der Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, George
Mason, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, John Adams, James Otis, Samuel
Chase, Samuel Adams, Roger Sherman, Oliver Ellsworth, James Wilson,
Edmund Randolph and many others not less learned and brilliant, to
establish their liberties, frame the limitations of their government and
care for the protection of individual rights. The same Bar furnished a
little later that lawyer and judge, John Marshall, whose interpretation
of the Constitution was as important in its beneficent effect as its
original framing. That Bar not only helped largely in constructing the
ship of state but it was also most instrumental in launching it on a
triumphant and useful course through a century and a quarter. The
profound gratitude of succeeding generations owing to such a Bar ought
never to be dimmed by partisan or misguided diatribes upon lawyers and
judges.

CHAPTER II

LEGAL ETHICS

I have heard the utility of legal ethics denied. It is said that the
rules in legal ethics are the same as the moral rules that govern men in
every branch of society and in every profession--except as there may be
certain conventions as to professional etiquette--and that if a man is
honest, there ought to be no difficulty in his following the right
course in the discharge of his professional duties. If a man is lacking
in probity of character, it is said the discussion of legal ethics will
do him no particular good, because if he is tempted to a crooked path or
an unjust act by his pecuniary interest, he will yield, and neither
lectures on ethics nor the establishment of an ethical code will make
him good; whereas the upright man will either not be so tempted, or
should he be, he will clearly perceive the necessity for resisting the
temptation.

In the course of my consideration of this subject, I looked into a
text-book on moral philosophy and the general system of ethics with the
hope that I might find something there that would suggest, by analogy,
a proper treatment of the subject in hand. I consulted Paulsen's "A
System of Ethics." The analogy between moral philosophy and legal ethics
is not very close, but I found a passage or two bearing on this very
issue, which it seems to me might not be inappropriately quoted here. In
the conclusion of his introduction, Paulsen says:

"Let me say a word concerning the _practical value_ of ethics. Can
ethics be a practical science, not only in the se