748 



WAGES- WAITE. 



rough and ready frankness and immovable detenu i 

 nation were a set off In " plantation manners." and lie 

 Was of use in making felt the ripening Northern will 

 and purpose, where more refined men and measures 

 might have failed. When challenged liy a Southern 

 Senator. IK- so completed liiiuself as to bewilder and 

 overawe his adversaries. His rebuke to lloiiglas. dur- 

 ing the debate on the Kansas -Nebraska bill, however 

 unparliamentary, was effective, lie earnecl the re- 

 speet of Toi:mbs. who bore public witness to his manly 

 sincerity and directness. With five others he voted in 

 1862 to repeal the Poyitm Slave knr. He opposed the 

 LeoompUm constitution for Kansas, the proposed pur- 

 chase of Cuba, and every measure in the. interest of 

 slavery. lie advocated MCTOVofinge in tin; District of 

 Columbia; and imshed the Homestead bill till it was 

 passed in isr.i 1 . He earned the familiar appellations of 

 'honest Hen Wade/' "the old Homan," and the 

 like. The war he maybe said to have enjoyed, urging 

 emancipation and confiscation from the start, and as. 

 chairman of the Joint Committee on its conduct ren- 

 derinir real service. To the era of reconstruction he 

 was ill adapted, for moderation and mercy were neither 

 in his views nor in his temper, lie opposed a second 

 term for Lincoln, and as president of tlie Senate ve- 

 heuiently urged the impeachment of Pros. Johnson. 

 Counsels of this kind had not a happy effect when the 

 war was over, a fact which he seemed unwilling to 

 realize. By 1809 he was no lomrer needed in the Sen- 

 ate, nor was he invited to the Cabinet, but his retire- 

 ment was softened by a commissionershipon the 1'acilic 

 Uailroad. In 1871 he was on the Santo Domingo 

 Commission, and favored annexation. He was last 

 heard of in 1877 as violently opposing the mild policy 

 of Prcs. Hayes toward the South. An ardent re- 

 former while the battle of principles was in progress, 

 he could not accept results and be content when the 

 victory was won. He died at Jefferson, Ohio. March 

 See his /,//>, by A. G. Riddle (188C.) 



WAGES. See AGRICULTURE, Chap. X., LABOII 

 and STRIKES. 



WAITE. .MORRISON HE.MICK (1816-1888), chief- 

 iiistieeof the United States, was born at Lyme. Conn.. 

 Nov. 29, 1816. Having graduated at Yale College in 

 1837, he removed to Ohio, where he completed his le- 

 gal studies and engaged in the practice of the law at 

 .Toledo. He filled no national office until selected by 

 Pres. Grant in 1872 to represent the United Si 

 Geneva More the tribunal of arbitration on the Ala- 

 bama claims under the treaty of Washington with 

 Great Britain. While presiding over a convention for 

 the revision of the constitution of Ohio he was nom- 

 inated by Pres. (irant to the office of Chief Justiv of 

 the Supreme Court of the United States, and entered 

 on its duties March 4, 1874. He held that office until 

 his death, winch occurred on March 23, 18S8. 



Prior to the sickness that terminated hi:-, life he had 

 prepared an elaborate opinion in (he telephone ea.-e.s 

 that had been for many months before the Supreme 

 Court involving the validity of ih>> Hell telephone pat 

 ents. Before ne had obtained entire relief from the 

 indisposition which had affected him he took his place 

 upon the bench, on March I'.tlh, for the pun 

 delivering the judgment of the court in the telephone 

 - -. !! ) in inn ! :ii i ' url '.'. iiile the ni.uii ,; was 

 read by another and then returned to his bed, from 

 which he never arose. 



