And now, inasmuch as almost every word of importance in our language has more than one meaning, it follows, that in proportion as you multiply words in a law, or in a legal instrument, you multiply the meanings, and the chances of mistake, and of course, I may as well say it, of litigation: and the mere habit of multiplying words as conveyancers and special-pleaders and speech-makers, being not only a professional habit, as every body knows, but characteristic of the profession, it may be, and often is, continued from habit, long and long after it may cease to appear advantageous or profitable; as in the business of legislation, or in dealing with a jury, where the lawyer is not paid by the page, but by the day or the trick. And why? Perhaps my friend Joe may be permitted to answer. A tailor, while cutting a coat for himself, was seen to slip a fragment of the cloth into his cabbage-drawer. Amazed at such a procedure, a new apprentice took the liberty of asking why he did it. “To keep my hand in,” was the answer.
Just so is it with the lawyer. He would use more words than are either necessary or safe, merely to keep his hand in, if for no other reason. Just compare a contract entered into between shipping-merchants for the sale of a cargo, or between other men of business, railroad contractors, or stock-dealers, involving the outlay of millions, perhaps, with a deed of trust drawn by a thoroughbred conveyancer, or with articles of co-partnership by any thing alive in the shape of an attorney-at-law, if you wish to see the difference between the language of lawyers, and men of business and common sense.
By this, I would not be understood to say that some lawyers are never needed for putting the language and meaning of parties into shape; nor that “I. O. U.” would be a model for a charter-party, or a church settlement; for I acknowledge that the chief business of the world cannot be carried on safely without lawyers. I only say, that we have too many of them; and that they are encouraged to intermeddle more than is good for themselves, or us, with every sort of business and branch of the Lex mercatoria, and the Lex non scripta.
Another reason why the people are not allowed to have the laws of their own Country in their own language, but in that of the learned few—like the Bible for the Roman Catholics—notwithstanding the ridiculous parade of publishing all the laws in thousands of our newspapers in a year—a better hoax, and a better joke by far than the celebrated bequest of a guinea, toward paying off the national debt of our mother country—that mother of Nations, so cleverly represented by Victoria, just now—is, that we may not be able to judge for ourselves; and that no law shall be of any private interpretation; for if it did, the people would soon be independent of most lawyers; and then, what would become of the superannuated, and the helpless, the fledglings, and the understrappers? They would have to rely for support in their old age upon the interpretation of themselves, and of their own cramped penmanship, instead of the legislative enactments.
But, say certain of my brethren, the law, after all, is a great science, and the profession worthy of profound respect. It is over-crowded to be sure; and some, it must be acknowledged, do not succeed at the bar, and after trying it for a while are obliged to leave it, or starve. Granted—but what does that prove? Can those who do not succeed be greater blockheads, or greater knaves than many others that do? And may it not be just possible, if they, who do not succeed in the profession are otherwise distinguished, that they had too much self-respect, or conscientiousness, or what may be called honesty? Thus much by way of a protestanda—or the “exclusion of a conclusion,” according to my Lord Coke.
And now, with all seriousness, what more shall be said? I have shown: 1.—That my brethren of the bar enjoy a very dangerous and altogether very disproportionate power as the law-makers, the law interpreters, and the law enforcers. 2.—That however honest they may be by nature; and however honest in all the other relations of life; and that they are so, I acknowledge with pleasure; yet, as Lawyers, they have a code of morals peculiar to themselves, making it their duty to league with knaves, and cheats, and murderers, and house-breakers, and to furnish them with aid and comfort, for pay; in other words, for a share in their profits, and this duty is of such a nature as to lead them continually astray, to blind their reasoning powers, to darken their consciences, until they are incapable of distinguishing between truth and falsehood, or right and wrong in the defense of their clients; and that under pretense of being faithful to them, they become after a while too unfaithful to everybody else, even to themselves, and to their Maker; and that therefore they are not trustworthy as legislators. 3.—That in consequence of their position as the holders of political power, too large a portion of our young men—our intellectual strength and hope, is diverted into that particular profession, to the injury of every other, and especially to the business, and laboring, or productive professions. 4.—That another evil is our superabundant legislation—the instability of that legislation—the prodigious cost of so many debating societies maintained at the public charge, under pretence of law-making all over the land; whereby the public business of the whole country is delayed, month after month, and year after year; and sometimes never done—or if done at all, is done at last in such a hurry, and after such a slovenly fashion, that when the law-makers are called together again, a large portion of the little time they are enabled to set apart from electioneering, is spent in patching up and explaining the laws of a previous session; here, by taking a piece off the bottom and sewing it on the top, as the Irishman lengthens his blanket; and there, by taking out a piece of the same, to patch a hole with: and that therefore, notwithstanding a multitude of glorious exceptions to be found, year after year, in the senate chambers and representative chambers of our country, Lawyers are never to be trusted in the making of laws; and that, if it were not for the simple fact that, as judges, they are the only authorized expounders of the law, they ought not to be trusted even with the wording of a statute.
And now, what more? We are all ambitious—lawyers above all the rest of the world in this country. Not one but labors—if we may believe his mother and sister, or his betrothed—not one “but labors with the nightmare meanings of Ambition’s breast”—not one who does not feel—
“How hard it is to climb
The steep where Fame’s proud temple shines afar!”
and therefore it is, that the whole country is groaning under their oppression—over-burthened with law—and taxed, and trapped, and crushed, and trampled on by lawyers.