Page:Justice and Jurisprudence - 1889.pdf/141



"The mischiefs whereinto, even before our eyes, so many others have fallen headlong from no less plausible and fair beginnings than yours are; there is in every one of these considerations most just cause to fear, lest our hastiness to embrace a thing of so perilous consequence should cause posterity to feel those evils which as yet are more easy for us to prevent than they would be for them to remedy."&mdash;.

"The best and safest way for you, therefore, my dear brethren, is, to call your deeds past to a new reckoning, to re-examine the cause ye have taken in hand, and to try it even point by point, argument by argument, with all the diligent exactness ye can, to lay aside the gall of that bitterness wherein your minds have hitherto overabounded, and with meekness to search the truth."&mdash;.

"That optical illusion which makes a brier at our nose of greater magnitude than an oak at five hundred yards."&mdash;.

"What if I should answer you thus? That words ought to give place to things; that we, having taken away kingly government itself, do not think ourselves concerned about its name and definition; let others look to that, who are in love with kings: we are contented with the enjoyment of our liberty."&mdash;.

In answer to the question put by the student, at the close of the last chapter, the Chief Justice said,&mdash; "The saviours of our nation, sir, commended it to a double care: first, to the Supreme Court of the United States, by virtue of the Constitution; and, secondly, they imposed upon the Congress of the United States in apt terms&mdash;'with power to enforce by appropriate legislation,' words full of legal significance&mdash;the solemn obligation of protecting the precious legacy of freedom bequeathed to seven millions of citizens whom the nation had adopted as the common children of one beneficent parent."

After a moment's consideration he continued,&mdash; "I listened with impatient silence, sir, to your views 90