GEORGE GRAHAM VEST

'George Graham Vest' (December 6, 1830–August 9, 1904) was born in Frankfort, Kentucky, and was known for his skills in oration and debate. Vest was a lawyer and a politician who served as a Missouri Congressman, a Confederate Congressman during the Civil War, and finally a US Senator. He is best known for his closing arguments from the trial of a dog named Old Drum in 1870.

Contents

Early life and career

Initial public service

Old Drum

U.S. Senate

External links

Early life and career

Vest graduated from Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, in 1848 and from the law department of Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky, in 1853. He was admitted to the bar in 1853 and moved to Pettis County where he commenced practice in Georgetown, Missouri. In 1854 he married Sallie Sneed of Danville, Kentucky . They had three children, two sons and a daughter.

Initial public service

In 1856, he moved to Boonville, Missouri where in 1860 he was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives. Also in 1860 he served as a Democratic presidential elector. As a Missouri representative he was chairman of the Committee on Federal Relations. Vest served in the House until late 1861 during which he wrote the Vest Resolutions in which he denounced coercion of the South.
When the Civil War broke out Vest gave his services to the Confederacy. He briefly served as judge advocate with the Confederate forces in Missouri in 1862. He served in the house of representatives of the Confederate Congress from February 1862 to January 12, 1865, when he resigned, having been appointed to fill a vacancy in the Confederate Senate.

Old Drum

After the war he returned to Pettis County moving to Sedalia, Missouri and resumed his law practice. It was at this time in 1869 that Vest was asked to represent Burden and Old Drum in the case that would make him famous.

Vest took the case tried on September 23, 1870 in which he represented a client whose hunting dog, a foxhound named Drum (or Old Drum), had been killed by a sheep farmer. The farmer had previously announced his intentions to kill any dog found on his property; the dog's owner was suing for damages in the amount of $150, the maximum allowed by law.
During the trial, Vest stated that he would "win the case or apologize to every dog in Missouri."
Vest's closing argument to the jury made no reference to any of the testimony offered during the trial, and instead offered a eulogy of sorts. Vest's "Eulogy to a dog," is one of the most enduring passages of purple prose in American courtroom history (only a partial transcript has survived):

Vest won the case (a possibly apocryphal story of the case says that the jury awarded $500 to the dog's owner, far more than had been asked for) and also won its appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court. A statue of the dog stands in front of the Warrensburg, Missouri courthouse.

U.S. Senate

In 1877 Vest moved to Kansas City, Missouri where he was elected two years later in 1879 to the United States Senate. He was chairman on the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds (Fifty-third Congress) and served on the Committee on Epidemic Diseases (Fifty-fourth Congress), Committee on Public Health and National Quarantine (Fifty-fourth through Fifty-seventh Congresses). He was re-elected for three more terms in 1885, 1891 and 1897 and remained a US Senator until March 3, 1903 when he retired from public life due to ill health.
On August 9, 1904, Vest died at his summer home in Sweet Springs, Missouri, and was buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.

External links

★ The story of Old Drum

★ A different account of the case by the nephew of both parties

★ imdb entry on the film ''Old Drum'', a TV movie loosely based on the Old Drum case

★ VEST, George Graham - Biographical Information