DANIEL AGNEW. The outbreak of the rebellion found the supreme
court of the United States, most of the state supreme courts, and by far
the larger number of the lower courts, federal and state, in the hands of
those whose political training inclined them to excuse, if not to approve,
the cause of those who were seeking to betray the Union to its
destruction. The Pennsylvania bench was no exception to this rule. The
majority of its supreme court was as little able as President Buchanan
then seemed to be, to find any law or precedent to justify national
self-preservation or to authorize the suppression of a gigantic rebellion.
One of this majority, Judge George W. Woodward, when the dissolution of
the Union seemed imminent in 1861, declared, "If the Union is to be
divided, I want the line of separation to run north of Pennsylvania."
Later, this same judge was very properly chosen to formulate the decision
of the Democratic majority of the court which disfranchised the
Pennsylvania soldiers in the field. These and kindred acts so highly
recommended Judge Woodward to his party that in the critical days of 1863,
when the cause of the Union was trembling in the balance, he was selected
to contest the re-election of Governor Andrew G. Curtin. Chief-Justice
Lowrie, who was in entire accord with his colleague on the bench, Judge
Woodward, and the author of a then recent decision of the state supreme
court, declaring the national draft law unconstitutional, was a candidate
for re-election. In selecting a candidate to run against Chief-Justice
Lowrie, the Republicans or Union men looked for a jurist of high legal
attainments, who was firm in his convictions and of approved loyalty. All
this and much more they found in Judge Agnew, of the Seventeenth Judicial
District, whose services to the Union cause had made his name well known
throughout the state. The ticket thus composed of Andrew G. Curtin for
governor and Daniel Agnew for supreme judge proved too strong for the
opposition, and carried the state, in October, by 15,000 majority. By
virtue of this popular decision Pennsylvania’s great War governor was
retained in the position he had filled so worthily and well, and the state
supreme court received an infusion of fresh blood, new thought, intense
energy, and high patriotic impulse, which at that time it sadly needed.
Judge Agnew’s accession brought that court into harmony with the Union
sentiment of the state and added immediately and in a marked degree to its
strength and influence as a judicial body.
Judge Agnew is a Pennsylvanian only by adoption and a life-long
residence He was born in Trenton, N.J., Jan. 5, 1809, and while yet a lad
his parents came to Western Pennsylvania, on their way to the state of
Mississippi, and after a brief sojourn in Butler county, settled in
Pittsburgh. There young Daniel lived, increasing in wisdom and stature
until the dawning period of manhood, when he left the parental roof to go
a little farther west and grow up with Beaver county. His father, James
Agnew, M.D., was a native of Princeton, N.J., and graduated at its college
in 1795. He studied medicine with Dr. McLean, the father of President
McLean; took his degree in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in
1800, and remained a year in Philadelphia under Dr. Benjamin Rush. His
mother, Sarah B. Howell, was the eldest daughter of Governor Richard
Howell, of New Jersey, who was a major of the New Jersey Continental line
in the army of the Revolution. His paternal grandfather, Daniel Agnew,
came from the County Antrim, in the north of Ireland, in the year 1764,
and settled in New Jersey. On his mother’s side he belonged to the
Howells, of Caerfille, in Wales. The father of the future chief-justice
was for a time uncertain where he should permanently pitch his tent. The
century was just opening; a new country was all before him where to
choose, and he was embarrassed by this wide range of choice. He first
practiced his profession for several years in Trenton, New Jersey, and
then went to Mississippi in 1810. He returned in 1813, riding on horseback
all the way from Natchez to Princeton, through the Indian country then
known as the "wilderness." In the following October he started on his
return journey to Mississippi with his family, intending to remain during
the winter at the house of John L. Glaser, the owner of a furnace in
Butler county, whose wife was a sister of Mrs. Agnew. But Mrs. Agnew,
becoming alarmed at the wildness of the West and the dangers of
navigation, then made in arks or flat-boats, declined to make the voyage
down the Ohio and Mississippi, and the whole party came to a halt in
Butler county. It was through this circumstance that Mississippi lost and
Pennsylvania gained Daniel Agnew as one of its citizens. The family were
not unrepresented in Mississippi, however. Mrs. Agnew’s brother
established himself there, and her niece, Varina Howell, Judge Agnew’s
first cousin, is the present wife of the ex-Confederate chieftain, Mr.
