A NEGRO LAWYER ADMITTED AT WASHINGTON.

Bruce Herald, Volume III, Issue 60, 1 June 1865, Page 8

A NEGRO LAWYER ADMITTED AT WASHINGTON.

A Washington correspondent of the ' New York; Times,' wri ring on . the Ist says :—" Through the door that was too narrow to freely let out the bearers that :bore Charles Sumner's inanimate: form from the Seriate Chamber; where he had •been stricken. down by the assassiansof the _slave power,. Charles Sumner to-day inarched back, leading a negro by the hand and standing- upon the very spot that had been stained with his blood for demanding freedom and equality for the blacks in America^ demanded of the Supreme Court of the United States to enroll ' among its members an African lawyer, arid to license him to practice at its bar. The black man was aditiitted; Jet black, with hair of. an extra twist*— let me have the pleasure of sayingy- bypurpose and with premeditation, of aggravating « kirik '■-■=- unqualifiedly, obtrusively; '•:': defiaritly 'riigger '— with no palliation" of complexion; no let down in lip, no' compromise' in nose.; no abatement jwhatever iri any facial, carnal, esteological •particular, from the despised standard of lmriianity brutally set up in our politics and in our judicatory by the Dred Scott decisiori, this inky-hued; African stood in the monarchical power of recognised American manhood and American citizenship within the bar of the court which had ;sr>leiririly pronounced that black men, had

jno rights -which white men were bound to .respect — stood there a recogised member of it, professionally the brother of the distinguished counsellors on its rolls, in rights their equal— in the standing whicfy rank gives their peer ! By Jupiter, the sight was grand ! , .' AjC ; ' T'w'as dramatic too. As three minutes before eleven o'clock in the morningCharles Sumner entered the court-room, followed by the negro applicant for admission, and sat down within the bar. At eleven, the procession of the gpwned judges entered the room with Chief Justice Chase at their head. The spectators and the lawyers in attendance rose respectfully on their coming-. The associate-judges seated, themselves nearly at once, as is their courteous custom of waiting upon, each other's movements. The Chief Justice, standing to, the last, bowed with affable dignity to the bar, and took his central seat with a great presence. Immediately the senator from ■ Massachusetts arose, and, : iff composed Manner and quiet tone, said, ' May it please the Court, I move that John S. Rock, a member of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts; be admitted to practice as a member of this court.' The grave to bury the Drod-Scott decisiori was in that one sentence dug, and it yawned there, wide open, under the very eyes of some of the judges who had participated in the judicial crime against die mocracy and humanity. The assenting nod of the great head of the Chief Justice tumbled in the corse and filled. up the pit, and the black counsellor of the Supreme Court got on ito it and stamped it down, and smoothed the earth to his walk to the rolls of the court, . 'Boutwell of Massachusetts was by, drinking- in the spectacle, and Wilson of lowa stood at his side, measuring- the bigfact and welcoming it. A New York representative who yesterday voted against the constitutional amendment to abolish slavery, giggled at a spectacle which he had not the sense to appreciate nor the heart to feel. A few lawyers of the old regime looked on, stunned somewhat but rapidly growing in wisdom and mixing deference < to destiny. with their : instinctive reluctance to this revolutionary intrusion. These, and three journalists, and two sightseers straggeld in from their weary aversions to the tawdry ornamentation of the new capitol wing, and the clerk of the court, especially appointed by Taney's tsgency and vote, these were all the spectators of the noteworthy scene. Self-posses-sion and the insecurity of his tenure of his valuable place, constrained-thesemi-Secesh clerk to propriety of manner, wbfile swear** ing in the first negro law} r er upon the rolls in his custody. His face, however, was set hard, and his soul evidently lonnged for the resurrection of his old chief Taney, arid the palmy slave-driving days 'of- the Attorney-generalship of Black. But they are all gone!, and the revolution which is washing off the continent slavery, aristocracy, caste, and privilege, came up with Salmon P. Chase into the Supreme Court of the United States, and is already enthroned in the seat of its chief justice, and in the chairs of the lawyers who argue .at its bar.'

' Lord : Lyndhurst.'— Lord Lyndhurst was. a near- neighbour at Turville, and then held the Great Seal; When the official assig-neeships were founded: for the Bankruptcy Courts, Mr. Bird, unaware of their value, applied to his lordship on behalf of his brother at Liverpool, representing his high character and integrity. Though he had voted ag-ainst Lord Lyndhurst at his last election at Cambridge, on account of the want of respect at least paid by him to public, opinion, and had no doubt that he knew this, yet the request was immediately granted. On another occasion Mr. Bird avas struck with his conscienticHls anxiety, in disposing of church patronage, to appoint a really good man.. It is pleasing to read in the public obituaries of this truly remarkable statesman, that in his later years, at least, he devoted the energies of his mind, to what Locke calls ' the noble ; study which. is ever}*: man's duty — the comprehension of all other knowledge directed to its* true end;' and, wiser than Henry ? s minister, served his God as he had served his King. — ' Sketches from the life of the Rev. Chancellor Bird, M.A. F.L.S. ■*. By the Rev. Claude Smith Bird' M.A,'- '-