Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 24.pdf/86

 The Lawyer of Fifty Years Ago if the influence of lawyers in public busi ness did not increase in proportion to the power of the people." If the views thus expressed by this political philosopher are correct — and experience has generally demonstrated the fact that his views were correct — so many of his predictions have been verified — then the question as to wheth er the American bar has lost any of its former influence, whether as a whole it has in any way declined in the respect and confidence of the people, is the question worth considering. Some idea of the estimate in which the great American lawyers of early clays were held may be gathered from what we know of the lives of William Pinkney and William Wirt. Both of these men were great lawyers in the truest and best sense of the word. Both of them were absolutely devoted to the profes sion. Both of them were justly cele brated for the conscientious thorough ness with which they prepared every cause which was entrusted to their care. Their professional labors were enormous. They did the kind and amount of work which only a man who is a true lover of the law and jealous of the ancient repu tation of his profession can do. Neither of them ever a made a fortune, but each of them made a name which the migh tiest multi-millionaire of modern times could not purchase. They enjoyed the unbounded confidence, the unmeasured admiration of their fellow citizens, not only because of their transcendent abili ties, but because they were known to be men whose honor money could not buy. When in 1829 William Wirt went to Boston to try a case in one of the courts of that great city, notwithstanding the fact that he was a Southern man and that sectional prejudices were already keenly alive, he was received by the people with an acclaim which was second

65

only to that which they accorded to their own great Webster. When Willaim Pinkney died, he was characterized by John Randolph in Con gress as "the boast of Maryland and the pride of the United States." Such was the lawyer of fifty years ago, and of one hundred and fifty years ago. To be a great lawyer was to attain the highest position offered to man's ambi tion in America. Nearly every lawyer of any distinction in those days took some part in public affairs. The people of his neighborhood, of his county or of his state, and as his fame increased, people of the whole country looked to him for guidance and advice in their public affairs, as well as in the matters more strictly pertaining to his profession. While he was at the bar he was a leader of public opinion, and when he was transferred to the bench, his judgments received universal obedience as the settled law of the land. The steadying effect which the influ ences of the legal profession exerted upon the minds of the American democracy is not overstated by DC Tocqueville in the passages which I have quoted. Many a time was "passion's stormy rage" checked and stilled by the majestic voice of the Great Expounder, and but for the persuasive logic, the powerful reasoning of the great lawyers of the Federalist, it might well be doubted whether the Constitution of 1787 would ever have become the law of the land. Come we now to the lawyer of today, the American lawyer of the twentieth century. In saying what I have with reference to the lawyer of fifty years ago, I have had little fear of contradiction. In what I shall have to say with refer ence to the lawyer of today, it may be that I shall not have such plain sailing. While I say it with much diffidence, and with utmost deference to those who