APPENDIX.

ON Saturday, October 9th, during the July term, 1875, of the Supreme Court, the death of Judge HENRY L. BENNING was announced by Hon. PORTER INGRAM, who, at the same time, moved the appointment of a committee to report an appropriate memorial of the deceased.

The court appointed the following committee: Messrs. PORTER INGRAM, M. H. BLANDFORD, R. F. LYON, JAMES JOHNSON, M. J. CRAWFORD, H. K. MCCAY and WILLIAM HOPE HULL.

On March 17th, 1876, during the January term, 1876, the committee, through its chairman, made the following report:

At the last term of this court, the death of Judge HENRY L. BENNING was announced; and thereupon the undersigned were appointed a committee to prepare a memorial of his life and character, to be entered on the records of this court. And now, having discharged that duty, they present the following report:

Another one of the judges of this court is dead. Once more the judicial robes have given place to the winding-sheet and the pale habiliments of the grave. From this brilliant earthly tribunal, one more judge has gone down to the dismal confines of the narrow house; and from rendering judgments for others and subject to the errors of humanity, he has gone to receive judgment from that higher tribunal where no errors can be committed.

Judge HENRY L. BENNING is no more. He has passed beyond our earthly vision, but in our memories he still has an abiding place; and before this tribunal, where most of his labors were performed, we come to-day to offer to his memory the sincere tribute of our love and esteem; and let it go down to those who may come after us along with the record he has made for himself in this court.

Judge BENNING was no ordinary man. He has left a bright record in this court that will go down to the latest posterity. He would have been a marked man in any country and. in any age of the world. He was born in Columbia county, Georgia, in 1814; was educated at our State University; was admitted to the bar in 1834; was elected solicitor-general of the Chattahoochee Circuit in 1838. For the last forty years of his life he resided in the city of Columbus, where he died on the 8th of July, 1875, at the age of sixty-one years.

He was elected judge of the supreme court of Georgia in 1853, when not quite forty years of age, and probably the youngest man ever elected to that position. He served in that capacity for the full term of six years, and then resumed the practice of his profession, and continued in it till the day of his death.

Of his career as one of the judges of this court we need not speak, more than to say that he passed through the ordeal of six years service, and retired

with the reputation of having been an able and an upright judge, with character unspotted, and without the suspicion of taint upon his judicial garments. We will enter into no comparison with him or others, either living or dead, who have held that high position. We leave it for posterity to pass judgment upon each according to the record that each may have made for himself, when finally made up. But what higher eulogy need we crave for our deceased friend than this: that at an early age he was elected one of the judges of the supreme court of Georgia, that he was selected from the entire bar of the state to fill that high and responsible office. We deem it a distinguished honor. It is the highest judicial tribunal in this great state. The fortunes and the lives and the liberties of more than a million of souls are within its keeping, and subject to its final arbitrament. In dignity and responsibility it is above the executive, and in power and in influence it transcends the legislative department of the government. Already governors have taken an upward step, and accepted the position; and senators need not feel degraded by an aspiration for the same dignity. A seat upon such a tribunal is a prize worthy the ambition of any member of the bar. This court was first organized just thirty years ago. Confidence in its stability and usefulness has not abated. Time has neither dimmed its lustre nor paralyzed its energies. And for the preservation and perpetuation of this great central tribunal, all hands should join and all hearts should unite. Thirty years on trial! And during that time, and within this temple, eighteen different judges have presided, as follows: LUMPKIN, WARNER, NISBET, STARNES, BENNING, McDONALD, JENKINS, LYON, STEPHENS, WALKER, HARRIS, BROWN, MCCAY, LOCHRANE, MONTGOMERY, TRIPPE, JACKSON, BLECKLEY. These are the eighteen names of judges who have been from time to time during these thirty years, selected from more than a thousand lawyers in the state, to wear the judicial robes and preside in this high tribunal. At home or abroad, need any Georgian blush at the mention of these names-at this roll call? Will any one say that the character and the dignity of the judiciary of Georgia has not been fairly illustrated, and sustained, and advanced, in the lives and by the labors of these eighteen judges? We come not here to-day merely to eulogize either the living or the dead; but we come to speak of them according to the record, as we find it, and as already made up. Though commissioned to speak of the dead, we come at this anniversary, at the end of thirty years, to inspect the records of the past, Loth of the living and the dead; and we assume the right to speak for the entire bar of this court, and in their name to say that, for these thirty years of the existence of this court, we find no blotch upon its records. We find them clean, uncontaminated, and white as snow. Upon these judicial robes there has come no stain. As they were thirty years ago when first placed upon the members of this court, so we find them to-day, pure, spotless, and undefiled. And in the name of the bar and of the people of the state, we give thanks that it is thus. For if this high tribunal shall ever degenerate, it will be because the bar has degenerated. If it should ever become corrupt, it will be owing to the corruption of the bar. If it should ever become venal, weak, or imbecile, it will be on account of the venality, the weakness and the imbecility of the lawyers of the state. Such

