COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES.

The commencement exercises of the Law School proper, took place in the small church on Sumter street, Columbia, S.C., on the 24th evening of April, 1884, where the students assembled and listened to an eloquent and pathetic address to the graduates, by Rt. Rev. Wm. F. Dickerson, D.D., President of the Board of Trustees. The Bishop spoke in highly eulogistic terms of the grand success attained by the Dean and Law Professor in his labors, also, of the noble efforts put forth by the students themselves amidst many obstacles and privations, in which they had given a grand example to others of faint heart, to commence to enter upon the study of law. He reviewed the origin, growth and progress of the law department of the university, and said that, that which gave most glory to the present hour was the fact that thus far the problem was solved, not only of negro capacity, but negro self-government, as the law school of the university, entire, was controlled, and the students instructed exclusively by colored teachers.

Rev. J.C. Waters, D.D., President of the University, then delivered his address to the class in Latin.

After this address the degree of Bachelor of Law was conferred upon the following graduates: Talley R. Holmes, J. B. Edwards, R. A. Stewart, and Peter F. Oliver, all of Columbia, S. C.

On May 27th, following, the above named graduates having petitioned the Supreme Court of the State to be allowed to practice in all the courts of the state, were in open court examined, along with twenty-one white fellow-applicants, all of whom passed a creditable examination, and were admitted to practice.

The Baccalaureate sermon was preached to the law graduates by the Rev. J.C. Waters, D.D., on the eighth day of June, in Bethel A. M.E. Church, and was marked by its learning and adaptability. The text was: John xii. 43:- "For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God."

On June 12th, following, the Commencement exercises of the University were held in Bethel A.M.E. Church, and the law class joined therein in the following exercises:

PROGRAMME.

At the close of these exercises the presentation of diplomas took place, by Rt. Rev. Wm. F. Dickerson, and the following address was then delivered:ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE LAW DEPARTMENT OF ALLENUNIVERSITY.Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, and young gentlemen,graduates:

At the closing moments of your departure from the law department of Allen University, your Alma Mater, in which you have pursued and completed a course of legal study, entitling you to the usual degree of Bachelor of Laws, and by subsequent examination before the Supreme Court of the State, admitting you to practice in all the courts of the State, it is my duty to present you with a few words of parting advice. Before doing so, let us take a retrospect upon mutual labors.

In October, 1882, the Law Department of Allen University was opened, I was chosen by the trustees Dean and Law Professor in this department. This meant more than I conceived. It did not have its usual meaning, that is a teacher of some legal branch of knowledge, to which I must devote my attention and give instruction, but it meant, by force of circumstances, I should be required to teach all the legal topics prescribed by the curriculum of the university, which are, in a great degree, identical with those prescribed by the 23d rule of the Supreme Court of our State. I was not wanting in diffidence of my ability to perform so herculean a task in which was involved so grave responsibilities. My duty was to educate in the law, colored youth, of a race declared to be inferior in capacity with all others. If I failed I certified to both your and my incapacity. My responsibility then was, the maintenance of an entire race's fitness and capacity. I consoled myself in the belief that I had a heart and will determined enough to commence the work, putting my trust in God, the Father of us all, and believing that he had made of one blood all nations upon the face of the earth. I concluded that he had made them all of like susceptibilities, to glorify him in the comprehension of his handiwork, and the laws of the same. Thus I began my labors. You young gentlemen entered the law school. You did not enter as those of the Caucasian race usually do, with the prestige of a wealthy parentage, a pocket full of gold, and the equal facilities belonging of right, to a common brotherhood in man. At the threshold of the temple, wherein you were to drink deep and full from the fountain of legal knowledge, running from time immemorial in the streamlets of tradition, custom 00055and usage, until, beginning with the Jewish Theocracy to the Justinian age, the confluence was commenced with the fathers of English Common Law, Coke, Littleton, and Sir William Blackstone, and the mighty stream, began to flow down the course of civilization, purified by Christianity.

