[clx. 217]

1821. May 3 d

First Lines

Procedure.

Under a Representative Democracy, the substantive branch of law has in every one of its several branches for its actual end, the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Sooner or later, it can not fail to have, for its actual object, the same all-comprehensive end in this branch likewise.

in the only as-yet fully-established specimen of Representative Democracy, viz. that of the Anglo American United States, the end, to which the system of Judicial Prcedure hath as yet been directed, it is not thus simple. It is a sort of double end: composed an end /in the composition of which/ one ingredient is the exclusively proper end abovementioned - the greatest happiness of the greatest number - the othr, of support and advancement of the particular interest of one influential class of men, the Professors of the Law.

In another country, from the yoke of which these States - originally called its Colonies or its plantations - so lately emancipated themselves, the support and advancement of this particular interest formed, as will be seen, one ingredient in the composite end to the fulfilment of which this branch of law was directed. In that Representative Democracy, though the yoke of this branch of the Aristocracy - such is still the blindness or negligence of the subject many - remains upon thier necks. True it is that, of the weight with which it continues to press upon the people at whose expence it was originally fabricated, a part, more or less considerable, has, though in different proportions and in different states, been put away. But, in that state in which there remains least of it, the pressure of this foreign nuisance is too severe not to be matter of just reproach to the people who, continued to endure it by continuing t endure it, show how much larger a share of patience than of discernment is exemplified in the composition of their minds.

Under