Hilliard

tise on the Law of Torts (1860). Although phil-
osophical writers on law had long recognized
that private wrongs, as distinguished from
breaches of contract and crimes, formed a sepa-
rate legal category, practical text-writers before
Hilliard regarded such wrongs as too divergent
in nature for unified treatment, and merely dis-
cussed some distinct wrong, like assault or libel
or trespass. Even as late as 1871, the American
Law Review stated, "We are inclined to think
that Torts is not a proper subject for a law book"
(January 1871, p. 341). Hilliard's book thus
marks the beginning of a revolution in legal
thought Unfortunately, his execution of his
projects was inferior to his conception. He
cannot be ranked with writers like Story, whose
systematic analysis of the principles which ought
to govern some branch of the law, illuminated
by Continental as well as English experience,
actively helped to create a body of American ju-
dicial and legislative rules adapted to the just
settlement of disputes in a new age and country.
Hilliard for the most part stated the decisions
with little indication of his own views even where
authorities conflicted. Sometimes he omitted im-
portant cases. His books are justly described by
contemporary reviewers as neither very good
nor very bad. First in the field, they made litiga-
tion less difficult and costly than if they had not
been written; but they were rapidly superseded.
Only a genius could have written well on the
numerous widely separated subjects which he
attempted.

[Date of birth, sometimes erroneously stated as
1808, from Vital Records of Cambridge, Mass., vol. I
(1914) ; W. T. Davis, "Hist, of the Bench and Bar,11
in Professional and Industrial Hist, of Suffolk County,
vol. I (1894) J William Allen, The Am. Biog. Diet.
(3rd ed., 1857) ; E- H. Kurd, Hist, of Middlesex Coun-
ty, vol. I (1890); L. R. Paige, Hist, of Cambridge,
Mass. (1877) ; Am. Law Rev., Jan. 1879; "Remarks of
Francis Hilliard, Esq. Standing Justice of the Police
Court ... at the Opening of said Court. . .," Roxbwry
City Doc. No. 15 (1855); "Francis Hilliard's Legal
Treatises," Monthly Law Reporter (Boston), Apr.
1865; reviews of individual treatises in Am. Law Rev.,
Oct. 1866, Jan., July 1867, Jan., Oct. 1869, and South-
ern Law Rev., St. Louis, Apr. 1874; Worcester Daily
Spy, and Boston Transcript, Oct. n, 1878.]

Z.C.Jr.

HILLIARD, HENRY WASHINGTON

(Aug. 4, i8o8-Dec. 17, 1892), lawyer, congress-
man, author, was born in Fayetteville, N. C He
graduated from South Carolina College in 1826
and after studying law in the office of William C.
Preston [^.], Columbia, S. C., he went to'
Athens, Ga., and in 1829 was admitted to the
bar. From 1831 to 1834 he held the first chair
of English literature in the University of Ala-
bama and acquired a state-wide reputation as an
orator. Finding a professor's life monotonous,

Hilliard
he abandoned it and settled at Montgomery to
practise law and enter politics. Identifying him-
self with the Whig party, he served in the state
legislature from 1836 to 1838 (Biographical Di-
rectory of the American Congress, 1928), and
was one of the youngest delegates to the Whig
national convention of 1839. He was defeated
for Congress on the Whig ticket in 1840 and as
a reward for party services was appointed, May
1842, charge d'affaires to Belgium, in which of-
fice he served until June 1844. Returning to the
United States, he was nominated for Congress
from the Montgomery district in 1845 and was
the first Whig to be elected from that district
and the only Whig to be elected from the state in
that year. In 1847 he was reflected without op-
position and continued to serve until 1851 when
he refused to be a candidate.
From the beginning of his political career Hil-
liard was the leader of the forces in the state
which were hostile to secession. He opposed the
Wilmot Proviso, but supported the compromise
measures of 1850. He was a prominent delegate
to the state "union" convention in 1851 and was
largely responsible for the convention's taking
the position that a state has no constitutional
right to secede. He was the political opponent
of William L. Yancey [q.vJ] throughout his life
and was regarded as the only man in Alabama
who could meet Yancey on the platform on equal
terms. Every political question of any impor-
tance between 1840 and 1860 was debated by the
two men, and their debates attracted nation-
wide attention. Hilliard was a keen debater and
a masterly stump speaker.
The rising tide of secession in Alabama swept
him from his political moorings. In 1854 he left
the Whigs and became a Know-Nothing. In
1857 he entered the ranks of the Democratic
party, and in 1860 he voted the Constitutional
Union ticket. At the next election in which- he
participated (1872) he voted for Horace Gree-
ley. These shifts of party loyalty were denounced
by his political enemies and Hilliard won a repu-
tation for vacillation in party matters. From
his own point of view, however, he was quite
consistent He was a supporter of the Constitu-
tion and the Union and he voted and worked for
the party which offered him the best opportunity
to oppose efforts to destroy them. In the Ala-
bama convention in 1861 he led his last fight
against secession. All his eloquence was used
to defeat the ordinance. He appealed to the dele-
gates to remember the debt they owed the Union
for their growth and prosperity, and warned
them that it would be a difficult thing for a
group of agricultural states to conduct a gov-