their being presented to the public, be elaborately analyzed, and their character made known. There is no country in which some medium of legal communication and intelligence between the different parts is more necessary than in the United States, since the frequent migrations and active commerce among the different states, and the consequent intermixture of the interests and affairs of the subjects of distinct jurisdictions, make it important, and indeed necessary, that the members of the profession in one state should have some knowledge of the legislation and legal administration in the others, and much of this knowledge can be most conveniently and economically obtained through a periodical journal. Such a work may be no less useful and important as affording the means of information wanted by every practising lawyer and liberal student, respecting the legal proceedings and publications of foreign countries. Until very recently, a great part of our law, as well as our law books, were made in England; we followed the decisions of the English courts with a deference little short of servility, insomuch that our courts have, in some instances, felt themselves to be so strictly bound by their authority, as to reject very cogent and conclusive arguments against them, continuing to decide upon the old doctrine even after it had, in fact, been overruled and exploded by the English courts; until afterwards, by the subsequent publication of their reports, our judges felt themselves at liberty to decide in conformity to the demonstrated law of the case, without deeming it a violation of the respect due to those foreign tribunals, or apprehending the reproach of dangerous innovation. The maxim was, and indeed is, that the courts must administer the law as they find it; not make it; and as many doctrines of the law are the logical deductions from principles acknowledged both in England and this country, the practical application of the maxim was, that our courts were as much bound by the logic of the English judges, as by the principles of the common law. The means afforded us by a community of language to resort directly to the richly-stored re positories of English law, are, no doubt, of immense advantage, and will always continue to be so; but the time for implicitly adopting the English books, and servilely following the English administration of the law, is fast passing by; and the period of our pupilage is almost expired. 'I do not like,' says an eminent American jurist in a private letter now before us, 'this everlasting copying of British publications, this everlasting waiting for the word of the fugelman beyond sea;' and he expresses what we believe to be the universal sentiment of the profession. If the time is not already arrived, it is very near, when the British jurists, ceasing to be our masters and oracles, will only be our fellow-laborers in the common field of legal science; and the more we cease to adopt implicitly, and in the gross, their books and their law, the greater will be the necessity and utility of a work, one of the objects of which may be to direct the attention of the profession to such parts of the legal literature of Great Britain, as well as of the nations of the continent, as shall shed the most light upon our own system. A liberally and industriously conducted law journal may have a salutary influence upon our legislation, which is often directed to subjects of discussion that require a preparation on the part of the hearers, as well as the speakers. Upon many questions, such, for example, as that of a bankrupt law, and especially upon constitutional questions, the debate is very materially assisted, and much is done towards arriving at satisfactory conclusions, by a previously-published investigation, having reference to the particular question and occasion. The discussion of many of these questions involves the use of much technical language, and is accordingly very ill suited to the character of the periodical works now published. The question, for instance, of incorporating more of equity jurisdiction into the laws of Massachusetts, which has been agitated in the state for eight or ten years past, has never been thoroughly discussed in any publication; it has hardly been touched upon, because there was no publication suitable for this purpose. The subject has, therefore, labored, (v) the progress has been slow, and the successive steps have been taken with great hesitation, because the lawyers were, in general, very little acquainted with the subject, and possessed few books to give them any knowledge of it. Many of them thought, at first, that a court of equity was one in which the judge decides according to his discretion, or upon the principles of common sense, that is, in effect, upon no principles at all; and as long as they entertained such a prejudice, they were, as might have been expected, very averse to the establishment of such a court. A journal devoted to subjects of this sort would have set them right at once upon this point, and upon many others, which have been subjects of much awkward embarrassed debate between speakers and hearers, who could get no common position from which to start. The subject of codification is one that falls very naturally within the plan of our publication, and one that hardly seems to be in its place either in the newspapers or literary reviews; though it has occupied some share in both, since we first began to hear of Jeremy Bentham. The progress in this discussion towards satisfactory conclusions has been very slow. The question is even now discussed as a general one, that is, whether every community which has not digested its laws into the form • of a code should not immediately set about doing it, without taking into consideration whether their laws, as they stand, are voluminous or few, intelligible or obscure, multifarious or simple, or well or ill framed, or whether they can command the skill and talents requisite to any material reformation. These are questions certainly very pertinent and essential to the subject, and yet in the mode of discussion which has been most frequently adopted, they have been entirely excluded, for the reason that the inquiry did not relate to the laws of any particular community. It cannot, we think, be doubted that a journal devoted to subjects of this description, would have assisted the profession and the public very materially in arriving to satisfactory positions in regard to codification. From the Year Books downwards, the decisions of the courts, though regarded as authorities, that is, considered prima facie to be law, have yet been subjects of discussion, and must continue to be so, as long as law is entitled to the rank of a science, for a congeries of arbitrary inconsistent dogmas cannot be a science; and, therefore, the decision of a court which is not in harmony with the system of which it is intended to be a part, is, in effect, overruled as soon as it is pronounced. The candid, respectful, and liberal examination, in a suitable place, of a principle or doctrine contemporaneously decided by a court, is as fully authorized, and as proper, as the examination of any principle adopted a hundred years ago. And by far the most suitable place for such an examination is in a work addressed more particularly to lawyers. In such a work, an exception to a decision is less liable to the objection that it is an appeal from the court to the popular voice, than if it appears in a newspaper or other popular journal. We will not pretend to enumerate all the present deficiencies which a well-conducted law journal may supply, or all the modes in which its useful influence may be felt in the profession and in the community, but one other advantage of such a work ought not to be overlooked. It is due to the reputation of those distinguished judges and lawyers who, by their talents and labors, lay the foundation of the stability and permanent usefulness of our institutions, and it is also due to their survivors,-that some memorial more peculiarly appropriate, as well as more lasting, than marble or brass, should be dedicated to their memory, and that some niche should be set apart to them in a temple consecrated to intellectual greatness;-and no work can be more suitable for this purpose than a journal devoted to the science which they have advanced and adorned. In thus stating the present deficiencies of our legal literature, we have, at the same time, intimated the plan and principles on which the JURIST is intended to be conducted. An Address delivered before the Members of the Suffolk Observations on the Actual State of the English Laws Dissertations on the Questions which arise from the |