In the exercise of this power Congress is acting on principles of Equity. And here allow me to say, that, in superintending the process of Reconstruction, Congress is a Court of Equity, bound to supply deficiencies in the existing law, to enjoin against threatened wrong, and generally to see justice done in spite of technicalities. Here I only follow the best definitions of Equity from the earliest times. No student can forget that profound definition by Aristotle,[13] adopted by Grotius[14] also,--“Equity is the correction of that wherein the law by reason of its universality is deficient”; nor can he forget the phrase of Lord Bacon, when he gives it a higher character still, namely, “The general conscience of the realm, which is Chancery.”[15] These two philosophers were each right; for Equity is at once a correction of law and the voice of conscience. In conformity with these principles, an ample jurisdiction has been established, under which, among other things, the powers of ordinary courts are supplemented by more flexile methods, the rules of law are prevented from becoming instruments of injustice, persons are restrained from asserting doubtful rights in a manner productive of irreparable damage, and, in the absence of positive law, universal justice is maintained. It has been a constant aspiration to bring Law and Equity into harmony. Lord Chancellor Eldon relates that on one occasion Lord Chief-Justice De Grey said, he “never liked Equity so well as when it was like Law”; and he adds, “The day before I heard Lord Mansfield say he never liked Law so well as when it was like Equity.”[16] In the same spirit, Bishop Burnet says of Sir Matthew Hale:-- “As great a lawyer as he was, he would never suffer the strictness of law to prevail against conscience; as great a chancellor as he was, he would make use of all the niceties and subtilties in law, when it tended to support right and equity.”[17] Such is Equity, and such are the principles which preside in its courts. No strictness of law can prevail against conscience. The niceties and subtilties of law are all to be used in support of right and equity. These noble and authoritative rules are a pathway of light. Against all strictness of law conscience must prevail. If there are niceties and subtilties in the law, let them all be employed on the side of right and equity. That is according to reason and the harmonies of the Universe. It is Equity.