It Will, I Think, Be Acknowledged That This Last Matter Is One Of
Almost Paramount Importance To The Welfare Of A Country.
At home in
England we do not realize the importance to us in a political as
well as social view of the dignity and purity of our judges, because
we take from them all that dignity and purity can give as a matter
of course.
The honesty of our bench is to us almost as the honesty
of heaven. No one dreams that it can be questioned or become
questionable, and therefore there are but few who are thankful for
its blessings. Few Englishmen care to know much about their own
courts of law, or are even aware that the judges are the protectors
of their liberties and property. There are the men, honored on all
sides, trusted by every one, removed above temptation, holding
positions which are coveted by all lawyers. That it is so is enough
for us; and as the good thence derived comes to us so easily, we
forget to remember that we might possibly be without it. The law
courts of the States have much in their simplicity and the general
intelligence of their arrangements to recommend them. In all
ordinary causes justice is done with economy, with expedition, and I
believe with precision. But they strike an Englishman at once as
being deficient in splendor and dignity, as wanting that reverence
which we think should be paid to words falling from the bench, and
as being in danger as to that purity without which a judge becomes a
curse among a people, a chief of thieves, and an arch-minister of
the Evil One.
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