o persons and property. The laws of different nations are,
indeed, widely different; but there may be that in their respective
histories which makes a difference in the actual rights of citizens, or
their civil codes may present different stages of approach toward the
right. Thus the laws as to the conveyance and inheritance of property are
in some respects unlike in France, England, and the United States, and
vary considerably in the several States of our Union; but there generally
exist historical reasons for this variation, and it would be found that
the ends of justice are best served, and the reasonable expectations of
the people best met in each community, by its own methods of procedure. By
the law of the land, then, we may learn civil rights and obligations,
which we have not the means of ascertaining by our own independent
research.

It remains for us to speak of the *factitious rights and wrongs*, supposed
to be created by law. Of these there are many. Thus one mode of
transacting a sale or transfer is in itself as good as another; and it
might be plausibly maintained that, if the business be fairly and
honorably conducted, it matters not whether the legally prescribed
forms--sometimes burdensome and costly--be complied with or omitted. The
law, it may be said, here creates an obligation for which there is no
ground in nature or the fitness of things. This we deny. It is
intrinsically fitting that all transactions which are liable to dispute or
question should be performed in ways in which they can be attested; and
this cannot be effected except by the establishment of uniform methods. He
who departs from them performs not only an illegal, but an immoral act;
and the legal provisions of the kind under discussion have an educational
value in enlarging the knowledge of the individual as to the conditions
and means of security, order, and good understanding in human society.

Similar considerations apply to the *crimes created by law*. Smuggling may
serve as an instance. Undoubtedly there are smugglers who would not steal;
and their apology is that they are but exercising the rights of ownership
upon their own property. But the public must have property, else its
community is dissolved; government must be able to avail itself of that
property, else its functions are suspended. Men need to be taught that the
rights of the state are inseparable from those of individuals, and no less
sacred, and the laws that protec