sense and common honesty, are necessary for the management of the intricate machine of government; and above all of that most delicate and interesting of all machines, a republican government. To adjust its various parts requires the skill of the wisest, and often baffles the judgment of the best. The least perturbation at the centre may transmit itself through every line of its movements; as the dip of a pebble on the calm surface of a lake sends its circling vibrations to the distant shore. It is a fact well known to professional gentlemen, that more doubts arise in the administration of justice from the imperfections of positive legislation, than from any other source. The mistakes in the language of a deed, or a will, rarely extend far beyond the immediate parties to the contract or bounty. And yet innumerable questions of interpretation have arisen from these comparatively private sources of litigation, to perplex the minds, and exhaust the diligence of the ablest judges. But what is this to the sweeping result of an act of the legislature, which declares a new rule for a whole State, which may vary the rights, or touch the interests, or control the operations of thousands of its citizens? If the legislation is designedly universal in its terms, infinite caution is necessary to prevent its working greater mischiefs than it purports to cure. If, on the other hand, it aims only at a single class of mischiefs, to amend an existing defect, or provide for a new interest, there is still great danger, that its provisions may reach beyond the intent, and embrace what would have been most sedulously excluded, if it had been foreseen or suspected. An anecdote told of Lord Coke may serve as an appropriate illustration. A statesman told him, that he meant to consult him on a point of law. "If it be common law," said Lord Coke, "I should be ashamed if I could not give you a ready answer; but if it be statute law, I should be equally ashamed, if I answered you immediately." * "What an admonition is this! And how forcibly does it teach us the utility of a knowledge of the general principles of law to persons, who are called upon to perform the functions of legislation. But to gentlemen, who contemplate public life with higher objects, who indulge the ambition of being, not silent voters, but leaders in debate, and framers of laws, and guides in the public councils, every consideration already urged applies with ten-fold force. I will not speak of the disgrace and defeat, which must in such stations follow upon the exposure of ignorance; nor of the easy victory achieved by those, who bring to the controversy a ready knowledge, over those, who grope in the dark, and rely on their own rashness for success; nor of the intrinsic difficulty, in times like the present, of commanding public confidence without bringing solid wisdom in aid of popular declamation. But I would speak to the consciences of honorable men, and ask, how they can venture, without any knowledge of existing laws, to recommend changes, which may cut deep into the quick of remedial justice, or bring into peril all that is valuable in jurisprudence by its certainty, its policy, or its antiquity. Surely they need not be told, *Teignmouth's Life of Sir W. Jones, 268. how slowly every good system of laws must be in consolidating; and how easily the rashness of an hour may destroy, what ages have scarcely cemented in a solid form. The oak, which requires centuries to rear its trunk, and stretch its branches, and strengthen its fibres, and fix its roots, may yet be levelled in an hour. It may breast the tempest of a hundred years, and survive the scathing of the lightning. It may even acquire vigour from its struggles with the elements, and strike its roots deeper and wider, as it rises in its majesty; and yet a child, in the very wantonness of folly, may in an instant destroy it by removing a girdle of its bark. It has been said, that a spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. Perhaps this is pressing the reasoning too far. It is more often the result of a strong imagination and ardent temperament, working upon the materials of the closet. But it is well in all cases to remember the wise recommendation of Lord Bacon, "that men in their innovations would follow the example of time itself, which, indeed, innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be perceived." And nothing can introduce more sobriety of judgment than the experience derived from the history of jurisprudence, and thus check what has been so happily termed too great a fluidness, lubricity, and unsteadiness in the laws. † * Burke on the French Revolution. It is not, therefore, from mere professional pride or enthusiasm, that I would urgently recommend to gentlemen, ambitious of public life, some devotion to the study of the law, or suggest to scholars, that their education still wants perfection and polish, unless they have mastered its elements, In doing so, I do little more than adopt the precept of Mr. Locke, who says it is so requisite, that he knows of no place, from a justice of the peace to a minister of state, that can be well filled without it.* And in the days of Fortescue it was esteemed almost a necessary accomplishment for a gentleman of rank.† But my principal object in this discourse is, to address myself to those, who intend to make the law a profession for life. To them it seems almost unnecessary to recommend the study, or press the ancient precept, "Versate diu, quid ferre recusent, Quid valeant humeri." To them the law is not a mere pursuit of pleasure or curiosity, but of transcendent dignity, as it opens the brightest rewards of human ambition, opulence, fame, public influence, and political honours. I may add, too, that if the student of the law entertains but a just reverence for its precepts, it will teach him to build his reputation upon the soundest morals, the deepest principles, and the most exalted purity of life and character. One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is, that Christianity is a part of the common law, from which it seeks the * Locke on Education, p. 84. Fortescue De Legg. ch. 49. sanction of its rights, and by which it endeavours to regulate its doctrines. And, notwithstanding the specious objection of one of our distinguished statesmen, the boast is as true as it is beautiful. There never has been a period, in which the common law did not recognise Christianity as lying at its foundations.* For many ages it was almost exclusively administered by those, who held its ecclesiastical dignities. It now repudiates every act done in violation of its duties of perfect obligation. It pronounces illegal every contract offensive to its morals. It recognises with profound humility its holidays and festivals, and obeys them, as dies non juridici. It still attaches to persons believing in its divine authority the highest degree of competency as witnesses; and until a comparatively recent period, infidels and pagans were banished from the halls of justice, as unworthy of credit. The error of the common law was, in reality, of a very different character. It tolerated nothing but Christianity, as taught by its own established church, either Protestant or Catholic; and with unrelenting severity consigned the conscientious heretic to the stake, regarding his very scruples as proofs of incorrigible wickedness. Thus, justice was debased, and religion itself made the minister of crimes by calling in the aid of the secular power to enforce that conformity of belief, whose rewards and punishments belong exclusively to God. But apart from this defect, the morals of the law are of the purest and most irreproachable character. * See the remarks of Mr. Justice Park, in Smith v. Sparrow, 4 Bing. R. 84, 88. |