Jefferson Davis.
Daniel Agnew was educated at the Western University, in Pittsburgh, and
studied law under Henry Baldwin and W.W. Fetterman. He was admitted to
practice in the spring of 1829, and opened an office in Pittsburgh. Not
succeeding as he wished, he went to Beaver in the summer of the same year,
intending to return in a year or two. He soon created a practice, however,
which once gained by a young lawyer is not lightly to be given up, and
this fact, in connection with another, decided him to remain in Beaver
permanently. The other potent influence on his decision was a Miss
Elizabeth Moore, daughter of General Robert Moore, a leading lawyer and
representative in congress, who had lately died. In the abundant leisure
afforded by a law practice still in the future, he wooed, won and married
in July, 1831, this lady, who has now shared his joys and sorrows, his
honors and his cares, for fifty years, and still lives, no less hale and
hearty than the Judge himself, rejoicing in the more constant
companionship which the termination of her husband’s long engrossing
public duties now brings to her. Land titles were unsettled in that
western country, and in the extensive litigation growing out of this
circumstance, young Agnew early had a chance to show what he was made of,
and he was prompt to improve it. He soon gained a high standing as a land
lawyer, and with it a large practice. His first service to the state at
large was in 1837, as a member of the constitutional convention which in
that and the year following sat in Harrisburg and Philadelphia, forming a
series of amendments to the constitution of 1790, and which subsequently
became a part of it. Mr. Agnew drew up the amendment offered by his
colleague, John Dickey, as to the appointment and tenure of the judiciary,
known as Dickey’s Amendment, afterwards modified by the amendment of 1850.
It is proper to correct here a false charge brought against Judge Agnew by
political enemies: that he voted in the convention to insert the word
"white" in the article upon elections. On the question of insertion, he
voted always against it; but after failing in that, voted for the section
as a whole, on account of other most important amendments intended to
prevent fraudulent voting.
In June, 1851, he was appointed by Governor Johnston President Judge of
the Seventeenth District, then composed of Beaver, Butler, Mercer and
Lawrence counties. In the following October the people confirmed the
appointment, electing him for a term of ten years. In 1861 he was
reelected without opposition at the call of the members of the bar of all
parties. He did not, however, consider that his duties as judge superseded
his duties as a citizen, and when the rebellion broke out, he became known
at once as an ardent and active supporter of the Union cause. The Virginia
Pan-Handle made Beaver a border county, and brought the atmosphere and
spirit of secession into its very midst. A committee of public safety of
one hundred members was appointed, and Judge Agnew made its chairman.
Later he was a zealous participant in the formation and maintenance of the
Christian Commission. As a judge, all his energies were bent to preserve
peace and order, and to check the budding treason which had the temerity
to show its head in the Seventeenth Judicial District. Other judges, even
such as were in sympathy with the Lincoln administration, were in doubt
and perplexity as to their proper course in regard to the new issue which
was suddenly sprung upon them. Judge Agnew, however, never hesitated. In
him sound learning and sound sense went hand in hand; and he found no
difficulty in making the eternal principles which underlie all law apply
to every time and every emergency. He was the first of the state judges to
take cognizance of the aiders and abettors of rebellion around him, and
enforce the necessity of obedience and the paramount duty of loyalty to
the government. In May, 1861, more than four years before President
Johnson talked of making treason odious, Judge Agnew, instructed the grand
jurors of Lawrence country that treason was a crime, and all who had any
part or lot in it were criminals before the law. In this charge he
combated with overwhelming conclusiveness the doctrines held by the
Northern allies of rebellion, that aid to the enemies of the United
States, which the constitution defines to be treason, meant foreign
enemies only. He instructed the grand jury that where a body of men were
actually assembled for the purpose of effecting by force of treasonable
purpose, all those who perform a part, however minute or however remote
from the scene of action, were actually leagued in the general conspiracy,
and were to be considered traitors.
