Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men
choice of his profession.
The world lavishes its praise upon, and often loads with honors, the
self-made man, for that implies a successful one. It too often forgets
the rugged path which leads thereto, and the hard discipline--the heroic
treatment that so often kills--which enables him to attain that
position. As a rule, it crowns with honors the victors as they sweep the
summit-heights, but furnishes no headstone for the dead that mark the
ascent and block the pathway.
Young Bryant had the hard lot so common "among the hills;" but he had
health, hope, courage, ambition, and the glow-fire of a fervid
imagination, which enabled him to succeed when others
"By the wayside fell and perished,
Weary with the march of life."
Until ten years of age, he had the limited educational advantages
afforded by the district school, gaining one term at a private school
when about seven, by walking two miles and a half each way, daily, to
attend it. At ten he entered the high school at Franklin, taught by
Master Tyler of Andover, an author of some note and a teacher of high
repute in those days, and remained for half a term,--all that the
limited means of the family would permit. A similar privilege was
accorded at eleven and again at twelve. At the age of fourteen he
borrowed money enough of a relative to defray the expense of an entire
term at Boscawen Academy, then under the charge of Mr. Ballard, of
Concord, a graduate of Dartmouth, giving his note therefor, which he
repaid with interest at the end of three years. Here he studied
trigonometry and surveying, and for several years afterwards earned
considerable sums to aid him in prosecuting his studies by surveying in
his own and adjoining towns. When fourteen he "cast off the lines" and
assumed the entire burden of his support and education. To aid in this
work he commenced teaching when fifteen, and taught every winter until
he left college. Thus lacking means, he drifted about, a term at a time,
among the various academies in the state, at Concord, Claremont,
Gilmanton, and New London, until he entered New Hampton, joining a class
which was to fit for college in one year from that time. Here, through
the kindness of the faculty, he took the studies of the freshman year,
entered the sophomore class at Waterville at the same time his
fellow-classmates entered as freshmen. At the academies and in college
he developed an intense passion for debate, and took a leading part in
all the lyceums at home and the societies connected with the various
institutions of learning he attended, to which he undoubtedly owes much
of the freedom and ease that have since characterized his efforts on the
hustings and at the bar.
When he was about twelve, his father gathered at his house the _debris_
of what had been an excellent town library. The son reveled in this
feast of good things, reading everything from Goldsmith's "Animated
Nature," to Paley's Philosophy. With boyish enthusiasm he devoured the
pages of Rollin, without the slightest idea, that, except when the old
Jansenist relied upon others, he was reading romance instead of history.
This gave a new impetus to his desire for what was then termed a
"liberal education." At twenty-two he entered the office of an eminent
law firm---Nesmith & Pike--at Franklin, and after something less than
two years' hard study went to Harvard Law School, from which he
graduated in 1848; was admitted to the bar of Grafton county at the
November term of the same year, and, having opened an office at Bristol
in that county in November, 1848, upon his admission, entered upon the
active practice of his profession.
At twenty-five he was elected one of the commissioners of the county of
Grafton and held the office for three years, being chairman of the board
two years. At twenty-nine he was appointed prosecuting attorney
(solicitor) for that county, and discharged its duties with marked
efficiency. In 1853 he removed from Bristol to Plymouth; and from that
time was engaged on one side or the other of nearly every important
cause there tried by the jury.
The county of Grafton was created in 1771. It was a large county and had
for its shire towns Haverhill on the Connecticut and Plymouth on the
Pemigewasset. It had at the outset, as it now has, a bar of exceptional
character and ability. Some of the greatest forensic and legal battles
of the century--like the celebrated Dartmouth College case of national
reputation--were lost and won here. Over the highest court, Smith,
Richardson, and Parker, a triad of illustrious chief-justices presided,
followed by Gilchrist, Woods, and Perley, but little less distinguished.
Here, in the olden time, Jeremiah Mason, the foremost jurist of his day,
Daniel and Ezekiel Webster, the Sullivans, and their compeers, "rode the
circuit" after the custom in the mother country. These great advocates,
after exhaustive preparation; spoke to crowded court-rooms, the people
flocking to these entertainments like men to a feast. Then oratory was
in demand at the bar; but now, in its place, is required a dry summary,
as terse and pointed as an auditor's statement of accounts.
When Mr. Bryant became actively engaged in jury trials, the bar was not
what it once was, for Livermore, Olcott,--the father-in-law of
Choate,--Woodward, and others were in their graves; Woods and Wilcox
were on the bench; Ira Perley had removed to Concord; and Joe Bell had
left the state. But there were Goodall, with his varied experience and
eventful life; Felton, active, precise and mathematical; Duncan, whose
earlier efforts were regarded by competent critics as at least equal to
those of his famous brother-in-law, Choate; Harry Hibbard, scholar,
lawyer and statesman; that dark haired "giant of the mountains,"
Bingham; Bellows and Sargent, since chief-justices,--headed by their
acknowledged leader, Josiah Quincy, one of the most practical,
sagacious, and clear-headed men in the state. Here, too, occasionally
came Perley, with combative blood, incisive speech, and immense law
learning, to enter the lists with that child of genius and prince of
cross-examiners and advocates, Franklin Pierce. It was no child's play
for a young man to withstand the "cut and thrust" of such, and contest
for supremacy with them before twelve men.
