The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 1, July 1897 - April, 1898 Page: 192
334 p. : ill., ports., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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192 Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
To this he said that he would "never violate the Constitution of
his country, though no one on earth should know it but himself."
His own heart, he said, would know it and would condemn him.
Can Roman history furnish an instance of more rigidly virtuous
practice than this? Even Aristides, who would not deceive the
countryman who asked him to write the ballot for his own banish-
ment, was not more conscientious than Henderson in the discharge
of his obligations to his country and her laws.
In 1840 Gen. Henderson made his home in our village, and com-
menced the practice of his profession. As a lawyer he was dis-
tinguished for the vigor of his mind, the clearness and quickness
of his perceptions, and the perspicuity of his reasoning. His early
reading was most accurate and thorough. He paid the most care-
ful attention to elementary and general principles. Probably no
man understood better than he the great fundamental principles
of the common law. So extensive and laborious was his practice
in Texas that it was impossible for him to pursue a regular and
constant course of reading, which no lawyer should neglect, and
the inability to do which he much regretted. But his very con-
stant practice supplied the want which a failure to read would
have created. His mind and his elementary knowledge were kept
in continual exercise, and in keeping up with the practice he neces-
sarily kept up with the progress of law as a science. If called upon
to give an opinion upon any question or state of facts, it would
much more likely be the deduction of his reason from some well
known general principles than the statement of a decision made
by any judicial tribunal. And the deductions of his reason thus
made rarely ever failed to concur with and be corroborated by the
judgments of the most enlightened tribunals of our country. My
brethren of the bar will recollect how often many of us have ob-
served what aremarkable coincidence existed between the profession-
al opinions of Gen. Henderson, formed and expressed as I have just
stated, and the "lex scripta," as found to be laid down after labor-
ious investigation and research by the most erudite and accom-
plished authors on jurisprudence. He was gifted, too, with an
extraordinary memory. He kept no written digest of the decisions
made in the court where he practiced, but if you asked him if a
certain question or principle had been decided he could tell you,
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 1, July 1897 - April, 1898, periodical, 1897/1898; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101009/m1/214/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.