The late chief justice of Connecticut lived to see the extensive and extending benefits of the plan to which he gave the first impulse; but it is reserved to the hundreds of his grateful auditors, who cherish his memory with filial reverence and affection, to witness, at no distant day, its wider diffusion, and its more effective agency in elevating the character and advancing the honor of their profession. We confidently anticipate, as the effect of the instruction now given by numerous able and learned gentlemen in different parts of our country, in private law-schools and in public colleges, a bar more generally erudite and profound than heretofore, and a gradual retirement of ignorant and impudent pretenders, to their merited obscurity and insignificance. We do not mean to be understood, that all the schools, to which we have referred, afford equal advantages, and promise equally auspicious results; but that all will further the cause of legal education, and produce their appropriate fruits.

Strata jacent passim sua quâque sub arbore poma.

99

Notice was lately taken, in the "United States Literary Gazette, of Judge Reeve's "Treatise on the Law of Descents," and of "The Summary of the Law and Practice of Real Actions," by Professor Stearns of Harvard University, as valuable productions, for which we are indebted to the establishment of law-schools. The treatise of the former gentleman, on "The Domestic Relations, Powers of Chancery," &c., we are informed in his Preface, ❝contains that which for many years had been delivered as lectures to pupils." The lectures of the late Mr. Justice Wilson, delivered thirty-seven years ago, while he was professor of law in the college of Philadelphia (afterwards united with the University of Pennsylvania, under the latter title), are, we believe, the first fruits which the profession gathered from the stock of law-professorships in the American colleges. The course, which that learned professor had prescribed to himself, was never completed; nor do those parts of it, which he accomplished, seem to have received the corrections that he doubtless would have made, if he had prepared them for the press. They come to us with many of the disadvantages which usually attend posthumous publications. They were printed in 1804, under the inspection of an editor, who thought himself not at liberty to make any alterations in the author's language. With all these circumstances to diminish the value of the work, it is, nevertheless, a desirable accession to our libraries, and subsequent lecturers have drawn largely from its

See vol. i. p. 229, and vol. iii. p. 112.

stores. The ardor with which the author cultivated his favorite science, and the important services which he rendered to his country, entitle him to a most respectful remembrance.

Mr. Hoffman, Professor of Law in the University of Maryland, published his "Course of Legal Study" in 1817, by which he justly acquired much reputation, and made the members of the profession his debtors. From the Law Academy of Philadelphia, opened in 1821, the public have received the "Dissertation on the Nature and Extent of the Jurisdiction of the Courts of the United States," by Mr. Du Ponceau, and a "Sketch of the National Judiciary Powers exercised in the United States prior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution," by Mr. Sergeant. These gentlemen are the presiding officers of that institution; and "The United States Literary Gazette" for June last, contains a commendatory notice of an academical exercise of one of their students. Mr. Du Ponceau's Dissertation is very creditable to his learning and acuteness, and is of high value to the oldest and maturest jurisconsults of our country. But, with great submission, we must be allowed to question the utility of pressing upon the students at law an investigation of "the upper points" of jurisprudence which are discussed in that very able work. Justice requires us to add, that it was delivered as a valedictory address to a class. It was, with much judgment, we think, reserved for a final lesson. We exceedingly doubt, whether any young man, though he may have been three years at the feet of Gamaliel, can master those topics. They require, as we conceive, that more extensive and multifarious knowledge of legal history and principles should be applied to the consideration of them, than any pupil can obtain during the short novitiate prescribed in our country. Our profoundest lawyers, including the judges of our highest national tribunal, have heretofore differed, and still differ, on these great questions. It is not our belief, however ingeniously they may be mooted there, that the youth of our law-schools will ever be competent tantas componere lites.

We are not without fear, that in some of the institutions, where legal education is now sought, the great code of our national jurisprudence will receive more than its due share of attention. That code "has now become a solid and magnificent structure, and it seems destined, at no very distant period of time, to cast a shade over the less elevated, and perhaps we must add, the less attractive and ambitious systems of justice in the several states."

"There are several reasons," says the former chancellor of New York, "why we may anticipate the still increasing influence

of the federal government, and the continual enlargement of the national systems of law in magnitude and value. The judiciary of the United States has an advantage over many of the state courts in the tenure of the office of the judges, and the liberal and stable provision for their support. The United States are, by these means, fairly entitled to command better talents, and to look for more firmness of purpose, greater independence of action, and brighter displays of learning. The federal administration of justice has a manifest superiority over that of the individual states, in consequence of the uniformity of its decisions, and the universality of their application. Every state court will naturally be disposed to borrow light and aid from the national courts, rather than from the courts of other individual states, which will probably never be so generally respected and understood. The states are multiplying so fast, and the reports of their judicial decisions are becoming so numerous, that few lawyers will be able or willing to master all the intricacies and anomalies of local law, existing beyond the boundaries of their own state. Twenty-four independent state courts of final jurisdiction over the same questions, arising upon the same general code of common and of equity law, must necessarily impair the symmetry of that code.

