e of lawyer-like
sobriety with the democratic principle, I question whether democratic
institutions could long be maintained, and I cannot believe that a
republic could subsist at the present time if the influence of lawyers
in public business did not increase in proportion to the power of the
people.

This aristocratic character, which I hold to be common to the legal
profession, is much more distinctly marked in the United States and in
England than in any other country. This proceeds not only from the legal
studies of the English and American lawyers, but from the nature of
the legislation, and the position which those persons occupy in the
two countries. The English and the Americans have retained the law of
precedents; that is to say, they continue to found their legal opinions
and the decisions of their courts upon the opinions and the decisions of
their forefathers. In the mind of an English or American lawyer a taste
and a reverence for what is old is almost always united to a love of
regular and lawful proceedings.

This predisposition has another effect upon the character of the legal
profession and upon the general course of society. The English and
American lawyers investigate what has been done; the French advocate
inquires what should have been done; the former produce precedents,
the latter reasons. A French observer is surprised to hear how often
an English dr an American lawyer quotes the opinions of others, and how
little he alludes to his own; whilst the reverse occurs in France. There
the most trifling litigation is never conducted without the introduction
of an entire system of ideas peculiar to the counsel employed; and the
fundamental principles of law are discussed in order to obtain a
perch of land by the decision of the court. This abnegation of his own
opinion, and this implicit deference to the opinion of his forefathers,
which are common to the English and American lawyer, this subjection of
thought which he is obliged to profess, necessarily give him more timid
habits and more sluggish inclinations in England and America than in
France.

The French codes are often difficult of comprehension, but they can be
read by every one; nothing, on the other hand, can be more impenetrable
to the uninitiated than a legislation founded upon precedents. The
indispensable want of legal assistance which is felt in England and in
the United States, and the high opinion which is generally entertained
of