You were met by the common inquisitor of social life, so frequent at the door of the commencement of the pursuit of knowledge by every young man and woman. He inquired of you, "are you laden with the passport to this world's honors--money? Have you an ancestry of boasted Anglo-Saxon renown, which for more than ten hundred years have made easy the pathway of eminence and fame to that race of people?" To these questions you replied, "none." But, continuing, you were further asked: "Have you a heart full of the desire for knowledge and wisdom--a soul inspired with the truth of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, despite a long suffering and oppression of your race? Do you believe in your equal capacity under equal facilities and opportunities with all other men?" To which you eagerly replied: "Aye, and forever aye." Then in clarion voice you were bade enter and be strong, and in the face of poverty and innumerable obstacles you commenced your labors. In the autumn you beheld the sere and yellow leaf falling and decomposing, and testifying, if not to total annihilation, to decay and change, typifying man's mortality. Yet you did not falter, though in some cases, after more than twelve hours of manual as well as mental labor in the engagement of a livelihood you would appear at your recitations and lectures with faces lined with marks of toil and fatigue; but with a cheerful eye, a determination and a will, gladening the heart of your professor and teaching him and yourself how to learn "to labor and to wait." In the spring time joyous nature clad in floral garb with her hill tops carpeted with green, and her valleys resonant with the music of the rippling brooks, gave new life to your studies which strengthened and made you strong. As the summer, the joyous summer of your life of study advanced and ripened into the fruition of your labors on the 24th day of April, your alma mater welcomed her sons to her bounty and conferred upon you your degrees, and on the 27th of May last you entered upon the stage of a lawyer's life, to play your part in the arena of struggle for fame and name and wealth, and I trust, usefulness, by virtue of your diploma and the certificate of your efficiency in examination before the Supreme Court of the State. In this arena of lawyer's life there are several stages. Below is the multitude of pettifoggers struggling for filthy lucre only and degrading the profession of law from the height of its great eminence and glory into the mire of selfishness, lying and trickery. The next stage is where you will find a goodly crowd devoted simply to money-making, and utter strangers to the upbuilding of their fellow man. I bid you tarry not in these paths, but strive for the upper-story in your profession--remembering in the language attributed to Daniel Webster, when asked by a despondent young lawyer how he should rise to greatness in his profession amidst the struggles of the pettifogger below, and the competition just above, replied to him, "young man, there is room enough up stairs."

An experience of not more than ten years as a lawyer myself, gives me but little ability to teach you the ways to great height, but such as I have observed I offer you. First, in order to achieve 00066great eminence in your profession you must fully realize and comprehend the width and the depth and the height of law; you must fully comprehend the extent of the word itself. Not only does law mean a rule of action prescribed by a superior to an inferior which he is bound to obey, as found in constitutions, in statutes and in the ordinances of every civilized government, but it is also co-extensive with every known branch of learning. Ascend the heights of science--it is there; traverse the mutifarious avenues of art--it is there too. Go among the poets and philosophers, converse with the healing art--it is there. Investigate the pyramids of Egypt and translate the hieroglyphics of her sons--it is there. Go down into the bowels of the earth and seek for wealth in minerals, or try to prove that every stratum, as shown in geology, is truly the antitype of its prototype, the history of the creation recorded in the first book of Genesis. Enter the halls of legislatures, construe their statutes at the former and there you will find the consummation drawn from history as of necessity. A lawyer has no bounds to the requisite acquirement of knowledge. Beginning with the true source of human law--human necessity--you must continue to erect a superstructure upon the foundation of wisdom, as found revealed in the Bible. You may then adorn the edifice as it should be with the lights of poetry, science, art, established upon the foundation of morality and religion. The lawyer that barely knows the statutes of his State or country is like unto the man who is placed in charge of a locomotive, but has only a superficial knowledge of its several parts, their names and their purposes. He is never safe when danger or emergency arises. He is all right so long as the engine runs smoothly, but should some contesting force appear he soon finds how ignorant he is of that general knowledge of the machinery, its origin and the laws governing its application. In such a condition he wishes he had engaged in some calling of which he was thoroughly the master. You must not only be equipped in general knowledge, but you must be strong of nerve and full of energy. In courts of justice you will encounter some judges who will in some instances endeavor to hold the scales of justice so high as not to be able to see the object weighed in the balance. In such instances you need nerve. You must never cease argument and proof until you have made him bring down his scales before his eyes, or close shut them against any prejudice towards your client. Be never guilty of contempt of court, nor be wanting in courage to show proper contempt for a contemptuous court, nevertheless be not high-minded. Let your humility and good conduct secure the favor of bench and bar.

