D'Aguesseau wrote: "The order of advocates is as ancient as the office of the judge, as noble as virtue, and as necessary as justice.'

In the case of Garland, Mr. Justice Field, delivering the judgment of a majority of the court, said, attorneys and counselors "are officers of the court, admitted as such by its order, upon evidence of their possossing sufficient legal learning and fair private character. They hold their office during good behavior, and can only be deprived of it for misconduct, ascertained and declared by the judgment of the court after opportunity to be heard has been afforded."

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And Mr. Justice Miller, in the same case, said: "It is believed that no civilized nation of modern times has been without a class of men intimately connected with the courts and with the administration of justice, called, variously, attorneys, counselors, solicitors, proctors and other terms of similar import. They are as essential to the successful working of the courts as the clerks, sheriffs and marshals, and perhaps, as the judges themselves, since no instance is known of a court of law without a bar."

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Considering the importance of the function the lawyer has to discharge, that the bar is intended for the assistance of the court as well as the suitors; that in fact, in the administration of justice, the bench and the bar are mutually dependent on each other, it is impossible to overestimate the importance of the highest standard of professional education and professional honor. If the law is as Choate said it was, "not the offspring of will at all, but the absolute justice of the State, enlightened by the perfect reason of the State

* enlightened justice assisting the social nature to perfect itself by the social life," how obvious it is that to cherish loyalty to law, and reverence for the laws, is the highest and most responsible of duties. The great Roman jurist thought that the citizen who obliged men to virtuous actions by the authority of laws, was certainly to be preferred to the philosophers, who could scarcely persuade a few by the force of their eloquence; "for which of their exquisite orations," exclaims he, "is so admirable as to be entitled to be preferred to a well constituted government, public justice and good customs?"

In pursuit of one of its declared objects, "to facilitate the administration of justice," this Association has heretofore recommended, and I avail myself of the office your partiality has conferred upon me, an honor I thoroughly appreciate, and for which I beg to express my sincere acknowledgments, to again recommend the expression of your desire for such legislation by Congress, as will tend to relieve the Supreme Court of the United States of the accumulation of cases incumbering its docket, and at the same time furnish additional judicial force in the various circuits. The late David Davis, whose memory it gives us so much satisfaction to honor, had given to this subject great attention, and during the term of his distinguished

service in the United States Senate, succeeded in passing through that body, a bill calculated to attain these results. This was modeled upon our Appellate Court system, and I suggest to the Association that it again press the subject upon the attention of Congress. The need is most pressing. From less than three hundred cases in 1858, there are over thirteen hundred on the calendar at the present term, of which more than four hundred cannot be disposed of. The withdrawal of causes depending merely on citizenship is out of the question. The dispensation from the discharge of circuit duties, so that the annual term could be lengthened, would probably be inadequate, and is objected to on other grounds.

The proposal to enlarge and divide the court, has (as I think properly) not met with favor. The legislation which Judge Davis sagaciously sought to bring about, affords the most efficacious remedy. In the same connection, the condition of the Supreme Court of our own State in being compelled to hold six terms a year in three different divisions, should not pass unnoticed. I recommend that the Association, at its present session, urge upon the attention of the General Assembly the necessity and desirability of the consolidation of the terms of the court at one place, and that appropriately the Capital of the State. The time expended in these frequent journeys, the additional expense to which the members of the court are subjected, the want of sufficient personal inter-communication in discussion and consideration, the impediments and delays in the prosecution of causes before that tribunal, are all reasons which render a change in this regard most devoutly to be wished. Nor should the increase of compensation to these, the most important and the most laborious of our public servants, the members of the Federal and State judiciary, fail to receive attention. Remember that upon the conscientious judge are imposed the cares of everybody's business except his own. I trust that not only through official action, but through the exertion of our members as individuals, reforms of such manifest necessity will be brought about.

In the address of Judge Davis, two years since, the importance of the right of trial by jury was discussed, and in the succeeding address by my immediate predecessor, Mr. Edwards attributes much of the difficulties in this regard to the indisposition of the best men to serve in the capacity of jurors. I venture to ask the influence of the Association in support of all legislative measures intended to bring about reform in the matter of the selection of jurors, and in its bearing upon the elevation "of the standard of integrity and honor in the profession," to suggest that too great rigor cannot be exercised toward any member of the profession who is in any way party or privy to an attempt to influence a jury by gifts, promises or any kind of external influence. The corruption of jurymen is not a new thing. In the sixteenth century there were men who made a trade of serving on juries and selling their verdicts, and they

were so well known as to have a distinct name, that of "ringleaders of inquests." Indeed, more than three hundred years ago our language became enriched with a new word known as "embracery." If, as Burke says, the ultimate aim of the whole machinery of government is to get into the jury box twelve honest and impartial jurors to decide upon the rights of the citizen, it goes without saying, that whoever indulges in practices tending to destroy that honesty and impartiality, should be visited with the severest punishment that the law and profession can inflict.

The elevation of "the standard of integrity, honor and courtesy in the legal profession," asserted in the Constitution as one of the objects to attain which this body was formed, involves what indeed would be within its province without such declaration, not only the purging of the bar of unworthy members, but the laying down of canons of conduct defining with reasonable precision the limits of professional decorum.

