Liman D. Norris

We have been solicited in person and by letter to have prepared and presented to the people of this State a sketch of the Ufe and public services of the non-partisan caudidate of the Demooratie, Liberal and Reform Conventions, for Judge of the Supreme Court (short term), Lyman D. Norris. We have accordingly obtained from reliable sources such facts as seem to us pertinent to the question which the intelligent voter desires honestly to decide - Whom shall I support for the highest judicial office in the State ? Mr. Norris is the only son of the late Mark Norris, who was a pioneer of Michigan, coming to Ypsilanti from New York in 1828, and remaining there till his death in 1862. Mr. Norris yepared for college at the Michigan College, organized thirty years ago in the interest of the Presbyterian Church, bv the Rev. John B. Cleveland, at Marshall, aud entered the Michigan University in the f all of 1841, i being the first student of the first class that entered that now large and flourishing institution. After remaiuing there two years he entered Yale College, whence he graduated in 1845. In the year 1845-6 he began to read law with A. D. Fraser, of Detroit, at that time a lawyer of learning and diBtinction, and haviug the best law library in the State. Mr. Fraser is yet living, and is now President of the Detroit Bar. After rifteen months' study Mr. Norris was admitted to the bar in the spring of '47, being then twenty-two years old. We havo' before us a letter from Mr. Fraser to his father, informing him of the fact, from which we quote : " He was publioly examined in open Court both by a committee and the judges." [of the Suprerae Court.] "His examination was one of the best witnessed here in many years, acquitted hiinself in such nianuer as to reflect honor, not alone on himself, but on thoso with whom he studied." In the spring of '48 he cominenced the practice of his profession in St. Louis, Missouri. The latter part of '50, and nearly all of '51 he speut in Europe, going abroad upon professional business, and having suceesstully disposed of that, he went to Heidelberg and devoted the rest of his stay in Europe to the study of civil law, a knowledge of which was of great service to St. Louis lawyers, in the investigation of French and Spanish land claims and titles, based upon the laws and titles existing previous to the purchase of Louisiana by President Jefferson in 1803. In 1852, when but five yeara at the Bar, Mr. Norria was retained in the celebrated " Dred Scott " case, and was assigned alone tothe " forlorn hope " of inducmg the Supreme Court of Missouri to reverse the decisions and principies of fourteen previously decided cases. He succeeded. Afterwards, through political schemes of " The Blairs," this case carne to the United States Supreme Court, and to its national celebrity. We have often heard Mr. Norris speak of the inside history of this case, and we hope sonie day he niay be induced to give us a chapter of its incidents. In looking back to its argument over the spaee of twenty years, Mr. N. says it " smells of the lamp," and is several abades buncome and sopbomorio ; but the Law was right and had been approved by Lord Stowell in the case of the Slare Grace, which case was also approved by Mr. Justice Story in a personal correspondence with that distinguished judge. The principie being that the statu of slavery re-attaches to a sluve who, voluntarily returning from a free State to his foruier slave State, invokes the tribunal of that State to declare his freedoin. During his stay in St. Louis Mr. Norris was political editor and part proprietor of the St. Louis Daily Times for about a year, and took an active part in the war against Senator Benton, ending in his overthrow. It was during this period that Franklin Pierce was noiuiuated for President, and the query was there, as everywhere, who is Franklin Pierce? This question was abiy answered by a leader trom the pen of Mr. Norris, g'ving President Pierce's Congressional lifo, record and speeches, showing his soundness on the slavery quustion of that period. Over 25,000 copies of this numbor of the Timen were atterwards printed, and the leader was copied in every Democratie paper in the Mississippi Valley, contributing largely in the South and West to the subtequent success of the campaign. In 1854 Mr. Norris was oalled back to Ypsilanti, by the failing health of his father, who, with a large and encumbered estáte, required his assistance, freely given, though it demanded the abandonicent of the successful career he had entered upon in St Louis. He remained at Ypsilanti iu the practice of the law and general business up to the spring of 1871, when he removed to this city, where he has since remained. In 1807 he represented Washtenaw iu the Constitutional Convention. He wás a useful conservative member, and co operated with such men as Judge Withey, Mr. Lothrop and Gov. McClelland, in endeavoring to perfect a good Constitution, and if their advice had been heeded, in the separate submission of the various political questions involved in that Constitutiun, it is now seen that the State would have been greatly benefited ; but partisau politics ran high so near the closiug scènes of