4524. LAW, Simplicity.—
Laws are made
for men of ordinary understanding, and
should therefore, be construed by the ordinary
rules of common sense. Their meaning is
not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties,
which may make anything mean everything
or nothing, at pleasure. It should be
left to the sophisms of advocates, whose trade
it is, to prove that a defendant is a plaintiff,
though dragged into court,
torto collo, like
Bonaparte's volunteers, into the field in
chains, or that a power has been given because
it ought to have been given,
et alia
talia.—
To William Johnson. Washington ed. vii, 297.
Ford ed., x, 231.
(M.
1823)
