The Green Bag Volume XXIV
November, 1912
Number 11
Isaac Newton Phillips ISAAC NEWTON PHILLIPS, for sixteen years Reporter of Decisions of the Illinois Supreme Court, died at his home in Bloomington, Il1., on Thurs day, October 3. Two years ago he had been forced to resign his position by continuous and increasing ill-health. Just one week before his death he had been brought home from a sani tarium in Wisconsin, where he had been for over a year. Mr. Phillips was born on a farm in Tazewell county, October 24, 1845. When but eighteen years of age he enter ed the Union army as a private soldier in Company A, 47th Illinois infantry. After leaving the army he attended school in Peoria and later entered the Illinois Wesleyan University at Bloom ington, Illinois, where he remained three years. He taught school a year after leaving college and later studied law in the office of Robert G. Ingersoll, at Peoria. He received his degree of Bachelor of Law from the old Chicago University in 1871. He then began the practice of law at Bloomington, Illinois, and was for twenty years a law partner of Joseph W. Fifer. Before his appointment as Reporter of Decisions Mr. Phillips was for four years chairman of the Illinois Railroad and Warehouse Commission under Gov ernor Fifer's administration, and his work in that position attracted wide and
favorable notice. He was also a close friend and adviser of Governor Tanner. Mr. Phillips was a man of strong and attractive personality, and his keen sense of humor and inexhaustible supply of interesting and amusing anecdotes made him always a welcome guest at any gathering. He read widely, his preference being for the classics and works of history and biography, but ap preciating good things in a lighter vein. Worry over his health during the last eight or ten years cast a gloom which he could not entirely shake off. Had he possessed health and energy commensur ate with his ability, he would beyond question have achieved even greater honors than he did. Mr. Phillips was a big man in every sense of the word. Body, brain and heart were on the same generous lines. Impressive in his manner, exact in his expression and vivid in his description, he was, in truth, an orator of the old school. In his practice at the bar his sound legal learning, his forceful logic, and his shrewd knowledge of men and affairs, his sarcasm, wit, and alertness in cross-examination made him an ideal advocate. In his youth he was no stranger to hardship and this made him to the poor and needy a loyal and priceless friend. He was a close student of men, and his writings on Lincoln, Washington, Marshall and others showed exceptional discernment and ability.
