‘ or run
H onorable Samuel Treat,
JUDGE U. S. DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI. FROM THE
BENCH, AND THE INAUGURATION OF HIS SUC-
_ ACESSOR, THE HON. AMOS M. THAYER.
Mmm 6, 1887. , _
ADDRESSES BY J UDGES TREAT, THAYER, AND BREWER.
Judge TREATS address was as follows:
All persons present are aware that this is the last hour of my long odicial
life. In disappearing from the bench, I wish to express my profound grati-
tude to ·the living and the dead of bench and bar, state and federal, through
whose generous aid I have gone forward in my judicial work for now nearly
38. years. Without such aid my life might have been a failure. I have had
to lead the way in many untried paths of jurisprudence, the record of which.,
for good or ill, is now closed. Never through fear or favor have I suffered
justice to be perverted. Errors have been committed, but not through pas-
sion, partiality. or cowardice; _
The coutesutor public and private rights are not determined amid the car-
nage of battle-fields alone, bu more frequently in legislative halls and in the
judicial forum. ‘ A wise statute or far—reaching judgment often shapes the des-
tinies of a nation; though silently, yet potentially. COKE, at the cost of his judi-
cial life, refused to surrender, under royal behests, his independent judgment.
That sturdy independence culminated in the petition of right, the overthrow
of royal usurpation, and the incoming of the commonwealth. So, at a later
day, the trial of the seven bishops caused the expulsion of the Stuarts, and,
through the billof rights consequent thereon, permanent safeguards of civil
and religious liberty. Whenpopularrage sought to overbear the deliberations
of the court, Maivsrmnn, deiiant of such clamor, calmly and courageous1y
pronounced the judgment which law and justice demanded. Are not such·
scenes, and the leaders in such conflicts, as worthy of commemoration as if
they had fought with Cromwell at Naseby. or Wellington at Waterloo?
This is not the hour to trace the growth of the law, and its many changes.
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