necessarily of subordinate importance in any political system tending
towards absolutism. He is even of subordinate importance in a liberal
system such as that of Great Britain, where Crown and Parliament, acting
together, have the power to enact any desired legislation. The Federal
Constitution, on the other hand, by establishing the Supreme Court as
the interpreter of the Fundamental Law, and as a separate and
independent department of the government, really made the American
lawyer responsible for the future of the country. In so far as the
Constitution continues to prevail, the Supreme Court becomes the final
arbiter of the destinies of the United States. Whenever its action can
be legally invoked, it can, if necessary, declare the will of either or
both the President and Congress of no effect; and inasmuch as almost
every important question of public policy raises corresponding questions
of Constitutional interpretation, its possible or actual influence
dominates American political discussion. Thus the lawyer, when
consecrated as Justice of the Supreme Court, has become the High Priest
of our political faith. He sits in the sanctuary and guards the sacred
rights which have been enshrined in the ark of the Constitution.

The importance of lawyers as legislators and executives in the actual
work of American government has been an indirect consequence of the
peculiar function of the Supreme Court in the American political system.
The state constitutions confer a corresponding function on the highest
state courts, although they make no similar provision for the
independence of the state judiciary. The whole business of American
government is so entangled in a network of legal conditions that a
training in the law is the beet education which an American public man
can receive. The first question asked of any important legislative
project, whether state or Federal, concerns its constitutionality; and
the question of its wisdom is necessarily subordinate to these
fundamental legal considerations. The statesman, who is not a lawyer,
suffers under many disadvantages--not the least of which is the
suspicion wherewith he is regarded by his legal fellow-statesmen. When
they talk about a government by law, they really mean a government by
lawyers; and they are by way of believing that government by anybody but
lawyers is really unsafe.

The Constitution bestowed upon the American lawyer a constructive
political function; and