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. I say as being in danger; not that I mean to hint
that such want of purity has been shown, or that I wish it to be
believed that judges with itching palms do sit upon the American
bench; but because the present political tendency of the State
arrangements threatens to produce such danger. We in England trust
implicitly in our judges - not because they are Englishmen, but
because they are Englishmen carefully selected for their high
positions. We should soon distrust them if they were elected by
universal suffrage from all the barristers and attorneys practicing
in the different courts; and so elected only for a period of years,
as is the case with reference to many of the State judges in
America. Such a mode of appointment would, in our estimation, at
once rob them of their prestige. And our distrust would not be
diminished if the pay accorded to the work were so small that no
lawyer in good practice could afford to accept the situation. When
we look at a judge in court, venerable beneath his wig and adorned
with his ermine, we do not admit to ourselves that that high officer
is honest because he is placed above temptation by the magnitude of
his salary. We do not suspect that he, as an individual, would
accept bribes and favor suitors if he were in want of money. But,
still, we know as a fact that an honest man, like any other good
article, must be paid for at a high price. Judges and bishops
expect those rewards which all men win who rise to the highest steps
on the ladder of their profession. And the better they are paid,
within measure, the better they will be as judges and bishops.
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