The Supreme Court of Maine. 505
ing speech in the Senate was on the French Spoliation Bill. Of the subject he was a complete master. Speaking of the indemnity due to our citizens from the United States for the wrongs which France admitted she inflicted on them, he uses the memorable words, "Our government pocketed the consideration and repudiated the debt." In closing his speech, Dec. 22, 1834, on this Bill, his last sentence is "an apple of gold in a picture of silver." He said, "Things are so rightly ordered here, that to do justice to all others is to serve ourselves best."
Congressional life, however, did not accord with his taste or training; and the State became the gainer when he accepted an appointment on the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, tendered him by Gov. Dunlap in September, 1836, to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of Judge Parris. His first term of service was at Bangor. It began about the end of October and lasted until late in December. He found the docket full to repletion with cases growing out of the eastern land speculations. Judge Nicholas Emery quaintly said "It needed to have its backbone broken." Judge Shepley did break it. He showed immediately that he was a power on the bench, which, although gracious and ever courteous, was not to be trifled with, and who was resolved "that the facts were to be elicited only after the rules of law." He held rigidly to the practice of the principle that justice was to be found in a faithful adherence to legal principles and rules. It was a frequent saying of his, "The law is the rule of decision, and the law is the justice of every case."
He became the successor, with the general concurrence of the bar and the public, of Chief-Justice Whitman, in 1848, upon the latter's resignation. His long experience as a jurist and judge, the fidelity and acuteness he had always exhibited, made his appointment an eminently fitting one. His learning, impartiality, decision, promptitude and ability are amply illustrated in the twenty-seven volumes of the Maine Reports, from the fourteenth to the fortieth, inclusive. His opinions are characterized with that clearness, directness, and force that no one can mistake the point he endeavors to establish.
He keenly enjoyed the excitement of a skilfully conducted trial and watched its movements with as keen a zest as that of the stoutest Roman in presence of the gladiatorial combats of the arena; but he never lost sight even for a moment, of the law and the justice involved in the contest.
Strongly attached to professional and judicial life, he would not permit any outside allurements to withdraw him from it, and resisted all solicitations to accept political positions under the general government. Not only did he decline the office of Attorney-General of the United States, but also that of Governor of Maine. As a judge he abstained from politics, nor would he give recommendations to his best friends for political office. His pastor, the Rev. Edward Y. Hincks, of the State Street Congregational Church, in Portland, and of which Judge Shepley was one of its founders, says in a sermon delivered Jan. 21, 1877, "He was an eminent member of a class of laymen who, during the past generation, adorned the Congregational churches of New Eng land, — men of high station and eminent ability, who laid their gifts in humble devotion at their Master's feet. . . . He had the passionate love of righteousness which was the noblest element of the Puritan character. . . ."
There was no acerbity or asceticism about him. He was tender and lovable in the home-circle, loving young people, and to his pastor an ever kind and sympathizing friend. He was a wide but discriminating reader, keeping abreast with all the periodical literature, and specially interested in works on religion and theology. Books on philosophy, science, history and biography, as also fiction, occupied much of his time.
He took a deep interest in the cause of
