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Adams, Brooks, 1848-1927

"The Theory of Social Revolutions"

Allein, 11 Rep. 84.
[5] 68 Pa. 173.


CHAPTER II
THE LIMITATIONS OF THE JUDICIAL FUNCTION

Taking the human race collectively, its ideal of a court of justice has
been the omniscient and inexorable judgment seat of God. Individually,
on the contrary, they have dearly loved favor. Hence the doctrine of the
Intercession of the Saints, which many devout persons have sincerely
believed could be bought by them for money. The whole development of
civilization may be followed in the oscillation of any given society
between these two extremes, the many always striving to so restrain the
judiciary that it shall be unable to work the will of the favored few.
On the whole, success in attaining to ideal justice has not been quite
commensurate with the time and effort devoted to solving the problem,
but, until our constitutional experiment was tried in America, I think
it had been pretty generally admitted that the first prerequisite to
success was that judges should be removed from political influences.
For the main difficulty has been that every dominant class, as it has
arisen, has done its best to use the machinery of justice for its own
benefit.


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