letter to his brother, he describes the meetings of this dub,
and of a small quiz dub composed of himself, his future
partner and one other student, and also the informal stu-
dents' moot courts:
A. W. Machen to his Brother.
Cambridge, Sq>teiiiber, 11, 1851.
A greater change could scarcely be conceived of, than this from
my lazy vacation habits to a constancy of mental employment
that fills up every moment. To-night I have just been spending
a couple of hours in a debating dub. — ^Easy work that, you may
say; and it does partake of the nature of relaxation, but I engage
in it (as do the other members, who are likeminded) solely with
a view to improvement of a kind certainly not the least desirable.
The plan of the sodety has some novdty, and it is one which
works admirably among p>ersons who have some stock of informa-
tion to faU back upon, and are not prone to use words, except as
the expression of thought. We call oursdves the spontaneous de-
bating dub. There are seven members, each of whom in alpha-
betic succession occupies the chair for one night. He sdects some
question — ethical, lq;al, or political — ^which he comunicates to no
one till the opening of the meeting. Then he states it — ^first, how-
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124 AT HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
ever, dividing the remaining members, arbitrarily, and announc-
ing to one division that they are to take the affirmative of the
forthcoming question, and to the other, the negative. After that,
he calls upon one from the affirmative party to open; then one
from the negative is simmioned to reply, etc. In the course of
the evening each member speaks twice, — ^five minutes (neither
more nor less) the first time, and the second time either five or
ten minutes at his option. Thus the first speaker has no notice
whatever, and the rest none that avails for anything more than a
very rapid collecting of the thoughts. — ^It would be a mistake to
suppose that the practical operation of this plan is to induce wordi-
ness — I mean in a dub cobiposed as ours is: on the other hand,
it tends to make the styleof speaking terse and significant. There
is no time to arrange unmeaning words so as to impose them on
an auditory as vdbides of sense; and since every one is conscious
that to utter a string of mere phrases destitute of that rhetorical
furbishing is to make one's self exceedingly ridiculous, he seizes
upon any really pertinent ideas he finds within him, and sends
them forth dothed in such language as comes to hand, which is
the most simple, idiomatic and natural language, and therefore,
for general purposes, the best.
mis, however, is my play. It is only by acddent that the hour
succeeding it (that which I am now using so pleasantly fbr my-
self) is not devoted to a conversational dub (of three members)
idiich meets in my room two or three times a week for the pur-
pose of mutual questioning upon certain topics of real property
law as they have successivdy formed the subject of our reading
in a course which we three are pursuing, in concert, independent
of the lectures. Of the benefits of this exercise it is hardly possi-
ble to speak too highly. Taken in connection with the critical
reading of approved text-writers, such as Kent, Preston, Coke,
etc., and the examination and comparison of reported cases, to
which it stimulates us, it is at least equal to any other sin^e
means of improvement which the Institution and its libnuries
affords. — ^This trio consists of Gittings (of Md.), Locke (of Ky.) —
both capital fellows— and myself.
Yesterday evening I attended a dub (14 members) formed fen-
the argument of moot court cases. Meetings weekly^- three tak-
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MOOT COURTS 125
ing active part each meeting— one as judge, and the others as
counseL I was last night an auditor only; yet even in that capac-
ity, I had to keep my wits at work, since the dub acts collec-
tively as a high court of appeals reversing or confirming the de-
cision of the single judge. To balance this comparative leisure,
I, the afternoon previous — ^Tuesday — argued a knotty case in the
real Moot Court, before Judge Parker.
In those days, in every year the Law School conducted
a moot jury trial; one of the &culty acted as presiding judge,
the jury was drawn from among the seniors in Harvard
CoU^e, while the law students elected four members of the
graduating dass to perform the function of barristers. My
father was one of the students thus honoured in Jtme, 1851;
but the jury dedded against him. He was greatly cast
down, and fdt that the result proved him defident in the
arts of a jury lawyer; but resolutdy determined to set about
remedying what he concdved to be his defects:
A. W. Machen to his Mother.
Cambridge, June 27, iSSl.
