JUDGE J. S. BLACK.

      Jeremiah Sullivan Black was born at his father's homestead, Somerset county, Pennsylvania, January 10, 1810. His grandfather was a man of influence in the community and his father, Henry Black, heir to the homestead, was Justice of the Peace, Associate Judge of the county for twenty years, member of the General Assembly, and Representative in Congress.

      The lad went to the schools of the neighborhood, in the country, and in the villages round about, and finally to a classical school at Brownsville, where his education, at the hands of the regular masters, came to an end. Thenceforth he governed his own studies, but he governed them with a sober judgment, though he pursued them with a, keen spirit. Mental labor was almost no labor to him.

      The boy was especially fond of the Latin classics, and at fifteen was a clever Horatian. He had committed the text verbatim; had translated it into English prose; and then turned the whole into English verse of his own. To the day of his death he remembered literally all three--the Latin, the English prose and the English verse,--though neither had ever been written; and he amused many a leisure moment by comparing his childish version with the numerous published translations of his favorite. At the age of seventeen, when he entered an office as a student of law, he was found a fair scholar, and well equipped for his profession, for he had pursued, with even greater assiduity, studies for which he had less taste. His serious mind, with its mighty and eager grasp, seized and assimilated everything within reach. He had read all of the books to be found in the closets and on the shelves of his father's and grandfather's homes. He mastered the principles of the law with marvelous rapidity and was admitted to the bar before he was of age. He succeeded to the practice of his tutor, who went to Congress and soon after became deputy Attorney General for his home county, and was found on one side or the other of every important case in the several courts. His fame and practice extended rapidly, and rested upon the sure foundation, not of genius merely, or of the capacity for oratorical display, but of personal probity, conscientious devotion to the interests of his clients, and that comprehensive and scientific knowledge of law which, in the [415] considerate judgment of his professional brethren, gives him historical rank beside the most illustrious of his profession. He continued to practice with success until, at the age of thirty-two, he was appointed President Judge of the Sixteenth Judicial District.

      Judge Black while at the bar had not been much of a politician. He had given his mind to literature and law, and if he was profound in learning he was also masterly in exposition. He was not fond of the stump and insisted that he had no talent, as he certainly had no taste, for that kind of speaking. But he was a vigorous writer, and his pen was used much in the service of his party. He was a Democrat of the straitest sect, a disciple of Jefferson, and a most unflinching and aggressive friend of Jackson. He soon came to be recognized as one of the foremost men on the Democratic side in his state, and was more or less discussed as candidate for Governor, for Senator in Congress and Judge of the Supreme Court.

      In 1851 he was elected Judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and under the arrangement for determining such matters, became Chief-Justice. He was afterwards re-elected Associate Justice, and left upon the jurisprudence of his state a deep impression. When Mr. Buchanan was elected President in 1857 Judge Black, because of his great ability and incorruptible integrity and not because of personal friendship or political influence, was appointed Attorney General in the newly elected President's Cabinet. In this office he earned the everlasting gratitude of the American people by the way in which he exposed and overthrew the land conspirators who by means of forged titles were seeking to get control of thousands of square miles of land in the newly acquired territory from Mexico. Because of differences in the Cabinet, Cass and Cobb resigned, and Judge Black became Secretary of State, playing an important part in the controversies immediately preceding the Civil War. On the 6th of February, 1861, he was nominated by the President for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, but the nomination was never confirmed, nor was it rejected.

      At the age of fifty-one Judge Black returned to the practice of law with "clean hands and empty." In the latter part of 1861 he was appointed reporter of the United States Supreme Court and after issuing the first and second volumes resigned to meet the requirements of a very large and desirable law practice. He was counsel for President Johnson in the impeachment proceedings, for Secretary Belknap and Samuel J. Tilden before the Electoral Commission. His last public work was on behalf of his state in an unselfish effort to protect the people against corporate greed.

      Judge Black was a devout Christian. Fearing nothing else in this world he went always and humbly in the fear of God. His whole mind and being were saturated with the morality of the Testament of Christ, which he said was "filled with all forms of moral beauty, and radiant with miracles of light." He was baptized in 1843, by Alexander Campbell, whose eulogy he pronounced at the unveiling of his statue at Bethany, W. Va.

      Judge Black expired at Brockie, his home, on the 19th of August, 1883. Unable to rise from his bed, he, during the last days of his fatal illness, asked his wife to go to the windows and look out on the fair and beautiful landscape and report to him how it looked, especially if the fields were green; and he listened to her report with simple and touching tenderness.

      He knew from the first that he was fatally stricken, and no assurance to the contrary produced the slightest impression. But he said very little on the subject. In his broad view of the economy of nature and of God, dissolution of his life was an event not to be dreaded but to be soberly welcomed by one who had no reason to fear the face of the Judge. To one member of his family he said, "I would not for one moment have you think I am afraid to die." To another he said, "my business on the other side is well settled." There were no "scenes." His descent into the grave was perfectly serene, and he lay down to his well earned rest with all the majesty of his natural character about him. Judge Black was a man great in all the elements of true greatness; great in intellect, great in culture, great in moral grandeur, and great in the simplicity and beauty of his spiritual life.

[COC 415-416]