The Struggle for Law
It is not the inconvenience to which one is thus subjected that is most burthensome and wounding in all this; it is the bitter feeling that one’s unquestionable rights can be trampled under foot, and that there is no help for it.
We should not hold the Roman law responsible for these defects; for although it has always held to the principle that final judgment should always have a money basis, it always knew how to apply the money condemnation in such a manner that it effectually protected not only pecuniary interests, but all other rightful interests. The condemnation to pay a sum of money was the means of pressure which the judge employed in civil matters to insure obedience to his orders. The defendant who refused to do what the judge imposed on him to do, did not get off with the mere money value of the obligation he owed, but the money condemnation here performed the functions of a penalty, and this consequence of the suit assured the plaintiff a satisfaction to which, under some circum-
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