complete some sort of a reply. I was very glad to hear from you and I congratulate you upon the great good fortune of enjoying a lusty old age without the scourge of its usual infirmities. Although I never had a son, yet I know enough about the pangs that are felt most keenly by the human heart and strike to its very core to realize somewhat the abiding grief and anguish that a fond parent must *This letter, embodying Mr. Bingham's estimate of General Pierce as a lawyer, a citizen and a patriot, was written by Mr. Bingham to Judge Cross, at the latter's request, with reference to an address on Franklin Pierce as a lawyer, which Judge Cross delivered March 15, 1900, and which was published in Vol. 1 of the proceedings of the New Hampshire Bar Association, pp. 39-74. An extract from Mr. Bingham's letter is printed on pp. 70 and 71 of the same volume in the appendix to the address of Judge Cross. Judge Cross, the oldest living graduate of Dartmouth and the oldest member of the New Hampshire bar, was in college two years with Mr. Bingham, completing his course in 1841, when Mr. Bingham entered his junior year. He served with him in the Legislature, as a member of the Judiciary Committee, and, although located in another county, frequently came in contact with him in the course of legal practice. Although differing politically, the two entertained for each other feelings of sincere regard and esteem. That Judge Cross, when preparing an address upon the late President Pierce, a distinguished Democratic leader, should have sought suggestions from Mr. Bingham, was naturally to have been expected. feel over the loss of a promising and dutiful son. I condole sincerely with you on the loss of your son. To assuage sorrow for such a loss, philosophy may be summoned. It is an incident inseparable from the lot of humanity and must be endured. The consolations of religion, too, are open to those who seek it. You request me to give you my estimate of Franklin Pierce as a lawyer, also any literature I may have illustrating what he was in that capacity. I have no literature especially treating of Pierce as a lawyer. I had no personal acquaintance with him before he was President and had only heard him make a motion in court once, and once or twice on the stump. All my ideas of Pierce as a lawyer are based on what I know of his reputation as such from the time that I began practice in 1846 to 1853. I always had the impression that he had a keen, discriminating, legal mind; that, although not overburdened with book learning, yet he always knew the law which applied to his case and applied it with accuracy. His reputation as a jury advocate, as it came to my ears, was of surpassing brilliancy. Before New Hampshire courts and juries he was remarkably successful. His popularity as a man was unbounded. The occasion when I heard the motion to which I have referred was in the July term, 1851, of the Supreme Court holden at Plymouth. The high sheriff of Hillsborough County brought there on a writ of habeas corpus some prisoners bound over to the next grand jury term in that county on the charge of murder. General Pierce appeared for these prisoners and moved that they be admitted to bail. His manner was easy, dignified, graceful and courteous. He stated the grounds of his motion with great perspicuity and presented the evidence in support thereof in a way that must have given it all the weight to which it was entitled. He was treated by the court, then consisting of such men as Gilchrist, Woods and Bell, and by the members of the bar present, among whom were several of the most distinguished lawyers in the state, with deference and respect. At one time I thought of preparing an address in regard to his character and standing as a man, a patriot and a statesman. In that view I had begun to fortify my impressions and recollection by reviewing the public records, newspapers and current literature of his day. But before I had made much progress in this work and before I had formulated in my mind the groundwork of such an address, I was arrested from any further action in that direction by the utter breaking down of my health and the consequent physical and mental inability to do anything involving serious labor. In the feeble condition in which I have ever since remained I have not attempted to resume the undertaking, from the conviction that such a work ought either to be properly done or let alone altogether. Among the data that I examined were files of the New Hampshire Patriot, the "Life of Pierce" by Hawthorne, the "Life of Pierce" by Peabody, addresses on the same subject by Sidney Webster, "The Causes of the Civil War" by Lunt; also some recent histories of the United States, the names of whose authors I do not now recall. The matters that I proposed to discuss in my address were to be arranged somewhat in this order: First, his parentage and early training; second, his college life and college associates; third, his entry into political life, his election to the New Hampshire Legislature and his career in the House, and his congressional career terminating in 1842 by the resignation of his seat in the United States Senate; fourth, his very brilliant and successful practice of the law in the New Hampshire courts and his brief campaign in the Mexican War, covering the period from 1842 to his election as president; fifth, his presidential term, his subsequent life and death in 1869. After his term as chief magistrate of the nation had expired and he had retired to private life, circumstances threw me quite often into his society and I became quite intimate with him and remained so all through the period of the Civil War and up to his death in 1869. I thus had an opportunity to study and know the man, to see the motives which were his inspiration and to learn the theories and principles that had guided his action through life in the discharge of duty, whether public or private. It is my deliberate judgment that I have never known a more clear-headed man than Franklin Pierce or one who surpassed him in patriotic devotion to his country and to his whole country, or one who had a stronger conviction of the paramount value of the American Union and that to maintain it the rights |