Delaware tribune. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1867-1877, 1868-08-20
The Gaiiles Gase
tERoN ruTsAx's MONTHLY FOE Aueusr.l
THE ROMANCE
OF THE
GREAT GAINES CASE.
A LIFETIME Law SUIT.

A LIFETIME Law SUIT.
"When, hereafter, some distinguished
American lawyer shall retire from his prac
tice to write the history of his country
jurisprudence, this case will be registered b,
him as the most remarkable in the record
of its courts"
So said the Supreme Court of the United
States, speaking in the person of Associat,
Justice Wayne, when in 1860, fer the sixth
time, II decided upon an issue in the famou
case Of Myra Clark Gaines.
Justice Wayne's language was judicial.
careful. The subject of his reference justi
fed him in terming 1t the ''most remarkable
in all the records Of American courts. Whel
he thus spoke it had been for twenty six
years threading the tortuous path of the
law. Commenced in 1884, 1t had been in
every court of Louisiana, and six times in
the Supreme Court of the United States. II
had at times been represented by the ablest
counsel in the country, and at other times
by no counsel at all. 1t had enlisted on one
side romantic and sympathetic enthusiasm,
and on the other had incurred the opposition
OF most immense and perfectly honest private
interests. 1t had divided tie Court in the
most irreconcilable and antagonistic opin-
ions. 1t had been decided upon the same
issues of fact, by the same bench of judges,
in the light of substantially the same testi-
mony, in precisely opposite directions.
One woman had been the moving spirit oi
all this litigation.
Her suit was most audacious one. She
attacked that most sensitive, most carefully
guarded interest, the possession Of real
property, and threatened in her efforts the
overthrow Of all that was stable in the ideas
of law and custom, in respect to it. Her
claim was for houses, lands and human
property, which had passed into the hands
of hundreds of different owners. Their
title could be traced back for years previous
to the commencement of this suit, without
blemish of irregularity. 1t had come
through dozens of hands, all of whom had
bought and sold in perfect good faith, and
without the shadow of suspicion.
1t was the one woman against five hun
dred men.
1t was one rcsolute claim for abstract JUS
tice against five hundred apparent rights,
fortified in every tradition of law. and every
selfish interest Of organized society.
The evidence 10 support the claim was az
remarkable as the demand itself. At the
end of twcnty-six years oflaw, when Justice
Wayne pronounced his decision, he passed
in review upon allegations of fact running
back into the last century. He inquired into
the most private life of individuals, and ana
lyzed their most intimate relations in the
earliest five years of the present century.
Upon the view which the court took of the
occurrence or otherwise Of circumstances al
legged to have happened in those years de-
pended the result of this case. And finally,
they being determined favorable to the
claims OF Mr. Gaines, her fortunes turned
upon the established existence of will,
which even she did not pretend ever had an
existence after the dacease of the testator,
and the purport of which had no other proof
than the recollections, after the lapse gilmore
| than forty years, of aged and infirm persons
who remembered hearing it read.
Such were some of the features which the
learned justice pronounced "most remark
| able"
Let us draw from this tangled skein of real
life the thread of romance, whose remote
and c;lyarod l,x, ,,,a hoe ;fo r,r;.y;,, ooyapf,,
years ago in an atmosphere of society, and
under a system of government SO foreign
that we can now scarcely realize them.
We must go back to the commencement
ofthe present century, and imagine ourselves
in New Orleans under the Spanish rule. The
laws were curious mixture of weak civil
authority and decaying ecclesiastical control.
The Spanish possessions in America were
but an extra pawn upon the chessboard OF
European politics. New Orleans was true
tropical city; its population amalgamated
from dozen different races; its morals cor
rupted from as many different sources. AL
ready it was the seat of luxury, for the great
Mississippi rolled past its levees then as now.
Rich princes of landed estates, wealthy mer-
chants, and extensive traders, as well as
proud grandees OF an ancien regime, sip
ped sherbcts under the magnolias.
Among the rich men of the city in this
stage of its existence, whose ships were on
many seas, and whose interests were record
ed in the contingencies of many cities,
was Daniel Clark, a shipping merchant and a
politician. He stood at the head of his
rank, a prince among class whose luxu-
rious and elegant life has seldom been sur
passed. Born at Sligo in Ireland, an uncle
in New Orleans, a bachelor-as all the mer-
chants of the city were-had invitedh him to
come to the New World, engage with him
in business, and become his heir. The estate
thus inherited had been boldly and skillfully
managed. Fortunate ventures had added to
it.and ilegitimate as well as strictly proper
means had probably gone 10 swell the grand
aggregate.
This merchant prince was man of strong
character, restless and far-reaching ambition,
whose imperious will little brooked opposi-
tion, and knew no control except the code
which society composed of such as himself
rudely organized and often violently main
tanned. Justice Wayne, in delivering the
opinion of the Supreme Court at the term Of
l847, described him as ga man Of no ordi-
nary character, or influence on those who
were about him. His natural fitness to con-
troll became habitual as his wealth and stand
ing increased, and il was exercised and in.
voluntarily yielded to by all who associated
or were in business with him. He was 9
man of high qualities, but Of no rigor o.
virtue or self control; energetic, ,enterprising
courageous, affectionate, and generous, bu
with a pride which had yielded to no morti
fcation until his affection subdued it to ,
sense Of justice in behalf of his child"
Such character filed prominent plac'
in the political aud social life of New Or
! leans. In 1898 he had acted as consul ol
behalf of the interests of the United States
When, in 1902, he visited Paris he wa
traated with mark ed reanact NV tho Eron nj