These were words fitly spoken and nobly spoken, at a time when treason was
noisy and aggressive, and our leading public men were still under the
delusion that it might be put down by soft words and gentle dalliance. Had
other Northern judges everywhere displayed the same spirit, the progress
of our arms would not have been so often obstructed and the war prolonged
by a disheartening and demoralizing fire in the rear. In answer to those
who denied the power of the government to maintain itself against domestic
assaults, he wrote and delivered a careful and elaborate address on the
"National Constitution in its Adaptation to a State of War." This address
was so timely and so strong, breathing such a lofty spirit of patriotism,
and evidently drawn from such rich stores of legal knowledge, that it at
once invited public attention to its author, whose fame had been before
confined to Western Pennsylvania. By special request of the members of the
Legislature Judge Agnew repeated this address in Harrisburg in February,
1863. Secretary Stanton called for a copy of it, and the Union League, of
this city, determined to scatter it free-handed. Two large editions of it
were published by the league, and when Chief-Justice Lowrie’s term in the
supreme court was about to expire, the author of the address, while absent
in the West, and without an effort on his part, was nominated by the
Republicans to succeed him, and elected in October, 1863.
As a member of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, Judge Agnew was early
called to make a practical application of the doctrines, of which, as a
citizen and judge of a lower court, he had been a zealous advocate. A
majority of the bench, consisting of Chief-Justice Lowrie and Judges
Thompson and Woodward, had pronounced against the constitutionality of the
draft law. Judges Strong and Reed dissented. The question came up again
immediately after Judge Agnew’s accession to the bench, and, as the senior
members of the court were evenly divided, it devolved upon this new judge
to decide the question, and his first opinion as supreme judge was in
affirmation of the constitutionality of the draft law (see 9th Wright,
306). He thoroughly believed in the right of the government to suppress
insurrection and to enforce obedience to its laws.
Soon after the question of the constitutionality of the draft acts of
congress had been decided, an important question of marine insurance came
up, involving the true status of the seceding states. It grew out of the
capture of the merchant vessel "John Welsh" by the Confederate privateer
"Jeff Davis." The question was whether the letters of marque of the "Jeff
Davis," and the nature of the service in which she was engaged, divested
her capture of its piratical character. Woodward, then chief-justice, in
an elaborate opinion, sustained the capture as an act of war by a de facto
government, and on that ground held it to be within an exception in the
policy. The effect of this status of the rebel government was too
important to be suffered to go out as the doctrine of the supreme court of
Pennsylvania, and was combated, therefore, by Judge Agnew in a vigorous
opinion. He held that secession and confederation were nullities— that the
United States was the supreme government both de jure and de facto, not
displaced— its functions temporarily suspended in certain districts, but
its actual existence continued everywhere within its rightful
jurisdiction: coupled with actual possession of important posts in every
seceding state, and necessarily excluding all other sovereignties. That a
rebellion or attempted revolution by a portion of a people, taking the
form of a government, but leaving the true government in esse, actively
and successfully asserting its rightful authority, with important
possessions, does not constitute a de facto government, for the reason
that it in no sense represents a nation in fact, nor exercises its
sovereignty. He, therefore, denied Judge Woodward’s conclusions of an
accomplished revolution— the position of an independent power de facto—
and the abrogation of the constitution in the seceded states, leaving them
under the laws of war and of nations alone.
Pennsylvania was the third state in which the constitutionality of the act
of congress, authorizing the issue of treasury notes and making them
lawful money and a legal tender for debts was called in question. The
court of appeals of New York and the supreme court of California sustained
the act, and Judges Agnew, Strong and Reed, overruling Chief-Justice
Woodward and Judge Thompson, brought, in turn, the Pennsylvania supreme
court into line. Judge Agnew differed from his colleagues in holding that
a specific contract for payment in coin was not payable in treasury notes,
but that the latter were receivable only for debts payable in lawful
money. Judge Agnew had, however, ruled the same question, sustaining the
legal tender clause, while in the common pleas of Butler county, as early
as the summer of 1863, in the case of Crocker vs. Wolford (Pittsburgh
Legal Journal, Sept. 14, 1863).