the rebellion, and the labors of the convention carne to naught. In 1869, the county being Republican, he was, againat his wishes, nominated, as tho most aïailable candidate for Senator. Unwilliug to be set up merely to bo knocked down, he introduced for the first time in the history of the State, the always-to-bedesired practice of joint discussions, challenging his opponent, Hou. J. Webster Childs, a good speaker and great favorite of his brother farmers, who accepted. They huid soine dozen meetings in the county, the largesl and most enthusiastic evor gathered in the State, conduoted in the best spirit, tho candidates traveling together, aud being each the other'8 guests when they spoke in the towns of their residence Mr. Norris was elected by a little less thau 200 majority, but each candidate retained the respect of tho.other aud of the people, and there are now no better and warmer friends than Mr. N. and Mr. Childs. In the Senate (there being only five Democrats) Mr. Norris, always averse to useless pattisanship and contest over small mattere of detail, proposed to his colleagues to make no party uominations for the minor officers of tho Senate, and give their votes for the candidates of the majority, which was done. In return for this courtesy, Governor Bates gave every Democrat the chairmanship of acommitte, a custom folio wed in part at this session by Lieut. Governor Hult. It was a qaiet, harmonious session. Mr. Norris was chairman of the Gijological Survey, and also on the Judiciary committee and the committüe on Education. The people of the Upper Península were anxious for a survey, and they deserved it. Mr. Norris prepared a fall report upon the subject, in which Mr. McKenion, Chairman of the Geological Survey of the House, joined ; of which several thousand were ordered printed in pamphlet. They reported a bilí, which passed, aud the geological survey was inaugurated with $8,000, one half to the Upper Península, and has since been continued. The people of the Upper Península are indebted to Mr. N. for thus calling attention to, and aiding in, the development of that section. The two volumes and maps now published are wholly devoted to the iron and copper of that region. It was during this session that the railroad aid law manía raged, and that the law authorizing towns to vote aid to railroads, and the saddling of a bonded debt upon the ïnunicipality of the State to the amount of over $6,000,000, was passed, afterwards declared by the Supreme Court, in the Salem bond case, unconstilutionai. Mr. Norris, like most of the prominent attorneys of the State, was in the habit of acting professionally for railroads, and was considered friendly to their intorests ; yet he oppostd this law upon prinoiple, and spoke and voted steadily against it. The large number of judgments now in courts of the United States against townships and cities, with more to follow, on their bouded debt, is an instructivo comuientary on the wisdom of Mr. Norria' vote. It is true that success is not always the test of merit. It is sometimes better to deserve it. Yet " nothing succeeds like sucoess," and as, since his advent in this city, he has acquired the reputation of succeeding in contested cases, we have requested a brother lawyer of his to examine his record in the Supreine Court of the State. He reports to us that in 16 volumes of the reports exatnined by Mm. Mr. Norria appeared in fifty-two cases from nine counties in the State ; that of twenty-one cases he had taken up, he had lost but five ; that of thirty-one cases he had taken up, he won nineteen. During his residence in this city his reputation as an able and successful lawyer has steadily increased, and he has given to the firm of Norris, Blair & Stone a standing seeond to none in Western Michigan. He is universally regarded as a man of scholarly attainments, sound legal mind, and possessed of a profound knowledge of the priuciples of jurisprudenoe, qualities that will enable him to fill the high position of Supreme Judge not only with honor to himself, but credit to the State. He is aminently fitted to maintain and increase the high reputation for ability and learning which the Supreme Court of Michigan now enjoys, and we urge the voters of Michigan to consult the best interests of their State, regardless of party considerations, by securing his election. The Demócrata in each aud. every lownship of this county should noininate their best men for the several township offices - froin Supervisor to Constable. Especial attention should be given to the selection of Supervisor candidatos. Upon the next Board of Supervisors will devolve the duty of radistricting the county for Representation, and the Democrats should not only secure a majority of the board, but a majority of sound and fit working men. One taken and the other left : Ward of the Arkansas Investigating Oomniittee, for making a report in accordance with the wishes of the President, has been given a fat office, while Poland for reporting otherwise is left to graze the stony fields of Vermont. Can some meinbers of the Legislature (say the author of Senate bilí No. 78) teil U8 and the publio at large how sections 643, 648, and 649 can be " cousecutive sections" ?