Bagehot did what so many thousand of young graduates before him had done,--he studied for the bar; and then, having prepared himself to practise law, followed another large body of young men in deciding to abandon it.
The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings.
No organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. .. No foresight can anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions.
The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance.
He of all men should behave as though the law compelled him.
But it is the universal weakness of mankind that what we are
given to administer we presently imagine we own.
But what is classification but the perceiving that these objects are not chaotic, and are not foreign, but have a law which is also the law of the human mind?
If we are going to solve the challenges we face, you need a President who will pursue genuine solutions day in and day out. And that is my commitment to you. We need immigration reform that will secure our borders, and punish employers who exploit immigrant labor; reform that finally brings the 12 million people who are here illegally out of the shadows by requiring them to take steps to become legal citizens. We must assert our values and reconcile our principles as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. That is a priority I will pursue from my very first day.
No client ever had money enough to bribe my conscience or to stop its utterance against wrong, and oppression. My conscience is my own - my creators - not man's. I shall never sink the rights of mankind to the malice, wrong, or avarice of another's wishes, though those wishes come to me in the relation of client and attorney.
In this age of the rule of brute force, it is almost impossible for anyone to believe that any one else could possibly reject the law of the final supremacy of brute force.