HORACE BTNNEY. 355 



with the enerfry ami dovotion of the yomijLjost patriot. He sustiiiiicd 

 the action of PresitU'iit Liiicohi in its most stringent niunil'estations, 

 though not without quahtications and remonstrance, after the worst of 

 the danger was over, against the possible abuses of extraordinary 

 powers. When Mr. Lincohi suspended the privik'ge of the writ of 

 /labeas corpus, by proelaination, without the consent of Congress, — 

 action which e.xcited general doubt and widespread opposition, — Mr. 

 Binney came to the rescue, and sustained the action of the President 

 in three pamphh^ts. of which Judge iStrong says that " they will never 

 cease to be regarded as models of acute reasoning apiilied to Consti- 

 tutional law." 



From the accounts given of it by those accustomed to hear him in 

 court, Mr. Biuney's forensic delivery was of the highest, because of 

 the most fitting, description. Without aiming at flights of oratory, his 

 speech was always exactly adapted to the needs of the trial. Though 

 forcible and energetic, vehement even on occasion, his style was 

 generally the calm, unimpassioned expression of the logic of the facts 

 and the pure reason of the law of the case. Fluent without haste, 

 deliberate \vithout hesitation, exact in apprehension, and accurate in 

 expression, never missing or mistaking a word, his sentences fell on 

 the ear of judge or jury with beautiful completeness, and kept the 

 attention awake by the grace of their style as well as by the distinct- 

 ness of their meaning. His published writings, though too few, are 

 marked by the same clearness, force, and elegance of style that 

 distinguished his speech. His discourses on the Lives and Characters 

 of Chief Justice Tilghman, of Pennsylvania, and of Chief Justice 

 Marshall, of the United States, are models of that most ditlicult 

 branch of oratory which deals with the characteristics of the dead. 

 The delicacy of touch, the accuracy of discrimination, the nicety of 

 analysis, the distinctness of characterization, with which he places the 

 eminent qualities of those great magistrates before the mind of the 

 reader, the whole warm with personal affection and radiant with 

 generous admiration, show to what distinction he might have risen in 

 literature, had he given himself to its pursuit. 



In 1850, at the age of seventy, Mr. Binney retired absolutely to 

 private life, and addressed himself to the vocation — so difficult to 

 the most of men, so beautiful when it is well discharged — of growing 

 old gracefully. How perfectly and how beautifully he did this, all 

 can say who have ever had the happiness of seeing the handsome old 

 man, his white locks crowned with the black velvet skull-cap he 

 usually wore, in his delightful home, and of enjoying the pleasure of 



