The morning call., 1890-10-13
JUSTICE MILLER.

The loss which the Supreme Court viii
sustain by the death of Justice Miller will
not be the less keenly felt because it has
been anticipated. At the age OF "a most
mems lives are precarious, especially If they
have spent a career of inceSsant toll. 1t
may be said of Justice Miller that he never
spent an idle day, and that from the time he
left school be never knew what rest was.
lie was ftfUl worker. without set hours;
but at the end of the week he had put in
more hours of steady work than any labor
union would have tolerated.
He had pursued two professions. For ten
years he was a pTacticing physician, and
prescribed for the sick in the country town
in Kentucky where he was born. After he
passed his thirtieth year he became law
yer and settled down to practice in the then
rising village of Keokuk, Iowa. The State
of his adoption was in its primitive stage.
1t had no railroads, and rich as its rolling
prairie was, it did not pay to cultivate it at
any considerable distance from the river
Business was slack, and lawyers Jared no
better than others. For some years the
young lawyer had as bitter a struggle for
existence as the young doctor a modest
competency and a high reputation came to
him almost suddenly when he had reached
middle age. Some opinions which he drew
on railroad questions and land titles at
tracted attention to him in the fifties, and
his name became known as far East as the
Atlantic cities.
When the war became a fixed fact, John
A. Campbell Of Alabama. who had been ap-
pointed by President Pierce, resigned his
seat on the Supreme Bench to follow the
fortunes of his State. Mr.. Lincoln replaced
him with Samuel f. Miller of Iowa, rather
10 the disgust of the leading members of the
bar in New England. New YORK and Penn
sylyania. He was then 46 years of age, in
the plenitude Of his pOwerS-a sound jurist,
a ripe scholar, and worker of untirng
energy. The ben CHI was not strong at the
time. The Chief Justice was Roger fancy,
who was nearly ninety; Nathan Clifford was
also old, and indispOsed to work. Grier of
Pennsylvania, Catron Of Tennessee, Swayne
of Chic were not much considered as
Judges; the abieSt mind on the bench was
Nelson of New York. Miller, who was
capable of graphing with the most abstruse
questions, and who really enjoyed his work
in proportion to its difficulty. was ready to
take twice his proper share of cases. His
brethren gratifed him. and during the war
and the reconstruction period he shared
with David Davis and Salmon p. Chase the
brunt OF tie laboTS which deyOlved On the
court.
Cases involving questions Of corstitu-
tiona law were lis forte. It was he who
drew tile opinions on the constitutionality of
the amendments resulting from he war, and
lie took a leading part in the conduct of the
inquiry by the Electoral Commission of
1876, of which he was a member. Judge
Miller was all his life strong partisan, and
never forgot the party to which he belonged:
but his abstract conclusions of constitu-
tonal law commended themselves to the
assent of political foe and friend alike.
His personal popularity was wide. He
had been fortunate enough TO wed a lady of
singular social charm, who made his house
a center for all that was most cultured and
refined in Washington society. TO b.
familiar guest at Mrs Justice Miler's was
a guarantee OF social standing. For quar-
ter of a century The leaders of all political
parties and the most distinguished foreign
visitors have met in her drawing-r0om, and
seen American social lite at its best When
she married Mr. Miller she was n widow
and he a whoever, but their married life has
been long and satisfactory, and her devotion
to him has often been quoted us an example
to others.
Tie Judges death will leave vacancy in
the Supreme Court for General Harrison to
ill. 1t is thought that the post viii be
offered TO Senator Allison, and if lie de-
ciines to Senator Ingalls, of Kansas.