I didn t write the sentence about the biblical references I merely supplied them I don t remember who wrote the sentence However a federal circuit court wrote one of my deleted references The following was excerpted from Iannaccone v Law 142 F 3d 553 2d Cir 1998 The right to proceed pro se in civil actions in federal courts is guaranteed by 28 U S C 1654 which provides In all courts of the United States the parties may plead and conduct their own cases personally or by counsel as by the rules of such courts respectively are permitted to manage and conduct causes therein Section 1654 s guarantee derives directly from the Judiciary Act of 1789 First introduced in the Senate on June 12 1789 as part of Senate Bill S 1 the right to self representation appeared in section 31 of the Bill But when the Bill became law on September 24 1789 the right was moved to section 35 which reads as follows That in all the Courts of the United States the Parties may plead and manage their own causes personally or by the assistance of such Counsel or Attornies at law as by the rules of the said Courts respectively shall be permitted to manage and conduct causes therein V Documentary History of the First Federal Congress of the United States of America 1789 1791 1150 1165 1193 1986 As can be seen the right to self representation has remained constant for over 200 years The framers of our Constitution thought self representation in civil suits was a basic right that belongs to a free people Although the Supreme Court alluded to civil pro se representation in Faretta v California 422 U S 806 812 13 1975 the Court there focused its discussion on the right to represent oneself as a defendant in a criminal case i d at 813 et seq which the Constitution s Bill of Rights guarantees In a criminal prosecution a pro se party of course may only appear as a defendant In a civil case a person may appear pro se as either a plaintiff or defendant And as noted the right of self representation in one case is protected by the Constitution and in the other simply by statute Further in contrast to criminal defendants civil litigants unable to afford counsel can not ordinarily obtain appointment of counsel except in circumstances when there is a risk of loss of liberty as in mental commitment or juvenile delinquency proceedings See H B Kim Legal Education For the Pro Se Litigant A Step Towards a Meaningful Right to Be Heard 96 Yale L J 1641 1646 47 1987 Moreover the historical origins of self representation in civil and criminal proceedings are different In Faretta the Court discussed the historic requirement of having counsel going back to the infamous English Star Chamber that forced counsel upon an unwilling defendant in a criminal proceeding and the requirement s gradual reform This reform was fervently embraced in colonial America for those accused of crime See Faretta 422 U S at 821 26 Passing from the criminal to the civil context we observ e that a person appearing pro se in federal court can be a mixed blessing because persons appearing pro se lack legal training and may on occasion burden the court by filing illogical or incomprehensible pleadings affidavits and briefs And sometimes a pro se litigant appears simply for the purpose of using the courtroom to advance a political or social agenda or to pursue a matter that is legally unredressable See E J R Nichols Preserving Pro Se Representation in an Age of Rule 11 Sanctions 67 Tex L Rev 351 351 nn 2 3 1988 Yet even given those potential burdens there still remains a citizen s right of access to the courts a strongly held notion stretching back to the beginnings of our Republic The origins of the right to appear for oneself in civil proceedings derive from a number of sources all deeply rooted in our history and culture We undertake to discuss briefly five of those sources though doubtless there are others First history Under the English common law with its complicated forms of action and veritable maze of writs and confusing procedures the right to retain counsel in civil proceedings became a necessity By the middle of the thirteenth century lawyers so monopolized the courts in London that the King was forced to decree that except for a few special causes litigants were entitled to plead their own cases without lawyers See The Right to Counsel in Civil Litigation 66 Colum L Rev 1322 1325 1966 Second mistrust of lawyers made appearance in court without benefit of counsel the preferred course See A L Downey Note Fools and Their Ethics The Professional Responsibility of Pro Se Attorneys 34 B C L Rev 529 533 1993 Lawyers had no position of honor or place in society in early colonial days The pioneers who cleared th