Be of good character--character is that which we really are. When we labor to gain reputation we are not even taking the first step towards the acquisition of character. In reputation you gain favor by something which pleases your neighbor apart frequently from the virtue of the acts. A wisely trained character never stops to ask what will society think of me if I do this thing or leave it undone. It tests the quality of an action by ascertaining whether it is just when judged by the laws of eternal right. Cultivate the good will of all men--politeness is a branch of good character, and remember that your juries come from the county of which county frequently you are. For while I would have you brave and courageous in battle for the right, be not puffed up so as to secure the ill 00077will of men, for it is better to be a "living dog than a dead lion," said the prophet. Have due respect for the patience of juries and remember that they are men having feelings to enjoy pleasure and to suffer pain. Do not let it be ever said of you as it is reported in a late number of the Central Law Journal of a young lawyer in his maiden speech. It says "he was florid rhetorical, scattering and windy. For four weary hours he talked at the Court until every body felt like lynching him; when he got through his opponent arose and said "your Honor" I will follow the example of my friend and submit the case without argument." This position frequently arises when the young lawyer disregards plain Saxon in his speech and seeks to illumine his argument with rhetorical flashes, so dazzling as to totally obscure the sight of his point and drive away judgement therefrom. Emulate in your profession, those who as lawyers have handed down to us examples at the forum worthy of emulation. As citizens and sons of South Carolina, you will find among her annals lawyers, judges and jurists who have ennobled the profession by their unparalleled ability. I cite you to O'Neil, McDuffie, Parker, Hunt, and Legare; but it was not only in the field of legal contest that they strove and conquered, but they were in the full sense of the term patriots, an attribute indispensable to the immortal honor and glory of a truly great man. It was more than legal ability which enabled lord Mansfield, in his decision in the celebrated Somerset case brought before him under writ of Habeas Corpus, to try the right of an American master to withdraw his alleged slave from the shores of England to say "that the instant a slave landed in England he became a freeman, as the air of England is too pure for a slave to breathe in." If you would combine that noble virtue, patriotism, with an efficiency in law and thus live for the good you can do, I would point you to a standard the highest achieved in English or American lines aye, the highest the world has ever seen. I point you to an American statesman and lawyer in whose patriotism this continent saw the noblest virtue, the greatest daring for good, the sublimest achievements for love of country and the unparalleled philanthropy of any human age. I point you to Charles Summer, the American Socrates, Cicero and Demosthenes combined. He whose life as a lawyer was chiefly devoted to the enfranchisement, amelioration and elevation of a race of people oppressed for ages by a cruel bondage.

The basis of all his actions at the forum, in the halls of legislation, on the rostrum, everywhere, was equality, which is true equity, the principles of which you have already listened to this evening from one of your number. He denounced all laws in which the equality of all men was not the primal reason. Never more conspicuously was this virtue seen in Charles Sumner than in his celebrated defense in the United States Senate in 1874 against the unjust annexation of the Black Republic of Havti to the United States. His keen eye and fierce legal acumen quickly saw the political assassin's hand at the throat of the young Republic, and with the eloquence of a Demosthenes, the legal knowledge of a Grotius, Vattel, or Puffendorf he exclaimed. "Foremost among admitted principles of international law is the axiom that all nations are equal without distinction of population, size or power. Nor does international law know any 00088distinction of color. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, is the plan of law for all nations as for all men."

Thus did he plead for the Black Republic, showing his love and his sympathy, not only for the American negro, but for him and for all men wherever found upon the face of the globe where the strong seek to oppress the weak. He would have done the same for the China-man or the Indian. His law extended to humanity at large, and was found, not in text books, but in the wants of man.

Another good and great lawyer, whose knowledge of law shone forth in principles and not mere abstract theories, was Wendell Phillips. He knew no constitutions, laws, customs, traditions, nor usages which did not recognize the equality of rights for all men. Amidst the persecutions of a cruel slaveocracy which threatened his life, he bore onwards and upwards the banner of freedom for all men, and demanded from the American slave-holder the unconditional surrender of the constitutional and natural right of liberty to the slave. He was but a young lawyer when he commenced battle against slavery and for human rights.

I point you to these men as the noblest and purest embodiment of what the lawyer should be. They have died and are no more with us, but their works and their lives are the brightest example for you. You are the legitimate fruit of the tree planted by them. Then, young gentlemen graduates, "Let all thou aim'st at be thy country, thy God's and truth."