Beaten — beaten! That the law students, without a single ex-
ception, are convinced that the verdict ought to have been dif*
ferent, does not make the result much less unsatisfactcny; for it
only shows that the case was a plain one on the evidence, and that
I failed to make the, jury believe that it was so. I am conscious
that as an argument to a jury my speech was an utter failure. I
have been completdy defeated. Still, I do not take the event as
hardly as I once would have done. On the contrary, it is a lesson,
and more than that, a stimulus. I don't mean to give up, I
assure you. To be thus baffled — to have all my plans, notions,
theories, hopes, disconcerted — ^knocked into pie, huddled together
in disorder Hke the pieces on a checkerboard, only makes me re-
solved to begm the game over again and learn to play scientifically.
I see now what a vast deal I have to learn. I must know human
nature better, to begin with; then I must know how to use my
tongue and my wits simultaneously — ^I must understand how to
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126 AT HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
render passion — all the latent fires of temperament — serviceable
to the deliberately formed purpose. Finally, I must learn (I will
not say to disi)ense with conscience, but) to have a much lower
opinion of such of my fellow human beings as I find in the jury
box, so that instead of presenting to them the reasons which
appear to be reasons to my own mind, I may with more economy
of labour and far more prospect of success, pick up at random
anything that comes to hand, and throw it at them with the ut-
most confidence, altogether disregardful of the insult I am giving
their understandings. The truth is, I paid quite too much re-
spect to this jury of senior class collegians.' I thought it would
be unsafe, as well as questionable morality, either to over-state the
evidence, or to drag in extraneous matters which were no evidence
at all; in fine, I treated them too much like a bench of judges —
in other words, too much like men of sound logical' judgment, on
the watch against declamatory vehemence, and likely to consider
an argument all the weaker for having a trope introduced to sup-
port it
So the plain fact is, I neither made a good show, nor gained a
verdict— partly in consequence of a misconception of the part I
had to play, and, I suppose, in a much greater d^^ree, to the ab-
sence of the requisite ability.
Yet, as I said, I am not in the least disheartened. I mean to
b^ome Kjury4awy€r — ^if for no other reason — because I have very
evidently shown myself not to be one now.
He W2^ the winner in 1851 of the prize for the best thesis
then annually offered to the graduating law dass at Har-
vard. The subject, selected by the faculty, was "The
Rights and Liabilities of Raihx>ad Companies" — a subject
which no one could criticise as too narrow in scope. Upon
receiving the prize, he wrote:
* One of the juron of whose logical faculties my father here speaks so
slightingly was the distinguished James Bradley Thayer, subsequently Weld
Professor in the Harvard Law Schooll He afterwards became, if he was not
then, the very incarnation of logic
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PROFESSOR PARSONS 127
A. W. Machm to his Faiher.
Cambridge, September, 14, 1851.
I have received your letter in which you refer to the matter of
the prize: I should have been sorry not to have gained it, and
principally because the failure would have deprived you of a soiurce
of gratification. Believe me, my dear father, I never can forget
that the duty is on me so to act my part in life as not to disappoint
the hopes that go out from home to attend upon my steps.
In December, 1850, or the early part of January, 1851, he
received promise of some augmentation of his income by an
offer to work for Professor Parsons on his book on Contracts.^
In fact, he not only contributed a great deal of material for
the notes, but also wrote the whole chapter on Slavery.
These labours, as we shall see, were continued after his ad-
mission to the bar.^
Although he greatly admired both the leading professors,
Parker and Parsons, he found the lectures of the latter on
conunerdal law the most instructive in the School: —
A. W. Machen to his Father.
Cambridge, May 3„ 1850.
The most valuable acquisition I am likely to take home from
this term at the Law School is the knowledge I have derived from
the lectures on Conunerdal Law of Mr. Parsons. In the law of real
property, my advance will not be as great as I had hoped; but I
think I am doing something more in this department than stand-
ing still. After all, this kind of lore — the doctrine of tenures and
descents — ^must be sought, not in the lectiurer, but by grappling
with books. I trust, and shall endeavour, to lay my foundations
^ '^Phrfesaor Pusoiis is writing a book on Contracts, and has told me that
he should like to have scmie assisttnce from me during the holidays in the
preparation of notes. This wiU £aU within the line of my studies and has the
advantage of offering the proq>ects of some little addition to my pecuniary
A. W. M. from Cambridge to kis father in Waskingkm, Jan. 1, 1851.
« See infia pp. 183-4.
