Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 19.pdf/617

 THE GREEN BAG This is a bond of sympathy, Ladies and Gentlemen, not least because it is a source of common pride. There is nothing of which you and we may be more justly proud than that our common forefathers reared this majestic fabric which has given shelter to so many generations of men, and from which there have gone forth principles of liberty by which the whole world has profited. The law of a nation is not only the expres sion of its character, but a main factor in its greatness. What the bony skeleton is to the body, what her steel ribs are to the ship, that to a state is its law, holding all the parts fitly joined together so that each may retain its proper place and discharge its proper functions. The Common Law has

done this for you and for us in such wise as to have helped to form the mind and habits as well of the individual citizens as of the whole nation. Parts of the law the individ ual citizen cannot understand, and when that is so he had better not try to understand it, but have recourse to your professional advice. But the law is all his own; the people can remould it if they will. Where a system of law has been made by the people and for the people, where it conforms to their sentiment and breathes their spirit, it. deserves and receives the confidence of the people. So may it ever be both in America and in England. Intervale, N. H., August, 1907.