subordinate jurisdiction. The details of this interesting and useful inquiry, we shall communicate and review on an early opportunity, as well as some singular facts concerning the equity jurisdictions of the several States. In so occult and mystical a subject as "law as it is," experience, perhaps, is the best guide to law "as it ought to be." The great victory achieved in America over law-craft is the recognition of jurisprudence as a philosophical science. The transatlantic law now acknowledges the power of logic and the supremacy of principles; and the American legislature does not consider it impolitic to encourage academical schools of national jurisprudence. The reason of legal decisions is not considered as the sacred secret of twelve high priests of the sanctuary of the law. How long will the present apathy exist in Great Britain to the cultivation of this all-important science? How long will the strange anomaly continue of professorships, comparatively useless, existing only at Oxford and Cambridge, no public seminary being established in London, the metropolis of law and legal education? When will the Inns of Court, formerly so celebrated, cease to be Inns in the literal sense of the word, where lodgings and bodily sustenance only are provided; and when will the stores of their public libraries be opened at reasonable hours (early and late), and the youthful student incited to spend his leisure there now devoted to dissipation and the acquirement of bad habits?-Is this national stain to be eradicated by the London University, and jurisprudence once more to be cultivated in the land of Bacon and Hale (h)? Our amor patriæ insensibly leads us home from the subject of our review, the Progress of American jurisprudence; but the ties of consanguinity, the relations of parent and child, are too close to be entirely severed, and must plead our apology. We shall leave to future opportunities the detailed examination of the particular judicial establishments of the United States, and proceed to state the general improvements which have been effected in their laws and legal institutions. They are enumerated and detailed in the several works at the head of our article, particularly in the (h) The interior of an eminent English pleader's or conveyancer's chambers is a curious scene of indolence and frivolity. On an average certainly not five per cent. of its fashionable pupils assist their masters: these wasters are technically termed blue-bottles. The only reports they peruse are the newspapers. And in the present state of academi VOL. J.-JU. cal and legal education, can it be matter of surprise that such should be the case? Where is the young student to be initiateŭ in the general principles and elementary knowledge of his profession? Are treatises on pleading, or "Littleton with Coke upon him," likely to inoculate the law student with a love of his profession? D Dissertation of Dr. Du Ponceau ;-we shall briefly enumerate them. Treason has been constitutionally defined; and, by the same instrument, as well as by the constitution and laws of the several states, a right has been secured to every accused party of defending himself by counsel in all criminal cases, without distinction between fact and law. The benefit of the writ of Habeas Corpus has not only been secured in the same manner as in England, but its remedy has been extended by the power which the judges have, and exercise of investigating the real merits of each case without confining themselves to the face of the The liberty of the press is defined and protected by law. Improved penal laws and an ameliorated and economical prison discipline have succeeded the old sanguinary code and the black holes of the ancient prisons: the prevention of crime has been the principle of the improvements of their criminal law and procedure; a reformatory discipline and excellent penitentiaries have been adopted in every state. Imprisonment for debt has been taken away in several states in favour of women, and there is a general national feeling of abolishing it altogether, and of giving to creditors a more complete and summary power over the property of their debtors than the present laws provide: it is in contemplation to extend the doctrine of liens, and under suitable regulations to make outstanding debts liable to attachment or execution. The bankrupt law has been improved, and is under the further consideration of the legislature. Civil jurisprudence has also been greatly improved. Of the ancient feudal system nothing remains but a few harmless names and obsolete forms. All the lands sold by the state of New York have been granted allodially in name as well as in substance; although from custom and verbiage the words "fee simple" are used in the conveyances. Estates tail are every where (except in one state) either abolished, or a simple form has been provided for converting them into absolute estates (i). As these facts are now extremely important, from the public and professional desire of improving the laws of real property in our own country, we shall notice, from the information afforded in Mr. Griffith's excellent work, the alteration in the law of estates tail in the several states of the Union. In four states, viz. Vermont, Illinois, Indiana, and Louisiana, these fetters of property never were in existence. In one, viz. South Carolina, the statute de donis never was in force, but fees conditional at common law prevail. In twelve they have (i) Du Ponceau, p. 115.