Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 07.pdf/338

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Communications in regard to the contents of the Magazine should be addressed to the Editor, Horace W. Fuller, 15^ Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. The Etiitor will be glad to receive contributions of articles of moderate length upon subjects of inter est to the profession; also anything in the way of legal antiquities or curiosities, facetice, anec dotes, etc. "THE GREEN BAG." Editor " Green Bag." Permit me to call attention to a fact which I have never seen mentioned in connection with the author ship of the expression " created equal," viz. : August 17, 1774. James Wilson, afterwards one of the justices of the United States Supreme Court, published, and distributed throughout the Colonies his celebrated ad dress upon ' 1 The Authority of Parliament to Legislate for the Colonies," and used this language: "All MEN ARE BY NATURE EQUAL AND FREE. No ONE HAS A RIGHT TO ANY AUTHORITY OVER ANOTHER WITHOUT HIS CONSENT." In the Declaration of Independence we find the same idea, both of equality and freedom as a conse quence of equality, and consent as the basis of author ity td make laws separated; but the ideas are identi cal, and the language "by nature equal" is very close. When we bear in mind that Wilson was a signer of the Declaration, and a member of a committee in reference to it, why is it that we ascribe the language to another, and through him trace it to a foreigner? Wilson was one of the most learned of this great company of statesmen, and certainly the most deeply versed in the classical legal literature pertaining to Natural Law; but he was likewise an exceedingly modest man. — a trait not to be ascribed to Jeffer son, — and I see no reason to ascribe the invention of the style or sentiment to anyone not connected with the struggle. The whole address of Wilson discusses liberty, not in the light of any French notion of the term, but as English liberty, and contains several other ideas, reproduced in the Declaration of Independence, of equal force and equal importance. We should bear in mind that it was essential that the colonists show themselves to be in the right and the Crown in error, according to the ideas of the British Constitution, not according to the ideas of the French Revolution. Any idea that the document was pervaded with such ideas would have been highly prejudicial to the cause of America in England. The

central thought of the Declaration is not the right to revolt, but that the King had abdicated his authority, and is precisely Wilson's argument. His speech is found in Vol. 3 of his works, and also in " Ameri can Oratory." These are suggestions. The question is, why do we say that Jefferson imported the sentiment from France, when it existed at home? James DeWitt Andrews.

LEGAL ANTIQUITIES. One of the articles of the Constitutions of Clar endon, in the time of Henry II (1164), shows that the right of sitting in the House of Lords, now belonging to bishops, and greatly prized by them, was originally forced upon them at a time when they thought it an indignity to sit in any assembly except by themselves, as a separate order. FACETIÆ. The most popular man in a western town had got into a difficulty with a disreputable tough who was the terror of the place, and had done him up in a manner eminently satisfactory to the entire community. It was necessary to vindicate the majesty of the law, however, and the offender was brought up for trial on a charge of assault with intent to kill. The jury took the case, and were out about two minutes, when they returned. "Well," said the old judge in a familiar, off hand way, " what does the jury have to say?" "May it please the court," responded the fore man, " we, the jury, find that the prisoner is not guilty of hittin* with intent to kill, but simply to paralyze, and he done it." An old woman living some distance from Man chester, Kentucky, was summoned as a witness to tell what she knew about a fight at her house several nights before, in which three or four people were killed. She mounted the stand with evident reluctance and many misgivings, and when 30: