fate of their decisions, although they feel the sense of duty in all its purity, yet want the consciousness of being narrowly and extensively observed, which is a powerful incentive to great and generous efforts, even among the most elevated minds. But when they know, that their opinions may be severely scrutinized by the ablest men of their own, and perhaps of coming ages; when they reflect that those opinions will be either made the basis of farther adjudications, or rejected as inconclusive and false; above all, when from fear of error they are led, as in this country they almost universally are, to write their opinions at length, and themselves prepare them for the press, they have every inducement, interested and disinterested, which can possibly be crowded upon the mind, to be laborious, accurate, and impartial. Let then our legal decisions be brought, as extensively as may be, before the public; for nothing can tend more unerringly to the faithful administration of justice. If we mistake not, this is not yet estimated as it ought to be.

True it is, the great and increasing number of the volumes of which we are speaking, makes it expensive to purchase, and laborious to read them through. But this is a difficulty attending the advancement of all the sciences. New treatises are published. The results of new investigations must be laid before the public. New discoveries and inventions, or new improvements or adaptations of the old ones, are continually soliciting our examination. Yet the man of real science does not very often complain of the multiplication of books upon his favorite theme; nor the man of letters, of the numerous works of literature and taste. The comparison furnishes us with a good illustration of the true character of the common law. It is a science, and, like all other sciences, progressive. It perpetually enlarges, and suits itself more and more closely to our wants and circumstances. And one may as well think of composing a system of natural philosophy, which shall be perfect, and without the possibility of further improvement, as a code of laws, to which advancing society is to be chained. It is not necessary to read all the law reports which are published, any more than it is to read all the essays on experimental subjects in natural philosophy, which are published. There are accurate digests of the one, as there are accurate digests of the other. Competition, too, does its mighty work of improvement here, as everywhere else. The valuable volumes of

which we are speaking, soon rise to their proper elevation; the poor ones as soon sink into insignificance. The instances of this, in the history of these publications, are so many and obvious, that it is not necessary to name them particularly.

It is thus, by the publication of these volumes of reports, that the Common Law, like all the other sciences, is destined perpetually to improve. The system is becoming better, as well as more generally known. On the hearing of a question in controversy, the object is looked upon from every possible point of view. All the various and seemingly conflicting decisions upon the subject, are brought before the court and canvassed. The postulates and arguments on which they rest, are severely scrutinized; the valuable truths selected, and the material errors discarded, from each. And there is every reason for believing, that by this mode of proceeding, the really sound principles of law will inevitably be reached at last. This is precisely the way by which all the sciences improve; and it is the only way which our courts of judicature can take on the settlement of a litigated question.

We wish also to see some books of reports put earlier into the hands of youth for their legal education, than they have been hitherto. It appears to us, that they should soon be taught to read them in the order in which they are published. If we are not greatly mistaken, they would, with proper facilities for their explanation, find them far more interesting and instructive to read, and infinitely more easy to remember, than codes, or digests, or elementary treatises. We believe these last to be commonly too abstract and "general, and best suited to the minds of those, who are somewhat advanced in the science of the law. We know that the young pupil often grows tired of them, because he does not always easily or fully comprehend them, and, even if he does, cannot long retain them accurately in his memory. When afterwards, in the course of his professional practice, he is called upon to make an application of the knowledge which he has thus gone over, he finds that he has forgotten it; and when he recurs again to his books for the lost intelligence, it often appears new to him, and in nine difficult questions out of ten, he would not remember that he had ever seen it before. Not so, however, with that acquired by reading interesting law reports. The facts in these cases serve as bonds of association, by which the principles interwoven with them are held together, and kept long and strongly fas

tened in the mind. We appeal to the most learned of the profession, if this, even with them, is not sometimes apt to be so. The nice distinctions and the subtle refinements in their elaborate volumes of digested jurisprudence, which they have cause of recollecting only as they have read them, may pass from their thoughts; but let them be connected with some cases of actual occurrence, in which they were engaged, or which they may have been called upon carefully to examine, and they do not forget the principles then. It is also to be borne in mind, that digests and elementary treatises are only the abstracts of adjudicated cases, and not always sure therefore of stating accurately the points decided. In fact, experienced counsel will never, in a case of importance, trust to a short sentence, which, the laborious compiler says, contains in an abbreviated form the principles of a question settled, when they have the original case itself within their reach; for they have learned by observation the errors and the imperfections of digests. These are excellent as indices or tables of reference. Seldom, however, are they to be relied upon as absolute authority in themselves, when it is easy to procure the books of reports from which they were at first taken. Thus it is that the student, so far as he can read reported decisions intelligently, is sure of learning his law more accurately, as well as more pleasantly, than he can in any other way. He thus, too, will learn the questions of practice; the various forms of action; the manner in which rights are to be ascertained and settled. He sees the remedy at the same moment that he sees the wrong; and if he reads the books of reports as rapidly as they appear, and in the same order, he will be likely to know what is actually going on professionally in the world around him, from which he is almost entirely separated in the common course of early legal education.

