HON. FRANCOIS XAVIER MARTIN.
39
all the energies and resources of the mind. Nothing discourages and nothing daunts such men. They feel that time and perseverance will not fail to reward their solitary studies, and gratify their long deferred hopes of distinction. The lives of such men are without any striking events or incidents on which the attention, of the biographer is fixed; they pursue the even tenor of their way, contented with the cultivation of the intellectual powers, and the distinction which their profession gives them in society.
The example of such men is cheering in the highest degree to those who are just entering on a professional career. Let them learn never to despair. If true to themselves, and devoted to their studies, under whatever disadvantages of early fortune they may labor—however hard the struggle with want and competition, it will come at last —the noblest and purest of all triumphs, that of an innate energy of soul over adversity and want and neglect. If their studies are .commensurate with the almost boundless field of the science to which they are devoted, embracing, in the language of Justinian, " divinarum atque humanarum rerum notitia—justi atque injusti scientia," they are prepared to act a distinguished part in any of the departments of public affairs to which they may be called in after life. The profession in the United States has always been the high road to honorable distinction. Many of those who by their intelligence, influence and eloquence prepared the public mind for revolution to resist the encroachments of power, were lawyers who had studied deeply the true theory of popular government. They afterwards were lawyers who prepared and sustained the Declaration of Independence—and especially those who devised the admirable Constitution under which we live and prosper, and who were among its first expounders. The profession here deals not only with private rights, and the controversies between man and man—their studies embrace the great relations of the governed with the governor—they regard public offices as public trusts •—and discuss freely the limitations of delegated power, and the duties and attributes of restricted sovereignty. The lawyer who fearlessly and boldly advocates such principles is already half a statesman. The profession in this country have always been, and from the nature of their studies must always be, the advocates and supporters of free government and popular institutions.
Francois Xavier Martin, let it not be forgotten, was a foreigner by birth, and a naturalized citizen of the United States. He was received as a brother—became early identified with the country, and had no connection for more than sixty years with the political vicissi-