himself something like definite and clear opinions, and
also knows something of the opinions of his neighbors, on matters of
justice. And he would know that no statute, unless it were so clearly
just as to command the unanimous assent of twelve men, who should be
taken at random from the whole community, could be enforced so as to
take from him his reputation, property, liberty, or life. What greater
certainty can men require or need, as to the laws under which they are
to live? If a statute were enacted by a legislature, a man, in order to
know what was its true interpretation, whether it were constitutional,
and whether it would be enforced, would not be under the necessity of
waiting for years until some suit had arisen and been carried through
all the stages of judicial proceeding, to a final decision. He would
need only to use his own reason as to its meaning and its justice, and
then talk with his neighbors on the same points. Unless he found them
nearly unanimous in their interpretation and approbation of it, he would
conclude that juries would not unite in enforcing it, and that it would
consequently be a dead letter. And he would be safe in coming to this
conclusion.

There would be something like certainty in the administration of
justice, and in the popular knowledge of the law, for the further reason
that there would be little legislation, and men's rights would be left
to stand almost solely upon the law of nature, or what was once called
in England "the _common law_," (before so much legislation and
usurpation had become incorporated into the common law,)--in other
words, upon the principles of natural justice.

Of the certainty of this law of nature, or the ancient English common
law, I may be excused for repeating here what I have said on another
occasion.

"Natural law, so far from being uncertain, when compared with
statutory and constitutional law, is the only thing that gives any
certainty at all to a very large portion of our statutory and
constitutional law. The reason is this. The words in which statutes
and constitutions are written are susceptible of so many different
meanings,--meanings widely different from, often directly opposite
to, each other, in their bearing upon men's rights,--that, unless
there were some rule of interpretation for determining which of these
various and opposite meanings are the true ones, there could be no
certainty at all as to the me