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Judicial Statesmen, John B. Waite
Judicial Statesmen, John B. Waite
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KNOWLEDGE of the Common Law "doth no way conduce to the making of a statesman. It is a confined and topicall kind of Learning calculated only for the Meridian of WestministerHall, and reacheth no further than Dover. Transplant a Common Lawyer to Calice, and his head is no more usefull there than a Sun-dyal in a grave." So an anonymous individual placarded England, some three hundred years ago, in protest against the election of lawyers to Parliament. It is unquestionably true, today, that knowledge of the common law-in its customary connotation of precedent--does not in and of itself make a …