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128 AT HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
solidly even though it may be long before the superstructure
shall rise much above the surface level. Just now I am going
leisurely through Littleton — ^the text alone (in English) stripped of
all commentaries.
A few months in the School sufficed to satisfy him of his
enthxisiastic love for the law:
A. W. Machen to his Father.
Cambridge, May 15, 1850.
This law is a noble and an attractive study: my mind turns
towards it, I find, more readily than to any other pursuit in which
I can engage. Exercise in it does not leave my faculties fatigued.
At any moment, I can, with a sensation of pleasure, throw aside
Horace, Hallam^ Mill — almost anything indeed except a letter
from home — ^in view of a voliune of reports which may furnish a
case to establish a principle announced in the lecture, or capable
of being interwoven into a moot court argument.
He found, indeed, as every true lawyer has, that the law
is a jealous mistress, though he never lighted the reading of
general literature and the classsics:
A. W. Machen to his Father.
Cambridge, Febroaiy S, 1851.
I will endeavour to get Lowth from the University library.
Cebes, too, I should be glad to read, though I cannot tell you I
certainly shall. I dare not now even frame such good resolves in
my own breast, for whenever my will erects itself into such a pos-
ture of spasmodic energy, it is speedily smitten down by the re-
proachful look of the mute Pindar that stands in neglected dignity
on the shelf at my ri^t hand. Li short, it is very hard to find
leisure for the dassiscs when Law, that imperious, but most ex-
cellent and delightful, monster is bawling at one with its hundred
tongues.
I have out now from the library the six volumes of Robert
Hall's works, which, though not before altogether unfamiliar to
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GENERAL LITERATURE 129
me, I am reading over with a great deal of interest. It is pleasant
to have to do with a man who is at once so intellectually great, so
nearly faultless in his moral nature, and whose teachings ezdte all
the interest which must be felt in the words of one whose life was
a long act of heroism. Then again, as I have heretofore been too
negligent of style, I hope I may derive some benefit from the ob-
servation of these writings widch the critics confess to be models
of piure and vigorous English.
Neither while himself a student nor at any time, did he
approve the soul-killing doctrine propagated in these latter
days by the Rockefeller Foundation, that all education
should be ^'practical'':
A. W. Machen to Ids Faiher.
. Cambridge, liiarch 22, 1851.
It seems, there is a very natural and proper distinction between
the acquistion of knowledge and the obtainment of a practical
facility in applying^-between the purchase of the instrument, and
ezpertness in its use. Certainly it is indispensable to the lawyer
that he be a master of logic, and it is of great consequence that he
understand Latin; yet I cannot perceive that there would be any-
thing gained in teaching the boy at college who is engaged in the
study of Hodge or Whatdy to make an immmediate application
of his moods and figures to the doctrine of conditional fees or to
the resolution of the nice question whether the man who is dam-
aged by a squib which has been thrown from hand to hand
through a crowd should seek damages of the first thrower in Case
or in Trespass vi et armis. In the same way, it would hardly be
expedient, I think, to make the poor pupil find the example of
his rules of S)mtax in Bracton or the choice morsels of Latinit>
^riiich are preserved in Coke's Reports, instead of in Caesar and
livy.
His love of books was such that he rejoiced even in the
cortaihneiit of his holidays in order to perf onn his duties as
fibrarian:
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130 AT HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
A. W. Machen to his Father.
Cambridge, August 26, 1850.
Something I shall have to do no doubt, but as it relates to
books, it will prove a labour of love.
In his earlier months in the School, he appreciated the
abilities of his f eUow-students although he was not at all
overawed by them:
A. W. Machen tb his Father.
Cambridge, May 15, 1850.
The school, as far as I can judge, seems to contain a very re-
spectable aggregate of talent, though none of its members may
exhibit any remarkable intellectual power. Yet there may be in
our midst embryo giants whose future development is foreseen by
those better versed than I in the comparative anatomy of the
mind.
His closest friends among the students were Richard J.
