The First Session of the Maryland State Bar Association was called to order at 10 o'clock A. M., the President, Judge James A. Pearce, being in the chair.

The President: The first business in order is the address of the President of the Maryland State Bar Association which the Chair will now proceed to make.

ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT.

Gentlemen of the Maryland State Bar Association:
Ladies and Gentlemen:

The rule of this Association requires that the President shall open each annual meeting with what the Constitution, without attempt at exact definition, terms an address. Experience has taught us that this is a word of great elas

ticity, often a mere euphemism, and sometimes a sad misnomer, reminding one of the Scotchman who kept a small ...school and called it an Academy. Yet in the sixteen years of the life of this Association, I believe its records will show much that has been said which will be of enduring interest to those of us who are real students of the philosophy of the law, and of the history of the legal profession in our State.

I was never skilled in the art of writing and public speaking, and during the last fifteen years, except in the consultation room, and the brief utterances most appropriate at nisi prius, I have heard the sound of my own voice so rarely that I confess to a feeling of genuine trepidation when I do hear it in public, and this has led me, instead of venturing upon a formal address-one really worthy of that name, in scope and character,—to offer you some personal recollections, and some traditions, of some of the eminent lawyers who have adorned the Bar and Bench of this State in the past, who have met "the common fate of mortals—to die and be forgotten,—the stern award from which talents and learning are ever striving, in vain, to escape."

I shall speak first of Judge Ezekiel F. Chambers, and shall read a brief biographical sketch written by himself, without date, and which has never been published so far as I am able to learn.

"I was born in Chestertown, Kent County, Maryland, on the 28th day of February, 1788, and have resided there all my life. My parents were General Benjamin Chambers (of the family of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania) and Elizabeth Forman, daughter of Ezekiel Forman, and niece to General David Forman who was greatly distinguished during the Revolutionary war, in New Jersey, his native State, under the nom de guerre of "Black David." My father was an officer in the famous Maryland Line under Col. Smallwood for a short time, and was a Brigadier in the war of 1812; and was for many years Clerk of Kent County Court, as

my grandfather Forman had been before him. I commenced my collegiate course at a very early age at Washington College, where I graduated when between sixteen and seventeen years of age. My legal studies were immediately commenced under Judge James Houston, and I was admitted to the Bar in March, 1808, being but a few days beyond the age of twenty. Mr. Houston was appointed District Judge of the United States for Maryland about the time of my coming to the Bar, and his professional business fell into my hands; this circumstance, together with the fact that my father was Clerk of the Court of the County, and a popular man, gave me at once a large practice which continued until my promotion to the bench. From the age of seventeen, I took an active part in the party politics of the day, frequently canvassing the county and the adjacent counties, and making addresses to the popular meetings, having been a zealous member of the old Democratic party until its disruption after Mr. Monroe's administration. Frequent offers to send me a delegate to the Legislature were declined, and in 1821 the nomination to Congress was offered to me, when the election was considered a certainty. It was declined on account of the permanent ill health of my then widowed mother, whose situation required my constant personal attention. In 1822, I was made a member of the State Senate, against my earnest remonstrances, by the College of Electors then having the constitutional power to elect that branch of the legislature, for the term of five years. Before the expiration of that term, in the winter of 1825, I was appointed by the Senate as a member of a Committee of three, the late Robert Henry Goldsborough, afterwards a Senator of the United States, and Mr. Archibald Lee, who were then members of the House of Delegates, being the other two, with instructions to visit the Governors and Legislatures of Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, to arrange a system of legislation which might secure to those States perfect security for their free coloured inhabitants, while at the same time it should facilitate

the recovery of slaves absconding from Maryland. This object was accomplished, and the result was entirely satisfactory, until it was resolved, unwisely, it is now generally conceded, by those who controlled the affairs of the State, to urge a decision in Prigs case in the Supreme Court declaring this legislation to be opposed to the Constitution of the United States. While absent from the State on this mission, Col. Edward Lloyd, who had been re-elected to the Senate of the United States for six years, resigned before having taken his seat under this re-election, and without my knowledge (think of it, gentlemen, in these days) I was elected in his place.

"I took my seat in the Senate on the 22nd of February, 1826, and at the expiration of the first term of six years was re-elected and served three years more, when after nine years service, I was appointed Chief Judge of the second Judicial District of the State and a Judge of the Court of Appeals, which office I continued to fill until the year 1851, when the Judiciary was remodeled and made elective by the new Constitution. I was an active member of the Con-vention of 1850 to remodel the Constitution and propose a new one, and claim the merit of being the most ardent opponent of the (to Maryland) novel and unwise system of constituting the Judiciary by a popular election of Judges. Since the adoption of the new Constitution I have busily occupied myself in the profession of the law and farming, and my design is to continue, while life and health are allowed me, to keep up the active mode of life to which I have always been accustomed, esteeming it necessary, not only as the only means of fulfilling the purpose of my being, but also the surest means of health and happiness.

"Having no aspirations for political life, I have kept aloof from any union with either of the political parties that at present divide the Country, preferring still the same old fashioned creed which under the patronage of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and other distinguished Whig leaders, flourished more than thirty years since. An offer was made

me by President Fillmore to act as Secretary of the Navy in 1852, on the resignation of Secretary Graham; my health at the time was not good, and the offer was declined. It may not be amiss to say that I was honored in 1833 with a diploma as Doctor of Laws by Yale College, and had a similar honor from the Delaware College in 1853. My degree of A. M. had been received from Washington College, as of course, in two years after graduation.

"I had been also appointed by the Executive, one of three Commissioners, Chancellor Johnson and Col. James Boyle being the other two, to act with Commissioners from Virginia in settling the disputed boundary line between Maryland and Virginia. Chancellor Johnson died on his way to the appointed place of meeting, and after much discussion with the Virginia Commissioners, the disputed line was left unsettled. I was in service as a military man in the war of 1812, having command of a most efficient Volunteer company in the Regiment of Maryland Militia commanded by the Veteran Col. Reed, which was kept on active duty during all the time the British were in the Chesapeake, and by which Regiment the battle of Caulks Field '(near Tolchester in Kent County)' was so gallantly fought in 1814, in which Admiral Sir Peter Parker was killed.”

This autobiography, found among his papers at his death in 1867, in his own handwriting, was doubtless intended for his descendants, now few in number, and widely scattered throughout the country, but a copy has been in my possession for many years. It was probably written somewhere between 1856 and 1860, when the old Whig party was in the throes of dissolution, for after the election of Mr. Lincoln, if not at that election, Judge Chambers acted with the Democratic party, and though never an advocate of the right or policy of secession he believed the coercion of the seceding States to be without constitutional warrant, or justification upon any ground.