520
THE GREEN BAG
enough in which to argue a case to court or jury." He was marvelously concise. Of him Story said: "His words are gold." Sir James Scarlett, being asked why he never addressed a jury more than a half-hour, replied: "It takes just thirty minutes to lodge an idea in a juryman's head. The average juryman's mind can hold but one idea, consequently if I succeed in putting a second idea there I only dislodge the first." A great principle was laconically expressed in a single sentence by Marshall in Ameri can Insurance Company v. Canter (i Peters 511,542): "The Constitution confers abso lutely on the government of the union the powers of making war and of making treatties, consequently that government possesses the power of acquiring territory either by conquest or by treaty." Thus was the whole doctrine of expan sion and the elasticity of the Constitution embraced within - the limit of thirty-four words. Language is uncertain. Few legislators. are trained philologists. Chief Baron Pol lock said: "Judges are philologists of the highest order." In the transmutation of thought into language, words with but one meaning can seldom be used. So it hap pens that a great part of the proverbial uncertainty of the law arises from the lan guage used in contracts, opinions, and stat utes. Herein lies the necessity of construc tion. "One-half of the English language," said Baron Alderson, "is interpreted by the context." In this, as in all matters, the Court is the final arbiter. Every statute is interpreted in the light of surrounding cir cumstances. The state of the law, like the state of the art in new inventions, is to be considered. The existing statutes and their judicial interpretation throw light on the new enactment. The meaning of the stat ute involves not only the words used, but the spirit of the law. If the words fail to express the spirit of the enactment, the intention of its framers fails. The. lawyer who detects flaws in a statute is no more
responsible for such flaws than is the phy sician who diagnoses a disease responsible for the bodily ailment of his patient. To the physician it counts for skill. The more latent the cause of the malady the more honor is paid to the skill that discovers it. How is it with the 'lawyer whose skill and learning give an unexpected but accepted interpretation to a statute? Does he win a crown? What says the layman? Ignorant of the province of the lawyer, ignorant of the meaning of those grand words written in delibly in the Constitution of Massachusetts, words which Governor Andrew could never repeat without a thrill — "To the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men"; ignorant of the rules of logic, he draws the important conclusion that the lawyer advises his client how to break the law. Is it possible to suppose that there is need of legal advice to break a law? Any tyro can do that. But to know what the law means, what offense is forbidden, is not only the right and duty of all men in every capacity, but it is a knowledge imputed by •the law, and ignorance of which excuses no one. The doing of that which is not within the scope of a statute is not its evasion. It is neither circumventing nor overriding the law; it is the exercise of an undoubted right. It is the duty of counsel to determine the scope of a statute. Judge Story once drafted an act passed by Congress, which afterward came before him for construction. He decided that the act had a different meaning from what he had intended in its drafting. His words failed to express his intention. After the passage of an act, the words become the words of the law and are to be construed by accepted canons of construction. The wide-spread, popular criticism of the lawyer for his part in the construction of statutes has no foundation in reason. The duty of the lawyer is self-evident, and in its performance he violates no rule of law or code of ethics.