"The danger to be apprehended is, that students will not have the courage to enter the complicated labyrinth of so many systems, and that they will, of course, entirely neglect them, and be contented with a knowledge of the law of their own state, and the law of the United States, and then resort, for further assistance, to the neverfailing fountains of European wisdom.

"But, though the national judiciary may be deemed preeminent in the weight of its influence, the authority of its decisions, and in the attraction of their materials, there are abundant considerations to cheer and animate us in the cultivation of our own local law. The judicial power of the United States is necessarily limited to national objects. The vast field of the law of property, the very extensive head of equity jurisdiction, and the principal rights and duties which flow from our civil and domestic relations, fall within the control, and we might almost say, the exclusive cognizance of of the state governments. We look essentially to the state courts for protection to all these momentous interests. They touch, in their operation, every chord of human sympathy, and control our best destinies. It is their province to reward and to punish. Their blessings and their terrors will accompany us to the fireside, and be in constant activity before the public eye.' The elementary principles of the common law are the same in every state, and equally enlighten and invigorate every part of our country. Our municipal codes can be made to advance with equal steps with that of the nation, in discipline, in wisdom, and in lustre, if the state

governments (as they ought in all honest policy) will only render equal patronage and security to the administration of justice. The true interests, and the permanent freedom of this country require, that the jurisprudence of the individual states should be cultivated, cherished, and exalted, and the dignity and reputation of the state authorities sustained with becoming pride. In their subordinate relation to the United States, they should endeavour to discharge the duty which they owe to the latter, without forgetting the respect which they owe to themselves. In the appropriate language of Sir William Blackstone, and which he applied to the people of his own country, they should be loyal, yet free; obedient, and yet independent.""

This extract is from the last of that class of publications of which we have just spoken, and of which the title stands at the head of this article. The author, in 1798, was appointed by Governor Jay, an associate justice of the Supreme Court of New York. In 1804, he was promoted to the office of chief justice, and in 1814, was made chancellor of that State. This last office he held until August, 1823, when, by a preposterous provision in the constitution of New York, which forbids the exercise of judicial functions by men more than sixty years old, his country was deprived of those official services with which it had been so eminently blessed, and by which he had secured the renown of one of the ablest and most accomplished of American jurists. The trustees of Columbia College (New York) thereupon appointed him professor of law in that institution, and he resolved, to use his own language, to employ the entire leisure, in which he found himself, in further endeavours to discharge the debt which, according to Lord Bacon, every man owes to his profession. The volume before us contains twenty-three lectures, delivered to "a collection of interesting young gentlemen," who placed themselves under his instruction, and is now submitted "to the notice of students, and of the junior members of the profession, for whose use they were originally compiled."

The book is divided into three parts. The first part comprises nine lectures on the Law of Nations; the second, ten lectures on the Government and Constitutional Jurisprudence of the United States; and the third, four lectures on the various Sources of the Municipal Law of the several States.

We think the First Part is an admirable summary of the most important principles of the law of nations. Indeed we have never seen so much valuable matter, on this subject, compressed into so narrow a compass. Still it is very lucid and intelligible. The author evinces an intimate acquaintance with all the best writers,

ancient and modern, who have treated on natural and national law, and very happily illustrates, from the journals of our continental congress, and other historical sources, the sound learning which our revolutionary worthies employed in working out the deliverance of their country. We extract a passage from the eighth lecture, on Treaties, because we esteem it as the orthodox faith on a point, which once greatly agitated the politicians of this country.

"Treaties of peace, when made by the competent power, are obligatory upon the whole nation. If the treaty requires the payment of money to carry it into effect, and the money cannot be raised but by an act of the legislature, the treaty is morally obligatory upon the legislature to pass the law, and to refuse it would be a breach of public faith. The department of the government that is intrusted by the constitution with the treaty-making power, is competent to bind the national faith in its discretion; for the power to make treaties of peace must be coextensive with all the exigencies of the nation, and necessarily involves in it that portion of the national sovereignty which has the exclusive direction of all diplomatic negociations and contracts with foreign powers. All treaties made by that power become of absolute efficacy, because they are the supreme law of the land." p. 155.

In this connexion, we cite from the second part of this work, (Lecture XIII.) two other paragraphs, which we fully approve.

"The question, whether a treaty constitutionally made, was obligatory upon congress, equally as any other national engagement would be, if fairly made by the competent authority; or whether congress had any discretionary power to carry into effect a treaty requiring the appropriation of money, or other act to be done on their part, or to refuse it their sanction, was greatly discussed in congress in the year 1796, and again in 1816. The house of representatives, at the former period, declared, by resolution, that when a treaty depended for the execution of any of its stipulations on an act of congress, it was the right and duty of the house to deliberate on the expediency or inexpediency of carrying such treaty into effect. It cannot be mentioned, at this day, without equal regret and astonishment, that such a resolution passed the house of representatives on the 7th of April, 1796. But it was a naked abstract claim of right never acted upon; and congress shortly afterwards passed a law to carry into effect the very treaty with Great Britain, which gave rise to that resolution. President Washington, in his message to the house of representatives of the 30th of March, 1796, explicitly denied the existence of any such power in congress; and he insisted, that every treaty duly made by the president and senate, and promulgated, thenceforward became the law of the land.