Gittings, of Maryland, his future partner, Alfred M. Barbour,
of Virginia; George R. Locke of Kentucky, C. C. Langdell of
New Hampshire (afterwards dean of the Law School), James
C. Carter, of New York, and Alfred Russell of Michigan.
Learning that Richard J. Gittings' brother, David S. Git-
tings, was a schoolmate of his own brother at Alexandria,
my father wrote from the Law School at Cambridge:
A. W. Machen to his Brother.
Cambridge, November 5, 1851.
I wish you would get acquainted with a new feUow student of
3rours named Gittings — ^David Gittings from Baltimore County.
His brother, who is here, and whom I am intimate with, is a capi-
tal fellow in every respect. As a dear-headed, thorough student,
there is no one before him, while in social qualities he is equally
unsurpassed. He is one of a thousand, I assure you, and I esteem
it a piece of great good fortune to have fallen in with him. The
brother, your schoolmate, though somewhat younger than 3rour-
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RICHARD J. GITTINGS 131
self, cannot but be a pleasant companion; and for Richard Git-
tings' sake I should be glad if you could prevent him from bdng
homesick in Alexandria.
That the adzniration of the two friends at Cambridge was
mutual appears from the following:
/. P. Machm to his Faiher.
Alezftndria, V&., November 9, 1851.
There is a student ^lere by the name of Gittings who has a
brother studying law at Cambridge: it seems that Arthur knows
him quite intimately, and in his last letter spoke in high terms
of him. I read tUs to David Gittings, and he showed me an
extract from his brother's letter in which, after speaking of Ar-
thur's social qualities in a very gratif3dng manner, he says, ''He
stands, too, among the very first in the Law School."
In January, 1852, my father in a letter to his brother,
after mentioning that some of the law sutudents who had
gone home for the holidays would not return to the School,
adds:
A. W. Machm to his Brother.
Cambridge, January 12, 1852.
Fortunately the two or three with whom I am most intimately
acquainted are likely to come back — and among them Gittings,
brother of your schoolmate. I should be very sorry indeed to
think that we awere not to pass next term together. Besides
being one of the best of fellows, he is one of the best of students.
Next to Richard J. Gittings, the fellow-student to whose
memory my father reverted with greatest affection was
Alfred M. Barbour, whose advent in the School only a few
months before my father left is thus referred to by the latter:
A. W. Machm to his Brother.
Cambridge, January 12, 1852.
We have here a new student from Virginia, Alfred M. Barbour,
of Culpeper, son of the Hon. John S. Barbour, who makes quite
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132 AT HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
a figure in the political world. He was President just now of the
State Democratic Convention ^diich met at Richmond. The soa
is a warm hearted fellow; with a head, I think, as good as his
heart. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia, and has
evidently been a good student — especially of the languages —
though but a beginner in the law. I am very glad to have him
here.
In a slightly later letter, my father mentioned '* Alfred
Barbour, a alurewd, observant fellow, as well as the truest
hearted friend that ever came out of Virginia."^ Years
afterwards my father often adverted to this friend's sparic-
iing htmtiour, which indeed his letters evince. Almost every
one of his letters to my father exhibits an almost romantic
attachment and a supreme confidence in the latter's advance-
ment For example:
A. M. Barbour to A. W. Machen.
Moigantown, Va., March 1, 1856.
My dear fellow, you will not accuse me of an attempt to flatter
you, or offend your delicacy of taste, when I tell you that no man
has so complete and fast a hold upon my heart as yourself. Our
acquaintance, commencing as it did imder very peculiar and
trying drcuxnstances to me, when I was a raw and green appli-
cant for admission at the Harvard Law School, — ^when I was a
stranger and without a friend,— you, a man high in yoiu: dass,
primus inter pares in the Law School, and high in the regard and
esteem of your teachers and fellow students — ^took me by the
hand, countenanced me, introduced me among your friends,
advised me, pointed out the way, and made me do what was
right and proper for my weal. Commencing in this way, I say,
our friendship has gradually been cemented and consolidated by
our continuing association, imtil it has grown to a growth and
strengthened to a strength which no earthly power will ever
sever. Death alone can dissolve it. Machen, my dear friend,
• Letter from A. W. M. fnm Cambridge to J. P. M. at Watmoy, June 19,
18S2.
