ess of that corporation before such a numerous and distinguished
assembly, had not you, sir, relieved my well-founded anxiety by justly
anticipating and appreciating my difficulties. Let me hope, that herein
you were the interpreter of this distinguished assembly's indulgence.

Gentlemen of the Bar, you have the noble task to be the first
interpreters of the law; to make it subservient to justice; to maintain
its eternal principles against encroachment; and to restore those
principles to life, whenever they become obliterated by misunderstanding
or by violence. My opinion is, that Law must keep pace in its
development with institutions and intelligence, and until these are
perfect, law is and must be with them in continual progress. Justice is
immortal, eternal, and immutable, like God himself; and the development
of law is only then a progress, when it is directed towards those
principles which, like Him, are eternal; and whenever prejudice or error
succeeds in establishing in customary law any doctrine contrary to
eternal justice, it is one of your noblest duties, gentlemen,--having no
written Code to fetter justice within the bonds of error and
prejudice,--it is one of your noblest duties to apply _Principles_,
--to show that an unjust custom is a corrupt practice, an
abuse; and by showing this, to originate that change, or rather
development in the unwritten, customary law, which is necessary to make
it protect justice, instead of opposing and violating it.

If this be your noble vocation in respect to the Private laws of your
country, let me entreat you, gentlemen, to extend it to that Public law
which, regulating the mutual duties of nations towards each other, rules
the destinies of humanity. You know that in that eternal code of "nature
and of nature's God," which your forefathers invoked when they raised
the colonies of England to the rank of a free nation, there are no
pettifogging subtleties, but only everlasting principles: everlasting,
like those by which the world is ruled. You know that when artificial
cunning of ambitious oppressors succeeds to pervert those principles,
and when passive indifference or thoughtlessness submits to it, as
weakness must submit: it is the noble destiny--let me say, duty--of
enlightened nations, alike powerful as free, to restore those eternal
principles to practical validity, so that justice, light, and truth may
sway, where injustice, oppression, and error have prevailed. Ra