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Show -81- to look for similar solutions of similar problems should enjoy the freest autonomy. The case, however, is otherwise when it comes to the attestation and and probate of wills* and the form and execution of conveyances, for these fall within the first, and at present most prominent purpose of interstate action, namely, to do away with accidental and formal discrepancies, where a common policy acts and reacts across imaginary state lines. The objec- tions here are fewer, the advantages and the urgency of uniform alignment more obvious than elsewhere. The problem has already been assailed with a will, and pushed toward a solution. Of the sixteen specified topics and sub-topics upon which Ohio has declared uniformity of laws important, four belong to this class in part, namely, private corporations, holidays* fire and life insurance and marriage and divorce. Eight others are exclusively of the same sort, as follows: Bills of lading, negotiable instruments, partnership, trade-marks, ware- house receipts, notarial certificates, execution and probate of wills and form and execution of conveyances. Of these all but the last three are branches of commercial law. The law merchant was naturally the first to offer itself for uniform declaratory legislation. This wonderful system of rules imposes no af- firmative restraints. It merely translates the "I will" of world-wide commerce, into the "Thou shalt" of a worldwide law. It was first the co- operative and voluntary usage of merchants. Herein, as elsewhere, the mercantile class has shown its members the true cosmopolitans and most efficient civilizers. They invented, in that they made necessary* also the mariner's compass, the locomotive and the telegraph. It is noteworthy that the progressive races owe three essentials of their civilization to three branches of the Semetic racej letters to the Phoenicians, numbers to the Saracens,and instruments for commercial intercourse to the Jews* The children of the patriarchs and the prophets have always kept their heads above the particulars of life. They have still kept their feet on the ground. Their perceptions have inspired th9 proselyte, and informed the evangelist of trade. Their sense of the ever-enlarging community and interdependence of mankind has been an intui- tion, subordinating each part to the whole, family, clan, people, world of men. And so the mercantile genius of the Jew, in the turmoil of the middle ages, quietly generated a universal custom, for which judges have invented a universal law. The glory of the greatest jurists, as of Lord Mansfield and Justice Story, is that they recognized this unique preeminence of the law merchant. Its rules originated in convention, in a "coming together" of those engaged in trade. They are artificial. They are the algebra of commerce* as legal tender acts are its arithmetic. They simply sanction the mean- ing which merchants have attached to the symbols of their transactions* The form of a promissory note for instance, matters nothing. It might as |