- Title
- Papers of William Alexander Graham [1866-1868, v.7]
-
-
- Date
- 1984
-
-
- Creator
- ["Graham, William A. (William Alexander), 1804-1875."]
-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
-
Papers of William Alexander Graham [1866-1868, v.7]
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The Papers ok William
Л.
Graham
161
Discourse
in Memory oe the
Life and Character
of the
I Ion. Geo. E. Badger,
delivered by
William A. Graham, of Orange,
(By request of the Bar of Wake County,)
At Rai.eigii, July 19th, 1 866. 1
Address.
My acquaintance with Mr. Badger commenced in the latter part of the sum¬
mer of eighteen hundred and twenty-five. He had already completed his service
as a Judge, which office he resigned at the close of the spring circuit of that year;
had contested the palm of forensic eloquence and professional learning with
Seawell2 and Gaston,8 with a wide increase of reputation, at the recent term of
the Supreme Court, and was returned to the practice in Orange, where he had
once resided, in generous competition with Murphey* and Nash,5 Yancey8 and
Mangum,’ Hawks,8 Haywood9 and others, Mr. Ruffin,10 hitherto the leader at
this bar, having been appointed his successor on the bench of the Superior Court.
He was then a little turned of thirty years of age. One half of the time since his
majority had been passed upon the bench, yet his fame as a lawyer was fully es¬
tablished; and though he doubtless afterwards added vastly to his stores of erudi¬
tion, in quickness of perception, readiness of comprehension, clear and forcible
reasoning, elegant and imposing diction, in all that constitutes an orator and ad¬
vocate, he had attained an eminence hardly surpassed at any period of his life.
From that time, and before it I know not how long, till the day' he was stricken
by the disease which terminated his life, in North Carolina at least, his name was
on every tongue. He was not only a marked and distinguished, but an eminent
man. So bright and shining a character could not but attract general observa¬
tion; and though
"Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze
Is fixed forever, to detract or praise”;11
and while, with a gay and hilarious nature, frank, but somewhat eccentrical
manners, and unequalled powers of conversation, united with some infirmity of
temper, his expressions and conduct in the earlier half of his life were often the
subject of severe criticism; yet, in the long period of from forty to fifty years, in
which he moved “in the high places of the world”, no one denied him the gifts of
most extraordinary talents and unswerving integrity and truthfulness. Even in
the particulars in which complaint had been made, an imputed hauteur and ex¬
clusiveness, his dispositions were either mellowed by time, or, what is more prob¬
able, his character came to be better appreciated from being better understood;
and for years before his sad eclipse from useful life, no man enjoyed more of the
general confidence and favor of the people, as none had possessed in a higher de¬
gree their admiration.
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