The war of the rebellion brought into existence immense armies. While the
constitutional power of the government to draft men into service was
supported as essential to the safety of the nation, it yet fell heavily
upon the people, and the distribution of its burdens was exceedingly
unequal. The necessity as well as the hearts of the people demanded these
rigors of the system to be relieved as far as possible. This led to a
system of bounties paid by the counties, towns, and townships of the
state, to induce those who could be better spared, to enter into the
service as substitutes for the drafted men. It was opposed, however, by
those whose sympathies were not with the cause of the Union; and the right
to raise money by taxation to pay these bounties was strongly denied on
constitutional grounds. The question came up to the supreme court in Speer
vs. Blairsville (14th Wright), and was argued in opposition to the power
to tax by ex-Chief-Justices Black and Lowrie. It was settled conclusively
in favor of the power in an opinion by Judge Agnew, both able and
eloquent, which placed it beyond future cavil. Another phase of the war
arose in the question of the right of deserters from military service to
vote at state elections. Two cases came before the supreme court, Huber
vs. Reilly (3d Smith) and McCafferty vs. Guyer (9th Smith). In the first
case a majority of the court held that the electoral franchise of a
deserter from military service could not be taken away by an act of
congress without a conviction of desertion by a court-martial, and that a
board of election officers was incompetent to try the fact. Justice
Strong, who wrote the opinion, put the decision on this ground, conceding
that the act of congress was not an ex post facto law, and that congress
had power to pass it. Judge Agnew, in an elaborate opinion, not then
published, maintained that the question before the election board was in
no sense a trial for a penalty, but an inquiry into a personal privilege
claimed by one offering to exercise it, and the real question was one of
fact only, desertion, triable as any other fact, in relation to
citizenship, by the election board; the consequence being declared by
congress, whose right to declare it was not denied by Justice Strong. In
McCafferty vs. Guyer the question came up under a state law, authorizing
the board of election officers to try the fact of desertion. Justice Agnew
took the ground that the whole question was resolved into a single one: Is
a deserter, proscribed by act of congress, a freeman under the election
article of the constitution? In a most elaborate and convincing opinion he
traced the origin of the term "freeman" from the earliest period into the
constitutions of 1790 and 1838, and proved that a proscribed deserter was
not a freeman within the meaning of the term in the constitution, and the
election board, being authorized by statute to determine the fact,
McCafferty was rightfully denied a right to vote. In all these war
questions Judge Agnew stood resolutely by his country. The effect of
adverse decisions will be seen if we note the influence they would have
had on the ability of the government to carry on the war to suppress
insurrection. Without the power to draft the military arm of government
would be powerless. Without money to carry on the war it would be
ineffectual. Without the power to pay bounties the hardships of war would
fall on classes least able to be spared. With a de facto standing of the
confederate government, it would have been entitled to recognition by
European powers; its prize-court decisions would be recognized as a valid
source of title; its ports would be opened by foreign powers, and various
obstacles thrown in the way of the United States to prosecute its lawful
authority. With a right to vote by deserters the whole policy of the state
might be changed and its safety endangered.
An important question upon the status of negroes in Pennsylvania arose
before the adoption of the post bellum amendments of the constitution of
the United States and before the passage of the Pennsylvania act of 1867,
making it an offense for a railroad company to discriminate between
passengers on account of race or color. A considerable time elapsed before
the case was reached in the supreme court in 1867, and public opinion then
ran high in favor of the rights of colored persons. The court below
decided against the right of the railroad company to direct a negro woman
to take another seat; but "one in all respects as comfortable, safe, and
convenient, and one not inferior to the one she left." This was a written
point. Judge Agnew, whose courage is equal to his convictions, stood with
two of his brethren, Woodward and Thompson, for reversal. He saw that as
the constitution and judicial precedents stood when the case arose, it was
impossible to deny with honesty that the legal status of the negro, both
civil and political, differed from that of the white man; and that the
social status was even more dissonant— that the rights of carriers and the
repugnance of races necessarily involved a reasonable power of separation
of passengers as a part of the carriers’ duty, in the preservation of the
public peace and the proper performance of his public obligations. His
opinion (found in 6th Smith, 211) is as unanswerable in argument as it was
faithful to duty; though at the time of its delivery (in 1867) the
progress of public opinion, after the close of the war, led many who were
ignorant of the time and circumstances under which the case arose, to
suppose he was wrong. Of all the judges who heard the argument, Judge Reed
alone dissented, and Judge Strong, who was absent at the argument,
afterward told Judge Agnew that he agreed with him— that his opinion was
right.
