opinions with long quotations from other cases: he took the trouble to master his ref erences, and was therefore able to state their scope and effect with brevity and pre cision. Tli ere is much to be said for the opinion that such mental characteristics as Justice Gray's are more likely, in the long run, to conduce to the safe and satisfactory adminis tration of justice than brilliant and original thinking. At all events Justice Gray brought to the court some conservative habits of mind that cannot be too highly esteemed. As became a judge imbued with the tradi tions of the Supreme Court of Massachu setts, his first solicitude was for the force and authority of the court's judgment. Al though a man of strong convictions, he was without pride of personal opinion; whenever, as rarely happened, he dissented from the judgment of the court, it was because of a conflict of opinion with respect to funda mental principles. Moreover, he always con fined himself rigidly to the real issues in volved. His opinions are entirely free from dicta: and they are, as the most impressive judicial utterances always are, absolutely im personal. Justice Gray exemplified the high est sense of judicial dignity. If he was occa sionally somewhat austere in his ideas of judicial decorum, his scrupulous adherence to his conviction that a judge should keep aloof from politics was wholly commendable. The variety and extent of Justice Gray's contributions to the reports, both State and Federal, is very great. At the outset of his judicial career he took an active part in the congenial labor of formulating the views of the court; he required no long novitiate to develop his powers. His opinion in Tyler v. Pomeroy, 8 Allen 480, on the lawfulness of acts done under color of military authority in time of war, which he delivered within a few months after taking his seat upon the Massachusetts bench, displays all his charac teristics fully developed. In the State court
he had exercised a very powerful influence over the court's determinations in questions of constitutional law. In the Supreme Court of the United States his influence in such cases was less controlling; many of his most conspicuous opinions relating to contro versies which had long been discussed, and the main outlines of which had been estab lished by former decisions of the court. His opinions in Juillard v. Greenman, no U. S. 425, on the subject of legal tenders, in Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100, on the commerce clause, and in Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U. S. 698, with respect to Chi nese exclusion, may be cited as illustrations. Yet he delivered many very able opinions in this great branch of the court's jurisdiction. In Head v. Amoskeag Manufacturing Com pany, 113 U. S. 9, he expounded the mean ing of due process of law as established by the Fourteenth Amendment; in Huntington 7'. Attrill, 146 U. S. 657, he defined the faith and credit to which State judgments were entitled; in Cole v. La Grange, 113 U. S. I, IK denied the right of Legislature, in the exercise either of the right of eminent domain or of the right of taxation, to take property without the owner's consent for any but a public use; in Elk v. Wilkins, 94 U. S. 123, he defined the status of the Indian tribes. Justice Gray was a strong Federalist. His opinions, from the Arlington Case, 106 U. S. iy6, to the Insular Cases of recent date, upliold the broadest construction of the powers of thf national government. His opinion in Juillard v. Greenman, no U. S. 425, uphold ing the power of Congress to make the Treasury notes of the United States legal tender, in payment of private debts, in time of peace as well as in time of war, placed the capstone upon the summit of national power. Justice Gray's opinions cover a wide range of subjects. His contributions to admiralty and prize law and to the general law of wills are, perhaps, most conspicuous. Rail! -v. Tioop, 157 U. S. 386, on general average;
