important political action in our country has almost always been taken under the influence of lawyers.  On the whole, American laws have been made by lawyers; they have been executed by lawyers; and, of course, they have been expounded by lawyers.  Their predominance has been practically complete; and so far as I know, it has been unprecedented.  No other great people, either in classic, mediaeval, or modern times, has ever allowed such a professional monopoly of governmental functions.  Certain religious bodies have submitted for a while to the dominion of ecclesiastical lawyers; but the lawyer has rarely been allowed to interfere either in the executive or the legislative branches of the government.  The lawyer phrased the laws and he expounded them for the benefit of litigants.  The construction which he has placed upon bodies of customary law, particularly in England, has sometimes been equivalent to the most permanent and fruitful legislation.  But the people responsible for the government of European countries have rarely been trained lawyers, whereas American statesmen, untrained in the law, are palpable exceptions.  This dominion of lawyers is so defiant of precedent that it must be due to certain novel and peremptory American conditions.

The American would claim, of course, that the unprecedented prominence of the lawyer in American politics is to be explained on the ground that the American government is a government by law.  The lawyer is necessarily of subordinate importance in any political system tending towards absolutism.  He is even of subordinate importance in a liberal system such as that of Great Britain, where Crown and Parliament, acting together, have the power to enact any desired legislation.  The Federal Constitution, on the other hand, by establishing the Supreme Court as the interpreter of the Fundamental Law, and as a separate and independent department of the government, really made the American lawyer responsible for the future of the country.  In so far as the Constitution continues to prevail, the Supreme Court becomes the final arbiter of the destinies of the United States.  Whenever its action can be legally invoked, it can, if necessary, declare the will of either or both the President and Congress of no effect; and inasmuch as almost every important question of public policy raises corresponding questions of Constitutional interpretation, its possible or actual influence dominates American political discussion.  Thus the lawyer, when consecrated as Justice of the Supreme Court, has become the High Priest of our political faith.  He sits in the sanctuary and guards the sacred rights which have been enshrined in the ark of the Constitution.