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THE GREEN BAG

THE LAWYER IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS BY HON. ALTON B. PARKER IN studying, however casually, or with whatever care, the modern development of the law, and the scope of the men who follow it as a profession, it is impossible to escape from a knowledge of the close rela tions which the latter bear, almost as a direct result of their professional life, to our politics. It is seen all along the line of public effort whether in village, town, city, county, state, or nation. Its existence, therefore, cannot be overlooked nor can its importance as a feature in the history and •development of the law, or of politics, be exaggerated. It is not a new tendency, having manifested itself even in our earliest days when, owing to the simplicity of con ditions, the need for the lawyer and the recognition of his place in our social fabric became only slowly apparent. Yet, it is a tendency which has grown with the growth of the country and with the enlarged facili ties for the study of politics and also with the added dignity of the legal profession itself. In the earlier days in the history of the thirteen colonies, the questions discussed were those relating to rights, then popu larly denominated natural, most of which, in their practical assertion, have since be come legal, or recognized as a part of our institutions. It was almost a necessity that the few members of the Bar whose services were then called for should become at once the assertors of these rights before the courts. It was even still more imperative that they should come to the front in the discussion of them in the forum, in those bodies where hearings must be held, and also in the respective assemblies of the people. This was in the declining days of a theocratic age, when every profession other than that of the clergyman had to struggle for a position.

IN

THE

REVOLUTIONARY AND TIONAL PERIODS

CONSTITU

It was, therefore, only natural, that when the Revolution came up for discussion the services of the lawyer should everywhere be in demand. Even Samuel Adams, in spite of the fact that his mother's conscientious scruples drove him away from the study of the law into the honorable trade of maltster, had as his principal and active coadjutors, James Otis and John Adams. No argu ments more distinctively legal could have been made at that time. Looking back, we are perhaps inclined to think of them as largely academic and as having some flavor of the pedantic. Patrick Henry's great speech, although delivered in a political assembly, was distinctively the product of the legal mind and the legal training of his day, while the Declaration of Indepen dence is filled throughout with legal as well as with popular terms. Although the Revo lution itself was, therefore, started by law yers it was soon removed from the venue of the legal profession into those of the soldier, the diplomatist, and the financier. But even the diplomacy of this period, during the life of the Confederation and its successor, the Constitution, was distinctly that of the lawyer in public life. Coming down then to the period of Con stitution-making which began at the very conclusion of peace, the lawyer at once dominated the scene. The names of Alex ander Hamilton, John Jay, George Mason, James Wilson, John Marshall, John Rutledge, James Madison, George Wythe — these are only a few of the men as the re sult of whose labors, in state and federal bodies, came the perfecting of that great experiment, a written Constitution, which incorporated into itself all the principles for which our race had been contending