Many of our readers may think us enthusiastic in our estimate of the importance of reported decisions, and of the various and extensive uses to which they are actually subservient. In support, therefore, of some of our last remarks, we shall cite here another eloquent passage from the writings of the admirable Commentator on American law. It is in every way just; and nothing can be more practically applicable to the lessons of the student. We only wonder, that reflections, such as these, did not lead their distinguished author to apply them, more particularly than he has done, to the

great purpose, which we have designated in the foregoing paragraph.

They [the Reports] are worthy of being studied even by scholars of taste and general literature, as being authentic memorials of the business and manners of the age in which they were composed. Law reports are dramatic in their plan and structure. They abound in pathetic incident, and displays of deep feeling. They are faithful records of those "little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind," that fill up the principal drama of human life; and which are engendered by the love of power, the appetite for wealth, the allurements of pleasure, the delusions of self-interest, the melancholy perversion of talent, and the machinations of fraud. They give the skilful debates at the bar, and the elaborate opinions on the bench, delivered with the authority of oracular wisdom. They become deeply interesting, because they contain true portraits of the talents and learning of the sages of the law.'

'Every person well acquainted with the contents of the English reports, must have been struck with the unbending integrity and lofty morals with which the courts were inspired. I do not know where we could resort, among all the volumes of human composition, to find more constant, more tranquil, and more sublime manifestations of the intrepidity of conscious rectitude. If we were to go back to the iron times of the Tudors, and follow judicial history down from the first page in Dyer to the last page of the last reporter, we should find the higher courts of civil judicature, generally, and with rare exceptions, presenting the image of the sanctity of a temple, where truth and justice seem to be enthroned and to be personified in their decrees.' Kent's Commentaries, pp. 462, 463.

'A still deeper interest must be felt by the American lawyer in the perusal of the judicial decisions of his own country. Our American reports contain an exposition of the common law as received and modified in reference to the genius of our institutions. By that law we are governed and protected, and it cannot but awaken a correspondent attachment.' Ibid. p. 455.

If the foregoing remarks are true of the publication of law reports generally, with what peculiar force do they apply to those of the national courts of the United States? It appears to us, that these must be interesting, not merely to the professional man and the jurist, but to every one who wishes to see clearly the true character of our political institutions. We know in fact, that there is no other way of acquiring a knowledge of them with any degree of accuracy. The constitution of the courts of which we are speaking, is entirely unexampled in the history of states.

We believe indeed that it forms the only characteristic feature, which is purely and exclusively our own, in the whole frame of our national government. All our other civil institutions have been partially borrowed from abroad, and are at least faintly imitated by foreign states. But the nature of the jurisdiction, and the supreme political ascendency of our national courts of judicature, have neither precedent nor parallel in any country or age.

It had long been a favorite maxim, among enthusiastic writers on the true nature of political rights, that officers of government are but the delegated agents of the people; subservient to them; bound to give them an account of their stewardship; with clearly defined duties; with restricted powers; not authorized, under any pretence, to overstep the strict limits prescribed to them; and liable to have their doings abrogated and held for nought, when they do. The world were inclined to look upon this as rather a Utopian vision in some fancied organization of civil society, than as a practicable principle in government. In ours, however, we have actually realized it. Our high courts of judicature have carried it into execution, and we are now witnessing their powerful influence over our political character, in the protection which they give to individual rights against the encroachments of the legislative and executive powers combined. It is not merely their humble duty to administer justice between man and man. They have a far more elevated one intrusted to them. In the vast machinery of our national affairs, they are, as it were, the regulators. All our great public functionaries, even Congress itself, as well as the legislatures of the several states, they hold in salutary check. Between the people and their delegated agents they stand the supreme umpire. To these they say, "Your power of attorney is the constitution; keep you within the limits prescribed to you by that; for when you transgress them, we are bound by our high political principles, as well as by our sacred oaths of duty, to set your doings aside, and hold them for violations of right.' Is there anything comparable to this in the civil constitutions of foreign states? There the courts of judicature hold a subordinate rank in their various frames of government, and over them the legislative and the executive powers have the superintendence and control. Here they are supreme, and exhibit before us continually, in actual practice, as well as in beautiful theory, the absolute sovereignty of the law.