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(NOTE.)

"HON. JOSEPH P. BRADLEY,

"NEWARK, N. J., March 7, 1877.

"Justice U. S. Supreme Court.

"DEAR SIR:-Your friends and neighbors in this community have given you their sincere sympathy in your discharge of the duties imposed upon you as the arbiter of the Electoral Commission.

"No weightier responsibility was ever incurred by any citizen than rested upon your casting vote, but your course has been watched by us with more of affectionate interest than of anxiety.

"We had a life-long assurance that whatever of so-called political bias you might make manifest would be only the expression of deep-rooted convictions of the true interpretations of the Constitution and of devotion to republican government in its essence and purity.

"We offer you our heart-felt congratulations, mostly for this, that it has given to you to distinguish a just line between the power and right of the States to choose a President and the unholy claim of one branch of Congress to usurp that power.

"We are aware that in your action you have incurred virulent partisan censure. The road to fictitious greatness, to pretense instead of reality, lay in the other direction, The trial must have been severe, as the temptations you avoided, and the difficulties in your path were great, we the more congratulate ourselves that Newark and New Jersey, in the persons of yourself and Senator Frelinghuysen, have had so large and noble an office in the adjustment of a controversy so solemn as that of the right of a State to vote for the Presidency by its own methods and independent of the dictation and surveillance of Congress. The tendency of the House of Representatives to usurp judicial and executive functions is a danger far greater than any mere change of party rule.

"But it is not our purpose to discuss the great issue you have already adjucated. We only desire to say to you in deep sincerity, that here at your home, where you have gone in and out before the people for many years, the old love and respect are builded up stronger by a new admiration of firmness in judgments that will be historic as they are heroic, and mark an era in the Constitutional law of our beloved country.

"With all wishes for your health and happiness, we remain

your attached friends:

"MARCUS L. WARD.
“JOSEPH A. Halsey.
"SILAS MERCHANT.
"AMZI DOdd.

"W. A. WHITEHEAD.

"THOS. T. KINNEY.

"J. WHITEHEAD.

"ABRM. COLES.

46 CHARLES S. GRAHAM.

“JOSEPH WARD.

"ISAAC A. ALLING.

"MARTIN R. DENNIS.

"JOHN H. KASE.

"SAMUEL ATWATER.
"WILLIAM A. NEWELL.

"O. F. BALDWIN.
"H. N. CONGAR.
"IRA M. HARRISON.
"A. M. Woodruff.
"N. PERRY.

"THEO. MACKNET.
"FRANCIS MACKIN.
“J. D. POINIER.
"WILLIAM WARD.
"THOMAS B. PEDDIE.
"BETHUEL L. DODD.
"W. A. MEYER.
"OBA. Woodruff.
"WILLIAM H. KIRK.

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THE "JUDICIAL RECORD"

OF THE LATE

MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY.

BY WILLIAM DRAPER LEWIS,

OF PHILADELPHIA, PA.

The death of Mr. Justice Bradley removes one who, for the past twenty-one years, has been a member of "the ideal tribunal." No one but his fellow-judges, who have come in daily contact with him, can rightly estimate the extent of the influence which he had on the development of jurisprudence; for we are told that it is in the consultation room that merit, learning and the clearness of one's ideas are best tested. No show of knowledge which one does not possess, no glitter which apes ability, can long deceive those with whom we are engaged in a common intellectual labor. And yet, even if we did not have the testimony of his colleagues, we could not have failed to realize the weight in the councils of a court which that man must have who, like the late Justice, evinced in his written opinions such an intimate acquaintance with all branches of the common and constitutional law of his own country and with the judicial systems of continental Europe, and who showed by the accuracy of his citations in oral statements of the law during the argument of a case, the wonderful retentiveness of his memory.

The members of the profession have two sources from which they can judge a judge; the way in which he conducts the business of the court while on the bench, and his written opinions. The first, in a member of an appellate court, is the lesser of the two in importance, and yet no mention of the late Justice would be complete without some notice of his marvellous aptitude for what one may call "judicial business." It was wonderful to see the quickness and unfailing accuracy with which he applied abstract principles of law to the concrete cases which came before him in the Circuit Court. The highest compliment which a Pennsylvanian could give was paid to him by one of the leading members of the bar of that State, when he said: "In the manner of Judge Sharswood, Justice Bradley cleared the list."

But it is from his reported opinions, and especially his opinions in cases involving the construction of the Constitution, that Mr. Justice Bradley will live in history. In a short time, so quickly do we forget the minor points of a great man's work, by these constitutional opinions alone will he be judged. Whether, as time passes, that judgment will become more or less favorable, depends largely on whether the future members of the Court follow his conceptions of the true meaning of the important clauses of the Constitution. For with our judiciary, as with mankind in general, greatness which comes from "ideas" endures only so long as those ideas influence human thought or conduct.

Nothing will show us more clearly the point of view from which Mr. Justice Bradley regarded constitutional questions than an analysis of some of the

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