There is undoubtedly a limit to the exertions of an advocate for his
client. He has a right, it is his bounden duty, to do every thing which his
client might honestly do, and to do it with all the effect which any
exercise of skill, talent, or knowledge of his own may be able to produce.
But the advocate has no right, nor is it his duty, to do that for his
client which his client _in foro conscientiae_ has no right to do for
himself; as, for a gross example, to put in evidence a forged deed or will,
knowing it to be so forged. As to mere confounding of witnesses by skilful
cross-examination, I own I am not disposed to be very strict. The whole
thing is perfectly well understood on all hands, and it is little more in
general than a sort of cudgel-playing between the counsel and the witness,
in which, I speak with submission to you, I think I have seen the witness
have the best of it as often as his assailant. It is of the utmost
importance in the administration of justice that knowledge and intellectual
power should be as far as possible equalized between the crown and the
prisoner, or plaintiff and defendant. Hence especially arises the necessity
for an order of advocates,--men whose duty it ought to be to know what the
law allows and disallows; but whose interests should be wholly indifferent
as to the persons or characters of their clients. If a certain latitude in
examining witnesses is, as experience seems to have shown, a necessary mean
towards the evisceration of the truth of matters of fact, I have no doubt,
as a moralist, in saying, that such latitude within the bounds, now
existing is justifiable. We must be content with a certain quantum in this
life, especially in matters of public cognizance; the necessities of
society demand it; we must not be righteous overmuch, or wise overmuch;
and, as an old father says, in what vein may there not be a plethora, when
the Scripture tells us that there may under circumstances be too much of
virtue and of wisdom?
Still I think that, upon the whole, the advocate is placed in a position
unfavourable to his moral being, and, indeed, to his intellect also, in its
higher powers. Therefore I would recommend an advocate to devote a part of
his leisure time to some study of the metaphysics of the mind, or
metaphysics of theology; something, I mean, which shall call forth all his
powers, and centre his wishes in the investigation of truth alone, without
reference to a side to be supported. No studies give such a power of
distinguishing as metaphysical, and in their natural and unperverted
tendency they are ennobling and exalting. Some such studies are wanted to
counteract the operation of legal studies and practice, which sharpen,
indeed, but, like a grinding-stone, narrow whilst they sharpen.
_November_ 19. 1831.