MUTABLE LAW AND IMMUTABLE JUSTICE.
ONCE justice always justice," is a
maxim frequently in the mouth of
lawyers, the truth of which it would be diffi
cult to dispute. The reference to precedent
is based upon it as a principle; what certain
wise men in judicial ermine considered just
a century or two ago being, in virtue of it,
just still. And hence the maxim, "Once
justice always justice," becomes synonymous
with a very different proposition, " Once
law always law," the falsehood of which is
very apparent. For to the reflective reader
of the histories of nations, few facts are
more patent than the mutability of laws.
Terrible and wise were the gray-bearded
Druids in Britain nineteen centuries ago,
with their Stonehenge, and oak temples of
justice, and their criminal jurisprudence,
which burned up scoundrels wholesale in
wicker baskets, in a fashion considerably dif
ferent from any now sanctioned by the Lord
Chief-Justice of England. And in these
nineteen centuries how numberless the
changes, how various the law-givers, — Ro
man, Saxon, Norman, in succession! What
was treason, in one reign, and a passport to
the scaffold, was patriotism and a passport to
royal favor in the next. Opinions, for the
promulgation of which judges recorded sen
tence of death, raised some of their suc
cessors to the bench. " Once law always
law," is a proposition that will not stand,
whether the law be the opinion of a judge or
the edict of an emperor, unless in those rare
cases where the judge has had the clear
vision to see, the steady hand and the unfet
tered will to touch, some point in immutable
justice.
Caprice, fashion, ignorance, and
expediency, which dictate laws through monarchs, mobs, and houses of Parliament, and
even through judges, are the changeful crea
tions of the changing ages, and almost as
mutable as the dresses and faces of fleeting
generations; but Justice sits afar, unchange
able, dimly seen, and often wrongly seen,
through the earthly mists and vapors that rise to veil its throne from imperfect human sight, yet ever claiming the allegiance of those who have realized that, not tp gratify sense, but to obey conscience and work the work of duty, is the high destiny of man. Of the influences that alter the human conception of justice from age to age, the chief is the growth of knowledge; in fact, it comprehends all the rest. As knowledge grows, iniquitous customs die out. They are offensive to the enlightened conscience, and seem to be obstructive to the enlightened selfishness of man. For what is just is good for all, and what is unjust is in the end good for no one. As the arch enemy of super stition, knowledge, surely if slowly, abolishes those unjust laws that owe their origin to superstitious beliefs. The justness of the laws of a State depend in great measure upon the conscientiousness and enlightenment of its law-givers. If they do not know the right, they cannot do it; if unconscientious, they will not, although they know. But generally ignorance, the essen tial condition of low intellect, and a low stan dard of personal rectitude, go together. It is impossible for a bad man to be very wise. Life scarcely affords leisure for wickedness and the acquisition of wisdom. It is equally impossible for a wise man to be very vile; for he has observed and noted that vicious pleasure does not last long, and that remorse is a dear price to pay for it; and he has seen the worthlessness of existence as an animal or a knave, very little wisdom being compe tent to lead to convictions of that sort, We may say, then, that defective knowledge has been the cause of most vicious laws, and a deference to what is supposed to be the wis dom of our ancestors, but which is in reality the want of it, absolute folly it may be, is the cause of their perpetuation. But knowl edge alone does not alter laws, for the knowl
