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 The Green Bag

334

ercise of rhetorical skill in oral dis

isolated in the world of;experience.

course;

And before a just and proper judgment can be reached, his cause must be weighed according to standards of conduct in general. To thus correlate the facts of a case, and explain their

eloquence."

And

when

we

examine the speeches of famous advo cates we ﬁnd that they produced their eﬁects not by wandering from the facts but

by

them.

marshalling

and

correlating

Cicero in the oration against

Verres brings forward instance after

instance of the depredations of the Governor of Sicily. Erskine did not procure the acquittal of Lord George Gordon, Horne Tooke or Thomas Hardy,

by appeals to the jury to disregard the facts, but by using the facts to demonstrate that the accused were not guilty. Take also the celebrated defense

of Judge Wilkinson by Seargent Prentiss. With marvellous skill he passes in review the facts, thereby establishing

meaning in relation to one another, and to human experience in general—to do this well, is oratory. And the lawyer who can do this will not in the argument of questions feel at loss if he cannot ﬁnd an exact precedent. He will study the principles of the law in order to

ascertain its aim. Then he will examine the principles of philosophy, of sociology, of political economy, to ﬁnd whether a given decision would accomplish the end which the law has set for itself.

the innocence of his client.

And when he states a proposition he will not be forced to base it upon his

Burke and Sheridan, one the most splendid, the other the most fervid of

bare assertion, but can establish it by reasoning and enforce and illustrate

orator's, in their speeches against Hast

it with the facts of history and literature. Erskine became Lord Chancellor of England; yet his fame rests upon his

ings, denounce him in the most bitter terms, but always upon the evidence before the court. They do not, it is true, conﬁne themselves to a mere

recapitulation of the testimony. If an advocate did so there would be no use in wasting time to hear him,

for

the triers could

depend

upon

their own recollection, or in the case of a jury they would have the

successful assertion of individual liberty,

in the State of Trials. And as he was defending rights under the English Constitution

he

discussed

freely

its

history and its principles. Nor did he refrain from discussing questions of policy. Nor were these excursions irrelevant

or

merely

idealistic.

To

assistance of the judge’s charge. But a bare recital of the testimony favorable

his speech in support of a new trial for the Dean of St. Asaph it is reported

to his cause does not comprehend the

that

duty of the advocate.

He must go

polished statesmen alike listened with

further and explain the relation of the

delight.” And the principles he asserted soon found their way into the laws of

circumstances of the case to each other,

uold

black

letter

lawyers and

He must examine every bit of

England. His theory of the rights of the jury in libel cases was adopted by act

testimony, testing it by other parts of the testimony, and pointing out its

of Parliament, and to him, more than to any other man, is due the honor of

as well as their relation to extraneous

facts.

signiﬁcance in the light of the whole

having forever given the death blow

case. The facts in his case are not things by themselves, unrelated to other facts of life. His case is not

to constructive treasons. No mean achievement this for any man. The

need for such lawyers has not passed,

_.

.J