Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/459

414 AN ENGLISH VIEW OF THE AMERICAN BAR.

IFTY years ago, De Tocqueville, writing upon the phenomena of American democracy, delivered the following opinion of American lawyers,—an opinion which sounds almost startling even to an English reader, who knows how great is the social eminence of the bar in his own country. "If I were asked," says the French philosopher, "where I place the American aristocracy, I should reply, without hesitation, that it is not composed of the rich, who are united together by no common tie, but that it occupies the judicial bench and bar." This appears even more strange when we recollect the comical anecdotes which from time to time crop up in English journals (more especially in the "silly" season), and which are evidently derived from American papers, of advocates, in spite of the remonstrances of the judge, fighting in court and rolling over each other and their briefs for a short while, when order is restored and the case proceeds; or of judges sitting and "whittling" sticks while they listen to the speeches of the opposing advocates.

But the truth is that not only have times changed since De Tocqueville wrote, but that stories of this description are easily explicable when the extraordinary power of "romancing" which the Yankee reporter possesses is considered, and when, also, we recollect what an utter absence of respect there is in the United States for forms and ceremonies apart from common-sense and justice. It must be remembered, too, that there are thirty-eight States (1883) of the Union, some of which display a civilization which is in advance of our own, while others are barely freed from the control of Judge Lynch. It is our aim in the present paper to try to present a consistent and concise account of the character, acquirement, and social position of the legal profession in the United States of America.

Our readers are doubtless aware that each State of the Union has its own independent courts of justice. Over them all is the Supreme Court of the United States, of which there are seven judges, which sits at Washington, and decides all questions which concern the intercourse of the Union with other nations, and all disputes between one State and another or between an individual and a State. All questions about its own jurisdiction are decided by this court without any appeal. Some idea of the importance of this tribunal can, perhaps, be gathered from the fact that a casual spectator may hear called the case of "The State of New York v. The State of Pennsylvania," especially when it is recollected that either of these States is about as big a place as the whole of England. To the judges of this court, also, a most tremendous power is given. They have the right to decree that any bill which has passed the two national chambers of Congress and the Senate is void, as being contrary to the letter and spirit of the Articles of Union and the Constitution. The importance, therefore, of the judges of the Supreme Court is something before which that of Lord Selborne on the woolsack, or of Lord Coleridge in "all his glory," sinks into the merest insignificance. It need scarcely be remarked that the extra-judicial utterances of judges who are armed with this power, possess the utmost political importance, and create a far greater stir than that recently made by the judgment of the Lord Chief-Justice upon the recent case of Maintenance. Perhaps we may venture to remark that the vexed Bradlaugh question would have speedily been decided in America, without the necessity for the rummaging up of forgotten statutes and for unseemly litigation between Mr. Bradlaugh, the Speaker, Mr. Newdegate, and the Sergeant-at-Arms, and the rest of the parties to the squabble.