466 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE DECLINE OF CRBIINAL JURISPRUDENCE IN 



AMERICA. 



By GINO C. SFERANZA. 



THE rights of personal security, personal liberty, and private 

 property have been called the " rights of the people of Eng- 

 land," and may be said to constitute the richest heirloom in the 

 Anglo-Saxon family. While, in a certain sense, they belong to 

 all civilized people, yet, in their practical application, they are 

 peculiarly the creation of Anglo-Saxon common sense and love of 

 order. The underlying principle of these rights, clothed by the 

 Latins in the seductive garb of Liberie, Egalite, Fraternite, gave 

 us a Reign of Terror, a Commune, and finally a doubtful republican- 

 ism; but the same principle, embodied in the less dazzling formula, 

 " That no man shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property with- 

 out due process of law," produced in the hands of the Anglo- 

 Saxons more enduring democracies " of the people, by the people, 

 and for the people." 



With the instinct of a race born for self-government, the An- 

 glo-Saxons have ever sought and almost always found the highest 

 safeguard for their ancient rights in the courts of law. Between a 

 partisan Legislature and a tyrannical Executive an honest judiciary 

 has generally been found ready to annul the excesses of the one 

 and to prevent any infringement by the other; so that it has 

 become a belief, having the force of faith, that in our courts will 

 be found the bulwark of those liberties which we consider essen- 

 tial to the full enjoyment of life. 



Laws and courts, however, are after all the creation of men, 

 and, like all such creations, they are necessarily imperfect and 

 fallible; or, more correctly, they are organisms which develop and 

 improve. In other words, justice and law are only relatively im- 

 mutable and perfect. Tliey do, indeed, represent, in a sense, ab- 

 stract perfection, and at any given time they must be considered 

 the highest criterion of human conduct. But justice and law are 

 not such divinities that they can withdraw themselves from the 

 operation of those forces which we call progress. Seriousness, dig- 

 nity, and venerability are not sufficient to sustain the majesty of the 

 law; it needs also adaptation to those higher conditions and broader 

 views which mark the growth of human thought. The more we 

 come to look upon law as the standard and gauge of upright human 

 action, the more do we grow to expect it in consonance with the 

 highest dictates of human knowledge and reason, for what is above 

 us must represent what is best in us, else it will be neither respected 



