Horace Binney's Pamphlets [pp. 641-647]

Horace Binney's Pamphlets.
ART. III.-1. The Leaders of the Old Bar of Philadelp)hia.
By H. B. 8vo. pp. 120. Philadelphia, 1859.
2. An Inquiry into the Formation of Washington's Farewell
Address. By HORACE BINNEY. 8vo. pp. 250. Philadel phia, 1859.
OF human fame, there is none more perishable than that of
the lawyer. His greatest efforts in the lower Courts pass
away with the moment, like things that perish in the using.
And in the appellate Courts, the ablest and the most brilliant
forensic arguments are preserved only in their skeletons, by the
Reporters, shut up as in a mausoleum, where none ever enter
except the lawyer, as a matter of business, searching for a
precedent. Yet no class of men better deserve to be remembered than lawyers, even when only considered as upholding
the causes of clients, with the full measure of their learning,
their ingenuity, their physical strength, sometimes under the
frown of power, the displeasure of the public, and often not only
without pay, but at great personal loss. For all this is done
avowedly to uphold justice; and without all this professional
devotion, justice would be but the will and word of the dominant power holding the sceptre only to be abused. But lawyers
deserve to be remembered for something more important than
upholding the private interests of clients. To them is due the
preservation and development of the law itself, which, like an
unseen Providence, gives protection to the smallest right, and
takes under its comprehensive vigilance all human interests,
whether of individuals or of nations, on land or on sea, securing
them to be adjusted according to rules of justice against the
hand of the plunderer. It protects even the sanctuary of the
church.
The Common Law of England is the great mother of American lawyers. From her bosom they imbibed that spirit of freedom which places law above power; from her strictly logical
procedure, separating facts from law, rendered necessary by
jury trial, they acquired the logical cast of mind and common
sense so preeminently their characteristic. Many, too, of the
leaders of the old American bar were educated at Westminster
VOL. XXXII.-NO. IV., 82
1860.]
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