636 JOHN LOWELL. 



crisis. These difficulties affected very seriously the manufacturing 

 interests of this part of the Comnaonwealth, and many of the large 

 mercantile firms who had been the agents of the factories. The family 

 and business connections of Mr. Lowell and his father naturally caused 

 him to be consulted in some of these matters, and he thus became 

 interested in the consideration of questions arising in bankruptcy and 

 insolvency, a branch of the law in which as a judge he subsequently 

 acquired a well-deserved and widespread reputation. 



He continued in the practice of the law until 1865. During part of 

 this time he had charge of the " Law Reporter," a monthly journal then 

 published in Boston. From May, 1856, he was for two years its sole 

 editor, and afterwards until April, 1860, joint editor with Mr. Samuel 

 M. Quincy of the Boston bar. Four volumes (Vols. 19, 20, 21, and 22) 

 were published while he was editor. 



Upon the resignation of Judge Sprague of the United States District 

 Court of Massachusetts, in March, 1865, Mr. Lowell was appointed his 

 successor. The appointment was wholly unsolicited by Mr. Lowell. 

 It was made upon the recommendation of a few of the leaders of the 

 Suffolk bar. The letter which they addressed to the President was 

 written by Mr. Charles G. Loring, and was signed by himself, Mr. 

 Charles B. Goodrich, Mr. Sidney Bartlett, Judge Josiah G. Abbott, 

 Mr. Samuel E. Sewall, Mr. Edward D. Sohier, Mr. George Bemis, and 

 Mr. Dwight Foster. It was carried to Washington at the same time 

 with Judge Sprague's resignation by Mr. Richard H. Dana, Jr., who 

 was then the United States attorney here. The nomination was sug- 

 gested to Mr. Lincoln by Mr. Sumner and Mr. Dana, and was made 

 and confirmed on the same day. 



The appointment was one peculiarly gratifying to Mr. Lowell, for his 

 great-grandfather, Judge John Lowell, had been appointed in 1789 by 

 General Washington to this same office, and was the first District Judge 

 of the United States for the District of Massachusetts, and Mr. Lowell 

 felt a natural and proper pride and pleasure in succeeding to the honor- 

 able position and duties of his ancestor. In 1878, on the death of the 

 Honorable George F. Shepley, Judge of the Circuit Court of the United 

 States for the First Circuit, he was made Circuit Judge, thus again suc- 

 ceedino- his sreat-grandfather, who had been appointed by President John 

 Adams to a similar position in the court which the Federalists created in 

 the last year of President Adams's administration, only to have the act 

 creating it repealed and the court destroyed by the Democrats under 

 Jefferson, as the simplest mode of getting rid of the Federalist judges 

 whom Adams had appointed. 



