Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/966

930 HARVARD LAW REVIEW on that ground. Judges are loth to say: "We decide this particular case in this particular way because we think that this is the best way to decide it." Instead, they are prone to refer their judgment to some immutable principle inherent in the nature of things, or unalterably established by the authoritative judgments of their predecessors. In the realm of constitutional law, courts are fond of professing that it is not they that speak, but the Constitution that speaketh in them, even in settling such disputes as this study has chronicled, concerning which concededly the Constitution is silent. Where the Constitution is not wholly mum, it often speaks with such a still, small voice that only a bare majority of the court can hear its echo. Yet the judicial opinions seldom recognize the patent fact. So long as judges pose as automatons when they are in fact wise arbiters of public poHcy and practical expediency, they necessarily hide their wisdom under the bushel of a supposed con- straining conceptualism, which confuses much that would otherwise be simple and clear. The wonder is that wisdom so generally finds its way and controls the actual adjudications which together make " the law. This could hardly be, if doctrine played any such potent part in shaping the course of the decisions as the opinions of the judges would lead us to beHeve. The judicial mnpiring of the contests between the conflicting claims of the states and of the nation over the exercise of the taxing power has clearly not been controlled by any imdisputed and com- pelUng doctrine. That is why it has so greatly perplexed those who see in doctrine their only guide. To dispel the perplexity we must study the cases as practical adjustments of competing interests, ■ each of which is entitled to a degree of consideration. The interest which will be accorded the preference in one situation may have to be determined in the Hght of the preferences which have been ac- corded in other situations. No single adjustment liveth to itself alone. In a federal system there must be reciprocal give and take between the whole and the several parts. It must often be impossi- ble in particular instances to make an even apportionment of the giving and the taking. So it may be necessary to favor now one side, and now the other. The aim should be to strike as even a balance as possible in the whole account. This can never be done by pious invocation of some image which men choose to call "Sov- ereignty." It must be done, as it has been done, by applying human