Page:Justice and Jurisprudence - 1889.pdf/195



"If your Constitution cannot resist reasoning like this, then indeed it is waste paper."&mdash;.

Nations fall where judges are unjust, because there is nothing which the multitude think worth defending; but nations do not fall which are treated as we are treated, but they rise as we have risen, and they shine as we have shone, and die as we have died, too much used to justice, and too much used to freedom, to care for that life which is not just and free."&mdash;.

"But when a man's fancy gets astride of his reason; when imagination is at cuffs with the senses; and common understanding, as well as common sense, is kicked out of doors; the first proselyte he makes is himself, and when that is once compassed the difficulty is not so great in bringing over others; a strong delusion always operating from without as vigorously as from within. For cant and vision are to the ear and the eye the same that tickling is to the touch."&mdash;.

"Fierce, fiery warriors fight upon the clouds."&mdash;.

"Throw aside all these quibbles: a mighty work is before us."&mdash;.

"Like the immortal Dexter, he had breasted that mighty torrent which was sweeping before it all that was great and valuable in our political institutions."&mdash;.

"On that, the proudest day of his life, like a mighty giant, he bore away upon his shoulders the pillars of the temple of error and delusion, escaping himself unhurt, and leaving his adversaries overwhelmed in its ruins."&mdash;.

"Sure, it was the roar of a whole herd of lions."&mdash;.

"But a community which has heard the voice of truth and experienced the pleasures of liberty, in which the merits of statesmen and of systems are freely canvassed, in which obedience is paid not to persons, but to laws, in which magistrates are regarded not as the lords but as the servants of the public, in which the excitement of a party is a necessary of life, in which political warfare is reduced to a system of tactics,&mdash;such a community is not easily reduced to servitude."&mdash;. 144