Background
Otis Phillips Lord, the second son of Nathaniel and Eunice (Kimball) Lord, was born on July 11, 1812 in Ipswich, Massachusetts, United States where his ancestor, Robert Lord, had settled when he emigrated from Ipswich, England, in 1631.
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Otis Phillips Lord, the second son of Nathaniel and Eunice (Kimball) Lord, was born on July 11, 1812 in Ipswich, Massachusetts, United States where his ancestor, Robert Lord, had settled when he emigrated from Ipswich, England, in 1631.
In the early years of his education Otis was taught by his father. He was prepared for college in the grammar school of Ipswich and, in 1832, was graduated from Amherst College. The next year he began to read law with Judge Oliver B. Morris of Springfield, then entered the Harvard Law School, received the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1836 and was admitted to the Essex County bar.
Lord started to practice law in Ipswich. In November 1844 he moved to Salem. The Whigs sent him to the lower house of the legislature for 1847 and 1848 and, the next year, to the Senate. So stanch was his party loyalty that he supported Webster even after the Seventh-of-March speech. In 1852 and 1853 he was again in the House, contending unsuccessfully for the speakership. When, in 1853, a constitutional convention was called to consolidate the recent alliance of Free Soilers and Democrats, he offered an obstinate resistance, as a leader of the Whig minority. In 1854 he again sat in the House and became speaker in the last Whig legislature. In 1858 he was nominated for Congress by an independent group of old-line Whigs but was defeated. Two years later he lost as a Constitutional Unionist. In 1868 he declined the Democratic nomination.
In the meantime he became a leader at the bar. He was celebrated for his "thorough knowledge of the law and an impulsive force and vigor not always under rigid restraint". As a cross-examiner he proceeded, as he once said, "somewhat energetically. " In 1859 he accepted appointment to the superior court and proved to be an able nisi prius judge. In 1875 he became an associate judge on the supreme bench of the commonwealth, where he sat until, in 1882, protracted illness obliged him to resign. It was a moot question whether in this case it was a step upward from bar to bench.
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Lord was a member of the Whig Party. During constitutional convention he spoke vehemently against following innovations: judicial tenure was to be for ten years instead of life; juries were to determine the law as well as the facts; appointive offices were to become elective; voting was to be secret; and the payment of a poll tax was no longer to be a prerequisite. A reaction set in; the constitution was rejected, and his prestige was enchanced by his "masterly exposition of the blunders, incongruities and iniquities of the rejected constitution".
After the decline of the Whigs he became a man without a party. He refused to support Frémont and, on October 8, 1856, made a speech against him in Faneuil Hall.
Lord was known for his sharp intellect, keen wit and powerful use of language and oratory.
Quotes from others about the person
"The tone of his mind was forensic rather than judicial. . His learning was not extensive, and his temperament was always too impatient for much research, but he could recognize a distinction or detect a fallacy at a glance".
"Whether his views were right or wrong, he saw them clearly and strongly; and such was his power of forcible expression, that there was at times danger that he might make the worse appear the better reason"; but he had the candor frequently "to yield his willing assent to a result which he had in the outset vigorously resisted".
Lord married Elizabeth Wise Farley on October 9, 1843.