WHEN the great lawyers of Maryland are enumerated, the first in the order of time and in eminence is Daniel Dulany. Then follow Samuel Chase, Luther Martin, William Pinckney, William Wirt, and Roger B. Taney; and now, the name of Reverdy Johnson, so recently dead, connects the eminent Maryland lawyers of the past with their successors, still living, who may become historical in their time. Of those here named, the biographer has materials far more ample than any which the most careful research can discover in regard to him whom tradition places before them all—a tradition so emphatic as to have justified the ablest of the historians of Maryland, himself a distinguished lawyer-McMahon-in his exalted eulogy. The following brief sketch contains, however, all, After his eulogistic remarks, McMahon goes on to say: "Mr. Pinckney, himself the wonder of his age, who saw but the setting splendor of Mr. Dulany's talents, is reported to have said of him, 'That even amongst such men as Fox, Pitt, and Sheridan, he had not found his superior.""-McMahon's History of Maryland, pp. 356-7. VOL. III.-1 (1) it is believed, that can be considered as authentic in this regard. Of the father of Daniel Dulany," Daniel Dulany the elder," as he has been called by way of distinction, not much is known beyond what is to be found in the provincial records of Maryland. From these we learn that he was admitted to the bar in 1710, and filled, subsequently, the offices of Attorney-General, Judge of the Admiralty Court, CommissaryGeneral, Agent, and Member of the Council, or upper house of the legislature, holding the latter office under the successive administrations of Governors Bladen, Ogle, and Sharpe. That he was an able lawyer there can be no question. The offices that he held sufficiently establish his professional reputation, and his social rank. He was, for many years, a member of the lower house of the legislature, and was prominent there as the leader of the Country Party, in the controversy about extending English Statute law to Maryland. He died at Annapolis, December 5, 1753, in the 68th year of his age.1 Daniel Dulany, the subject of this sketch, was the son of Daniel Dulany, above named, and Rebecca, his second wife, the daughter of Colonel Walter Smith of Calvert County. He was born at Annapolis, July 19, 1721, was educated at Eton, and at Clare Hall, Cambridge, England, was entered of the Temple, and, returning to America, was admitted to the bar of Maryland in 1747. He married Rebecca, daughter of Benjamin Tasker, Esq., of Annapolis, and died in Baltimore, on the 19th of July, 1797. His burial was in old St. Paul's church-yard, which was in the rear and around the site of the 1 When the somewhat celebrated King of the Gypsies, Bamfylde-Moore Carew, was for the second time transported to America, the vessel in which he came landed at Kent Island. Carew was sold as an expert gardener to Mr. Dulany, who, finding that he could not mow, said he was no gardener, and refused to take him.-Adventures, p. 293. William Black, in his Journal, 20th of May, 1744, speaks of Mr. Dulany calling on and spending the evening with the Virginia Commissioners, while they were at Annapolis. On the 25th of May the Commissioners, in their letter home, speak of him as having been changed for Jennings as one of the Maryland Commissioners for treating with the Six Nations at Lancaster.— PENNA. MAG., vol. i. pp. 130, 238. present church edifice. This ground was long since desecrated and built upon.1 ernment. Mr. Dulany filled the office of Secretary of the Province for many years, and until the close of the Proprietary GovThe routine of his life seems to have been that of an eminent lawyer in commanding practice, devoted to the business of his profession, and but rarely interrupted by matters of public concern. There were occasions, however, in which he was brought conspicuously before the people; and it is in connection with these that we have the most authentic, indeed, almost the only authentic, testimony in regard to him. Hearsay evidence abounds, not relating, however, to those current incidents of daily life which afford materials for the biographer, but to the consideration in which he was held by his cotemporaries-evidence of weight certainly, but, nevertheless, like all tradition, secondary in its character, and of which it may be said, vires acquirit eundo. When the General Assembly of Maryland met on the 23d of September, 1765, among the first business that came before it was the circular from the Assembly of Massachusetts, in The remains of Daniel Dulany were at the time removed to the present cemetery of St. Paul's, at the corner of Lombard and Fremont Streets, and, according to George L. L. Davis, the tombstone was there. His monument bore the following inscription : In memory of the HON: DANIEL DULANY, ESQ: E. Memoirs of the Dead, and Tombs' Remembrancer, Baltimore, 1806. 