A great question arose after Judge Agnew became chief-justice, perhaps the
most important of the many arising during his term of office. A majority
of the convention called to propose amendments to the constitution, to be
voted upon by the people, conceived that its powers were not restricted by
the call under which it was convened; and claiming absolute sovereignty,
undertook to displace the existing election laws in the city of
Philadelphia, by an ordinance, without any previous submission of the new
constitution to the people, as required by the laws under which the
convention was called and authorized. The case came before the supreme
court on a proceeding to enjoin the convention appointees from interfering
with the lawful election officers. After the hearing an eminent member of
the court thought it better to dismiss the bill on the ground of want of
jurisdiction. But the effect of this would have been to leave the
ordinance in force, and to countenance the exercise of an unlimited power
not conferred by the people, and which might in future cases be dangerous
to their liberties. Finally, however, the court unanimously agreed to meet
the question on its merits, and enjoin the appointees of the convention
from interfering. The opinion was written during the night following the
argument, and, considering time and circumstances, was perhaps the most
able delivered by Judge Agnew during his term. It was supplemented by an
opinion in Wood’s Appeal by Judge Agnew, in which the claim of absolute
sovereignty was discussed upon fundamental principles, and the same
conclusion reached. The two cases, Wells vs. Bain and Wood’s Appeal, are
found in 25 P.F. Smith, 40 and 49.
The ruling of Judge Cox as to the qualifications of jurors in the Guiteau
case, recalls the fact that Judge Agnew was the first judge in
Pennsylvania to modify the rule which excluded jurors who had formed
opinions in capital cases, and admit them if their opinions were not so
fixed but that they could still try the prisoner on the evidence, freed
from the influence of previous impressions. This he ruled when judge of
the Seventeenth District. Afterwards on the supreme bench he rendered
several decisions to the same effect. In the Ortwein murder case, decided
in Pittsburgh in 1874, Chief-Justice Agnew considered at length the plea
of insanity as a defense in murder trials, and laid down some rules which
would have been ill-relished by Guiteau, if made to apply in his case. In
his opinion Judge Agnew said: "The danger to society from acquittals on
the ground of a doubtful insanity demands a strict rule. Mere doubtful
evidence of insanity would fill the land with acquitted criminals. To
doubt one’s sanity is not necessary to be convinced of his insanity. A
person charged with crime must be judged to be a reasonable being until a
want of reason positively appears. Insanity as a defense must be so great
as to have controlled the will and taken away the freedom of moral action.
When the killing is admitted, and insanity is alleged as an excuse, the
defendant must satisfy the jury that insanity actually existed at the time
of the act; a doubt as to the sanity will not justify the jury in
acquitting."
To give any adequate idea of the impress which Judge Agnew made through
his decisions upon the law of Pennsylvania is beyond the scope of this
sketch. Every Monday morning during the sessions of the supreme court
brought a full budget of his decisions, and every day of his vacation was
spent in preparing opinions in knotty cases reserved for that time of
greater leisure for careful elaboration. Until 1874 the supreme court
consisted of but five judges, while it had all the work which was
afterward found sufficient for seven. Ill health prevented Judge Williams
from assuming his share of the labor of the bench, and disinclination for
work was an impediment in other quarters, so that before the
reorganization of the court the labor incident to its duties fell almost
entirely on two or three of its members. The reports of that period, as
well as for the entire fifteen years Judge Agnew was on the bench, bear
testimony to his prodigious industry. They show him also to be one of
those broad-minded judges who have regard to the meaning and spirit of a
law rather than its letter. The whole body of his opinions as therein
recorded illustrate at every step the keenness of his intellect, the
soundness of his judgment, and the extent and precision of his legal
learning. He became chief-justice in 1873, and continued until January,
1879. In permitting him to retire from the bench in that year, the state
lost from its supreme court one of the strongest members and best judicial
minds that body ever possessed.
Perhaps the most marked characteristics of his judicial career was his
determined support of the sacredness of the fundamental rights of persons,
as declared and maintained in the constitution. His opposition to all
infringements upon these rights was constant and unwavering. This may be
seen in many opinions and addresses. He held that the maintenance and
protection of these rights were the true end of all good government, and
nothing short of a real public necessity should be permitted to override
them. Another leading characteristic is the rapidity with which he writes.
Besides the case of Wells vs. Bain, another example may be seen in the
contested election cases in 15 P.F. Smith, 20, the opinion being written
during the night after the argument.
