merely understand by due that to which every one has a right by the positive and enacted laws of the state, but that which is his due as man, as individual, as moral being and as our neighbor, is that virtue which is embodied in the great practical moral law, that we should do even so to others as we would that they

should do to us. Justice was early acknowledged to be the supreme virtue, and often called by the ancients the only virtue, including all others (1); it is that virtue or ethic disposition which prompts man to acknowledge others as his equals, and thus becomes, as we have seen, the very foundation of the state, and remains at once its cement and energy; that virtue which above all others establishes confidence, peace and righteousness among men, individually and collectively, as states or nations, and comprehends fairness, equity and even clemency. For if in matters of law we distinguish the latter from justice, if we establish courts of equity in contradistinction to courts of law, or give to the chief magistrate the privilege of tempering justice with mercy, we mean in this case by justice the awarding of every man's due according to the established laws of the land, which the jural character of the state requires to be the rules by which the actions of its members should be judged. But as we are conscious that laws cannot be so perfectly framed as to meet every possible complex case, and that, framed in human language as they must be, their exact application must sometimes defeat their own ultimate end, namely, true justice, we vest somewhere the power to determine causes "in which reason and justice require that the rigorous application of the rules of common law should be mitigated " " or to release the offender from punishment in cases, in which

the law, according to all the circumstances, operates harshly. Upon this ground alone can the privilege of pardoning be maintained with any reasonableness, for it cannot have been bestowed for the purpose of screening real guilt, according to caprice, weakness or partiality. It is therefore essential justice only which in these cases is made to supersede apparent justice. There may be cases indeed by way of exception, in which pardon is granted wholly from generosity or on prudential grounds; for instance when an offence against the chief magistrate personally is remitted.

(1) Εν δε δικαιοσυνῃ συλλήβδην πασ' ἀρετηση. Justice comprises all virtue. Theognis of Megara, one of the Gnomic poets. Justitia, cui adjuncta sunt pietas, bonitas, liberalitas, benignitas, comitas, quæque sunt generis ejusdem. Cic. de Off. ii, c. 10. Thus δικαιος, just, is used in the New Testament to denote the highest degree of virtue and purity, and the word Righteous (from Right,) by which the original δικαιος is rendered in English, with its comprehensive meaning, according to which "it includes all we call justice, honesty and virtue, with holy affections, in short is true religion," points to the same connexion of ideas, and in the German bible the simple word gerecht, that is, just, is used where in English righteous stands.

The Hindoo Ordinances of Menu say: "The only friend who follows men even after death is justice: all others are extinct with the body." Translat. by Sir William Jones, London, 1799; vol. iii, p. 276.

VIII. That justice, if it means the unswerving and incorruptible meting out of every man's due, the protection of right, is the most indispensable virtue, with regard to the state as the strictly jural society, and is in fact its very essence, has been sufficiently dwelt upon, in the first volume, where in fact one of my chief endeavors has been to present it in as strong a light as possible.

"There is but one means to render a government firm, this is Justice," said Carnot, when the question was debated whether the imperial crown should be offered to Bonaparte in order to render the government stable. And Timür, the mighty Tartar, even he said, when asked for advice by a fellow emperor: "Sovereignty (the principate) is like a tent, the poles of which should be justice, the ropes equity and the pins philanthropy; in order that it may stand firm against the blasts of adversity" (1). A great truth in the peculiar Tartar dress of the roving nomad.

But justice is not only, thus applied to positive laws, the main stay of the state, it is of like importance in all possible relations in which the citizens can be placed, individually and collectively. Nothing, as every reader well knows, gives to a man so stanch and solid a character, as the conviction of the community that "he never wishes to do but what is right;" nor does any thing give so moral a tone and consequently so vigorous a support to international transactions as the knowledge that one of the parties "demands nothing but what is right, and will submit to nothing that is wrong." "Reputation is great power," as Bolingbroke said (2), perhaps the best authority, because he found the truth by experiencing the opposite from contrary causes: yet one of the chief ingredients of a well established reputation, both for individuals and states, is habitual, plain, thorough justice. Civil and social transactions and intercourse must, in a great many instances, ultimately depend upon good faith; that is, essential justice, in its most comprehensive sense. Laws may be wrested, contracts evaded, the most solemn terms may be broken, if we abandon justice and have a mind to interpret our engagements or the ethic demands of duty themselves in bad faith. That community in which injustice and bad faith is habitual, cannot possibly support civil liberty. This is so true and evident that we may well dispense with any farther discussion of the subject: but it will be necessary to inquire into some cases, in which we have to guard ourselves especially against injustice, and an abandonment of the primary principle of right and equity.

I believe the most important of these cases are those in which we enjoy superior power, or where no authority above us can make us responsible for our acts, and those in which passion or eagerness to obtain an advantage or defend rights blind us. I have spoken already of the love of power and the universal feeling of offence at opposition, however loyal. Men, therefore, who enjoy power, of whatever sort, ought never to forget that they are magistrates, which means agents, servants of the state; this superior power which they enjoy over their equals, has the sense and meaning only, that they shall use it to serve the state. For what other reason should they be singled out from the mass? The object as well as foundation of the state, however, is justice. But when we have power for which we are not strictly speaking responsible, or not at all so, we are the more bound to adhere to the only law that remains, the moral obligation which demands justice, right.

It is well known that it is never an easy matter to obtain the satisfaction of large claims, however just, from those who have the power to refuse it or not, as they please; from legislative bodies not more easy than from princes. Ferdinand the Catholic declined paying what was due to Columbus, according to solemn agreement, because the portion of the revenue due to the navigator was large, since the revenues themselves had become large; and some extensive claims upon the United States, due since the revolution, received but late and tardy justice. How unjust has Rome not been to her dependents! A prince, knowing that a brilliant act of justice and disinterestedness will redound to his personal honor, finds, not unfrequently, a motive to do right in this adventitious circumstance; while, for the single member of an assembly, no such personal motive exists. He is therefore still more bound on ethic grounds to obey the law of justice, and his doing right is the more disinterested. Let, however, all citizens rest assured, that whatever the momentary disadvantage may appear to be, there is happily nothing which is even on the ground of mere prudence so advisable as steady justice and fairness in all matters. Nothing creates such confidence, and imparts such vigor to all parts of the state, as doing right. "Oh qu'il est dangereux de mal faire, pour en esperer du bien," wrote Elizabeth to Henry IV. of France (3). By nothing, it is well known, has the Prussian government succeeded sooner in attaching the new or reconquered provinces to herself, than by her scrupulous fulfilment of even very onerous engagements made by the preceding and hostile governments. Credit, that great agent of governments as well as private transactions in modern times, and which, however frequently and greatly abused, must nevertheless be considered as one of the most striking effects of civilisation in the European race, on what is it founded, if not on the two elements of capability and of justice? Pecuniary capability alone can never create it without corresponding confidence in the justice of the borrower.