And, in addition to this, those who exercise
power in the United States are not only free from immediate
responsibility, but are not made subject to the hope or fear of
future judgment. Success will bring no award, and failure no
punishment. I am not aware that any political delinquency has ever
yet brought down retribution on the head of the offender in the
United States, or that any great deed has been held as entitling the
doer of it to his country's gratitude. Titles of nobility they have
none; pensions they never give; and political disgrace is unknown.
The line of politics would seem to be cold and unalluring. It is
cold; and would be unalluring, were it not that as a profession it
is profitable. In much of this I expect that a change will
gradually take place. The theory has been that public affairs
should be in the hands of little men. The theory was intelligible
while the public affairs were small; but they are small no longer,
and that theory, I fancy, will have to alter itself. Great men are
needed for the government, and in order to produce great men a
career of greatness must be opened to them. I can see no reason why
the career and the men should not be forthcoming.
CHAPTER XI.
THE LAW COURTS AND LAWYERS OF THE UNITED STATES.
I do not propose to make any attempt to explain in detail the
practices and rules of the American courts of law. No one but a
lawyer should trust himself with such a task, and no lawyer would be
enabled to do so in the few pages which I shall here devote to the
subject. My present object is to explain, as far as I may be able
to do so, the existing political position of the country. As this
must depend more or less upon the power vested in the hands of the
judges, and upon the tenure by which those judges hold their
offices, I shall endeavor to describe the circumstances of the
position in which the American judges are placed; the mode in which
they are appointed; the difference which exists between the National
judges and the State judges, and the extent to which they are or are
not held in high esteem by the general public whom they serve.
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.