Lawyers know that those who are almost invincible before a referee,
auditor, chancellor, or the full bench, are often failures before a
jury. Nothing tests or taxes a lawyer's nerve, knowledge of men, tact,
readiness, fertility in resource, and the power of reconstruction or
combination, like a jury trial, and he only who has been through
it--unless it be the woman who is so unfortunate as to be his wife--can
fully appreciate the strain of the minute and laborious preparation
which precedes, the anxious days without food and nights without sleep
which attend the progress of the trial, and the collapse after the
verdict, especially if it be an adverse one, when a young practitioner
is pitted against one of the leaders. It is a hard experience; but it
schools him in his work, and enures him to the hardships of campaigning.
Mr. Bryant tried his first cause before a jury, against Mr. Quincy, and
won. The veteran congratulated his youthful opponent and predicted his
success at the bar. At the next term he was pitted against his old
instructor, Mr. Pike, and one of the judges wrote his father a note
highly complimenting the efforts of the son in that important and
exciting trial.
In 1855, Mr. Bryant removed to Concord and entered into partnership with
Lyman T. Flint, Esq., who had assisted him at New Hampton in fitting for
the sophomore year. His practice soon extended to Belknap and
Hillsborough, while he retained his hold in Merrimack and upon his old
clients in Grafton, where he attended the courts as before.
Mr. Bryant had hitherto acted with the Democratic party, in whose faith
he had been reared, but in 1856, in common with thousands more, in the
whirlwind which swept the North after the passage of the Nebraska bill,
and the troubles which had arisen in Kansas, he supported by voice and
vote the nomination of John C. Fremont, speaking in all the large towns
and in nearly every county in the state. From that time until he left
the state in 1860, he probably made more stump-speeches than any other
man in it. In 1857 he was elected representative from ward six in
Concord, was re-elected in 1858 and 1859, and was speaker the last two
years. He originated and carried through, against a violent opposition,
the act making parties witnesses. At this day the act seems eminently
proper; but then it was regarded by many as portentous of evil,
subversive of social order, and revolutionary in the extreme. Its
constitutionality as applied to pending suits was affirmed in Rich _vs._
Flanders (39 N. H., 304), against the dissent of two of the six judges,
Chief-Justice Bell and Judge Bellows, who, as a member, had strenuously
opposed its passage.
When the Know-Nothing party, so called, carried the state in 1855, one
of their first acts was to overthrow the entire judicial system of the
state, by repealing the acts creating it, and to erect a
Siamese-double-headed-partisan one upon its ruins. The system proved
expensive and became odious, not only to the entire Democratic party,
but to the bar and influential class, irrespective of party relations,
and to potential forces in the then Republican party.
In 1859, Mr. Bryant devised the system, which, with a brief exception,
has been in force to the present time. It was carried after an intensely
bitter contest. He made up the committee on the judiciary, to whom the
bill was referred. It consisted of ten members, four of whom were
Democrats headed by the veteran Quincy, five radicals, and one
conservative Republican. Two of the six were for the bill and one was on
the fence. The moss-backs, politicians, and lobbyists swarmed, and great
efforts were made to defeat it. The four Democrats on the committee at
first voted for their own bill, and then notified the friends of the new
one that on the test vote they should give them a solid support, which
would enable them to bring an affirmative report into the house.
Caucuses were held almost every night of actual session to hold the
timid ones in line, and prevent their yielding to the great pressure to
which they were subjected.
An incident occurred during his speakership in 1859, which illustrates
Mr. Bryant's readiness, courage, and political forecast. The theory that
it was the right of every state and everybody in it to nullify the laws
of congress whose constitutionality had been affirmed by the federal
supreme court was much more popular in the North then than it became
after the election of Mr. Lincoln. Lengthy petitions headed by A. T.
Foss, A. Folsom, and Stephen Thayer, "praying for the enactment of a law
that no person held as a slave shall be delivered up within this state,"
were presented. They were referred, as a matter of course, to the
committee on the judiciary. Parker Pillsbury, Elder Foss, Dr. Hawks, and
others appeared for the petitioners at the hearing, and made eloquent
speeches in support of their petition. They had the candor, courage, and
directness which characterized the old-time Abolitionists. They did not
attempt to deceive the committee or any one else, but avowed that their
purpose was by the bill proposed to array the state against the general
government. The hearing closed. The four Democrats voted against the
bill, and the chairman with flushed face demurred at such legislation;
but five out of the six Republicans voted for the bill, and without a
word of warning it was reported to the house by a party vote. It was
read the first time without objection, and upon a division was ordered