Let me not, however, be too severe on our code; I do not know any other, which, all things considered, is more advantageous to industry. Even the American legislation has retained the defects of the English laws; it partakes in their vagueness and uncertainty; it is under the almost exclusive dominion of precedents which it still borrows from English decisions as if North America were still an English colony. In most of the States, the undefined and conflicting pretensions of the common law and equity jurisdiction still remain in force. In some of the old States, as Virginia, the legislation yet bears many of the features of the feudal system. American law, however, has the great advantage of a simpler and less expensive process than ours or the English, and especially of a great economy of time by a reduction of the delays attending the English and French practice. As for the use of the jury in civil cases, it is of doubtful expediency. I often hear it said, that it would be better to leave them to three judicious and irremovable judges, than to twelve citizens, who often carry their individual prejudices, or party passions, or class jealousies into the jury-box. With a jury, the influence of a skilful advocate often weighs much, the merits of the cause too little. Finally, in this country, the commercial tribunals have no compulsory jurisdiction; the ordinary courts take cognizance of all causes, unless there is a previous agreement between the parties to submit all differences that may arise between them to arbiters or a committee of the chamber of commerce, which is merely a voluntary association, and is not to be found in all parts of the country.
FOOTNOTES:
[DF] The legal condition of all classes of females in the United States is the same as that of the women of the middle classes in England. The same is the case with their moral condition, except that they have even more liberty before marriage, and are more dependent after.
[DG] In England a woman is never seen, as with us, bearing a hamper of dung on her back, or labouring at the forge.
[DH] An Irishman, who had recently arrived, showed his master a letter which he had just written to his family: "But, Patrick," said his master, "why do you say that you have meat three times a week, when you have it three times a day?" "Why is it?" replied Pat; "it is because they wouldn't believe me, if I told them so."
[DI] In 1811, out of 88 local banks, there were 55, or two thirds, in New England and New York, although those States contained but little more than one third of the population. In 1834, the States north of the Potomac had 414 banks, with a capital of 106 millions; the Southern and Western States had only 88 with a capital of 60 millions, about one half of which were in a few commercial towns. The population of the former was then 6,500,000, of the latter 7,500,000; the ratio of the banks, therefore, was as 4 to 3, while that of the population was as 6 to 7. Massachusetts and Connecticut alone, in which the character of the mother-country is most strongly preserved, had 174 banks or one third of the whole number of local banks, with a capital of 40 millions, or one-fourth of the whole banking capital of the country, although their population was only one thirteenth of the whole population. The extension of the culture of cotton, and of the trade which it creates, has since, however, tended to turn the balance in favour of the south, and several large banks have been established in the southern capitals with branches in the interior.
[DJ] Several bank charters in Louisiana contain a provision obliging the bank to lend a large proportion of the capital to the planters. The Citizen's Bank is bound to advance one half its capital to landholders, beside which they have the advantage of being share-holders without having paid up anything. The bank borrowed its effective capital of European capitalists; its nominal capital is double that sum. It gives in return mortgages on the estates of the share-holders to that amount, with the guarantee of the mortgage by the State. Each share-holder is entitled to credit to the amount of half his stock at the rate of six per cent. The other half of the capital is devoted to the commercial operations of the bank. The share-holders then, have their share in the profits. It will be seen that this system depends on the legislation in regard to mortgages.
[DK] The Neapolitans are said to have made the following objection to a company, which proposed to run a steamboat between their city and Sicily: "Your boat takes us over in one day, and yet you demand the same fare, as a sail vessel which is three days. That is absurd; how can you expect that we will pay as much for being found one day as for three?" This is the reasoning of a people, who have no idea of setting an economical value on time.