Southport telegraph. [volume] (Southport, W.T. [i.e. Kenosha, Wis.]) 1840-1850, 1848-02-18


panylng or resulting from its convocation,
with the cost and vexations growing out of
the delay of needed reform, would, proba-
bly,, have been saved to the people of that
state.
The grand object of providing Judiciary
department of government is, without doubt,
Mr.. President, as is the aim of all litigation,
the redress of the wrongs, and enforcement
OF the rights of the citizen. But the admin
lstratlon OF justice in our courts has become
SO widely diverted from It's legitimate intent.
that mere secondary questions of forms of
procedure have assumed the first import
ance, and these grand objects, if not com
pietely lost sight of, have been showed far in
the back ground. PIeadings at law are mat
tiers OF so much technical nicely, that the
party seeking the enforcement of a right, or
the redress of grievance by our courts,
hnds his way to the court and Jury a con-
slant succession Of pitfalls and traps, and
single false step is tataL to his suit. A broad
and barren waste of technicalities and legal
fictlons, the labyrinths of which can never
be threaded by the uninitiated, separates be-
tween the people and justice, and the party
seeking a remedy at law, like the adventurer
IN search of the magnetic poles of the earth,
brings back no result of his weary search,
save the journal of the route he has travelled,
the dangers he has avoided, and perhaps a
chart laying down the rock on which he fl
nally made shlpWreck. For these he pays
his fortune, his prospects and his hopes, for
no benefit save TO the profession who make
Snph fbai- ct,,Iyr L t,orH, rthor i
parment of our national and state govern
ments is marked with distinctive national
character, IS free, is .41aericd1; but the
structure of our Courts, the forms of plead
ings and rules of procedure in those courts,
are copied to a great extent from the mother
&C Hrtry. English tOrm-bOOks are the guides
~ our lawyers-English maXims, rules, pre-
cedentS and decisions control greatly the adj
mlnstraton of Justice. We have not even
the rules and practice, purged and pruned by
recent reforms, now used in the courts of
England-bul Anticipated, wordy and sense
lessy specific forms, the relics of a more
barbarous age. Devised in times when the
ignorance Of jurors rendered strict and spe-
cltic forms necessary, reducing the questions
at issue to nice and comparatively unlmpor-
tant points, and subsequently modified and
given shape at that period when scholastic
Pedantry over-run and perpleXed with its
arbitrary rules and pompous ycrbiage every
department of science. Why, sir, even our
deeds of conveyance, as well as the forms
OF peadlngs in our courts, and, TO minor
extent, the composition Of our statute laws,
run into the same eXtravagances-all the
nearly synonymous words and phrases in
which our language abounds, are heaped
together, and the mass repeated and repro
duced with but slight variation, TIL the SIM
pie idea is lost in a mist of phraseoogv,
when a single word would clearly and eX-
plicidy convey the sense.
Then We have five or six particular forms
Of action at law, each having its special and
technical form of pIeadings. Under these
divisions are arbitrarily classed most of the
wrongs arising in human transactions. A
proper classification often dehes the analy-
sis of the most experienced practitioners and
Judges in cur courts, and yet wrong clas-
sihcation, or calling an action by a wrong
name, is made fatal 10 the cause OF the suitor
seeking justice. The pleadmgs under these
separate forms are filled with false alIega.
lions and legal tictions. These may bear a
certain conventional relation to a truth they
are supposed to represent, aud that relation
may be tolerably well understood by the pro-
tession; but to the great mass, for whose re-
lief courts should be designed, they are lite
raj talschoods. Hence il comes that lawyers
are the only persons who have any know
ledge whether the wrongs Of the citizen are
such as the Courts can afford redress, and
the only persons who can obtain the least
measure OF justice from these courts. We
can expect no reform so long as the people
make no effort to pierce the veil of mystery
that now surrounds the administration of
Justice, and that mystery is profitable to
those initiated within lis folds. The forms
of peadings in our courts will never be re-
duced to the standard of plain English and
common sense, so long as writing IS readily
paid bv the folio, and fees can be graduated
by the length and imposing appearance Of
the documents requisite in Il suit at law.
am aware, sir, the cry of 'Iegai reform
is regarded by many as raised by ignorant
prejudice or mschIeyOus demagOgueIsm. |
do not doubt but large proportion of the
PiolGSSiou lCGdlu dS CNCCCulliGi y dangerous
any innovation upon the ancient and veneer
able usages of our courts. The weight of
even this authority should not make us
doubt the reasonabIeness or practicabiity of
Il reform that commends itself to our com
mon sense. 1t is the too common error of
cultivated minds to prefer long familiar chan
neIs Of thouoht-t" fear innovaiion-to cling
to accustomed abuses, III blind dread of un-
tried reforms. | have often heard quoted
rs the iayorie maxim of a somewhat emi,
ncnt Judge in i sister state" Better that
ninely-nine guilty persons should 90 unpun-
Ished, than that one guilty person should be
punished contraryto the forms oftbe lar"
This judicial maxim at once illustrates the
attachment Of the profession to the forms in
which they have become versed, and pre-
sents the crying evil under which we suffer
the sacred ',torms Of law" are Of more
importance than justice.
But we are told that to release our courts
from the restriction of these strict and sirin-
conforms, will result in untold abuses, make
our Judges arbitrary tyrants, and in the end
prove subyersive of all the aims of litigation.
This warning might intimidate, did not our