late to canals and railways, to telegraphs and manufactories, to hours of labor, to the duties of the employer, and to the rights of the employed. It is probable that such statutes will become more numerous as the effect of this influx of mechanical improvements becomes more manifest in common life. It is true that the effect upon legislation, which practical science has wrought, has been, thus far, rather to substitute a new subject matter, than to introduce a changed spirit into our law, but there can be no great physical changes which do not work corresponding changes in the mind and heart of the community.

It is not difficult to perceive that this cause must be peculiarly effective upon American legislation. The benefits of mechanical improvements are more generally diffused in this country than they are in any other nation. There is in all classes a greater readiness to avail themselves of anything which is labor-saving or labor-doing. No decided improvement can long be confined to a single neighborhood. Even patent laws, with all their authority, are too weak to prevent constant infringement. An improved churn or plough invented this year in Connecticut, will next year be in use in Oregon. There are few villages or neighborhoods in which there is not a steam engine, and fewer still unvisited by the products of some labor saving process. Our whole population is familiar with many of the achievements of the age. It is incredible that all this should not give birth to common ideas of a possible improved state of society, and greatly stimulate the popular mind to increased activity. And in such a system as ours, where all written law is but the outspeaking of the common sense, it is equally incredible that such ideas should not find expression in the statute book.

We do not intend to dwell upon the power of party spirit or legislation, or upon the consequences which follow that peculiar division of parties, that which now exists, and always has existed, in this country; or upon that increasing and inordinate desire to become rich without labor, now so prevalent and so corrupting. Each of these is worthy of attentive consideration, and one of them, at least, is fitted to excite apprehen

sion for the future. Our limits will allow us to refer, very briefly, to but one other of those influences which reach our written law.

The age in which we live is an age of extravagant mental and moral speculation. Whatever causes may have combined to give to it this characteristic, the fact is undeniable. And the speculation which formerly expended itself in theories, now aims at putting them into practice. At no other period has organized society been the subject of so much day dreaming. In not a few minds conceptions of social improvement and illusory theories of a reorganized state of society, far more conducive to human happiness than is its present structure, are but daily bread. There are no schemes of reform so wild as to find no partisans. There are no established relations of life too sacred to be beyond the reach of projected modification. Even marriage, the foundation of all society, is, in the apprehension of many, not what it should be, but requires the ameliorating hand of human legislation. The relative position of the sexes demands readjustment. The expressed wisdom of the past is, in the judgment of such theorists, but folly, and even the book of inspiration is trustworthy only so far as it can be tortured into accordance with their principles. Such enthusiasts would be harmless, were it not for the sublime energy with which their schemes are prosecuted. Moderation seems to have been expunged from their catalogue of virtues. Disheartened by no failure, they make it rather a reason for wilder extravagance. They substitute denunciation for argument, and agitation for conviction.

There is a still larger class in the community, not so deeply infected, who are yet dissatisfied with the existing order of things, who regard the government and laws as radically defective, and who are not slow to believe that their own visions of right and policy are essential to the highest social development. They are doubtless true reformers in spirit, patriots and philanthropists. But they are not wise reformers. They undervalue present good, and overlook its cost. They forget that, though a rule may not have been the best conceivable at its origin, society may have accommodated

itself to it, and that it cannot now be eradicated, without leaving a wound. Failing to consider that all members of the community are not equally enlightened, and that both mental and moral reform must, in the nature of things, precede positive human law, they look to no other means of securing their projected reforms, than the coercive power of statutory enactment. It must be admitted that men of these and kindred views have deeply engraven their spirit upon modern legislation. Probably few persons become members of either our state or national assemblies, who are entirely without the impression that there are evils in existing law, which it is their mission to remove. Associated with this is a frequent ambition to connect their own names with some public measure. To the ill considered experiments to which such impressions and this ambition prompt, many of the evils of our present legislation are to be attributed.

