CHAP. III.] LEGAL PROFESSION. 45 



Sept. 27. Returned by the Huntress steamer to Portland, 

 after sailing at the rate of fourteen miles an hour. On board 

 were some lawyers, to one of whom, a judge in the State of 

 Maine, Mr. Gardiner had introduced me. The profession of the 

 law is, of all others in the United States, that which attracts to 

 it the greatest number of able and highly educated men, not only 

 for its own sake, but because it is a great school for the training 

 up of politicians. The competition of so many practitioners 

 cheapens fees, and, although this is said to promote litigation, it 

 has at least the great advantage of placing the poor man on a 

 more equal footing with the rich, as none but the latter can 

 attempt to assert their rights in countries where the cost of a 

 successful law-suit may be ruinous. Practically, there is much 

 the same subdivision of labor in the legal profession here as in 

 England ; for a man of eminence enters into partnership with 

 some one or more of the younger or less talented lawyers, who 

 play the part assigned with us to junior counsel and attorneys. 

 There are, however, no two grades here corresponding to barris 

 ter and attorney, from the inferior of which alone practitioners 

 can pass in the regular course of promotion to the higher. Every 

 lawyer in the United States may plead in court, and address a 

 jury ; and, if he is successful, may be raised to the bench : but 

 he must qualify as counselor, in order to be entitled to plead in 

 the Supreme Courts, where cases are heard involving points at 

 issue between the tribunals of independent states. The line 

 drawn between barrister and attorney in Great Britain, which 

 never existed even in colonial times in Massachusetts, could only 

 be tolerated in a country where the aristocratic element is ex 

 ceedingly predominant. In the English Church, where seats in 

 the House of Lords are held by the bishops, we see how the rank 

 of a whole profession rnay be elevated by making high distinc 

 tions conferred only on a few, open to all. That, in like man 

 ner, the highest honors of the bar and bench might be open 

 without diriment to the most numerous class of legal practition 

 ers in Great Britain, seems to be proved by the fact, that occa 

 sionally some attorneys of talent, by quitting their original lino 

 of practice and starting anew, can attain, like the present Chief 



