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4504.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature * * * -DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE AS DRAWN BY JEFFERSON.

4505. LAW, Ignorance.-Ignorance of the law is no excuse in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can be always pretended.-To M. LIMOZIN. ii, 338. (P., 1787.)

4506. LAW, Instability.-The instability of our laws is really an immense evil. think it would be well to provide in our constitutions that there shall always be a twelvemonth between the engrossing a bill and passing it; that it should then be offered to its passage without changing a word; and that if circumstances should be thought to require a speedier passage, it should take two-thirds of both Houses, instead of a bare majority. TO JAMES MADISON. ii, 333. FORD ED., iv, 480. (P., 1787.)

4507. LAW, Intention of. Whenever the words of a law will bear two meanings, one of which will give effect to the law, and the other will defeat it, the former must be supposed to have been intended by the Legislature, because they could not intend that meaning, which would defeat their intention, in passing that law; and in a statute, as in a will, the intention of the party is to be sought after.-To ALBERT GALLATIN. v, 328. (M., July 1808.)

4508.

Anciently before the improvement, or, perhaps, the existence of the Court of Chancery, the judges did not restrain themselves to the letter of the

law. They allowed themselves greater latitude, extending the provisions of every law, not only to the cases within its letter, but to those also which came within the spirit and reason of it. This was called the equity of the law, but it is now very long since certainty

Congress struck out the words in brackets, changed "suffered" to "obstructed" and inserted "by" before "refusing".-EDITOR.

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in the law has become so highly valued by the nation, that the judges have ceased to extend the operation of laws beyond those cases which are. clearly within the intention of the legislators. This intention is to be collected principally from the words of the law; only where these are ambiguous they are permitted to gather further evidence from the history of the times when the law was made, and the Circumstances which produced it.-TO PHILLIP MAZZEI. FORD ED., iv, 109. (P., 1785.) LAW, International.-See BELLIGERCONTRABAND, ENEMY GOODS, FREE SHIPS, NEUTRALITY, PRIVATEERS, and TREA

ENTS,

TIES.

*

4509. LAW, Lex Talionis.-The Lex talionis, although a restitution of the Common Law, [is] revolting to the humanized feelings of modern times. An eye for an eye, and a hand for a hand, will exhibit spectacles in execution whose moral effect would be questionable; and even the membrum pro membro of Bracton, or the punishment of the offending member, although long authorized by our law, for the same offence in a slave, has been not long since repealed, in conformity with public sentiment. This needs reconsideration.*-To GEORGE WYTHE. i, 146. FORD ED., ii, 204. (M., 1778.)

4510. LAW, Lynch.-It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law, than that he should escape.-TO WILLIAM CARMICHAEL. ii, 399. FORD ED., v, 26. (P., 1788.) There is

4511.

no country

which is not sometimes subject to irregular There is no interpositions of the people. country able, at all times, to punish them. There is no country which has less of this to reproach itself with than the United States, nor any, where the laws have more regular course, or are more habitually and cheerfully acquiesced in.-TO GEORGE HAMMOND. 413. FORD ED., vi, 54. (Pa., May 1792.)

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4512. LAW, Obedience to.-He is a bad citizen who can entertain a doubt whether the law will justify him in saving his country, or who will scruple to risk himself in support of the spirit of a law, where unavoidable accidents have prevented a literal compliance with it.-LETTER TO COUNTY MAGISTRATES. FORD ED., ii, 431. (R., 1781.)

4513. While the laws shall be obeyed all will be safe. FROM JEfferson's MSS. FORD ED., viii, 1. (1801?)

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4515. LAW, Protests against.-While the principles of our Constitution give just latitude to inquiry, every citizen faithful to it will deem embodied expressions of discontent, and open outrages of law and patriotism, as dishonorable as they are injurious.-R. TO A. LEESBURG CITIZENS. viii, 161. (1809.)

4516. LAW, Reason and.-Sound reason should constitute the law of every country.BATTURE CASE. viii, 531. (1812.)

4517. LAW, Retrospective. I agree in an almost unlimited condemnation of retrospective laws. The few instances of wrong which they redress are so overweighed by the insecurity they draw over all property and even over life itself, and by the atrocious violations of both to which they lead, that it is better to live under the evil than the remedy.

