Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 05.pdf/506

 License of Speech of Counsel. England, if nowhere else, the bar is the lad der upon which men mount to distinction; the lawyer is the champion of popular rights; the class to which he belongs is more influ ential than any other; and counsel, yes, feed counsel, is indispensable to a fair and full administration of justice. When learning, and character, and practised skill, and elo quence, and enthusiasm chastened by dis cretion, are enlisted in behalf of the litigant, he may rest assured that he holds in his counsel the very best guarantee against all forms of wrong and oppression in the admin istration of the law. It is true that he is paid for his services; and what of that? Are not princes and premiers, presidents and priests, also paid? One thing never yet was bought with money, and that is the soulengrossing identification of counsel with his client. It is the gratuitous bestowal of his sympathy, drawing forth the masterly powers of his genius and the rich treasure of his learn ing, that makes the great lawyer the honored and influential citizen. The approval of his conscience, the respect of good men, are his reward, far richer than the stipulated fee of these days or the honorarium of the Roman advocate. If I thus magnify the office of the counsel, it is for the purpose of saying that its very importance makes indispensable the exclusion of the habit which we now con demn. But I proceed, claiming the indul gence," etc. (No apology is necessary, Judge!) The only exception I would take to these remarks is to the intimation that " fees " are essential. Counsel not infrequently put forth their noblest efforts without reward or hope of reward. Lumpkin, J., also gave the bar great compliments in Berry v. State, ю Ga. 522, while reprimanding the practice of undertak ing, " by a side wind, to get that in as proof which is merely conjecture." He called them "a profession which is the great repository of the first talents in the country, and to whose standard the most gifted habitually flock, as offering the highest inducements of reputa tion, wealth, influence, authority, and power,

469

which the community can bestow. . . . No one witnesses with more unfeigned pride and pleasure than myself the effusions of forensic eloquence daily exhibited in our courts of justice. For the display of intellectual power, our bar speeches are equalled by few, surpassed by none. Why then resort to such a subterfuge? Does not history, ancient and modern, — nature, art, science, and phi losophy; the moral, political, financial, commercial, and legal, — all open to coun sel their rich and inexhaustible treasures for illustration?" (They does, Judge, they does.) " Here, under the fullest inspira tion of excited genius, they may give vent to their glowing conceptions in thoughts that breathe and words that burn. Nay, more; giving reins to their imagination, they may permit the spirit of their heated enthusiasm to svving and sweep beyond the flaming bounds of space and time, — extra flammautia mœnia mundi. But let nothing tempt them to pervert the testimony, or surrepti tiously array before the jury facts which, whether true or not, have not been proven." After all this eloquence, it is curious to observe that the court did not deem it error to admit in evidence a confession extracted from a negro slave, an accomplice, by whip ping! The eloquent Lumpkin observed : " It is immaterial from what source, or under what circumstances the accusation was made, whether by a negro or a white man; whether it was voluntary or induced by the flattery of hope or the pain of punishment; whether it came from a talking ass or a talking snake, a stock, a stone, man, beast, or reptile, ani mate or inaminate object, — it is admissible as a key to or explanatory of what was said and done by the prisoner." In Fry i'. Bennett, 3 Bosw. (N. Y. Supe rior), 200, counsel said : " The ' Herald ' by and by began to find that it could not live without doing something to attract public attention; and about the days of Ellen Jewett it came out as one of the most infamous sheets that ever existed since man was allowed by the Almighty to handle a