THE LAW AND LAWYERS experimented with a single popular repre sentative body, as the Congress. They saw its vice, its weakness, and its failure. They realized that in a mere popular assembly like that, swept, as it inevitably was, by intermittent passion, urged by "illicit ad vantage," under the mastery, often of the impassioned reckless orator, moved by sin ister motives, such a body was liable to be led into what Madison described as "the indelible reproach of decreeing . . . the hemlock one day and statues on the next." They became profoundly impressed with the necessity of the interposition of some more staid, self-poised, independent body, to protect the people against the rashness and sudden passion of their own immediate delegates; for liberty sometimes needs to be protected against itself. After they had debated, deliberated, and sought divine guid ance over the best solution, first, whether it should be a senate appointed by the execu tive from nominations made by the respec tive state legislatures; or, second, a senate elected by the people; or, third, elected by the respective state legislatures, they adopted the latter without a dissenting voice. Faults, it may be conceded, the plan may have; but on the whole it has worked won derfully well for more than a century. By the consensus of publicists and statesmen throughout the world the United States senate is recognized to be, in dignity, grav ity and considerate action, second only to the national Supreme Court. It is the great conservative, protective force in national legislation. Let not the ax, swung by ruth less or thoughtless hands, be too eagerly laid at the root of the sheltering tree, planted by the men whose patriotism won, whose wisdom safeguarded, and whose blessings consecrated this largess of liberty and se curity we enjoy. The instability and change in the laws is a growing evil in this country. Between one and two thousand statutes are being annually enacted by our state legislatures. The people are encouraged to believe that
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the remedy for every imaginary ill in state and society lies in legislation. Sumptuary laws, contrary to the genius and spirit of our governmental system, are multiplying in every direction. The personal habits and morals of the people are subjected to legislative regulation. Legislation is urged as a remedy for poverty. It takes super visory guardianship of our avocations and industries. It trenches upon the office of the church, the schoolhouse, and the forces of personal morality and self-reliance. The state must keep the chinchbug out of the farmers' fields and the grasshopper from sitting on his fence. It must keep the drones and infection out of his bee-hives, and train the bees where to get the honey due. It must keep "the bloody murrain" out of his cattle, and the cholera out of his hogs. It must regulate the mar kets and the laws of supply and demand. The legislator lays deep and broad, as he thinks, his fame by boasting of the number of bills he introduces, ranging from amend ing the state and federal constitutions to describing the crook of the worm in the fence. Statutes are created one session to be repealed the next. No business man, or association of men, can venture upon any business enterprise under an existing stat ute, without apprehended danger of its early change or modification, or some new regulation or burden imposed upon it. No lawyer can rely upon the garnered wealth of a life of study as to 'the rules of evidence and principles governing the rights of men, lest all may be changed by the legislature in session. When the late Senator Vest and myself were practising law as partners, we were assigned by the court to examine a long sycamore fellow from the Wabash, Indiana, on his application for admission to the Bar. I took him over the perfunctory grounds of the text-books. He could not answer cor rectly a question. I said to him: "My friend, you do not appear to have read any law books at all." He answered that he
