1841-1901
Edward C. James, a fourth-generation lawyer, was born in 1841 in Ogdensburg, St. Lawrence County. He was the son of Amaziah B. James, a Justice of the New York State Supreme Court (1853-1877), ex officio Judge of the Court of Appeals (1861 and 1869) and member of Congress until his death in 1883.
In 1861, before he could enter college, James joined the Fiftieth New York Volunteers, eventually serving as Acting Assistant Adjutant-General of the Engineer Brigade. He was later assigned to the 106th New York Infantry and promoted to Colonel. In 1863, he received an honorable discharge for a physical disability. James returned to Ogdensburg and completed his law studies in his father’s office. He was admitted to the bar in 1863. In later years, when asked what college he attended, “Colonel” James, as he came to be known, often said “that he was graduated from the University of the Army of the Potomac and that he knew of none better for the purpose of making men.”[1]
In 1864, he formed a partnership with Stillman Foote, Surrogate of St. Lawrence County. In 1881, he left his busy country practice and moved to New York City to practice law.[2] In 1884, James lost the significant wealth he had inherited when the Wall Street brokerage firm of Grant & Ward went under. Ferdinand Ward had been operating the firm as a Ponzi scheme without the knowledge of his partners, former President Ulysses S. Grant and his son, Buck. The firm’s demise also bankrupted the Grant family and contributed to the Wall Street Panic of 1884.
James participated in many highly publicized lawsuits and became well known “not only by the lawyers of this State, but by the general public of the entire country.”[3] He defended the railroad baron, Russell Sage, against a suit brought by a clerk, William Laidlaw, for injuries Laidlaw received when Sage used him to shield himself from a dynamite bomb thrown into Sage’s office. The case was tried four times, with James repeatedly crossing swords with Laidlaw’s famous attorney, Joseph G. Choate. Laidlaw was awarded $40,000 following the fourth and final trial. Francis Wellman devoted a chapter of his book, The Art of Cross-Examination, to the trial, which he considered a cautionary tale of how “even eminent counsel . . . through their zeal” can be led to “an abuse of cross-examination.”[4] Choate won the battle at trial with a blistering, humiliating cross-examination of Sage, but James ultimately won the war on appeal when the Court of Appeals unanimously reversed the verdict on several grounds, including Choate’s tactics, which went “beyond the legitimate bounds of a proper cross-examination” and were designed to “prejudice and excite the passions of the jury.”[5]
James played a central role in the “Freight Handlers’ Strike” of 1882. He brought a successful mandamus proceeding on behalf of the state to compel the railroads to continue moving freight despite a labor strike. The freight handlers had gone on strike when the railroads refused their demand for a 30-cent increase in daily wages (amounting to several hundred dollars a day for the railroads). The strike, meanwhile, caused millions of dollars in commercial losses, spurring the state to sue the railroads, who were represented by Roscoe Conkling, on the ground that they were neglecting their public duty to transport freight.[6]
James also represented the Manhattan Elevated Railway Company in “many of the important cases involving the rights of abutting owners in the streets through which the railroads pass,”[7] and high-level police officials charged with corruption and malfeasance, including Captain William Devery, the notoriously corrupt future NYPD Police Chief who was indicted for neglect of duty growing out of the “Parkhurst crusade.”[8]
James stood out for “his striking personality and strong individuality,”[9] a deep, magnetic voice that “held the attention of court and jury alike” and his physical presence. “Over six feet in height, erect, broad-shouldered and of massive build,”[10] he was “splendidly equipped to endure the constant strain of almost continuous court work.” Colonel James exhibited a “kindliness and courtesy” that enabled him to stay on friendly relations with lawyers he opposed and judges he criticized. He “dearly loved a good joke, and his flashes of humor and witty repartee were constantly relieving the dullness and tedium of even the most stupid and uninteresting of cases.” Colonel James was also known as one of the best cross-examiners of his day, rivaling “Mr. Choate, Mr. Parsons and Mr. Coudert.”[11]
Edward C. James died on March 24, 1901, in Palm Beach, Florida.
[1] “Edward Christopher James,” The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography Vol. 9, James T. White & Co., 1899, at 370, available at https://lawlit.net/lp-2001/james.html
[2] McAdam et al., History of the Bench and Bar of New York State Vol.1, New York Hist. Co., 1897, at 212-13.
[3] “Col E. C. James Dead,” New York Times, March 25, 1901.
[4] Francis Wellman, The Macmillan Co., 1903, at 267, 271, available at The Art of Cross-Examination/Chapter 15 – Wikisource, the free online library.
[5] Laidlaw v. Sage, 158 NY 73 (1899).
[6] McAdam at 213.
[7] Id.
[8] Id. at 214; see also New York Times, March 25, 1901.
[9] New York Times, March 25, 1901.
[10] The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography.
[11] Id.