An Attack on the Doctrine of Stare Decisis ing?" Was it not I? Do you not know that the saying of President Lincoln that this is a "government of the people, for the people, and by the people" is “but a schoolboy‘s dream, the wonder of an hour" to us corpora tions? Have you forgotten what brother Van derbilt said in reference to that matter (the rights of the public)?
Well, those are my
sentiments. Did I not, in open defiance of law and against the express wish of the people make my notorious “merger" with the South ern Railway Company? Did it not work all right? Is not the combination still on? As Alexander Selkirk said, “There is none my right to dispute." 'Tis true that my suggestion of error may be looked on merely as error of suggestion by the citizen who has had the audacity to com plain of the destruction of his property and the folly to rely on what he foolishly deems his "Bill of Rights" as defined and expressed in the oonstitution—-which he mutters through hisIbruised lips as the “organic law"; but "let the heathen rage." 'Tis true that I call on you to say that the law of today shall not be the law of tomorrow; that the doctrine of stare decisis be but the ghost of a dead past; that you shall decide to be undecided and that your opinions shall be entitled "Mississippi Supreme Court Indeci sions. What if Blackstone did say "A law is better for its certainty than anything else"? What if those semi-barbarians—-the Modes and Persians-had the same idea centuries before? 'Tis true that all courts have held hereto fore that “ignorance is no excuse at law," but I desire to make you make your decisions as unstable as the uncertain glory of a woman's smile-that wins but to wander-that none may know what to know and thus what they know. In other words, make them only certain of their uncertainty. You will understand, of course, that my "suggestion" is in the nature of a motion for a change of venue to remove the practice of law from the lofty pedestal of legal knowl edge to the low status quo of a guessing con test-—-to make ignorance the standard of ex cellence. It might strike a mind afllicted with a sheer negation of thought that we are making our dictum a. little too strong for the Court, but, it would be well to remember, in this con nection, that it seemed to puzzle Shakspere
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to find out where Caesar got his meat (that made him so great), but we, the most mighty Mobile & Ohio Railroad Company, can in form him (or rather his descendants, for it has
come to our ears that probably the old gen tleman is dead), that we run the market where he got it, and can be a. disseisor of five pounds while he is seisor of one. We would further inform the Court that we have employed two learned lawyers, who live on the banks of the suffering Tombigbee,
which by the oversight of the federal Gov ernment in the way of necessary appropria tions is compelled to plead nil debet to the claims of commerce, as presented by the Mexic sea.
One of them (Orr) has a name
that is idem sonans with a disjunctive con junction, and we ask the Court to disjoin the conjunction of its decision. The other is younger, but Fame has in formed us that she is putting in all of her spare time weaving a chaplet for his noble brow——which would have been finished ere this if the aforesaid brow had not been so large, for it requires more, in the way of a chaplet, to go round. We believe that she is going to make quite a pet of him, for she laughed and called him "baby mine." These have filed a brief, as a background
for my suggestion of error, and rely upon two decisions to support the same, to wit:— “Jackson v. M. <3’ 0. R. R. Co., 89 Miss. p. 38." The Court says: “The replication shows that there was an unobstructed view for a mile and a half or two miles, and, if Jackson
had glanced in the direction from which the train was approaching, he must necessarily have seen the train." It also says that the track was “straight." We admit that our case presents an entirely different state of facts, for the uncontradicted testimony is that
the view was
obstructed
by woods,
the track was curved, and appellant could not therefore have "necessarily" “seen the train had he glanced in the direction from which it was coming." Besides, appellant did all he could to avoid the injury and my agents did all they could to cause it—and succeeded,
as they generally do under such circumstances. He obeyed and we disobeyed the law. The next case they quote is: “Jackson v. Railroad Company, 10 Miss. p. 38." We fear that their zeal has outstripped their judgment in this matter, for, upon a
