4508. LAW, Intention of.—[continued].
Anciently before the improvement,
or, perhaps, the existence of the
Court of Chancery, the judges did not
restrain themselves to the letter of the
law. They allowed themselves greater latitude,
extending the provisions of every law,
not only to the cases within its letter, but to
those also which came within the spirit and
reason of it. This was called the equity of the
law, but it is now very long since certainty
in the law has become so highly valued by
the nation, that the judges have ceased to extend
the operation of laws beyond those cases
which are clearly within the intention of the
legislators. This intention is to be collected
principally from the words of the law; only
where these are ambiguous they are permitted
to gather further evidence from the history
of the times when the law was made, and the
circumstances which produced it.—
To Phillip Mazzei.
Ford ed., iv, 109.
(P.
1785)
