He, However, Who Enters The Profession Here Or Elsewhere Merely As A
Stepping Stone To Political Preferment, Need Not Expect Great Success,
Even Though He May Acquire Some Temporary Advancement.
The day is past
when lawyers could monopolize every high place in the state.
The habit
of public speaking is not now confined to the learned professions. Our
peculiar system of education has trained up a legion of orators and
politicians outside of the bar. Now-a-days a man must have other
qualifications besides the faculty of speech-making to win the prize
in politics. He must be a man of comprehensive ability, and thoroughly
identified with the interests of the people, before he can secure much
popular favor, or else he must be possessed of such shining talents
and character that his fellow men will take a pride in advancing him
to conspicuous and responsible trusts. Let a man have a part or all of
these qualifications, however, and with them the experience and tact
of a lawyer, and he will of course make a more valuable public
servant, especially if he is placed in a deliberative body. The
British cabinets have always relied vastly on the support afforded
them in the house of commons by their attorneys and solicitors
general, whether it consisted in the severe and solemn logic of
Romilly, in the cool and ready arguments of Scarlett, or the acute and
irresistible oratory of Sir William Follett. The education of a
lawyer; his experience as a manager; his art of covering up weak
points, his ready and adroit style of speaking; all serve to make
him peculiarly valuable to his own party, and dangerous to an
opposition in a deliberative body.
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