The course of Judge Field throughout this troublesome business has been in the highest degree creditable to him.  He has acted with dignity and courage, and his conduct has been characterized by most excellent taste.  His answer, when requested to go armed against the assault of Terry, is worthy of preservation.  And now that his assailant has been arrested in his career by death, all honest men who respect the law will breathe more freely.  Judge Terry had gained a most questionable reputation, not for courage in the right direction; not for generosity which overlooked or forgave, or forgot offenses against himself or his interests.  He never conceded the right to any man to hold an opinion in opposition to his prejudices, or cross the path of his passion with impunity.  He could with vulgar whisper insult the judge who rendered an opinion adverse to his client, and with profane language insult the attorney who had the misfortune to be retained by a man whose cause he did not champion.  He had become a terror to society and a walking menace to the social circle in which he revolved.  His death was a necessity, and, except here and there a friend of blunted moral instincts, there will be found but few to mourn his death or criticise the manner of his taking off.  To say that Marshal Neagle should have acted in any other manner than he did means that he was to have left Justice Field in the claws of a tiger, and at the mercy of an infuriated, angry monster, who had never shown mercy or generosity to an enemy in his power. * * *

Judge Field has survived the unhappy conflict which carried Judge Terry to his grave.  He is more highly honored now than when this quarrel was thrust upon him; he has lost no friends; he has made thousands of new ones who honor him for protecting with his life the honor of the American bench, the dignity of the American law, and the credit of the American name.  In the home where Judge Terry lived he went to the grave almost unattended by the friends of his social surroundings, no clergyman consenting to read the service at his burial.  The Supreme Court over which he had presided as chief justice refused to adjourn in honor of his death, the press and public opinion, for a wonder, in accord over the manner of his taking off.

Indeed, the public opinion of the country, as shown by the press and declarations of prominent individuals, was substantially one in its approval of the action of the Government, the conduct of Neagle, and the bearing of Justice Field.[2]

The Daily Report, a paper of influence in San Francisco at the time, published the following article on “The Lesson of the Hour,” from the pen of an eminent lawyer of California, who was in no way connected with the controversy which resulted in Judge Terry’s death: