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 ¬transactions of mankind. — The necessity of such constructions, by unsettling the principles and practice of the law, might not only have affected the security of property, but what would have been far worse, might have sapped the very foundations of public freedom, by extending their influence to the administration of criminal justice. i ¬When equitable considerations, therefore, be- came indispensable, even beyond the natural equity comprehended in the most positive laws, it was fit that they should be confided to a separate tribunal ; and this new system, like the old one, to which it came in aid, was not enacted by any statutes, but grew up in the very teeth of them, and for a season even of the legisla- ture itself; forcing, or rather stealing its way, until it settled at last in the very station where it was wise it should remain ; becoming an useful auxiliary, equally precise and certain as that whose precision it preserved. — There is an analogy, perhaps, between the elements of the ¬natural ¬