In this struggle you will find conflict, false friends, a want of appreciation of your labors by the prejudiced and narrow-minded, nevertheless continue to battle for the right, and learn "to labor and to wait," a lesson no less a virtue because most willingly taught by those for whom you labor most. "Lives of great men remind usWe can make our lives sublime,And departing leave behind usFootsteps on the sands of time.""Footprints that perchance anotherSailing o'er life's troubled main,A forlorn and shipwrecked brotherSeeing, shall take heart again."

You will encounter, as I have, and others of my profession and your profession, among our own race, prejudice, hostility and cold cheer, so that you will often feel like abandoning the law and seeking fields of labor more lucrative and congenial. But remember that money perishes with the life that made it, and fortune changes with the changes of time, but good works, built upon the pedestal of truth, will be more enduring than brass or marble. Prejudice once existed, to a great extent, among the white brethren of your profession, owing, as it is said, chiefly to our ignorance. As we grow by education and in knowledge the legal masim, cessante ratione cessat lex applies. This is my experience among my white brethren in this city and elsewhere I have been. I have only asked for and demanded my privilege and my clients' rights. Industry must form a chief feature --seek. "He who seeks shall find, and to him that knocks the door shall be opened." Now that you are about to commence active practice, let me beseech you to be industrious. Action is the soul of 00099life; sympathy is its lever in action. Is there any citizen in this audience who purposes to chill the energy of these young men by refraining to give them their patronage, because they are afraid that they cannot obtain justice through a colored lawyer, thus aiding the very wrong you complain against? If so, let him stand and show his cowardly face, and then be banished as a traitor to his race. I trust there is none.

"His be the praise who, looking down on scorn, consults his own clear heart, and nobly dares to be, not to be thought, an honest man."

It is the boast of the legal profession that it is equally capable of doing work in the elevation of humanity, with any other known calling. It is woven into the fabric of every civilization. Progress must be your watchword; the universe your field. The doctrines taught in Blackstone and Kent will not fully teach you human nature nor human wants. You must read the works of great authors in order to broaden your ideas and enrich your thoughts. Read Dante for depth of conception; Milton for sublimity of idea; Macaulay for force of expression, Charles Dickens and Shakespeare for knowledge of the inner human nature and the Bible for wisdom and understanding." "Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,Is our destined end or way--Put to act that each to-morrowFinds us farther than to-day."Agitate! Agitate! Agitate is the surest course for securing right and conquering wrong. But I must warn you, if success attend your labors in any department of intellectual life--be not vain of your learning. Learning or knowledge is only excellent when it is useful to others. Let it be said of you, "His learning savors not the school-like gloss that most consists in echoing words and terms, and soonest wins a man an empty name." Be it said of you, too, as a lawyer in your works of humanity, your love of justice, your conduct in struggling for the honor of your alma mater.

Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar, remember that of the profession you have chosen the great ecclesiastic Hooker has said: "Her seat is in the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage--the very least as feeling her care, the greatest as not exempt from her power, both angels and men and creatures of what condition soever, through each in different sort and manner; yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy." Noble profession! Is it any wonder that of one of the most learned of its votaries, Sir William Blackstone, it is said that in his public line of life he approved himself an able, upright, impartial judge? That he was ever an active and judicious promoter of whatever he thought useful or advantageous to the public in general, or to any particular society or neighborhood he was connected with? That he was a believer in the great truths of Christianity from a thorough investigation of its evidence? Attached to the Church of England from conviction of its excellence, his principles were those of its genuine members--enlarged and tolerant. His religion was pure and unaffected, and his attendance upon its public duties regular, and those always performed with seriousness and devotion. His earliest wish was that he should die 001010"Untainted by the guilty bribe,Uncursed admidst the harpy tribe--No orphan's cry to wound my ear--My honor and my conscience clear.Thus may I calmly meet my end,Thus to the grave in peace descend."And so did Sir William Blackstone live and die, and so likewise, young gentlemen, may your lives be and terminate; for, remember, young gentlemen, the term of life is short. To spend that shortness basely, 'twere too long. Though life did ride upon a dial's point--still ending at the arrival of an hour. And as you go forth into the world in the pursuit of your profession, I bid you farewell and God speed.