Legal Ethics. circumstances, or oppress the fatherless, or "grind the faces of the poor," for the sake of lining his own purse, has no pretense for his practices either at law or in equity. Such conduct is, iniquitous and disreputable. The law is dishonored by such officers. Passing from the popular conception of legal ethics to the subject as it finds an ex position in the several titles of the law, I think it may be safely affirmed, in the lan guage of Lord Erskine, that the principles of law are founded " in the charities of religion, in the philosophy of nature, in the truths of history, and in the experience of common life." This vast fabric having its foundation in the common law of England, with a growth of a thousand years, introduced to this country in colonial times, adapted to the new circumstances of a new nation, re vised and improved in many particulars by the advancement of civilization, is calculated to dispense justice in the land and to be a refuge and shelter for the oppressed. There is no title of the law which is not based upon principles of abstract justice which will dis close themselves to you if your examination be conducted in a fair and dispassionate spirit. Take the law of contracts. A con tract is an agreement, enforceable at law, by which two or more persons agree to do or not to do a particular thing. To a valid contract there must be competent parties and a reasonable consideration. For the sake of certainty, contracts involving money above a certain amount arc required to be in writing, and for the sake of preventing fraud certain special classes of contracts are re quired to be in writing. Again, contracts which are against public policy or good morals, or which are in restraint of trade, or in direct opposition to some statute law, or which are usurious, are invalid and non-en forceable. Now these simple doctrines which constitute the foundation and framework of the law of contracts commend themselves to us as eminently just and fair. They create mutual or reciprocal rights and obligations
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between the two parties to the agreement, rights or obligations which cannot be de clined without working injury to the other party, who can then invoke the aid of the court to redress his grievance. No one except a person who did not want to act justly himself could complain of the standard of ethics illustrated in the law of contracts. It is a fundamental maxim in ethics as it is in law that " a man should so enjoy his own as not to injure others." The man who does so is protected by law; but the man who so enjoys his own as to make a nuisance of himself, or to trespass upon his neighbor's rights and property, is justly and properly held answerable for his conduct. In the domestic relations, in the acquisition and transfer of real property, in the descent and distribution of property, the rules of law are all designed to uphold and preserve the rights of all the parties concerned. Then when you consider the manifold applications of equity jurisprudence supplementing the operations of the law and removing all man ner of possible hardships and seeking to maintain the high standard set forth in that maxim, " wherever there is a right, there ought to be a remedy," it would seem im possible to disparage the strict justice of le gal ethics. But it is in the application of these principles of law to any particular con troversy that the door is open to abuse. It is appalling to harbor the thought that the men who occupy the highest positions in the legal profession should be susceptible to bribes and to the perversion of law and jus tice at the instigation of an influential suitor or a powerful corporation. As things are, however, it is in the power of the people to unseat judges who are guilty of such prac tices and to prevent them from holding office ever afterward. It is a very open question whether judgeships should be in the gift of political parties and should be manipulated by political machines. Judges in all cases should be men of tried and proved ability at the bar, who, by reason of service and em
