Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 December 1885 — HENDRICKS AS A LAWYER. [ARTICLE]

HENDRICKS AS A LAWYER.

I F.-om tbo Indianapolis Sunday Sentinel

The Tribute of a Great Lawyer to the Late Vice President of the United States. The following are the remarks of Judge Turpie upon moving the adoption of the memorial at the meeting of the State Bar, held November 30, 1885, upon the occasion of the death of the late Vice President: The vocation of the practice of the law is so nearly related to, and so extensively connected with, the business of modern life, the number engaged in it . o large, the occasion for its exercise so frequent, as that to have attained any considerable eminence in it may be justly regarded as an achievement of no ordinary character. To this distinction the gifted brother whose loss we deplore is truly entitled. Eminence in the profession of his choice was early shown, long continued, and maintained in fullest measure to the last. His legal abilities Avere so various and diversified that it is difficult to say in what branch of the profession he most excelled: still larder to determine in what, if any, le was deficient. As a pleader, that is, in making the statement of a claim or defense upon paper, he was careful, diligent, exact. He belonged to that class of attorneys, of whom not many are now left to us, who commenced their professional lives by prolonged study, drill an' 4 discipline in the principles of the ancient system of the common law, yet hr always spoke very highly of the code, having a mind of such abundance of resource, and also of a certain n|mbleness and agility, which enabled him to discard the forms and fictions, shadows of the old regime, to retain the substance of things of value in it, and to apoly these to the new order of procedure which had grown up around him. He gave great attention to the preparation of litigated causes for trial. This not only embraced the form and formation of pleadings, the in estigation of authorities anc reflection upon argument, but something furt :er. He was much concerned about the appearance and demeanor of witnesses, the order in which they should be examined, the effect of this order upon the trial, and the relations which might obtain, for the nonce, between those who detailed and those who heard the evidence. Rightly deeming that proof, like glass, should be handled with care, and might be much effecled by the manner of its utterance and the time of its introduction, his verb ‘prepare’ had a mood —a tense in it often overlooked by others.

He had the capacity to grasp a case, and, having grasped, to hold it in all its details; before development, from the oath in chief of the jury to their retirement. ™e seemed, so to speak, to stand seized of it, per mi et per tout, in entireties; so that if it failed upon one hypothesis, it should yet survive and succeed upon another. Called upon to name in briefest phase the most promineut trait in his mental character, aside from those splendid qualities which attracted public notice, I should say it was his power of discernm nt. By this is not meant seeing—the mere sight of objects. All men may see —some as through a glass darkly; others as Cassio recollected “a mass of things, but nothing clearly. Many see plainly things just as they are. He Saw the relation in which one thing stands to another, their co-relative bearings, what these relations would be or might become at any stage, mesne or final, of the proceedings. And this did not seem to be so much an acquirement or an accomplishment as a faculty, a faculty of introspection of prevision, a sort of subsidiary sense or sensibility. In '•his he was exceptionally great It was a quet power—calm,

tranquil, noiseless in its operation, but strange as wisdom, cert- in as inspiration, and in its effects unavoidable as the decree of f;rte itself. His powers of analysis were large, yet fully equalled by those of combination and construction. His mind in this respect had a dual capacit / seldom found in the same person. Both in pencilling and drawing analogies he excelled. In illustration he Avas sparing. In dictation chaste, terse, accurate —upon occasion, ornate, elegant; fluent without superfluity. In pronunciation a purist, clear, correct, precise, with an ear of most delicate fancy. In the collection or arrangement of words in the clause or sentence, not so capable as apt to close an important sentence Avith one of the smallest of English prepositions, as with a term whose quantities might give to the voice and ear the cadence of repose. As an advocate he must be sssigned a high rank in the firstclass, a class not nuu erous. In the power of adaptation he Avas very able. Fact was closely fitted to fact, and the wh jle strucrure of circumstance was dovetailed into the law of the case —the parts matched like mosaics in the most highly wrought mechanism. He had a copious command of somewhat familiar terms and expressions, even upon obstruse topics, which becanje ready interpreters of his thought to the jury. And this kind of interpretation had for its nse the choicest medium —a voice which the goddess of persuasion had herself attuned to the very touch. The voice to the ear, as wood to the eye, has a kind of grain. H-s had in it notes which ran through the whole gamut and compass of exquisite insinuation —an apparently artless air of confidential communion , as if the things s.dd were only fully known between the speaker and those addressed —were things with which the other side did —could have no concern, His imagination was strong, active, vivid; not lawless, but sedulously tempered to the theme he dealt with. It was one of the most efficient parts of the caparison, in a richly furnished intellectual armory, with which nature had endowed a son highly favored. None knew better than he when to use it —when to forb ar. His best field lay in that class ot cases involving oersonal freedom, the vindication of character, and those questions concerning human conduct, whether of a private, corporate or public nature, which beset the ever-shifting line depending upon that which is styled discretion or construction. Here the rule is not found in the* text-books on statutes —only in the mind, heart ami conscience of those who sit in judgment, or in the primordial hints to be seen in these grand depositories of the elements of municipal law, the Constitutions of the State and Nation. It was the fortune of Mr. Hendricks many times as an advocate to meet and face hatred most deadly, prejudice unsparing, the unreasoning odium and fury of the time, engendered by the civil and military convulsions of the war. At such a conjuncture no difficulty disconcerted him, no terror appalled. He will be remembered as a f earles defender of popular rights, as an apostle of civil and political liberty, as by law defined, as a leader discreet and steadfast for a quarter of a century of the great Constitutional minorities of the Northwest, which he found in weakness, which he left in power. His name will be the synonym of protessional honor, courage and fidelity. He belonged to the National Bar: for many years to the bar of this city and county; for a yet longer period to the bar of the State. He is one es those who will always continue to be a member here. His association with us can never be wholly lost His membership has passed beyond the contingency

of employment, verdict, judgment or appeal. His name here will luwe an assured perpetuity—in his blameless life, his eloquent labors and in his lofty example, so worthy yet so difficult of all imitation.