In 1892, he was appointed by President Benjamin Harrison as counsel, with Edward J. Phelps and Judge Henry Williams Blodgett, to present the claims of the United States before the Bering Sea tribunal.

He tried to synthesize traditional faith in timeless, objective moral principles with a more modern vision of evolving customary norms.

Given growing problems of industrial urban society he saw the need for positive government but wanted judges to rule not politicians.

After an illness of a few days,[1] he died at 7 East 88th Street (a Beaux-Arts townhouse built in 1903 by architects James R. Turner and William G. Killian),[10] his residence in New York City on February 14, 1905.

[19] In 1897, he donated $5,000 towards the construction of the Randolph Tucker Memorial Hall at Washington and Lee University, estimated at that time to cost $50,000.