Judge Agnew never was a politician in its ordinary sense, and never filled
a political office. He avoided both the legislature and congress,
preferring to sit as an independent judge, acknowledging no political
favor, and returning a full equivalent for office by his services on the
bench. In early life he was a national republican, supporting the American
system of Henry Clay, especially the tariff, of which his preceptor, Judge
Baldwin, was an eminent advocate. He joined the Whig party at its
formation in 1832-33, and remained a Whig until its extinction in 1854. He
advocated on the stump the election of Harrison in 1840, Clay in 1844, and
in 1848 he was an elector on the Taylor and Fillmore ticket, and canvassed
Western Pennsylvania zealously in its support. After his election to the
bench in 1851, he withdrew from active participation in politics, except
as events of unusual importance called him out. He openly opposed the
Know-Nothing movement in 1854, and two years later he assisted at the
formation of the Republican party in the convention in Lafayette Hall, in
Pittsburgh.
Judge Agnew’s original intention was to retire from the supreme bench at
the end of his fifteen years’ term. The continued absence from home, which
its duties necessitated, had all along been exceedingly unwelcomed to his
wife. His life, too, had been a busy and laborious one, and, though still
in the full vigor of his powers, he thought that at the age of seventy he
was entitled to a rest. He made known to some of his political friends his
intention not to be a candidate for re-election, but was induced by them
to remain silent, and was subsequently brought out by them as a candidate,
seemingly with the intention of using his name to head off other
candidates, and then sacrificing him in turn. The double dealing and cross
purposes of this period are all laid bare in Judge Agnew’s open letter,
published a few days before the election of 1878, and it is unnecessary to
recapitulate them here. It is enough that he changed his purpose and
resolved to go into the convention, if he did not have ten votes. In that
body, with all the regular party machinery against him, he developed an
unexpected strength, but the bosses had decided to put him aside, and from
their decree there was no appeal.
Representatives of the National party, knowing that Judge Agnew could
command a large personal following independent of any party, requested
permission to propose his name for supreme judge in their convention, but
this he refused. Subsequently he was, without his consent, put in
nomination by the state committee of the National party. Of the nomination
he never received official notification, nor was it designed that he
should. He was not in sympathy with the economic teachings of that party.
He believed only in a coin currency, or one based on coin, having an
undoubted representative value, and his thorough republicanism was
unquestioned and unquestionable. This the National leaders knew, but they
thought his name would aid their ticket, and they placed it on it without
troubling themselves further about his consent. A similar proposal, made
by the temperance convention of that year, Judge Agnew expressly declined
in a letter to its chairman, on the ground that having been an
"ostensible" candidate before the Republican convention, he could not
honorably put himself in the front of another party. He determined to hold
himself free from any entanglement, and it was a fear of such a charge
being made after the election which brought out his open letter before it.
During the canvass he was offered the attorney-generalship in writing,
under the incoming Republican administration, on condition of withdrawing
from the National ticket. Through his son he declined this proffer
expressly on the ground that he was nominated without his participation,
had not accepted, and had nothing to decline.
Judge Agnew is still in the full enjoyment of physical health and
activity, and of mental vigor. Since his retirement he has lived a quiet
and comparatively uneventful life among his old friends and neighbors, of
Beaver. Great changes have occurred in state and nation since that
stripling lawyer went there prospecting for litigation fifty-two years
ago, but the essential features of that staid old county-seat remain
unchanged. Six children have been born to Judge and Mrs. Agnew, two of
whom, their eldest son and eldest daughter, are dead. The latter was the
wife of Col. John M. Sullivan, of Allegheny City, and died in 1874. Of the
others, there are two sons, both lawyers; the elder,
F. H. Agnew, now in
the senate of Pennsylvania, is practicing in Beaver, and the younger,
Robert M. Agnew, in Lancaster, Pa. One of his daughters is the wife of
Hon. Henry Hice, of Beaver, late President-Judge of the court Judge Agnew
formerly presided over. The other daughter is the wife of Rev. Walter
Brown, of Cadiz, Ohio.
