I have hardly known a nature
better fitted, morally or intellectually, for great public
trusts, either judicial or political, than his. In the beginning,
I think the framers of the Constitution intended the Senate
to be a sort of political Supreme Court, in which, as a court
of final resort, the great conflicts which had stirred the
people, and stirred the Representatives of the people in the
lower House, should be decided without heat and without party
feeling. It was, I have been told, considered a breach of
propriety to allude to party divisions in early debates in
the Senate, as it would be now deemed a breach of propriety
to allude to such divisions in the Supreme Court of the United
States.
Howell E. Jackson had this ancient Senatorial temperament.
He never seemed to me to be thinking of either party or section
or popular opinion, or of the opinion of other men; but only
of public duty.
He never flinched from uttering and maintaining his opinions.
He never caressed or cajoled his political antagonists. It
is a great tribute to his personal quality that he owed his
election as Senator to his political opponents who, when his
own party was divided, joined a majority of his party to elect
him.
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