BIKtfEY, HORACE. 



BLAINE, JAMES G. 



79 



BINNEY, HORACE, born in Philadelphia, 

 January 4, 1Y80; died August 12, 1875, at 

 the age of 97. He received his education at 

 Harvard University, where he was graduated 

 in 1797, at the age of seventeen, and where 

 he divided the first honors with the late Judge 

 White, of Salem, Mass. He studied law in the 

 office of Jared Ingersoll, Esq., and was admit- 

 ted to the bar in 1800, after three years' study, 

 and before he was of age. Devoting himself 

 to the hard work of his profession, he soon 

 gained a foothold in the courts, and gradually 

 rose to the head of the Philadelphia bar. Sev- 

 eral times he was offered a position on the 

 bench, but always declined such honors. He 

 took a leading part in nearly all the most im- 

 portant cases. In 1843 he made his last ap- 

 pearance in court in the celebrated case of 

 " Vidal w. The Mayor of Philadelphia," before 

 the United States Supreme Court. The issue 

 involved the validity of the will of the famous 

 Stephen Girard. Mr. Binney's argument in 

 favor of the validity of the will is often cited 

 as an authority by American and British ju- 

 rists. He took a prominent part in politics, 

 and was, as early as 1806, elected a member 

 of the Legislature. In 1832 he was elected a 

 member of Congress from Philadelphia, as an 

 opponent to the Democratic Administration. 

 He only served from 1833 to 1835, and de- 

 clined a reelection. About this time he also 

 figured in connection with the old United 

 States Bank, as a director of which he served 

 many years ; and when its affairs were wound 

 up he was one of the trustees to whom the 

 task was intrusted. He took an early and 

 heroic part in the antislavery agitation. His 

 most important published work was his " Re- 

 ports of Cases in the Supreme Court of Penn- 

 sylvania," in six volumes, from 1799 to 1814. 

 It was began in 1809 and ended in 1815. His 

 celebrated argument in the Vidal case was 

 published in 1844. He also gave to the pub- 

 lic his "Eulogium on Chief-Justice Tilghman" 

 (1827), and on " Chief-Justice Marshall" (1836) ; 

 " An Inquiry into the Formation of Washing- 

 ton's Farewell Address " (1859) ; and " The 

 Leaders of the Old Bar of Philadelphia " (1859). - 

 This last work included sketches of the pro- 

 fessional character and career of only three 

 persons Lewis, Tilghman, and Ingersoll. At 

 the time of his death, Mr. Binney was the old- 

 est member of the bar of Philadelphia. Horace 

 Binney, Jr., whose career as a lawyer and a 

 man almost rivaled that of his father, died in 

 February, 1870, at the age of sixty-two. 



ELAINE, JAMES GILLESPIE, was born on 

 January 31, 1830, in Washington County, Pa. 

 His mother was a member of the Catholic 

 Church, to which his father also became a 

 convert. They had five sons and two daugh- 

 ters who were reared in the faith of their 

 parents. James, the eldest, was for a short 

 time a teacher at the South, and afterward be- 

 came an editor and removed to Maine, where he 

 conducted the Kennebec Journal and Portland 



Advertiser, for several years. He was a mem- 

 ber of the State Legislature for four years, two 

 of which he was Speaker of the Lower House. 

 In 1862, he was elected to Congress as a Repre- 

 sentative from Maine, and has been reflected 

 at every subsequent term. He has served on 

 various important committees, as those of 

 Post-Office and Post-Roads, Military Affairs, 

 on the death of President Lincoln, war debts 

 of the States, Appropriations and Rules. In 

 the Forty-first, the Forty -second, and the For- 

 ty-third Congresses he served as Speaker of 

 the House of Representatives. He was re- 

 elected to Congress at the last congressional 

 election in his State, by a majority of 2,830 

 votes. During this year Mr. Blaine took the 

 occasion of the election in Ohio to express his 

 views on an amendment to the Federal Con- 

 stitution relative to religion and public schools, 

 in a letter to a prominent citizen of Ohio, 'as 

 follows : 



AUGUSTA, ME., October 20, 1875. 



MY DEAR SIB : The public-school agitation in your 

 late campaign is liable to break out elsewhere ; and, 

 occurring first in one State and then in another, may 

 keep the whole country in a ferment for years to 

 come. This inevitably arouses sectarian feeling and 

 leads to that bitterest and most deplorable of all 

 strifes, the strife between religious denominations. 

 It seems to me that this question ought to be settled 

 in some definite and comprehensive way, and the 

 only settlement that can be final is the complete vic- 

 tory for non-sectarian schools. I am sure this will 

 be demanded by the American people at all hazards 

 and at any cost. 



The dread of sectarian legislation in this country 

 lias been felt many times in the past. It began very 

 early. The first amendment to the Constitution, the 

 joint product of Jeiferson and Madison, proposed in 

 1789, declared that " Congress shall make no law re- 

 specting an establishment of religion, nor prohibit- 

 ing the free exercise thereof." At that time, when 

 the powers of the Federal Government were untried 

 and undeveloped, the fear was that Congress might 

 be the source of danger to perfect religious liberty, 

 and hence all power was taken away from it. At 

 the same time the States were left free to do as they 



E leased in regard to u an establishment of religion," 

 )r the tenth amendment, proposed by that eminent 

 jurist, Theophilus Parsons, and adopted contempora- 

 neously with the first, declared that " all powers not 

 delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, 

 nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to 

 the States respectively, or to the people." 



A majority of the people in any State in this Union 

 can, therefore, if they desire it, have an established 

 Church, under which the minority may be taxed for 

 the erection of church-edifices which they never en- 

 ter and for the support of which they do not believe. ' 

 This power was actually exercised in some of the 

 States long after the adoption of the Federal Consti- 

 tution, and, although there may be no positive dan- 

 ger of its revival in the future, the possibility of it 

 should not be permitted. The auspicious time to 

 guard against an evil is when all will unite in pre- 

 venting it. 



_ And in curing this constitutional defect all possi- 

 bility of hurtful agitation on the school question 

 should be ended also. Just let the old Jeiferson- 

 Madison amendment be applied to the States by ad- 

 ding the following to the inhibitory clauses in sec- 

 tion 10, Article I, of the Federal Constitution, viz. : 



_ No State shall make any law respecting an estab- 

 lishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise 

 thereof; and no money raised by taxation in any 



