University of Virginia Library

TO PETER S. DU PONCEAU.

Dr. Sir,—I canot return my thanks for your
address on the subject of a central seminary of
Jurisprudence without offering my best wishes for
the success of such an Institution.

The Citizens of the U. S. not only form one people
governed by the same code of laws, in all cases falling
within the range of the Federal authority, but
as Citizens of the different States, are connected
by a daily intercourse & by multiplying transactions,
which give to all an interest in the character, & in
a reciprocal knowledge of the State laws also.

It is not only desirable therefore that the national
code should receive whatever improvements the
cultivation of law as a science may impart but
that the local codes should be improved in like
manner, and a general knowledge of each facilitated
by an infusion of every practicable identity through
the whole.

All these objects must be promoted by an

Institution concentrating the talents of the most
enlightened of the Legal profession, and attracting
from every quarter the pupils most devoted to the
studies leading to it.

Such an assemblage in such a position would have
particular advantages for taking a comprehensive
view of the local codes, for examining their coincidences
and their differences, and for pointing out
whatever in each might deserve to be adopted into
the others, and it can not be doubted that something
would be found in each worthy of a place in
all.

This would be a species of consolidation having
the happy tendency to diminish local prejudices, to
cherish mutual confidence and to accommodate the
intercourse of business between citizens of different
States, without impairing the constitutional separation
& Independence of the States themselves, which
are deemed essential to the security of individual
liberty as well as to the preservation of Republican
Government.

Uniformity in the laws of the States might have
another effect not without its value. These laws
furnish in many cases the very principles & rules on
which the decisions of the national Tribunal are to
be hinged. A knowledge of them in such cases is
indispensable. The difficulty of acquiring it whilst
the several codes vary so much is obvious, and is a
motive for imposing on the Judges of the Supreme
Court of the Nation those itinerary duties which
may suit neither their years nor can long be

practicable within the expanding field of them, and
which moreover preclude those enriching "lucubrations"
by which they might do fuller justice to
themselves, fulfill the better expectations at home,
and contribute the more to the national character
abroad.

I recd some time ago your recommendation of
Mr. [Lardner Clark] Vanuxem for the Chemical
Chair in the University of Virga President Cooper
has borne his testimony also in favor of Mr. Vanuxem.
Nothing can yet be sd on the prospect of his success,
the other candidates not being yet known, and the
time even of opening the University being uncertain.