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The Ruffin Papers. 39
bags. The capacity to acquire, and the capacity to use, knowledge are
two very different things. Generally the school is the test of the former,
life of the latter. To have both of these in an extraordinary degree makes
a very high order of intellect. Now, Judge Ruffin's mind could not truth-fully
be called brilliant. The limitation was upon his capacity to acquire
knowledge; but this he obviated by incessant, earnest, untiring labor.
Endowed by nature with an excellent judgment, the soundest common
sense, and an indomitable will, his capacity to use the knowledge that he
acquired was almost unlimited. While the minds of some of his com-petitors
may have been filled with knowledge, unassorted, ill-digested—
a lumber room, so to say—his was a well-ordered cabinet, with a place
for everything and everything in its place, all ready for use at the demand
of the occasion. This orderliness of intellect was especially valuable
when books were few, and those few, quite often in an itinerant practice,
inaccessible. Very quickly would it supply the place of graces of oratory,
and make its possessor much sought as an attorney. Judge Ruffin,
though on occasions vehement, had none of these graces, and so he had
been some years at the bar before his excellence was appreciated and
clients knocked at his door (e. g. He is not marked as counsel on the
equity docket until the March Term, 1814, and then in only 12 out of 57
cases. He commences with 3 cases in the county court, but by the Novem-ber
Term, 1814, he was in 42 out of 72). When he resigned from the
bench in 1818 he had as much work as one man could do, and for six
years and more literally coined money. Governor Graham says that
at that period, viz., from January, 1819, to July, 1825, his income was
greater than that of any lawyer in the history of the State to 1871.
When it is remembered that he was in competition with such accom-plished
lawyers as Murphey, Nash, Leonard Henderson, Cameron,
Badger, Hawks, and others, any one of whom would have done honor to
any bar anywhere and at any time, his extraordinary excellence as a
lawyer can be easily seen. Quoting Governor Graham : "At first, his
manner was diffident, and his speech hesitating and embarrassed. But
these difficulties being soon overcome, the vigor of his understanding,
the extent and accuracy of his learning, and his perfect mastery of his
cases by diligent preparation, in a short time gave him position among
these veterans of the profession and secured him a general and lucrative
practice."
AS A JUDGE
Here his excellence was supreme. Few judges in the Union have been
of the same class as he, and none in North Carolina. If Judges Shaw of
Massachusetts; Tilghman and Gibson of Pennsylvania, and Kent and
Spencer of New York, have had a greater influence upon the develop-ment
of the law in this country, it was simply because their decisions
dealt with questions broader in their scope and more varied in their
aspect, and not because they were greater judges. However this may be,
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