30th
“The Anglo-American lawyer’s education parallels that of the Catholic seminarian; he is initiated in the intricate, respectful form of labor that appreciates truth can be discovered only in the manifest and organic body of tradition. Precedent serves not so much as an alternative to logic as it does its very ground; without due reverence for and deference to what has been taught, one cannot begin to reason rightly. Tocqueville, as a Frenchman, finds this practice arcane; Tocqueville, as an aristocrat, finds it admirable; but, above all, Tocqueville, as a cautious admirer and advocate of democracy, finds it necessary to the stability and order of an otherwise ochlocratic and inconstant society. By their nature, lawyers are the antidote to excess: the deep rooted tree in an age of dustbowls…”
Of course, he is precisely right. The Supreme Court has become the organ of revolution. The Anglo Charter was not configured to allow for this. This is what our forefathers meant when they said, “only a Christian people can be free…”
One might wish for a reading of de Tocqueville, EM Forster’s Two Cheers for Democracy, and Barzun’s God’s Country and Mine.
