Remove All Doubt
Monday, October 18
 
The More Things Change . . .
Here's E. Fitch Smith writing in 1848 about American courts, quoting Sir Fortunatus Dwarris who wrote sometime before 1826 about English courts:
"Instead of encroachment upon the common law, of which Bacon was
apprehensive, it seems that the Praetorian courts overflowed their banks in
the opposite direction, and, while sparing of injuctions, openly invaded the
province of the legislature. Upon a careful investigation of the course
actually pursued, it will be found that, in general, inconvenient laws were set
aside, and required changes were effected, by the use of technical fictions and
contrivances to evade inconsistent rules; and if there was a lamentable want
of politic institution, there has been thought to have been also, at times, some
defect of judicial principle."


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