Nay, more! The states from Alabama to Wisconsin have, with scarcely an exception, provided for instructing all pupils supported, in whole or in part by public money, or under state control, in hygiene and philosophy, with special reference in the effect of alcoholic drinks, stimulants, and narcotic upon the human system.
And now I bring this tiresome and tedious review to a close.
A word or two more and I am done.
The American Bar Association has become in part the voluntary custodians of our American system of self-government, founded upon the sovereignty of the popular will, under self-imposed constitutional limitations on their own power.
What a mighty trust! What a vast responsibility! How is it to be met? How discharged?
"Justice," Sir James Mackintosh tells us, "is the permanent interest of all men, of all commonwealths."
"It is the ligament," says Daniel Webster, "which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together. Wherever that temple stands you always find a foundation for social and political happiness, and the consequent improvement and progress of our race."
Law is the hand-maid of progress, the political factor of National and individual success. It becomes therefore our duty, brethren, to see as far as in us lies, that we have good laws first, and then, ever to strive for their honest use, and impartial execution.
Your influence can and must be exercised and felt, in the elevation and purity not less than in the attainment of uniformity in the enlightened, general jurisprudence of every commonwealth, constituting the Union of our American States. It may require, as doubtless it will, labor, effort, care, and unceasing self-denying exertion; but what of all that, compared with the success which will follow? The conquests and triumphs of the American Bar in long years that have passed, attest its capacity, virtue, courage, and nobility for