For example, since as a part of the official machinery of justice it is absolutely essential that the officers of the court should be free from all suspicion of uncleanness, it would be entirely proper to define how far agreements which in effect stipulate for part of the claim in litigation, or make the compensation contingent upon success, can be allowed, if at all, while at the same time justice is not denied to the indigent, whose poverty may require the rendition of services without payment or security in the first instance.

This and other matters pertaining to professional ethics or etiquette, such as the respect which should be paid by the bar to judicial decisions as to which there are considerable differences of opinion, the discussion of decisions in the secular press and the like, are within the scope of the duties the Association has to discharge in effectuating the purposes which justify its organization.

The grounds of the intention which the great dramatist attributes to Jack Cade, a character incorrectly portrayed in the play, in my judgment, "to kill all the lawyers," have long since ceased to be entertained even in imagination. The grievances complained of by that leader of the people of Kent, do not now exist, and the growth of the law in the direction of justice has attained such proportions that in it is to be found redress for whatever grievances may arise. The day of timid, obsequious, ignorant or corrupt judicial officers has gone by forever.

"What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer," wrote Lord Bacon. But Pilate was not jesting, for he went out to declare: "I find no fault in him at all." It was the despairing cry of a magistrate about to deliver to death one whom he judicially found to be innocent, yielding to the ferocity of the popular outcry, and the fear of the consequences couched in the insinuation: "If thou lettest this man go, tho art not Cæsar's friend."

But to the judiciary of our age, grace is given "to execute justice and to maintain truth," uninfluenced by threats or pressure, regardless of clamor and misrepresentation, and through its benign conclusions, the rich and the poor, the high and the low, ultimately obtain the vindication of their rights and the protection of their liberties.

But the bench must rely upon the learning, the ability and the honesty of the bar, and the responsibility is upon us to magnify our office by our conduct and our example. We cannot excuse ourselves from the fulfillment of our obligations to the profession by the multiplicity of our engagements or our indisposition to exertion not directly of a personal kind.

If the olive and the fig and the vine refused to forsake their sweetness, and their good fruit to be promoted over the trees, resort will be had to the bramble, "and the bramble said unto the trees: If in truth ye annoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow; and if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon."

Never was there a greater necessity for loyalty to law than to-day, never greater need of effort for the enlightenment of the public judgment and the encouragement of reverence for those fundamental principles which are the basis of government, and which even majorities have no power to overthrow.

It was the sagacious remark of Coleridge that "the first condition to a sound constitution of the body politic is a due proportion between the free and permeative life and energy of the State and its organized powers."

To preserve in all their wise ascendancy the restraints imposed by the people upon themselves, is committed to the noble profession of which we are members.

It is our duty to explain their uses, to demonstrate their importance and to keep them in full vitality, that the law which makes liberty possible, may be so perpetuated as to render it immortal.

MEMORIAL ADDRESS.

THE LIFE AND SERVICES OF B. S. EDWARDS.

BY E. P. KIRBY.

READ BEFORE THE ILLINOIS STATE BAR ASSOCIATION, AT ITS TENTH ANNUAL MEETING, HELD AT SPRINGFIELD, JANUARY 11TH AND 12TH, 1887.

The traveler, who visits the great mountain range which stretches along our Western border, and stands at the base, or climbs the rugged sides of some towering peak which lifts its lofty head above its fellows, sees there but little to distinguish it from its companions, is, perhaps, wholly unaware of its eminence.

About their bases lie scattered the same masses of broken rock. The same gnarled and twisted pines intercept the upward vision, while similar gulches and chasms interrupt progress in every direction. Along the sides of all is seen the bare and barren track left by the destroying avalanche.

On all sides limpid rivulets now danee in the sunlight, and now timidly hide in the shadow of the overhanging rocks, while sparkling cascades of equal brightness and beauty attract and delight on either hand.

But, when retiring over the plain for many miles, he looks backwar in the light of the setting sun upon these mighty monuments of nature, which, near at hand, seemed so much alike, then he first realizes their relative greatness, and comprehends how justly this monarch peak is named for Harvard's great botanist, and that for our martyr president.

So it is, sometimes, in estimating the character and worth of our neighbors and friends. The man whom we meet daily at the butcher's and grocer's, and in the coal yard-whom we see discharging the ordinary duties of the common citizen, becomes associated in our minds with the commonplace which so largely claims attention from us all, and we fail to look up the higher plane of intellectual life, where his real life work is a work which shall endure when the more material labors of those around him shall have utterly perished from the face of the earth.

That one not too near in point of view, and not too familiar in daily intercourse, might, perhaps, most fully appreciate the distinguishing characteristics which made Judge Edwards eminent, seems to me to be the only reason which can be assigned why your committee, in selecting one to present to this Association a brief memorial address upon the life and services of its late president, should have passed by the many talented members of the Bar in his own city who knew and admired him, and the host of living friends in his home whose hearts are still heavy over the loss they have sustained in his death.

The life of Benjamin Stephenson Edwards was contemporaneous with the life of his native State. Illinois entered the Union of States December 3d, 1818. The third day of