OFFICIAL OPINION. vii, 470. FORD ED., V, 176. (1790.)

4518.

The sentiment that ex post facto laws are against natural right, is so strong in the United States, that few, if any, of the State Constitutions have failed to proscribe them. The Federal Constitution, indeed, interdicts them in criminal cases only; but they are equally unjust in civil as in criminal cases, and the omission of a caution which would have been right, does not justify the doing what is wrong.-To ISAAC MCPHERSON. vi, 176. (M., 1813.)

4519. Every man should be protected in his lawful acts, and be certain that no ex post facto law shall punish or endanger him for them.—TO ISAAC MCPHERSON. vi, 175. (M., Aug. 1813.)

4520. Nature and reason, as well as all our constitutions, condemn retrospective conditions as mere acts of power against right.-TO CHARLES YANCEY. vi, 515. FORD ED., X, 2. (M., 1816.)

4521. LAW, Roman vs. Feudal.-The French code, like all those of middle and southern Europe, was originally Feudal, with some variations in the different provinces, formerly independent, of which the kingdom of France had been made up. But as circumstances changed, and civilization and commerce advanced, abundance of new cases and questions arose, for which the simple and unwritten laws of Feudalism had made no provision. At the same time, they had at hand the legal system of a nation highly civilized, a system carried to a degree of conformity with natural reason attained by no other. The study of this system, too, was become the favorite of the age, and offering ready and reasonable solutions of all the new cases presenting themselves, was recurred to by a common consent and practice; not, indeed, as laws, formally established by the legislator of the country, but as a Ratio Scripta, the dictate, in all cases, of that sound reason which should constitute the law of every country. Over both of these systems, however, the occasional edicts of the monarch are paramount, and amend and control their provisions whenever he deems amendment necessary; on the gen

eral principle that "leges posteriores priores abrogant". Subsequent laws abrogate those which are prior.-BATTURE CASE. viii, 530. (1812.)

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4522.

The following instances will give some idea of the steps by which the Roman gained on the Feudal laws. A law of Burgundy provided "Si quis post hoc barbarus vel testari voluerit, vel donare, aut Romanam consuetudinem, aut barbaricam, subject hereafter shall desire to dispose by legesse servandam, sciat". "If any barbarian acy or donation, let him know that either the Roman or barbarian law is to be observed." And one of Lotharius II. of Germany, going of the system under which he chose to live, still further, gives to every one an election Volumus ut cunctus populus Romanus interrogatur quali lege vult vivere; ut tali lege, quali professi sunt vivere vivant; illisque denuntiatur, ut hoc unus-quis-que, tam judices, quam judices, vel reliquus populus sciat, quod si offensionem contra eandem legem fecerint, eidem legi, quâ profitentur vivere, subjaceant". "We will that all the Roman people shall be asked by what law they wish to live; that they may live under such law as they profess to live by; and that it be published, that every one, judges, as well as generals, or the rest of the people, may know that if they commit offence against the said law, they shall be subject to the same law by which they profess to live." Ency. Method. Jurisprudence. Coutume. 399. Presenting the uncommon instead of places. Thus favored, the Roman spectacle of a jurisdiction attached to persons, became an acknowledged supplement to the Feudal or customary law; but still, not under any act of the legislature, but as raison écrite ", " written reason": and the cases to which it is applicable, becoming much the most numerous, it constitutes in fact the mass of their law.-NOTE IN BATTURE CASE. 531. (1812.)

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4523. LAW, Sanguinary.-The experience of all ages and countries has shown that cruel and sanguinary laws defeat their own purpose, by engaging the benevolence of mankind to withhold prosecutions, to smother testimony, or to listen to it with bias, and by producing in many instances a total dispensation and impunity under the names of pardon and privilege of clergy; when, if the punishment were only proportioned to the injury, men would feel it their inclination, as well as their duty, to see the laws observed.— CRIMES BILL. i, 148. FORD ED., ii, 204. (1779.)

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