Chief. Insti e Waite was called to preside over the 

 Supreme Court at a period that marks one of the 

 great stages in the history of that court. The rclicllion 



of ]>'.<) had Ix-en suppressed ami the period of re- 

 construction hid passed, during which the powers of 

 the government had been strained lo meet the 



cies that threatened the national unity if not iv- \ 



uteocc, and it now devolved upon tl oiirt over which 



he presided to readjust the civil relations that, had 

 been disturbed during this exciting period in conform- 

 ity with Bound views of the nature and limitations of 



the public authority. In a political sense the period 

 under consideration was necessarily one of conservative 

 reaction and it was to be anticipated that the action of 

 the court would reflect that tendency. The vast in- 

 crease of business transacted by the court was another 

 peculiar feature of this period, and a relatively largo 

 proportion of that business related to public, and cor- 

 porate obligations. The war had given a great impetus 

 to the extension of railways, eonneciing together all 

 parts of xhe country from the Atlantic to the Pacilic 

 and from the Lakes to the Gulf, and the adjustment 

 of the legal relations arising from such im 

 brought to the court an extended and complicated 

 branch of business. The crowdr i the calen- 



dar of the court rendered the despatch of business the 

 most pressing necessity of the conduct of its busi- 

 ness. 



In the early years of the Supreme Court, when the 

 structural lines given by the Constitution were to be 

 transferred to the institutions and habits of intercourse 

 of a young and growing society, and that court- was the 

 organ of such adjustments, and when the national im- 

 pulses and local predileetionsof men read the purposes 

 of that Constitution in opposite senses, a mind com- 

 prehensive and exact, animated by the genius of our 

 national institutions and sensitive to the balance of our 

 complicated legal system, was needed in the chi 

 of that court to inspire and mould its deliberations, 

 and that mind was found in John Marshall (lor whom 

 see ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITAXMCA). The occasion w:is 

 great and the man was equal to the demand of its ex- 

 igencies. Before that day nations had arisen and be- 

 come great xinder the arbitrament of the sword, but 

 the spectacle of a nation planned in council and habil- 

 itated under the genial sway of judicial reason was new 

 to the world. 



As the first great period in the history of tlie court 

 demanded an ideality that could grasp the possibilities 

 of American civilization, so the second period de- 

 manded a robust administration to give fibre to that 

 which had been fashioned by his great prcdiv 

 The court, over which Chief -Justice Tancy (q. v.) pro- 

 sided did not fail to meet what was promised by its 

 ability and demanded by the state of the country, mud 

 the dark shadow of the rebellion of 1800 disturbed iu 

 equanimity. 



The third great period maybe regarded ascomiuenc- 

 ing at the accession of Chief-Justice Waite to its lir.-t 

 The necessity for settling great fundamental 

 political questions appeared to have passed, and the 

 early doctrines of the court had passed into full ac- 

 ceptance and had been clearly illustrated and defined. 

 The industrial development made the chief demand 

 upon the attention of the court. Commercial enter- 

 prises embodying the national spirit that emerged with 

 fresh animation from the unities of purpose and action 

 brought about by the war passed from local to inlcr- 

 j-'ate relationships, thus widening the area of federal 

 jurisdiction and crowding the court with a great vol- 

 ume of business that overtasked itx means of dis- 

 charging such grave public duties. Under such cir- 

 cumstances an able administrator was what was needed 

 at the head of the court ami such an officer was found 

 in Chief-Justice Waite. With tin; depressing fact 

 ever present in the mind of the court thai its suitor* 

 must, wait three years to be heard before it. it is not 

 surprising that the adornments of oratory should largely 

 disappear from the court, replaced by liielionicss ma- 

 chinery without heat or seinl illation. The mental consti- 

 tution of Chic f. lust ice \Vailc was not at, variance with 

 the necessities that thus affected the court, for he re- 

 garded il as a place for the transaction of business and 

 its chief duty beyond that of decidin.ii properly to be 

 the expedition of its business. If tlie overtasked 

 powers of the bench did not admit of the realization 

 of the forensic models of Home and Greece that was 



no deprivation to the Chief-Justice, who cntcrtai 1 



English ideas of methods of advocacy. A concise and 