a consummation we will not anticipate. The curtain between us and the future we would not raise if we could; but if this court should ever go down, we predict that the rights and liberties of the people will go down with it. And let our motto here and everywhere be, in reference to this court, esto perpetua."

The individual members of the court may die, but the court still lives. Of the three who presided at its first organization, only one survives. He witnessed its organization thirty years ago, and he is here to-day as the chief justice of this court to sign the records at the close of the first thirty years of its existence.

Of the eighteen judges of this court, six are dead-LUMPKIN, NISBET, STARNES, MCDONALD, STEPHENS, these went before, and now BENNING has followed them. Of the members of this bar of thirty years ago, the dead outnumber the living. In the coming years when the curious student shall read the decisions of the different judges of this court, he may want to know something of the man, who he was, when and where did he live, who were his associates and contemporaries, and what manner of man was he. Soon after the death of Judge BENNING, there was a meeting of the bar of Columbus, and what was said of him on that occasion, by the writer of this, is accepted and adopted by us as a part of this memorial, as follows:

General BENNING is dead! On the morning of the 8th of July last, the sad news, like an electric current, was conveyed from mouth to mouth, throughout the city and surrounding country, that "General BENNING was dead." All were astounded, shocked, and grieved at the sudden announcement. For on the morning before they had seen him on his way to the courthouse, walking the street with his accustomed stately tread, with his books and brief in hand. But alas! it was his last brief! He had labored on it nearly all the night before. It was a case in which he felt a great interest, and all his great energies were concentrated upon it. But his physical strength was not equal to the pressure, and he fell by the way, weak, exhausted, paralyzed! The giant in strength had become in a moment like an infant, helpless, and unconscious of his own situation. He sent word to the court that he "would be there after a little." With the last flickering light of his great intellect still lingering upon his brief and the case in hand, he fell, fell literally "in harness," fell after the labor of more than forty years in the profession which he loved so well, and around which he had shed an undying lustre. But he fell not among strangers. He was in the midst of friends, who conveyed him with tender care to his home. All that friends and family and medical skill could do, was done for his relief. But his appointed time had come. The silver chord was breaking; and like an unconscious infant in its cradle, the strong man was laid upon his bed for his last sleep. He scarcely spoke afterwards. Late in the evening of that day I saw him for the last time; then unconscious, speechless, and sleeping profoundly; and thus in the midst of family and friends, and in the shadows and stillness of the midnight hour, and without pain and without a struggle, he quietly and peacefully passed away. To the call of his name upon these earthly court dockets he will respond no more. In these halls we have long been accustomed to see

him and to hear his voice; we miss him in his accustomed place. There is an empty chair and a vacant desk. Others must hereafter occupy them! The tokens are so numerous, the signs around us are so real, that we are forced to the solemn realization of the announcement that "General BENNING is dead!"

And he was buried out of our sight.

It sometimes happens that the last funeral rites bestowed upon the dead give some indication of the estimation in which they are held in the community where they have lived. It was on a beautiful Sabbath morning when our friend was buried, and Columbus, in all its history, has never witnessed such a numerous multitude of sorrowing citizens in the funeral train of any of its dead. The grief was universal. All classes participated in it. The high and the low, the rich and the poor, black and white, all denominations and associations, religious, social, and military-all with heartfelt sorrow joined the solemn train as it moved towards the final resting place of their friend. And I feel that I shall neither wound the feelings of the living nor do any injustice to the memory of the dead, when I say that no citizen of Columbus has ever gone down to his grave so sincerely, heartily, and universally honored, respected and beloved as was General BENNING.

