THE AMERICAN LAWYER an injunction is obedience to God. In the name of liberty they become rioters. If 114,000 lawyers in the United States were to refrain from abusing injunctions, and each, according to his knowledge and dis cretion, should strive to teach the people that the doctrines of equity are for the com mon good, it would in these days of agita tion immeasurably promote that " general welfare " for which the government was established. Trial by newspaper is infinitely more harmful than government by injunction. In our Constitution there is no prohibition more pronounced than in relation to bills of attainder. Article I prohibits the pas sage of bills of attainder, in section 9 to Congress, and in section 10 to the states. It is followed by a provision as to the judiciary "that no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted." Now, in English law, what had been the character of acts of attainder? Mr. Justice Miller in Garland's case, said: "i. They were convictions and sentences pronounced by the legislative department of government instead of the judicial. "2. The sentence pronounced and the pun ishment inflicted were determined by no previous law or fixed rule. "3. The investigation of the guilt of the accused, if any such were made, was not necessarily or generally conducted in his presence or that of his counsel, and no recognized rule of evidence governed the in quiry." Most of these are the peculiar character istics of trial by newspaper. It is as lawless as the shameful trials of the witches in Massachusetts, in 1692, concerning which it should be always remembered that the judges were none of them lawyers. It was a quasi ecclesiastical court. Its ways were not our ways. The lawyer, as an officer of the court, should be temperate in language. He should recognize the responsibility of office. Super
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latives are for the weak, for those limited in observation and experience. The writings of Abraham Lincoln, a typical American lawyer, are splendid models of temperate language. His words as well as his acts were tempered with wisdom. With the privileges of 'the profession go its responsibilities. Unconsidered words spoken by one in authority have a borrowed and fictitious value. The lawyer is not debarred from fair criticism, but indiscrim inate abuse is not criticism. Criticism is an act of judgment. A common scold is not a critic. The literary' style of lawyers and judges is, oftentimes, the subject of popular sar castic comment. But Noah Webster, in the preface to his dictionary, in the edition of 1828; referring to the legal decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States and of some of the particular states, says their style "in purity, in elegance, and in technical precision is equaled only by that of the best British authors and surpassed by that of no English compositions of a similar kind." Of the judicial style of the opinions of Chief Justice Bigelow in the Massachusetts Reports, the late Judge Curtis said he knew of no better models in any law reports. Chief Justice Shaw had the bluntness of Ellenborough in interrupting counsel. He had the unconscious insolence of conscious strength. He disliked Rufus Choate's volu minous vocabulary. Once, when with great redundancy the eloquent advocate had stated his contention,-the chief justice asked him to repeat his proposition. Choate hesitated for an instant and then complied, with even more picturesque elaboration. "You mean this," said the chief justice, compressing the statement into the baldest terms. "Yes, your honor." "Then, why didn't you say so? " "I should, had I your honor's felicity of diction," was the unruffled reply. Diffuseness and prolixity are the perils of the lawyer. Chief Justice Parsons, like Scarlett, said that "a half-hour was long
