by age thirteen.26
His teenage folly was
his single misstep. After his redemption, he fulfilled his father’s expectations. Pliny White was a lawyer, teacher, and historian, who read law in the office of William Czar Bradley. White called him “the greatest man Vermont has yet produced.” By com- parison, “[Charles K.] Williams may have equaled him as a lawyer, [Jacob] Collamer as a reasoner, [E.J.] Phelps as an orator, and [Charles] Marsh may be his peer in multi- farious learning, but neither of them, nor any other Vermonter, living or dead, who has come to my knowledge, has been at once a lawyer, logician, orator and scholar to so eminent a degree.” Walton stressed the family connection. “He has inherited all the father’s strength of mind, and added to it the most liberal culture which books and the best society can offer.”27
In his biographical sketch of Stephen Rowe Bradley, E.P. Walton noted that oth- ers had called the senator “an erratic man.” Walton suggested that “phrase is often the penalty affixed for originality and indepen- dence, and in this case, knowing many of the admirable peculiarities of William C. Bradley the son, it is deemed most just to count it as a compliment to the father.”28 The voice of William Czar Bradley sur- vives in his letters, the anecdotes that were repeated by his friends and colleagues, and in the court records. In Joslyn v. Smith (1841), he represented the plaintiff, whose verdict by jury was affirmed by the Vermont Supreme Court on appeal, over the objec- tions of the defendant. The reported case includes portions of Bradley’s brief and ar- gument.
Whatever may be the case with regard to mere verbal admissions, which are susceptible of various constructions, and therefore have led the courts to contradictory decisions upon the stat- ute of limitations, or even with regard to payments, if neither made by the proper person nor clearly indicated to be made upon the demand in ques- tion, an actual payment, which the law presumes no man to make without a motive, has been considered by all good authority, when directly made upon a demand and by a person hav- ing authority to pay, to be such a clear and unequivocal admission of liability as to take the demand out of statute. A payment made by one, having a joint interest and equally holden, whether principal or surety, has the same effect as a payment made by all, and is an admission which takes the demand out of the statute as to all; each one, as to this purpose, be- ing considered the agent of the oth- ers, and all having the benefit of the payment, ought to bear the burden.
www.vtbar.org
This doctrine is necessary to pre- serve the symmetry of the law, (which ought not to be departed from but from necessity or by statute,) for the admission of those jointly concerned is binding even in trespass, conspiracy and treason.29
He loved to tell stories. On a trip to
Washington after his retirement, he ex- plained, “I have not been here since Gen. Jackson lived in the White House. Then I came to visit old friends. The General came to me one day, and, slapping me on the knee, said, ‘Why, Bradley, you hearty old cock, what makes you so hale and merry at your age?’ “’I don’t know, General,’ said I, ‘unless it is that I hold no office, and do not want one.’” The President laughed heartily at the answer.
The story broke up the group hearing the tale, but Bradley continued, saying, “Now gentlemen, I am not much of a hero- worshipper, but I have those same breech- es yet.”30
He opened one trial with a dramatic an- nouncement. Learning that the judge had spoken to another about his feelings re- lating to the trial before it began, Bradley announced, “Well, if your Honor has ex- pressed an opinion in advance of the trial, I will not demean the profession to which I belong by trying the case before you.” The client was furious, but Bradley was right when he answered no, “it has won the case.”31
And it had. A Lawyer for a Father Stephen Rowe Bradley was always a law-
yer, no matter how many other roles he played in public life. He seemed to be able to continue practicing law throughout his career, as seen from his correspondence. He was busiest in the early years, when he was one of the few lawyers in Vermont. He defended David Redding, accused of trea- son, in 1778, enraging Ethan Allen for his delay of the trial for lack of twelve-man jury.32
He was an ingenious attorney. Brad- ley defended thirty men charged with riot- ing in 1779, and had the charges reduced when he argued that they couldn’t be con- victed of a crime based on legislation that had not been published in the newspaper, as required by the 1777 Vermont Constitu- tion.33
Bradley kept making Allen angry. Al- len called Bradley “an artful lawyer,” in his speech at the trial of several draft re- sisters in Westminster in 1779.34
Allen was
enraged that Bradley, as defense coun- sel, had succeeded in having several mi- nors released from prosecution. That be- gan the most interesting of relationships. A few years later, Ethan Allen hired Brad-
THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • WINTER 2014 11
Ruminations: The Bradleys of Westminster
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