SKETCH OF SULLIVAN.

BY SAMUEL L. KNAPP.

THE name of Sullivan is famous in our history. Governor Sullivan was a distinguished civilian; his brother, General Sullivan, a celebrated warrior in the American Revolution.

In the cause of their country, when the prospect was dark and uncertain, and the hearts of many wise and virtu ous men failed, these two brothers, in the often perverted but emphatical language of the Declaration of Independence, "pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.” They continued true to the holy determination, and their sacred honor is contained in the history of their patriotic labors.

It is not in our power to give any new particulars of the general. Of the governor we will endeavor to give an account which, however imperfect, shall not be discreditable to his memory.

James Sullivan was born the twenty-second of April, 1744, and was the fourth son of John Sullivan, who, about the year 1723, came from Ireland, and settled at Berwick, in Maine, and died at the extraordinary age of more than one hundred and five years. He educated his son, who owed to him all the instruction which he had, except in professional science, and the father lived to see his brilliant success in the world. Sullivan was not in his youth devoted to learned pursuits, but resided at home, engaged in the

happy but obscure life of agriculture. In a state of society moral and informed, but not polished, his ambition had probably never aimed at that celebrity which he afterwards attained. Here he imbibed republican lessons, which he never forgot. He learned that there was virtue and merit where there was little wealth or splendor; and was ever after attached to the yeomanry of the country, and regarded them as citizens on whom the welfare of the community mainly depended. He was deservedly their favorite, and never deceived their confidence. In some states the people of the humbler order are averse to the elevation of those of their own number, and prefer others born of more eminent families. It is not so in New England. A large proportion of our influential men proceed from the common walks of life, and feel for their old friends a respect, which those who have always lived in another sphere are not so likely to entertain.

An accident, which at first foreboded the greatest evil, was the cause of Sullivan's adopting the profession of the law. While felling a tree in the woods he accidentally received a serious injury in one of his limbs, from which a long and painful illness ensued. The consequence of this was lameness during the remainder of his life. This misfortune kept him from the army, in which he had determined to enter, and directed his attention to the profession of the law. His talents fitted him for the army, and he would probably have been promoted to high military distinction, had Providence not defeated his purposes; but he could not have been more useful in military, than he was in civil life. His advantages for study in early life were small; he was not stimulated by the competition of a large seminary, nor introduced by the counsel and assistance of learned friends to that fruitful field of knowledge which is opened in a regular classical education. It may in consequence be lamented that the early studies of this man of genius were not differently conducted, but how far our regret is

well founded cannot easily be ascertained. There is a sort of culture which acts unpropitiously on the native powers. Invention is sometimes retarded by the necessity of plodding over what is known, and remembering subjects disagreeable to the taste of the scholar. Fancy, broken and tamed by rules, often loses in boldness and sublimity of flight what she acquires in artificial correctness. Public education is frequently ill adapted to practical usefulness, and unsuited to the character of the student. Sullivan escaped the dangers of servile imitation; his mode of speaking was his own, not an awkward, unnatural mimicry of a dull pattern. In youth his head was not encumbered. with obsolete lore, nor clouded with those thick mists of polemical divinity, which envelop many of our colleges, and are so unprofitably mixed with their whole management. He had a philosophical turn of mind, which he improved by exercise; yet his remote situation denied him. the best means of furnishing his mind, and the courage and success with which he met and overcame all obstacles cannot be sufficiently admired.

In the study and practice of the law, at that period there were difficulties which must have severely tried the fortitude of a beginner, particularly of one who came for ward under so many disadvantages. The elements were in no fairer shape than Wood's Institutes, and Coke's Commentary on Littleton. The wheat was hid in the chaff. Blackstone's Lectures were first published in England, in 1765, and could not have been much known in this country. until some years after Sullivan commenced practice. There were then no reports, no books of forms appropriate to our peculiar laws and practice; which gave the elder lawyers, who recollected decisions, and had precedents at command, a greater superiority over the younger than they now have. Sullivan was then remote from the metropolis, but the splendor of his talents shone through the darkness of the wilderness. He was indebted for no part of his fame

to adventitious helps. He was not, like Parsons and Dana, trained by the lessons of Trowbridge, that ancient sage of the law; yet Providence smiled on the unaided efforts of his genius, and so rapid was his rise that before the Revolution he was advanced to the rank of a barrister in the superior court, and appointed king's counsel for the county' in which he resided. He was destined to act a higher part; and, though thus noticed by men in power, was ready to oppose their tyrannical measures. The people of America were too wise to permit the operation of a principle of government radically wrong and slavish. They would not endure an attempt to take away their property without their consent.

Since the primitive days of Greece and Rome there have been no such instances of patriotism and self-devotion as appeared in the ensuing war. The people rose in their strength, and did not rest until they could repose in independence. Their resistance was founded on an enlightened understanding of their rights, and was not the ebullition of transient heat or blind resentment. The lawyers of those days, generally, are entitled to distinguished praise for the disinterested part which they acted. Many of them. stood so high that their course was readily copied; and, had they been on the side of the crown and colonial gov ernor, who had heaped on them personally flattering distinctions and lucrative offices, the opposition would probably have been little more than nerveless and disastrous sedition. It will be admitted by every one, who reflects, that they lost more than they gained, in a private view, by the change of government. They were in the first ranks of the community; and it has always been the policy of the British executive to patronize liberally all men whose influence may be serviceable, and to reward them out of the spoils of the people with posts of honor and emolument. Notwithstanding these prospects before their eyes, they labored at every hazard to establish an equal, eco

nomical and frugal republic. Sullivan's expectations of preferment were great and alluring in their nature, but his lofty principles were not affected by this temptation, and he determined to fall, or rise only in the cause of liberty.

Our government being representative, and all measures decided by the deliberations of many, the civil policy of the country cannot be attributed to the wisdom of one or two individuals alone. What any one proposes is consid ered and modified by the counsels of others, and often goes into effect in quite a different shape from that in which it first originated. In military affairs, unity of plan is essential to success, and if the general advises with his officers, his counsel is at his own risk, and to be selected by his own judgment. The credit of success in war is therefore almost exclusively attributed to the commander. The responsibility of conducting our armies and preserv ing them from destruction, in the war of independence, devolved on Washington, and the praise of victory is with justice ascribed mostly to his personal energy and prudence. So absolute princes receive the honor of reforming civil institutions by their own efforts, or by directing the labors of statesmen and jurists to the same end. For this reason Justinian and Alfred have been celebrated as reformers of law. No one man in this country can claim for himself alone the merit of framing our constitutions and amending our laws. But Sullivan had a large share in the proceedings of the government of Massachusetts, at the period of the Revolution. Before he had reached the thirty-second year of his age he was reckoned among the first men. He was a member of the provincial Congress; and while he belonged to that body, in 1775, was sent on a difficult commission to Ticonderoga, in company with the Hon. W. Spooner and J. Foster, for which a vote of thanks was passed. In 1776 he was appointed a judge of the superior court, with John Adams, William Cushing and others. He had before been appointed judge of the court