-The Annual Law Register of the United States, edited by the Hon. William Griffith, formerly Judge of the Circuit Courts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. been abolished or converted by statutes into fee simple absolute, viz. New York, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Connecticut, Alabama, Mississippi, and New Jersey; but in the last four, a species of estate tail exists for the life of one donee, or a succession of donees then living. In sir they may be barred by deed, acknowledged before a court or some magistrate, viz. Rhode Island, Maine, Pennsylvania, Massachussets, Maryland, and Delaware; but in the last four may also be barred by fine and common recovery. The exception in which they exist as in England with all their peculiar incidents is the state of New Hampshire. The doctrine of survivorship in joint tenancy is also done away. The law of primogeniture no longer subsists in any of the states. Manors and copyholds are feudal luxuries unknown. Conveyancing has been reduced to simple forms, and is not now an intricate science. Registries of deeds and mortgages have been established in every state (j). The forms of proceeding in courts of justice have also been greatly simplified, and the number of its officers reduced to a prothonotary or clerk, and a common cryer. The costs of a lawsuit are comparatively trifling, and the law is accessible to the poor as well as to the rich. It is complained that a loose practice has succeeded the old strict forms of pleading, but the practical purposes are confessedly attained; and at all events the evils of the new bear no comparison to those of the old system. The forms of criminal indictments are mainly preserved as the best portion of English law (k). In the Equity jurisdictions and judgments, too much remains of the subtle and nice distinctions and artificial principles of reasoning appertaining to the old European schools. Doubtless it is desirable that an uniformity of jurisprudence should be effected in all these different states, as far as is practicable and consistent with their peculiar political circumstances. The discordant decisions of so many co-ordinate judicial authorities is manifestly inconsistent and defective, but this will be remedied in a few years; and in the meanwhile they constitute so many useful experiments in the science of jurisprudence. We cannot better sum up this general account of American law improvement than by quoting the following extract from Ingersoll's Discourse: "The law has been much simplified in transplantation from Europe to America; and its professional as well as political tendency is still to fur (j) Du Ponceau, p. 115. (k) See Historical Sketches of the Principles and Maxims of American Jurisprudence, in Contrast with the Doctrines of the English Common Law on the Subject of Crimes and 8vo. pp. 428. ther simplicity. The brutal, ferocious, and inhuman laws of the feudists, as they were termed by the civilians (I use their own phrase), the arbitrary rescripts of the civil law, and the harsh doctrines of the common law, have all been melted down by the genial mildness of American institutions. Most of the feudal distinctions between real and personal property, complicated tenures and primogeniture, the salique exclusion of females, the unnatural rejection of the half-blood, and ante-nuptial offspring, forfeitures for crimes, the penalties of alienage, and other vices of European jurisprudence, which nothing but their existence can defend, and reason must condemn, are either abolished, or in a course of abrogation here. Cognizance of marriage, divorce, and posthumous administration, taken from ecclesiastical, has been conferred on the civil tribunals. Voluminous conveyancing and intricate special pleading, among the costliest mysteries of professional learning in Great Britain, have given place to the plain and cheap substitutes of the old common law. With a like view to abridge and economise litigation, coercive arbitration, or equivalents for it, have been tried by legislative provision; jury trial, the great safeguard of personal security, is nearly universal, and ought to be quite so for its invaluable political influences. It not only does justice between the litigant parties, but elevates the understanding and enlightens the rectitude of all the community. Sanguinary and corporal punishments are yielding to the interesting experiment of penitential confinement. Judicial official tenure is mostly independent of legislative interposition, and completely of executive influence. The jurisdiction of the courts is far more extensive and elevated than that of the mother country. They exercise, among other high political functions, the original and remarkable power of invalidating statutes, by declaring