What manner of man was he thus to have won the esteem and to have entwined himself around the affections of all classes of men? His reputation among men was all of his own making. He belonged to no one of the numerous associations of the present day. He relied not upon any ancestral fame to elevate himself above ordinary mortals. He never resorted to any trick, or artifice, or disguises, to win his way to the love and admiration of his fellow-men. In all his ways he was ever simple, earnest, truthful and straightforward, and at the same time manly, courteous and dignified. The strength of a giant and the simplicity of a child were never more harmoniously blended together in the saine person. At the time of his death he was over sixty years of age. He was educated at our own State University, and graduated with the highest honors of his class, showing thus early in life something of that laborious research and indomitable energy that characterized his maturer years. For more than forty years he was a member of this bar, and at an early age he was elected solicitor general of this circuit, and discharged the duties of that office with distinguished ability. And at the early age of forty he obtained the highest honors of his profession in this state by being elected judge of the supreme court; and in that high tribunal he served with great distinction for the full term of six years. In the Georgia reports may be found the result of his labors as a judge. That part of his life's record has been made up, and there it will stand forever! To that record his friends point the present and coming generations as "foot-prints on the sands of time," for information as to his character and ability as a judge.

He resided in this city, and was a member of the bar for more than forty years; and some of us have known him all the way along through those years, from the beginning to the ending of his professional career. As a lawyer, he had but few equals. To his profession he consecrated all the labor

and energies of his life. His great success was the result of careful, patient and incessant labor. For success in his profession he sacrificed everything else except honor. Neither social pleasures, nor family ties, nor personal interests were sufficient to seduce him from the supreme business of his life, to gain renown as a lawyer. In this he was successful, for he was a great lawyer, and had but few superiors. His great superiority over others consisted in thorough preparation. The order of his mind was neither quick nor brilliant. He was not what the world usually calls a brilliant or a captivating popular orator. But before a court and jury his clear statement of facts, his solid logic and earnestness of style, combined with his own convictions of right, rendered him almost irresistible. His style as an orator was all his He imitated nobody; he borrowed from nobody; to all the borrowed arts and graces of oratory he was totally indifferent. In his addresses he seemed to have no thought of himself or his style. His whole energies were concentrated upon the subject in hand. He was cool, deliberate, clear in statement, honest in his convictions of right, sternly logical, always in earnest, and at times vehement and truly eloquent.

own.

But there was an interregnum in his professional life. For four years his briefs were all laid aside, and the sword was substituted in their place. When the war commenced he had scarcely ever drawn a sword or shouldered a musket. He was among the first to volunteer, and among the last to surrender at the Apple Tree. First a private, then a colonel, and before the final surrender he was a brigadier general. Whilst a soldier, his whole energies were consecrated to the work before him. He went to the front to fight! His convictions that he was fighting for a just cause were strong and irreversible, and he staked his life and his fortune on the result. His blood was freely shed, but his wounds were all in front. Soldiers loved him because he was brave; officers respected him because he was vigilant and just, and true to duty. The world admired and applauded him because he was ready to sacrifice life and fortune on what he deemed a just cause. And finally, with honor all bright and untarnished as a soldier, he laid aside the sword and again took up his briefs. Forty years a lawyer and member of the bar! And who, during all these years, have been his contemporaries and competitors? Who are these with whom he associated and wrestled and contended, and where are they to-day? I speak only of the dead. Thirty of them went before him. He had mingled with them in these halls; and one by one they have passed away, and he, in his turn, has followed them. And these are their names, as I remember them: WILLIAM DOUGHERTY, SEABORN JONES, WALTER T. COLQUITT, Alfred IVERSON, G. E. THOMAS, Joseph Sturgis, R. B. ALEXANDER, M. J. WELLBORN, HINES HOLT, WILEY WILLIAMS, S. A. BAILEY, P. T. SCHLEY, JOHN SCHLEY, A. H. COOPER, A. MCDOUGALD, JOHN A. JONES, C. J. WILLIAMS, THOMAS WATSON, J. M. GUERRY, J. N. RAMSEY, W. P. RAMSEY, P. H. COLQUITT, SEABORN BENNING, W. N. HUTCHINS, E. GOLIGHTLY, CARUTHERS, R. W. DENTON, JOSEPH ECHOLS, W. B. PRYOR, J. A. CAMPBELL, W. L. JETER. Many of these were eminent men in their day, and able lawyers. I have known them all, and among them all, in my judgment, General BENNING had no peer as a

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