The next year, however, he took it up again; in 1822 he was appointed State's Attorney; about four years later President Adams made him United States Attorney for the State of Illinois. "In 1831 he proposed to the judges of the Supreme Court to report all their decisions. The result was 'Breese's Reports,' printed at Kaskasia in 1831, and which was the first book printed in Illinois. The reporter himself 'set up,' it is said, more than one page of the volume."

He enlisted as a private, but was soon made Lieutenant-Colonel, in the Black Hawk war. He was raised to the bench in 1835, as Circuit Judge, and retained that position till 1842, when he was elected Senator of the United States for six years from March, 1843. Upon his retirement from the Senate he resumed the practice of law, and in 1857 was elected to the Supreme Court, to fill a vacancy, and again, in 1861, for the full term of nine years. "In regular course he became Chief Justice," and this high position he held three times, continuing to be a Justice of the Supreme Court till the day of his death.

"Breese's Reports," covering "the decisions of the Supreme Court for the first eleven years of its existence," was modestly announced by the editor as prompted by "a desire to discharge in some degree that duty which one of the sages of the law has said 'every man owed to his profession.' But he did much greater service to the law, in the course of his judicial life, by his own decisions.

Said one of his associates on the Bench:
"In his long and successful career on this bench he contributed largely in establishing our system of jurisprudence. Few men have prepared and announced from the bench more opinions, in this or any other country, than have come from his pen. Many of them are marked for clearness, force, logic and finished expression. Few judges have shown more ability in constitutional, commercial, revenue, chancery, corporation, criminal and real estate questions. He was not inclined to yield assent to mere authorities, but followed the rules and maxims of the law, and never yielded assent to a proposition unless he believed it was based on sound legal principles."

Another has said:
"Judge Breese's active life covered the entire existence of the state government down to the date of his death, and like those eminent jurists Marshall, Kent and Story, as from necessity, he wrote much from first impression. His opinions on questions of the period, concerning legislative control over corporations, and the duties and liabilities of railroad and other private corporations, will take rank with the best opinions on these subjects, and become leading cases in ail the future. These questions seem to have arisen in this and other western states in advance of the decisions of courts of the older States, on the same subjects .... On the subjects discussed it may well be believed his opinions will be of equal value in their bearing on the welfare of the generations to come, with the writings of the best of the older English and American jurists .... "

"His style was singularly perspicuous. As specimens of fine writing it is my judgment his opinions will suffer nothing in comparison with the best of the most distinguished jurists of this country and of England. In clearness of expression and splendor of diction they are fashioned after the best models."

I also quote the following words of the Attorney General of Illinois in 1878:
"Consider the judicial labor performed in the last twenty years; more than three-fourths of the volumes of our reports have been written within that period. With the material progress of the State, its enlarged commerce and business complications, the tendency to collisions between corporate and private interests, and the relative rights of capital and labor, new and intricate questions have been presented for judicial decision. In the determination of these questions it has been necessary to apply the fundamental principles of the law, which in the nature of things must ever remain essentially the same, to new circumstances and combinations of facts. The vigorous intellect and profound learning of Justice Breese have enriched this field of our jurisprudence. He was a gentleman of the old school; decorous in manner, and a punctilious observer of the usages of refined society. As one of that galaxy of eminent men who constituted the 'pioneer-bar' of our State, he brought to its ranks superior culture and acquirements, an exquisite taste and disciplined mind .... The student of his judicial opinions will be impressed with his great mental endowments, his comprehensive grasp of legal principles, and his vigorous logic -- not infrequently adorned with the pleasing graces of literature. His standard of the professional ethics of the bar was high. Unworthy conduct in its members was sure to meet with severe rebuke from him whenever opportunity was presented."

If we turn from the court-room to consider Judge Breese as one of our national councillors, we find, to use again the words of an associate judge, that

"His career as a statesman was brief, brilliant, and was marked by great results. "But few possessed the sagacity to discern in the distant future those great measures and plans that would rend to 'the advantage and prosperity of the Nation.' He served but one term in the United States Senate, but it was at a time when it contained Webster, Calhoun, Benton, Clay and other great men of that period. Brief as was that period, his senatorial labors will lose nothing in comparison with those of the most distinguished men of that body, if we shall judge by the results achieved. The plan of constructing the Illinois Central Railroad from Cairo to Galena, an enterprise that has done as much as, if not more than, any other to develop the resources of the State, was first prominently brought forward by him, and its practicability demonstrated. It was his privilege, from his position in the Senate [as Chairman of the Committee on Public Lands], to first bring to the notice of the American people that other great measure, the conception of a railroad to the Pacific coast, to connect with the railroads in process of construction from the East, to con­stitute a great thoroughfare for the commerce of the world across the Continent, from ocean to ocean, an undertaking so great in its proportions that even Benton, bold and adventurous as he was, deemed it impracticable. His report made to the Senate on that subject shows a forecast of grand events, that were to affect the commerce of the entire civilized world, that was possessed by few of his contemporaries."

As to his political principles, he was a Jeffersonian Democrat, "and at an early day declared his adherence to the letter of the Federal Constitution, and his opposition to the enlargement of any of its provisions by liberality of construction;" and he denounced centralization as contradistinguished from the sovereignty of the States in the control of their own affairs. But he was not an advocate of the doctrine of secession, though I remember that he spoke to me, during the late civil war, of the burning of western crops as fuel, for want of a market, and hinted at the possibility that the Western States might yet be torn from the Union for the sake of a free passage for their harvests down the Mississippi.

"Repeatedly" was he "presented, without any action on his part, in conventions for nomination for Governor; and, had he given any encouragement to such a proceeding, might have long ago been the Executive of the State. In like manner his name" was "frequently connected with . . . the democratic nomination for the Presidency; but here also he abstained from any effort .... "

He was one of the first Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. The whole life of Judge Breese was singularly identified "with the origin, development and progress" of the commonwealth in which he cast his lot in boyhood, during a period of sixty years. Without any of the arts of a demagogue, and though sometimes imperious, he was universally held in the highest respect for his vigor and acuteness of mind, his sagacity, and his scholarship even in fields apart from his profession: and no calumny ever tarnished his name. His personal character was marked, especially in his later years, by a dignified gentleness, no less than by power of command. His more personal character was well portrayed by a member of the Illinois Bar who said:

"By nature of social habits, he loved his friends, and while conveying instruction appeared as if he were receiving it. Familiar with the best authors in the English as well as other classics, he drew upon them freely. He loved every kind of rational amusement, such as the drama and poetry, and visited the galleries and museums of art whenever he could avail himself of such opportunities. He was indeed a connoisseur as well as critic in art matters.

"He cherished no hatreds, and never manifested any malice toward individuals. When he manifested resentment, it was always toward some person whom he supposed guilty of an outrage against justice, sound morals, or the public interest.

"He never paraded his personal griefs in conversation; nor did he complain of offenses committed against himself. Fraud, duplicity, gross breaches of professional integrity and trust were ever sure to kindle his indignation; and in these cases he was frequently called upon to exercise a prudent control over his temper.

"But such was the charity of that temper toward an enemy, or any person he disliked, that he never trusted himself to speak of him except to praise some of his better qualities. And his estimate of the character of such a person would be as calm and dispassionate as if he had been pronouncing a judicial decision between some parties to a record in this court whom he had never seen to know.

He believed in the three cardinal principles of a Christian life: Faith, Hope and Charity; but he believed also that the greatest of these was Charity."