12mo. The children of Daniel Dulany were Daniel, who d. s. p.; Rebecca Ann, who m., and had one daughter, who d. s. p. ; and Benjamin, who m. Elizabeth French, from whom are numerous descendants. viting the other colonies to unite in the appointment of commissioners to a general congress, to be held in New York. The arrival of the Stamp paper was then momentarily expected, and the Governor sought the advice of the Lower House as to the disposition to be made of it. This they declined to give; and the Upper House, when he turned to them, assured him that the only place of security against attempts to destroy it, would be one of his Majesty's ships on the Virginia station. The question of the Stamp Act was thus fairly before the people of Maryland, and the press teemed with essays in opposition. Of these, the ablest, unquestionably, was one entitled, "Considerations on the propriety of imposing taxes in the British Colonies for the purpose of raising a revenue by Act of Parliament." It appeared in Annapolis on the 14th October, 1765; and although published anonymously, Daniel Dulany was, at once, recognized as its author. It argued the question, not only as a lawyer dealing with the proper construction to be given to the Charter of Maryland, but as a statesman discussing the principles of the British Constitution. Nor did he confine himself to generalities, but narrowed down the argument to the exact power claimed by the Act-the power to impose internal taxes on the Colonies, without their consent, for the single purpose of revenue-viewed in the light of British authority and British precedent. The great interest that was felt in the subject throughout the Colonies; the clear, perspicuous, and forcible manner in which the essay discussed it; the moderation of its tone; its appeal to reason and judgment, and not to feeling, and the free and fearless argumentation when the question of right was involved, attracted attention to the author, and placed Mr. Dulany at once upon an equality with, if not at the head of, the political essayists of the day. It is upon this essay, rather than upon the opinions in given cases, that are to be found in the law reports of Maryland, that the reputation of Mr. Dulany as an accomplished and powerful writer mainly rests. It may be fairly said, that it was owing, in a great degree, to his influence that "the Province of Maryland was never polluted even by an attempt to execute the Stamp Act," The next occasion, when Mr. Dulany was brought prominently before the people, was one in which his course was certainly open to the criticism of being inconsistent with the principles of his celebrated essay. From an early period in Maryland, public officers had been compensated, not by salaries, but by fees, which the legislature regulated from time to time. One of the regulating Acts came up for renewal in 1770, and was objected to on account of the exorbitance of the fees, especially of the Provincial Secretary, who was then Mr. Dulany, of the CommissaryGeneral, Walter Dulany, who was his relative, and of the judges and members of the Upper House. In consequence of an invincible disagreement on the subject between the two Houses, Governor Eden prorogued the legislature; and, by virtue of his supposed prerogative, established the fees by proclamation, adopting the system that the Lower House had refused to sanction. Hitherto, the people of Maryland had objected to the taxation of Parliament, not because of the amount of the tax, but of the principle involved. Now, the same principle was involved, and in the shape of actual oppression; and it was only reasonable to believe that the author of the great essay would be as much opposed to the regulation of fees by proclamation, which was one form of taxation, as he had been to taxation without representation in the case of the Stamp Act. It was not so, however; and after a fruitless discussion for two years between the Upper and Lower Houses, the essayists took the matter in hand, and, over the signature of Antilon, Daniel Dulany attempted to vindicate the proclamation. On the other side, was Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who, adopting the pseudonym of "The First Citizen," turned against Mr. Dulany the argument of his own essay. The controversy was carried on for some months, brilliantly on both sides; but, in the end, Mr. Carroll obtained a decided victory; the elec 1 McMahon. |