LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF THE STORY ASSOCIATION,
JULY 15, 1851.
BOSTON, July 15, 1851.
DEAR SIR,--As a faithful pupil of the Law School, and an attached
friend, during life, of the founder, whose illustrious name your
Association bears, I feel a thrill at every act or word which does
them honor. And since I may not be able to be present at your
festival, I venture to send congratulations on the happy auspices
of the day, and--mindful that I address a professional assembly--to
inclose a sentiment commemorating the dignity and the duties of the
American Lawyer.
A brief personal experience will properly introduce it. Some
years ago, while at Heidelberg, in Germany, it was my fortune to
see much of Thibaut and Mittermaier, both jurists of eminent fame:
the first--now dead--renowned for learning in the Roman Law, and
for early and constant support of a just scheme for the reduction
of the unwritten law to the certainty of a written text; and the
other, who is still spared, the greatest living master of Criminal
Law, and of the various systems of Foreign Jurisprudence. Next
after the aristocracy of birth, they were unquestionably at that
moment among the most conspicuous men of Germany.
In the course of a long conversation, chiefly on matters of
juridical interest, in the freedom of social intercourse at dinner,
one of them asked with regard to the position of the American
Lawyer, and both seemed earnest for my answer. I promptly replied:
"No person is his superior. His position, Gentlemen, if you will
pardon me for saying it, is what yours would be in Germany, if
there were no aristocracy of birth." Both seemed penetrated by this
allusion, and, looking each other in the face, exclaimed at once,
in apparent consciousness of their true rank: "That is very high
indeed!"
The sentiment which I now submit was suggested by this incident.