“Yes; my finger would be laid on you, in a minute.” “Ah, Ned, that will do, as a friend; but how would it do as a judicious selection of a judge you do not know? You are ignorant of the law, and must necessarily be ignorant of the qualifications of any particular person to be an interpreter of it. What is true of you, is equally true of a vast majority of those who are now the electors of our judges.” “I am not a little surprised, Tom, to hear _you_ talk in this way; for you profess to be a democrat!” “To the extent of giving the people all power, in the last resort—all power that they can intelligently and usefully use; but not to the extent of permitting them to make the laws, to execute the laws, and to interpret the laws. All that the people want, is sufficient power to secure their liberties, which is simply such a state of things as shall secure what is right between man and man. Now, it is the want of this all-important security, in a practical point of view, of which I complain. Rely on it, Ned, the people gain nothing by exercising an authority that they do not know how to turn to good account. It were far better for them, and for the state, to confine themselves to the choice of general agents, of whose characters they may know something, and then confide all other powers to servants appointed by those named by these agents, holding all alike to a rigid responsibility. As for the judges, they will soon take decided party characters; and men will as blindly accuse, and as blindly defend them, as they now do their other leading partisans. What between the bench and the jury-box, we shall shortly enjoy a legal pandemonium.” “Yet there are those who think the trial by jury is the palladium of our liberties.” Dunscomb laughed outright, for he recollected his conversation with the young men, which we have already related. Then suppressing his risible propensity, he continued gravely— “Yes, one or two papers, well fee’d by this young woman’s spare cash, might do her more good than any service I can render her. I dare say the accounts now published, or soon to be published, will leave a strong bias against her.” “Why not fee a reporter as well as a lawyer, eh, Tom? There is no great difference, as I can see.” “Yes you can, and will, too, as soon as you look into the matter. A lawyer is paid for a known and authorized assistance, and the public recognises in him one engaged in the interests of his client, and accepts his statements and efforts accordingly. But the conductor of a public journal sets up a claim to strict impartiality, in his very profession, and should tell nothing but what he believes to be true, neither inventing nor suppressing. In his facts, he is merely the publisher of a record; in his reasoning, a judge; not an advocate.” The doctor now laughed, in his turn, and well he might; few men being so ignorant as not to understand how far removed from all this are most of those who control the public journals.