The degree of Doctor of Laws has been twice conferred on Judge Agnew,
first by Washington College and then by Dickinson. Occasionally he
indulges in writing or speaking on legal and public subjects to keep from
rusting out. On General Grant’s return from his tour around the world,
Judge Agnew was selected to deliver the address in Pittsburgh, and in the
succeeding canvass for nomination he favored that of General Grant for the
presidency as best calculated to produce national unity. He was employed
by Allegheny county in the riot cases, wrote the address to the
legislature, and argued the question of the county’s liability before the
state supreme court. He recently argued the case of Kelly vs. The City of
Pittsburgh in the United States supreme court. His brief is an elaborate
statement of the purpose of the fourteenth amendment, and a vindication of
individual fundamental right, and the jurisdiction of the court in a case
of unlawful taxation, infringing upon the right of property without due
process of law.
In the senatorial contest of last winter Judge Agnew’s name figured
somewhat in the scattering vote. The state would do itself a high honor if
it should select such a man to represent it at Washington, or to be its
chief executive. Judge Agnew’s numerously published addresses, to which,
for lack of space, scarcely any allusion has been made, and his opinions,
involving great public questions, as recorded in the state reports, show
that he is no mere lawyer, but has all the grasp of mind and breadth of
view of the true statesman. As United States senator he would take rank at
the outset with the ablest and most influential members of that body; as
governor of the Commonwealth he would be a grateful and wholesome relief
from the dead level of mediocrity, which has had monopoly of that office
for many years. But the Boss is still supreme in Pennsylvania politics,
and such political honors as he does not retain for himself or his
lieutenants, he takes care to secure for some one of the great anonymous.
Under the regime the post of honor is the private station, and it is
there, with rare exceptions, that we find our men of most distinguished
ability and recognized worth.
For a short time after Judge Agnew left the Bench, he practiced law. He
was engaged in several important causes, especially those of the county of
Allegheny, growing out of the great riots at the Union Depot of the
Pennsylvania Railroad, in Pittsburgh, in 1877. He, with his associates,
drew up and presented to the legislature the address for legislation to
relieve the county from the onerous liability growing out of the act
making a few counties liable for injuries done by rioters.
He also argued before the supreme court of Pennsylvania the cases growing
out of the same law, to show that the law did not survive the former
constitution of the State, and was not continued in force by the schedule
of the new constitution. The argument was deemed unanswerable by impartial
minds, but the great interests of Philadelphia and the railroad company,
the city itself being a large stockholder, carried the case against the
county of Allegheny. He also argued before the supreme court of the United
States the important question of the power of Pittsburgh to tax outlying
rural districts within the corporate limits, for the special city purposes
of police, fire, etc.
Finding that professional business was encroaching largely on his time and
labor, and curtailing the relief he expected on retiring from the Bench,
he, in the course of two or three years ceased to take cases or to be
employed professionally, though many inviting offers came to him. In the
year 1880, being strongly impressed with the necessity of curbing the
evils of drunkenness, from which, as a judge and lawyer, his observation
taught him that four-fifths of the crime and pauperism of the state arose,
he became the president of the Constitutional Prohibition Amendment
Association. In this work he performed great labor, writing and speaking
in most of the principal places in the state. The effect of the efforts of
this association, and others engaged in the temperance cause, was to carry
a large majority of prohibitionists into the house of representatives in
1881. The constitutional amendment was carried in the house by a vote of
nearly two to one. These efforts continued brought a majority also into
the house in the session of 1883. Before this house, Judge Agnew delivered
an elaborate address on prohibition. He contended in that address, and in
other arguments, against the doctrine of compensation, a position since
fully sustained by the supreme court of the United Stares. These efforts
have been crowned with final success by the passage of the proposed
amendment by the assembly of 1887.
His pen has also been employed in other work than legal. He has been
called to deliver numerous addresses, in and out of the state, before
colleges, seminaries of learning, and public audiences, civil and
military. Notably he delivered the address of welcome at the convention of
the bankers of the United States in Pittsburgh, and an address to them on
the general banking law of the nation. In the canvass of 1880, for
Garfield’s election, he also delivered two very elaborate addresses on the
past and present relations of the northern and southern sections of the
United States.*
He yet, in 1888, enjoys good health and strength and a vigorous intellect.
History of Beaver County,
including its early settlement; its erection into a separate county; its
subsequent growth and development; sketches of its boroughs, villages and
townships; portraits of some of its prominent men; biographies of many of
its representative citizens; statistics, etc. by J. F. Richard; A. Warner
& Co., Publishers, 1888. More Beaver
County History Books
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