And
perhaps the finest tribute to the power and subtlety of his influence
was, that, to the last, juries, who began cases by steeling
themselves against it, and who ended by giving him their verdicts,
maintained that they were not at all influenced by him,--so profound,
so complete, and so unconscious had been the spell this man of genius
had woven around them.
When it is remembered that a great lawyer in the United States is
called upon (as he is not in England) to practise in all our courts,
civil and criminal, law, equity, and admiralty, and, in addition to
all the complicated questions between parties, involving life,
liberty, and property, arising therein, that he is to know and
discuss our whole scheme of government, from questions under its
patent laws up to questions of jurisdiction and constitutional
law,--it will be seen what a field there is for the exhibition of the
highest talents, and how few lawyers in the country can become
eminent in all these various and important departments of mental
labor. In their whole extent Mr. Choate was not only thoroughly
informed as a student and profound as a reasoner, but his genius
produced such a fusion of imagination and understanding as to give
creativeness to argumentation and philosophy to treatment of facts.
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