them unconstitutional; an ascendancy over politics never before or elsewhere asserted by jurisprudence, which authorises the weakest branch of a popular government to anul the measures of the strongest. If popular indignation sometimes assails this authority, it has seldom, if ever, been able to crush those who have honestly exercised it; and even if it should, though an individual victim might be immolated, his very martyrdom would corroborate the system for which he suffered. Justice is openly, fairly, and purely administered, fieed from the absurd costumes and ceremonies which disfigure it in England. Judicial appointment is less influenced by politics; and judicial proceedings more independant of political considerations." P. 37—9. As a further evidence of the growing and effective spirit of improvement, the law schools have, during the last few years, increased in a remarkable degree; and some of the most distinguished public characters have not disdained to fill the Professor's chairs. Dr. Du Ponceau, in his inaugural discourse on legal education, delivered at the opening of the Philadelphia Law Academy, proudly appeals to the advancement and superiority of legal academical instruction in the two establishments in Connecticut and Massachusets, then the only institutions for legal students. At the former place Judge Reeves successfully founded a law school, consisting of students from all parts of the union. In the University of Cambridge, in the state of Massachusets, a law chair is established, where lectures are regularly delivered by two professors, of eminent knowledge and talents. The Connecticut establishment continues to flourish under the care of Judge Gould, the successor of Mr. Reeves. Subsequent academical institutions have elevated the profession and science. In the Transylvania University at Lexington, State of Kentucky, there is a chair of civil law, now or lately filled by Dr. Barry; and one of common and statute law, under Mr. Bledsoe. In the University of New York, Mr. Kent, the Ex-Chancellor, fills the established chair of jurisprudence. At Baltimore, Professor Hoffman, and at Northampton, in the State of Massachusets, Judge Howe and Mr. Mills, member of Congress, lectured to considerable numbers of students, and probably now continue their useful labours; and other similar institutions may exist in the remoter states. Some excellent remarks are made by Ingersoll, on the legal education of the American students : "The education for the bar is less technical, their practice is more intellectual, the vocation is relatively at least more independent in the United States than in Great Britain. Here, as there, it is a much frequented avenue to political honours. All the chief justices of the United States have filled eminent political stations, both abroad and at home. Of the five presidents of the United States, four were lawyers; of the several candidates at present for that office, most, if not all, are lawyers. But without any public promotion, American society has no superior to the man who is advanced in any of the liberal professions. Hence there are more accomplished individuals in professional life here, than where this is not the case. Under other governments patronage will advance the unworthy, and power will oppress the meritorious. Even in France, where there are, and always have been, lawyers of great and just celebrity, we sometimes see that for exerting the noblest, and, in free countries, the most common duties of their profession, for resisting the powerful and defending the weak, they are liable to irresponsible arrest, imprisonment, and degradation, without the succour and sanctuary of a free press and dauntless public sympathy. In Great Britain, it is true, there is no such apprehension to deter them; and equally true, that professional, as well as political, dignities are free to all candidates. But the ascendancy of rank, the contracted divisions of intellectual labour, the technicality of practice, combine with other causes to render even the English individuals, not perhaps inferior lawyers, but subordinate men. "British jurisprudence itself, too, that sturdy and inveterate common law, to which Great Britain owes many of the great popular conservative principles of her constitution,-even these have been impaired by long and terrible wars, during which, shut up within their impregnable island, the offspring of Alfred and of Edward,-infusing their passions, their politics, and their prejudices, into their laws, have wrenched them to their occasions. The distinguishing attributes and merits of the common law are, that it is popular and mutable; takes its doctrines from the people, and suits them to their views. While the American judiciary enforces this system of jurisprudence, may it never let wars, or popular passions, or foreign influences, impair its principles." P. 39, 40. The zeal of the members of the legal profession in North America, to extend the bounds of legal science, and to improve their jurisprudence by the study of that of other nations, ancient and modern, is little known, and still less imitated in England, where |