Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1874-01-10
PRRMAsENcY OF LAW.


| ~Nt a- aHi aE.
The laws devised and promulgated
for the government of a. State, ought
to be well digested and considered, by
able men, versed in the science Of ju-
risprudence; and those laws should be
as few as possible, aud expressed in
plain language, well condensed, and so
framed as toexclude, as far as possible,
all doubt as TO their meaning. There
is not often necessity for submitting
laws, thus constructed, to judicial con-
structlon.
When such an enlightened system of
laws has been promulgated, for guard
ing the rights and defining the duties
and obligations of the people, there
should be no unnecessary changes
made. The system ought to be made
permanent, except so far as the altered
circumstances of the State may de-
mand a change, or so far as experience
may have revealed some defect in law
as originally enacted.
We need not say to our intelligent
readers that it requires great learning,
wisdom, experience and honesty, on
the part of law -giyers, to prOmulgate
Code of Laws for the government of
State Law-making should never be
confided to ignorant and inexperienced
men; for history teaches US, as does
our reason, that such legislators always
involve the people in terrible litigation
and loss When we have general law
so bunglingly framed as to be suscepti-
bic of varient demonstrations, by lawyers
of intelligence, and to leave the mind
really in doubt as to its meaning, of
course, expensive litigation is incurred
by repeated presentations to the Su-
preme judicial tribunals of the doubt.
tul and different constructions of the
statute 1t takes long time, and much
labor, to get such statutes judicially
construed; whereas, if the law had
been properly framed in the first in
stance, by men versed in the science of
law, clear construction thereof could
be made by all gentlemen Of intelli-
gence, whether lawyers by profession
or not. M s re-5aiiI.res s.f g
The first great object of a State
should be to secure good system of
laws That point secured, the system
shonld be made permanent, subject to
the necessities for change herein be-
fore expressed. f ---,--.t
The practice of forever changing, re-
pealing and modifying the laws Of a
State, for lightand fanciful suggestions,
without any good reason, and from a
mere love of change, or by mere. ex-
pertinent, is great curse to any State
where such legislation prevails; and,
unfortunately, such is the current of
legislation in very many of the Ameri-
can States. The people are, themselves,
much to blame for the existence of
this evil; because they elect to the leg
islature so many vain, ignorant, and
incompetent men. An ignorant cross
road politician and ofhce-seeker, who
considers himself equal to Solon or
Lyeurgus, and who works his way into
the halls of legislation, feels in duty
bound to dosomething. HescaDs the
statute book-if he happens to have
enough learning to read the volume
and diligently studies what changes
he can make-not necessary changes,
butsome change, right or wrong, which
will place the name of the honorable
member from-Buneombe, We will say,
ION the record" as one of the Illus
trious men who have actually made
a laTl Such men are great destrOyers
of law, at all events. They cannot
originate enlightened legislation, but
they are great at pulling down. In
their excessive vanity, such small men
do not hesitate to attack and mutilate
the best of laws, sanctifed, so to speak,
by ages of experience, and hOary with
lingering years of usefulness and ap-
proval. Such men will, in single
session, mutilate and change Revised
Code throughout, so that the people
unlearned in the law, have no concep-
ton of what laws they live under.
Nay, in some States which we might
name, such fellows as we allude TO,
have so blotted and mutilated and
changed the Code, and produced so
many inconsistencies therein, that even
the most enlightened lawyers are
constantly perplexed to know what the
existing statutory law really is /; and,
by the time those great lawyers have
caught up with the changes, and set
tied down on q construction of this
mountain of legislative absurdities, lOi
another change, the offspring of ignO-
rance and vanity, sends the gentlemen
of the green bag" to their studies
again.
This never -ceasing change is quite
detrimental to the people of State.
They we'll know what are the proyis-
ions of old, well-established laws of a
familiar nature, affecting their ordinary
interests, and hence act upon those
laws with confidence, without legal ad-
vice but material change of these
good laws, leads the people into mis-
takes and involves them in ruinOus
litigation. To illustrate our meaning
BY an example A citizen, having
a tract of land, is familiar with the
old law relating to the mode of execu-
ting, acknowledging and recording his
deed He acts on the law as it had
existed for half century; but, to his
dismay, he finds that Just a few days
before he made his purchase the whole
enactment had been changed by legis-
lative busy bodies, and that his bust
ness has all been done wrong.
Let US not be understood as advanc-
ing the idea that the laws ofthis coun-
try should, like the laws of the Medes
and Persians, be unalterable We
mean simply to say that changes
should not be made often, and without
necessity. In reference to modern
American legislation, we may well say,
THE WORLD is GOvERNEDTOo MUCHl'
jackson Courier.
American Morals.