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ALFRED M. BARBOUR 133
duldish as may be the eaq[>ressiony I love you like a girl, and am
xx>t man enough to refrain from confessing it to yotu I often
think of the many hours of pleasure and profit I spent at your
room at Cambridge. The many instructive hours of study and con-
versation with you — our sundry readings — our sundry recreations
— our sundry walks to Boston, and oiu: mutual enjoyment of
good old Father Taylor's Anglo-Saxon and honest eloquence in
the pulpit of the Sailors' Bethel. I go over again the many little
scenes we passed through in our ''trips" about Cambridge and
Boston — ^to the book stores — ^to Bumham's in Cornhill — ^to va-
rious churches and places about Boston — till that wet September
day when I stood on the wharf in Boston and with melancholy
and tears, saw the little bark which carried you off pass gradually
out of my sight. Those were hours of bliss, and it is now the
sweetest source of my pleasure to recur to those times and scenes
— and a still higher pleasure to know that during our friendship
up to this time, there has not been one moment of coolness or
suspicion between us or by either of us. One dear cerulean sky
of friendship. This rarely happens to be the case. Generally
where men are friendly and thrown much together, there will
occasionally be temporary "breaks" — but with us it is not so.
And in the providence of God, may we never suspect each other,
or be the least cool in our regard for each other. For my part,
my heart is often most poignantly tortured with the conscious-
ness of my total unworthiness of such a friend as you are. I
know you to be my superior in everything— in head, in heart,
in attainments and cultivation, but I try to deserve yoin: friend*
ship, and whether I deserve it or not, I am assured I enjoy it. — ^So
may it ever be.
Write me fireely all your views; write me often, and feel assiured
I am ever anxious to hear of your success and happiness. Get
yourself a sweet little wife, study hard, and you will be one of
the ornaments of these United States in fifteen years from to-
day. Mark this. ,
In coimection with my Cither's friends of his student days,
it is appropriate to mention one counterfeit friend — an im-
postor who presented himself at Walney, posed as a fellow-
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134 AT HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
student of my father's at Cambridge, represented that he
had received from the latter an invitation to visit his home,
and by these means obtained a week's entertainment. After
his departure, my grandfather wrote to his son expressing the
gratification of the family at entertaining a friend of the ab-
sent member:
L. H, Machen to A. W. Machen.
Walney, May 15, 1851.
A week ago, we had the pleasure of seeing a fellow student
(Mr. Moore) who remained with us until Tuesday morning when
he left (in pursuit of health) in the Warrenton stage. I presume
he will not extend his excursion further than Harper's Ferry.
It afforded us great pleasure to see one who had lately seen you.
The family were astounded to receive, in reply, a letter,
which seems to have been lost, stating that their visitor was
an impostor and that the real Mr. Moore had never left
Cambridge. The fullest account of the deception is con-
tained in a succeeding letter to my father from his sister:
Miss Emmdine Machen to A.W. Machen.
Walney, May 24, 1851.
We were not a little confounded by your announcement that
that " fellow student" was an impostor. What could have been his
motive for such a tissue of falsehoods, I cannot imagine — on a
hasty examination of the library (where he slept) I find nothing
missing, but, I suppose, if plunder had been his object, old books
would scarcely have been the articles selected. He arrived here
on Friday Evening (the 9th inst.), and asked for Ma; though
convalescent, she was still far from well, and Pa saw him first.
He told him that he left Cambridge a few days (perhaps a week)
previous — ^that he had been seriously ill there, and the physician
had recommended his going to a wanner dimate— that the "bo)rs"
(is this term commonly applied to fdlow collegians? — ^it surprised
me a little at the time) advised Virginia, and that you then in-
vited him to call on your father if he should be anywhere in this
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AN IMPOSTOR 135
region; that travelUng near us, he could not resist his inclination
to call and tell us that he had seen "Arthur" (he repeatedly
q)oke of you thus, as familiarly as if he had known you aU his
Ufe) recently, and that you were well. This tale seemed by no
means improbable; we thought it not unlikely you might have
given such an invitation — perhaps from mere politeness, — and
that a Southerner might have readily availed himself of it. He
came on foot— said that he rode up. with a gentleman in a buggy
as feir as near Centreville, and that his carpet bag was to come
by the stage the next day (Saturday). The next morning he
said something about leaving. Pa cordially invited him to re-
main longer, and he consented. He went over to meet the stage,
and John brought here his baggage. He remained until Tuesday