Importance to National Life
right might take offense in any sphere of the law, not only of private law, but in the police power, the administrative, financial, legislative, the independence of the courts, the greatest possible perfection of legal procedure—this is a surer way to increase the power of the state than the greatest possible increase of the military budget. Every provision which the people feel to be unjust, and every institution which they detest, is an injury to the national feeling of legal right and to the national strength, a sin against the idea of law, the burthen of which falls on the state itself, and for which it has not infrequently to pay dearly. It may, under certain circumstances, cost it a province. I am not, indeed, of the opinion that the state should avoid these sins from reasons of expediency simply. Rather do I consider it the most sacred duty of the state to realize this idea for its own sake; but this may be doctrinarian idealism, and I have no word of blame for the practical politician and statesman who refuses such a demand with a shrug
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