Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Character, Life, And Times Of His Late Royal. Highness , By The Public Press.
wrest it to them ; and hence we have a continual increase of what is called "judge-made law , " that is , law made by each individual judge , according to his own views , which he prefers to the law already made . But if it cannot be said of the judges that even they are assiduous in carrying the law into execution , except in so far as it coincides with their views , of course no other men are assiduous either in obeying or executin"
- it . There is a continual demand for new laws amongst the people ; no contentment with the old laws , no desire to carry them one and all resolutely into execution . On the contrary , each man , when he has the opportunity , tries to interpret the law according to his own interests and purposes , * and where he has the power , he really wrests it to his own views . The bulk of the country magistrates , for example , and of country
gentlemen , in all that concerns their property or the game laws , or that concerns the lower classes , —ancl the clergy in all that concerns churchrates , the rating of tithes , & c , far from being contented with the enormous advantages which the law secures to them , —the magistrates and the clergy are continually engaged , like the merchant smugglers of the city of London , in studying how they can evade the law , or make it serve their own peculiar purposes , and best wrest it to their interests .
In fact , while they preach obedience , they habitually seek so to pervert the laws that they may answer their immediate object ; and the obedience they preach , in point of fact , means submission to themselves . The real check at last against this universal self-seeking , is not , and cannot be , the law , which is always twisted by those who are bound to execute it ; but the self-seeking of those who are called in to obey , who constitute the
great public , who have a varying bound to submission which they will not pass , and which the others cannot surmount . Their resistance on the one hand , and the deference of the law-makers and lawadministrators on the other , constitute , so far as law is concerned , one branch of public opinion , and keeps judges , magistrates , and parsons , within certain limits . As the judges have an immense power in this matter
, and are in the last resort , those we appeal to on the subject , independent of the silent appeal which even they and all other men make to public opinion , it is very satisfactory to know , that they are generall y gentlemen of considerable moderation of temper , enlightened minds , and almost destitute of party interests or personal interests . They are discreet , considerate men , and we are much more indebted to that circumstance for the general preservation of liberty , than to the enactments of the law itself .
For the Duke of Sussex to have set an example of resisting the law , —for him to have laid down a rule of conduct for himself in direct defiance of the law , seems to us an immense public benefit . It has established , by the general concurrence of the people , the principle that
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Character, Life, And Times Of His Late Royal. Highness , By The Public Press.
wrest it to them ; and hence we have a continual increase of what is called "judge-made law , " that is , law made by each individual judge , according to his own views , which he prefers to the law already made . But if it cannot be said of the judges that even they are assiduous in carrying the law into execution , except in so far as it coincides with their views , of course no other men are assiduous either in obeying or executin"
- it . There is a continual demand for new laws amongst the people ; no contentment with the old laws , no desire to carry them one and all resolutely into execution . On the contrary , each man , when he has the opportunity , tries to interpret the law according to his own interests and purposes , * and where he has the power , he really wrests it to his own views . The bulk of the country magistrates , for example , and of country
gentlemen , in all that concerns their property or the game laws , or that concerns the lower classes , —ancl the clergy in all that concerns churchrates , the rating of tithes , & c , far from being contented with the enormous advantages which the law secures to them , —the magistrates and the clergy are continually engaged , like the merchant smugglers of the city of London , in studying how they can evade the law , or make it serve their own peculiar purposes , and best wrest it to their interests .
In fact , while they preach obedience , they habitually seek so to pervert the laws that they may answer their immediate object ; and the obedience they preach , in point of fact , means submission to themselves . The real check at last against this universal self-seeking , is not , and cannot be , the law , which is always twisted by those who are bound to execute it ; but the self-seeking of those who are called in to obey , who constitute the
great public , who have a varying bound to submission which they will not pass , and which the others cannot surmount . Their resistance on the one hand , and the deference of the law-makers and lawadministrators on the other , constitute , so far as law is concerned , one branch of public opinion , and keeps judges , magistrates , and parsons , within certain limits . As the judges have an immense power in this matter
, and are in the last resort , those we appeal to on the subject , independent of the silent appeal which even they and all other men make to public opinion , it is very satisfactory to know , that they are generall y gentlemen of considerable moderation of temper , enlightened minds , and almost destitute of party interests or personal interests . They are discreet , considerate men , and we are much more indebted to that circumstance for the general preservation of liberty , than to the enactments of the law itself .
For the Duke of Sussex to have set an example of resisting the law , —for him to have laid down a rule of conduct for himself in direct defiance of the law , seems to us an immense public benefit . It has established , by the general concurrence of the people , the principle that