Nathan Dane was born on December 29, 1752 at Ipswich in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. He was a descendant of John Dane of Berkhamstead and Bishop’s Stort- ford, Hertfordshire, England, who settled at Ipswich, Mass. , in 1638 and subsequently became a freeman of Roxbury. Fourth in the direct line from him, Daniel Dane, a farmer, married Abigail Burnham and resided at Ipswich.
His life, until he was twenty, was spent on the farm, his education being obtained at the common schools. In 1772, however, he determined to attempt a college course, and having prepared himself privately in eight months, entered Harvard College in 1774, where he graduated in 1778 with high honors.
Dane read law in the office of Judge William Wetmore of Salem, at the same time teaching school at Beverly, Massachusetts. On his admission to the bar in 1782 he commenced practise at Beverly, being in the same year elected a representative of that town in the General Court of Massachusetts. His ability was early recognized; he was reelected in three successive years, and in 1785 was elected a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress. In the proceedings of this body he took an active part, serving on important committees and displaying great assiduity in the performance of his duties. He was reelected in 1786 and 1787. In the latter year the chief subject for consideration before the Congress was the organization and government of the territory lying northwest of the Ohio River, respecting which he took a memorable part.
He assisted in drafting the Ordinance for the Government of the Northwest Territory, and, after reporting it to Congress, on his own initiative prepared and moved the addition of an article reading “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory” . The Ordinance as thus amended was adopted without further change. He opposed the new Federal Constitution as finally drafted, and at the ensuing election for the state convention to consider its ratification, was an unsuccessful candidate.
On retiring from Congress he resumed his law practise at Beverly, but in 1790 was elected to the Massachusetts Senate. He was reelected in 1793, being the same year appointed a judge of the court of common pleas for Essex County, which position he resigned without taking his scat on the bench.
In 1795 he was appointed a commissioner to revise the laws of the Commonwealth. He was reelected annually to the Massachusetts Senate from 1793 to 1798, but the last mentioned year was the last occasion upon which he was a member of the legislature, an increasing deafness rendering it difficult for him to participate in public assemblages. He continued, however, to assist in the work of statute revision and, in 1812, with Prescott and Story, composed the commission appointed to revise and publish the Massachusetts Colonial and Provincial laws. He was also in that year presidential elector, and in 1814 made his last public appearance, at the Hartford Convention, though subsequently he was chosen as delegate from Beverly to the constitutional convention of 1820, it being known at the time that he would be unable to attend.
He had now become almost entirely deaf, and, withdrawing from practise, devoted his time to completing two works upon which he had been engaged continuously for upward of thirty years. One of these, “A Moral and Political Survey of America, ” composed of a lengthy series of essays, was never published. The other, a General Abridgment and Digest of American Law, with Occasional Notes and Comments, was published in eight volumes in 1823, a supplementary volume appearing in 1829.
(AG eneral Abridgment and Digest of American Law: With Occ...)
(This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before ...)
Always a student, during the last twenty years of his life Dane never spent less than twelve and often fourteen hours a day in his library.
His outstanding characteristics were industry, directness and simplicity. “He was uniformly prompt, punctual and systematic. He had a particular time and a particular way for doing everything. ” Always a student, during the last twenty years of his life he never spent less than twelve and often fourteen hours a day in his library. He possessed a singularly well-balanced judgment, a great forethought, and was totally devoid of temperament. Of his powers as a speaker, there is little information, but it may be confidently surmised that his extraordinary influence with his contemporaries was due more to the matter than the manner of his utterances, and that his intellectual endowments more than compensated for his lack of popular attributes.
In November 1779 Dane married Mrs. Mary Brown.
