The morning call., 1893-06-11
FUTURE OF LAW.
Is the Practice to Be More
Popular ?
VIEWS OF A BARRISTER.
Henry E. Highton Writes An Able
Article and Stabs Some
Old Fallacies.
VIEWS OF A BARRISTER.

English and American lawyers must
alike ask themselves not how the law is
10 be saved, how the courts are TO be
maintained as an arena for the legal prac-
titioners. but how our legal system is to be
brought into line with modern thought
and modern requirements. =
"To ell lawyers we say: Give your
voices in this direction. Abandon your
professional aspect of the science AS
sumo the standpoint of the people. If
you do not the people will abandon you,
forsake your courts, and then. the advo-
cate at any rate will find his occupation
gone"
To any lawyer of capacity and iude-
pendence the threat with which this quo
tation closes will have no force; but the
extracts themselves express accurately
and concisely the necessity for law re-
form, and the direction which that reform
should take. In the last century Edmund
Burke mildly but lueidly criticized the
mental narrUwness and the extreme con-
servatism which the practice of the law
was apt TO engender, and his statesman
like comments have been expanded and
diluted by thousands of later speakers
and writers, especially in our own
country within the past twenty years. 1t
should be noted. moreover, that the class
OF men to whom Mr.. Burke alluded,
within the intellectual limits and oppOr-
tunities which their profession then em-
braced, were tech nically educated, trained
and experienced, and at least compre-
hended the law and Its methods as they
then existed, and were capable Of precise
ly defining legal rights and applying legal
remedies, while, IN some OF them, in
heTent genus burst loose from cOnYen-
tional letters and poured the light
and heat of ordered liberty into SUE
ceeding generations. With a government il
the United States based on khe Declara-
tlon oil Independence and the Federal cen
stltutiOn, with the rights of individual,
and If the States reserved and guarant nteed
there was wide field for the deVelopmrn
OF the law and fewer obstacles to its prog
ress, and, for nearly century, the gred1
lawyers of the Union, at the bar and ul
the bench, lifted our Jurisprudence above
the steadily rising level of the people.
Even in frontier communities, while the
grotesQue elements so forcibly depicted in
flush times in Alabama were often paral.
leled, there were always lawyers of pow.
erful minds, of genuine learning, of lofty
Independence ana patriotism, w ho grappl eC
with new conditions, who solved Origina
questions by the use of old and indestructi
bic principles, and who strengthened and
beautfed the editice of Jurisprudence
without impairlng its symmetry. Who
that Witnessed its achievements can forget
the par and the bench of this State Of Can.
fornia, by which, Tor many years, contrO
versies OF unusual intricacy were tried
and determined, and conflicting sys.
tems which represented the antagoD.
isms OF race anu of Institutions
We're nodded into harmony There
7 were trials and forensic debates in this
ara1 q ~ II M sod
v ess and in strength, and issues which
Y Were sifted to the very roots were decided
ard settled by judicial opinions which.
however lightly they may be esteemed now.
will 20 down unlmpaired to history and
the ages.
But this brief and incomplete sketch can
not be extended. 1t may be suggestively
useful by way of contrast. for it can hard.
II be denied that law, at all events in Iis
practice and in its administration, ha.
within the last twenty years manifestly
deterIOrated, and nowhere more seriously
than IN this State. The subject is too
large for short and rapid newspaper dis
cussion. and the causes for this te n porarily
downward revolution cannot be here
analytically explained; but a few truths
can be recognized and stated and few
remedies proposed through which the quick
intuition of the people may be reached and
their reflective faculties aroused.
This is not the occasion for q consid era.
ton Of social. economical and political
evils, which, in this epoch of transition,
are being gradually discovered and cor
rected. To bring ourselves alone. and.
still more, the outlying world. up to the
standard OF true Americanism. is a
mighty task which is slowly but surelv.
and with many dlSheaTtening setbacks. in
process of accomplishment. The admins
tratiOn and the practice Of the law, how
ever are now below and not above the
general level. In every other department
of science acute, deep and Instructed intel
ligence is stralning all its resources to
evolve systems "iu line with mofern
thought and modern requirements" Men
of almost tTanscendent capacity are stem
ming the revolutionary currents which
bear doubt and uncertainty upon their sur
faces and divesting the fundamental truths
of religion Of fOssillZed and misleading
eXcrescences.
The animal, mineral and vegetable king
doms, organic aud inorganic matter, the
rocks and minerals of the land aud OF the
ocean depths, the population of the sky,
the forces and energies of nature-light,
heat, electricity, magnetism - the body
and the mind of man, the social bond, the
movements and the fluctuations Of trade,
commerce and finance, production and
distribution. the relations of capital and of
labor. the mysteries of war and of peace, the
functions of government-thesea and null
titude of other problems, separable and
yet connected, are being investigated with
such cultivated power, with such energy,
with such perseverance, method and pa
tieDce, and with such definite results, that
with all its errors, its sins, its weaknesses
and its follies the closing years OF the nine
teenth century are respiendent with the
hues of accumulated and applied know !
edge. And still, in the midst Of all these
triumphs of humanity, inspired by the
almighty power from which life and its
possible achievements are derived, the adj
mlnistration and the practice Of the law,
which means applied and effective justice
between man and man. between man and
the state, between community and CON-
muniy, ana between nation and nation,
are inert, sOiled, weak, unproductive and
unsatisfactory.
These propositions cannot be debated or
proved link by link. They must be left
for the present to the discriminating obspr-
walton and to the commOu-sense Of en-
lighteued citizens.
The connections between law, morality
and religion are too intricate and close tc
be unraveled in column. They, too. must
be assumed with all that they Import in
relation to the general condition of ndi-
viduals, of society, of business and of poll
tics. Still there are a few practical mat
tiers which can be truly and accurately
stated in order to point the conclusions to
which this article is intended to lead.
First-ln the higher walks of practice
the contests over issues affecting human
rights and other property have become too
frequently exhibitions of mere casulstTy,
in which mind is pitted against mind.
knowledge against knowledge, i dustry