LETTER XIV
Lawyers—Doctors—Clergy—Mechanics—Justices of the Peace—Anecdotes—Punishments—Reflections.
Jeffersonville, (Indiana,)
March 10, 1819.
The greater part of my letters from America have hitherto been addressed to our late brother John. Since we have now to deplore that he is removed {168} from all correspondence with us, I shall direct this to you.
There are many particulars in the condition of this country, that must appear surprising to any one who has not seen a community in its infantine state. We have here lawyers who have not been regularly educated in the knowledge of their profession. Blackstone’s Commentaries are considered the great medium of instruction.
The young man who has carefully read these, and who has for a short time wrote for a practising attorney, is admitted to the bar. It is said that even the latter part of this preparatory course has, in many instances, been dispensed with. The occupation of barrister and attorney is usually performed by the same practitioner.[103] He transacts with clients, writes and pleads before courts of justice, or before a squire, as occasion requires. If we may judge from grammatical and orthographic inaccuracies, we must be apt to believe that, although some of them may be esteemed as lawyers, they are not good English scholars. Lawyers here, as elsewhere, take their stand as being of the first class in society, and a great proportion of our back-wood legislators, in State assemblies, and in the general government, are elected from among this body of gentlemen. Such are many of the counsellors who grow up in Transmontane-America; but it would be unfair to omit noticing that men of a very different character arise here.—I shall only mention one example in Henry Clay, a Kentuckian lawyer, who has for eight years made a distinguished figure in the conspicuous situation of speaker of the House of Representatives at the capital. Mr. Clay was commissioner on the part of the United States, at the treaty of Ghent, in 1814, and plenipotentiary for commercial arrangements with Great Britain in 1815. The profession {169} also owes much of its respectability to the ingress of young gentlemen of liberal education from the Atlantic States, who make diligent research in the history of cases, and whose libraries are usually stored with law authorities, and the best models of forensic eloquence in the English language.
The medical men here are all doctors, nor is the inferior degree, surgeon, at all recognised. In new settlements, many practise on life and limb who have not obtained the diploma of any medical school. The smallness of their laboratories renders it probable, that the universal medicine is included. Here, too, there are honoured exceptions; and the medical colleges instituted at Cincinnati and Lexington may soon furnish more accomplished practitioners.
The clergy would perhaps excuse my not giving their order the precedence, if they were told that men hold forth here, who can have no pretensions to qualifications derived from human tuition. Many of their harangues are composed of medley, declamation, and the most disgusting tautology. I have chiefly in view itinerant preachers of the methodist sect, who perhaps cry as loud as ever did the priests of Baal. Their hearers frequently join in loud vociferations, fall down, shake, and jerk in a style, that it would be in vain to attempt to describe.
Incapacity is not confined to those situations that ought to be filled with men of learning, but extends to the rudest branches of the mechanical arts. It is not thought wonderful to see a blacksmith without a screw plate; and I have known of several very plain pieces of joiner work that were stolen for patterns by unqualified workmen. Almost every well-finished article is imported, and {170} so long as this impolicy is continued, handicraft must remain in a low state.
We have here justices of the peace who would not be promoted to the office of constable in some older communities. They are mere petty-foggers, who are occasionally employed in collecting debts, and raising suits to be brought before their own tribunals. In these cases, they act in the double capacity of agent for one party, and judge, and have no repugnance against collecting their fees in the hour of cause. I shall relate two anecdotes. One of these gentlemen, who lives at no great distance from the spot where I write, was hearing the representations of two opponents in open court. They disagreed, and commenced a fight. The squire, not adverse to this sort of decision, joined with the constable and some other people in forming a ring for the combat. A negro man and a white woman came before the squire of a neighbouring township, for the purpose of being married. The squire objected to the union as contrary to a law of the State, that prohibits all sexual intercourse between white and coloured people, under a penalty for each offence, but suggested, that if the woman could be qualified to swear that there was black blood in her, the law would not apply. The hint was taken, and the lancet was immediately applied to the Negro’s arm. The loving bride drank the blood, made the necessary oath, and his honour joined their hands, to the great satisfaction of all parties.[104] The last of these squires {171} was not elected by the people, but appointed under the late territorial government of Indiana. He is a naturalized citizen of the United States, but a native of England.