From the view which we have submitted of the influences which find their way into all legislative bodies, especially into those which reflect the popular sense, the transition is easy to the faults and imperfections which American legislation exhibits. We have already alluded to some, and have reserved to ourselves only time to mention a few others. The intelligent observer must be impressed with the conviction that American legislation is excessive. The most artificial state of society is not the best. That community is most prosperous, as well as most free, which is permitted to pursue its course of industry, untrammeled by any rules other than those which are necessary for its protection and harmony. The prescription of any new rule of action, necessarily produces temporary friction in the machinery of society, and instead of promoting immediate harmony, tends to foster litigation. Skillful legislation will therefore be sparing. Its province is not to construct, but to develop. The lawgiver should be an assistant, not a despot. As society advances, new complications will arise. Legislation should disembarrass them, and prevent their continuing obsta cles to further improvement. When an old custom has lost its vitality and become an useless form, it may be exscinded When forms are needed for the application of acknowleged

principles, it is the province of legislation to supply them. When crime assumes new phases, or overleaps existing barriers, the lawgiver should provide for its repression. When an additional stimulus is needed to whatever is useful or noble, it should be supplied. Whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil. He that is familiar with the labors of judicial tribunals must have observed how immensely the complications of society are multiplied by modern legislation, and how numerous are the disturbances to which it gives rise. There is eminent wisdom in the old saying, "few rules and those inflexible." How wide has been the departure from this maxim, in these days, the size of our statute books will show.

Nor is it alone in its excesses, that legislation needs reform. It is not sufficiently intelligent. There is very much in the material of which legislators, in this country, are made, that tends to inconsiderate and ill advised action. We have said that legislation is a science, and yet, by most of those who frame it, it has never been made the subject of study. In England, there is, what is called, a political education. There is a profession of statesmanship. Not a few devote their lives to the attainment of a knowledge of national history, not merely of the biographies of eminent men which fill so large a place in all written history, but of the whole course of executive and legislative proceeding. To them political economy is not a sealed volume. They illuminate themselves with the lights of past experience. They observe the growth of legal principles, and mark the effect upon society of each new development. Nor are they ignorant of the existing state of the law, of its defects, and of the mischiefs, if any, which need a remedy. Knowing alike the law and the facts which require legislative interposition, they are not insensible to the derangement which even a slight alteration may cause in a great system of rules for municipal conduct, and they are able to foresee it. Such men are cautious. When they enter Parliament, if they bring with them integrity, they bring safety. We have no such class of men in this country. Here men are born legislators. While there is a general appreciation of the value and the necessity of a preparatory education for a theo

logian-for a medical practitioner-for one whose province it is to administer the laws, or even for an artist, its importance to the lawgiver is not practically felt. Yet in his relation to the welfare of society he is behind no one, unless it be the teacher of religion.

We cannot but think that in this American scholars are in fault. Here is a department of science which they overlook. Too often themselves indisposed to enter a legislative body, they do not devote to the true principles of useful legislation that thought which their importance to the general welfare demands, and consequently they have little influence with those who are active agents in making the laws. Cultivated intellect and thorough knowledge do not contribute their share to the municipal regulation of the community. It is doubtless due to the general intelligence of our people, that our written law is not more crude than it is. But were it made a subject of general study; did legislation, equally with other sciences, command the devotion of educated men, we should be delivered from a multitude of evils. We should not, often, as now, find in our statute books an enactment working widely different effects from those which its framers anticipated-deranging what no one ever desired to disturb, and imposing the necessity of other legislation to remove mischiefs introduced by itself. We should no more be subjected to the trial of illusory theories, and ill digested experiments, so many of which now end in failure, and during their continuance work social disaster. We should have a clearer expression of the legislative sense, with a consequent diminution of the necessity to resort to courts of law, and a decrease of the number of cases of individual hardship.

In this age of wonderful mental activity, when science is in a state of rapid progression-in this utilitarian age, when universal knowledge pays her tribute to the common weal-it should not be that the science of legislation alone is regarded as unworthy of the study of educated men. Young ambition is often eager to assume its duties and to share its honors. It would be a nobler ambition to aspire to fitness to discharge its duties well.