Since the day it was completed, the courthouse has received extensive publicity, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts said, noting that the front page of The Evening Bulletin on Sept. 28, 1908, contained a large photo of the building.

Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr. yesterday launched the centennial celebration of the federal courthouse in downtown Providence, marking the first time a sitting Supreme Court chief justice has been in Rhode Island on official business in more than two centuries.

Roberts noted that yesterday marked the 199th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s birth, and during a 16-minute speech before a packed courtroom, he traced Lincoln’s career as a lawyer in a frontier courthouse to the single case Lincoln argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Now as we look back on Lincoln on the anniversary of his birth, we ought not to forget that he developed an interest in the law at a small local courthouse in Booneville, Indiana,” Roberts said, standing beneath the stained-glass ceiling and towering pillars of Courtroom 1. “This much grander courthouse — and it truly is a grand building, now 100 years old — has provided the same type of forum for generations of Rhode Island lawyers and judges likewise committed to the cause of justice.”

After being introduced by Senior Circuit Judge Bruce M. Selya — a Rhode Islander noted for using long and little-known words in his decisions — Roberts said, “It is truly an historic anniversary, or as Judge Selya might put it, a primogenial antecedent for jollification.”

A group could be heard protesting outside the courthouse, and Roberts said, “Some of you may be able to hear the protesters outside. This is a group of people who prefer the Classical Revival style to the Beaux Arts style that was actually adopted [for the courthouse], and they are, of course, entitled to be heard.”

Looking out over a crowd filled with dark suits and more than one bowtie, Roberts said, “It is, of course, not unusual to see contractors and architects with many lawyers in a courtroom, but it’s usually not on such a happy occasion. And there is good reason today to celebrate historic courthouses such as this one.”

COURTHOUSES have been the center of civic life throughout the country’s history, and this courthouse “not only sits prominently in the heart of Providence, but it occupies a central place in Rhode Island’s history,” Roberts said.

Since the day it was completed, the courthouse has received extensive publicity, Roberts said, noting that the front page of The Evening Bulletin on Sept. 28, 1908, contained a large photo of the building. He said the photo not only “crowded out” coverage of the presidential race between William Howard Taft and William Jennings Bryan, but it also overshadowed an “account of a deep-sea diver’s underwater battle with a giant squid” under the headline “Diver fights for his life against giant devil fish.”

“I have to admit,” Roberts said, “I might have read the devil fish story before turning to the one about the new courthouse.”

The newspaper reported that the courthouse cost $1 million. “Of course, back then the newspaper itself cost two cents,” Roberts said. “But by anyone’s two cents, this courthouse was a great bargain. The Evening Bulletin described the courthouse as — and I quote — ‘The most comely government structure outside the nation’s capital.’ ”

Roberts said it was fitting that the centennial celebration took place on Lincoln’s birthday. “We properly remember Abraham Lincoln for his extraordinary service as president during our nation’s greatest crisis,” he said. “But particularly among this gathering, it should not be forgotten that while Lincoln served slightly more than four years as president, carrying Rhode Island in both elections, he spent 23 years of his life as a courtroom lawyer.”

Roberts, who was raised in Indiana, said, “This Hoosier will point out with pride that while Lincoln was born in Kentucky and practiced law in Illinois, he spent his formative years, from age 7 to 21, in southern Indiana. In fact, Lincoln biographers recount that Lincoln developed his interest of law as a teenager by traveling to the Booneville, Indiana, courthouse to watch civil and criminal trials. The frontier courthouses of that era served both as meeting places and theaters — a place of oratory and drama as well as justice.”

During his legal career, Lincoln was involved in about 5,000 cases, arguing 51 cases before the Illinois Supreme Court and winning 31 of them, Roberts said. Lincoln lost his only argument before the U.S. Supreme Court, but his notes from that argument show he focused on the language of a particular statute.

“So it appears that, at least in his one appearance before the Supreme Court, Lincoln was a textualist,” Roberts said, referring to the idea that a statute’s ordinary meaning should govern its interpretation, as opposed to the intention of lawmakers.

Then-Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote the ruling that went against Lincoln’s client, citing “the policy and intention” of a statute, so it seems Taney was not a textualist, Roberts said. He said Lincoln disagreed with other Taney rulings, including the “tragically wrong” Dred Scot decision declaring that all blacks — slaves as well as free — were not and never could become U.S. citizens.

“And, of course, Lincoln and Taney vigorously disagreed repeatedly over Lincoln’s assertion of wartime powers,” he said.

Roberts concluded his speech with quotes from Lincoln, including this one: “If in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer.”

“It’s hard to improve on Lincoln’s advice,” Roberts said. “I am confident that if judges and lawyers follow his example, those who stand on the steps of this courthouse 100 years from now will also have much to celebrate.”

Later in the day, Roberts swore in 111 new members of the federal bar in Rhode Island. He told them that as chief justice, he greets visitors from other parts of the world and is struck by how difficult it can be “to establish an independent judiciary.” He said he realizes that task is “impossible without an independent bar,” and he told the lawyers that they “carry a special obligation as officers of the court to uphold the rule of law.”

Earlier in the day, Roberts spoke to 130 students and a dozen faculty members from the Roger Williams University School of Law, the state’s only law school. David A. Logan, the law school dean, said Roberts was “very candid and very personable” and fielded questions on topics such as executive powers, individual rights and the confirmation process.

Roberts’ daylong visit highlights a year-long centennial celebration for the five-story granite building, which was built between 1904 and 1908 as the Providence Post Office, Court House and Custom House.

BEFORE Roberts spoke, Chief U.S. District Judge Mary M. Lisi noted that there was talk of selling the courthouse in the 1980s. But she said that plan was scrapped “due to, some might say the obstinacy, I prefer to think of it as the vision” of former Chief U.S. District Judge Francis J. Boyle and Selya and the support of former Senators Claiborne Pell and John H. Chafee. She said they “worked hard together to ensure the building was preserved, restored and modernized.”

Today, Lisi said, “This building is much more than that gray granite structure at the end of Kennedy Plaza. It literally and figuratively is the focal point for our community.”

In introducing Roberts, Selya said Lincoln came to the site of the Providence courthouse (then Railroad Hall) “on a cold February 148 years ago,” one day after delivering a famous speech at Cooper Union, in New York City, and Lincoln repeated the words: “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”

Selya said, “The performance of his duty by John G. Roberts Jr. epitomizes and exemplifies those ringing words of Abraham Lincoln.”

Selya noted that Roberts is the first sitting Supreme Court chief justice to come to Rhode Island on official business since 1799, when then-Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth came to Newport to catch a Navy frigate after then-President John Adams appointed him a special envoy to France.

“By definition, that means that our guest today is the first sitting chief justice to take the bench in this courthouse,” Selya said. And “he is the first to arrive in Rhode Island other than by horseback.”

efitzpat@projo.com