An address delivered at the opening of the new court house in Worcester
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Lemuel Shaw was an American jurist. His work in extending the equity, jurisdiction, and powers of the court was especially important.
Background
He was born on January 9, 1781 in Barnstable, Massachussets, United States, the second son of Oakes Shaw and his second wife Susanna, who was a daughter of John H. Hayward of Braintree.
The Shaws were descendants of Abraham Shaw, who left Halifax, England, in 1636 and settled in Dedham, Massachussets Oakes Shaw (a Congregationalist minister), was pastor of the West Church in Barnstable forty-seven years. Lemuel was named for his uncle, Dr. Hayward of Boston, father of George Hayward, the surgeon.
Education
Taught at home by his father except for a few months at Braintree he entered Harvard in 1796. He graduated with high rank in 1800. In August 1801 he began studying law in Boston under David Everett. Meanwhile he learned French proficiently from a refugee, Antoine Jay, afterwards a founder in France of the liberal Constitutionnel.
Career
In 1800 he began to teach for a year in a Boston public school, and wrote articles and read proof for the Boston Gazette, a Federalist newspaper. In 1802 he moved with David Everett to Amherst, New Hampshire, where besides doing legal work he contributed a poem on dancing and translations from French to the Farmers' Cabinet, a local newspaper.
Admitted to the bar in Hillsboro County, New Hampshire, in September 1804, and in Plymouth County, Massachussets, in November, he began practice in Boston. When his associate left Boston after being acquitted of murder in a political quarrel, he practised alone for fifteen years; about 1822 he took Sidney Bartlett, an able trial lawyer, as his junior partner. His practice gradually became large, but he was less known as an advocate than as the adviser of important commercial enterprises.
He was admirably prepared for his judicial career by numerous public positions. He was a representative in the General Court in 1811-14, 1820, and 1829, a state senator in 1821-22, and a member of the constitutional convention of 1820. He also held many offices in Boston. In 1822, with few precedents to guide him, he drew the first charter of the city, which lasted until 1913.
On the death of Chief Justice Isaac Parker, Gov. Levi Lincoln offered Shaw the appointment. Though it meant giving up a practice of $15, 000-$20, 000 a year for a salary of $3500, he accepted. His commission was issued August 30, 1830, and he served thirty years, resigning August 21, 1860.
Widely read in English literature, he was also attracted by new mechanical processes and was a member of many learned and charitable societies. He was fellow of Harvard College from 1834 until his death, and an overseer from 1831 to 1853, two offices rarely united.
After his resignation from the bench, his health failed, and he died within a few months. He died in 1861 in Boston (aged 80).
Achievements
Lemuel Shaw served Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court for 30 years, among his cases that excited great public interest were the trial of the anti-Catholic rioters who destroyed the Ursuline convent in Charlestown and that of Prof. John White Webster for murdering Dr. George Parkman. A notable example of his courage and integrity was his refusal in 1851 to release Sims, the fugitive slave, on habeas corpus. Shaw established negligence as the dominant standard of tort law, and ruled that injured plaintiffs have the burden of proving that the defendant was negligent.
He was largely instrumental in defeating an attempt to make a reduction of salary apply to judges already in office and an attempt by the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1853 to abolish the life term of judges.
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Religion
He attended Unitarian services, though he was never a communicant.
Politics
In politics he was a Federalist and a Webster Whig, but remained all his life a free-trader. He was strongly opposed to slavery, but he felt bound by the Constitution and the law.
Membership
Shaw was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1855.
Personality
He was thorough, systematic, very patient, with a remarkable power to charge juries so that they understood the exact questions before them. Fond of entertaining and dining out, he was simple and affectionate in his home life.
Quotes from others about the person
According to Chase, "His words had weight rather than brilliancy or eloquence" and his greatness came from his personality as well as from his intellectual powers. "
Connections
He became engaged to Nancy Melville, daughter of Maj. Thomas Melville of Boston, the original of Holmes's "The Last Leaf, " but she died soon afterwards.
On January 6, 1818, he married Elizabeth Knapp, daughter of Josiah Knapp of Boston. She died in 1822, leaving a son and a daughter, who became the wife of Herman Melville. On August 29, 1827, he married Hope Savage, daughter of Dr. Samuel Savage of Barnstable; they had two sons.
