Excerpt from Lemuel Shaw: Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, 1830-1860

IT is doubtful if the country has ever seen a more brilliant group of lawyers than was found in Boston during the first half of the last century. None butfa man of grand proportions could have emerged into prominence to stand with them. Webster, Choate, Story, Benjamin R. Curtis, Jeremiah Mason, the Hoars, Dana, Otis, and Caleb Cushing were among them. Of the lives and careers of all of these, full and adequate records have been written. But of him who was first their associate, and later their judge, the greatest legal figure of them all, only meagre accounts survive. It is in the hope of sup plying this deficiency, to some extent, that the following pages are presented.

It may be thought that too great space has been given to a description of Shaw's forbears and early surroundings, but it is suggested that much in his character and later life is thus explained. His speeches are somewhat fully referred to f or the reason that they are nowhere collected.

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