Our lawyers signed the
Declaration of Independence, served in the Continental Congress, acted
as delegates to the Constitutional Convention, and met in the various
conventions called by the states to consider the ratification of that
great instrument. They not only knew that common law, but they had
studied closely the political history of Greece and Rome, and were
familiar with the principles of government as set forth by Montesquieu
and Adam Smith.
It was the American Bar that gave to the people of the United States
such lawyers as Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, George
Mason, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, John Adams, James Otis, Samuel
Chase, Samuel Adams, Roger Sherman, Oliver Ellsworth, James Wilson,
Edmund Randolph and many others not less learned and brilliant, to
establish their liberties, frame the limitations of their government and
care for the protection of individual rights. The same Bar furnished a
little later that lawyer and judge, John Marshall, whose interpretation
of the Constitution was as important in its beneficent effect as its
original framing.
Pages:
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33