4546. LAWYERS, Future Judges and.—
I think the bar of the General Court a proper
and excellent nursery for future judges, if it
be so regulated that science may be encouraged
and may live there. But this can never
be if an inundation of insects is permitted to
come from the county courts, and consume
the harvest. These people, traversing the
counties, seeing the clients frequently at their
own courts, or, perhaps, at their own houses,
must of necessity pick up all the business.
The convenience of frequently seeing their
counsel, without going from home, cannot be
withstood by the country people. Men of
science, then (if there were to be any), would
only be employed as auxiliary counsel in difficult
cases. But can they live by that?
Certainly not. The present members of that
kind therefore must turn marauders in the
county courts; and in future none will have
leisure to acquire science. I should, therefore,
be for excluding the county court attorneys;
or rather for taking the General Court lawyers
from the incessant drudgery of the county
courts and confining them to their studies, that
they may qualify themselves as well to support
their clients, as to become worthy successors
to the bench.—
To George Wythe. Washington ed. i, 211.
Ford ed., ii, 166.
(F.,,
17791779)gt;
