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Show 198 DESPOT IS~£ was taken on that point. We were both of opinion that it did not at all alter their state." [The opinion indeed went much further, but the judge perhaps did not think it decorous to mention the pledge which he had given to the London slave·holders to save them harmless from aU claims of freedom.] "There were formerly villeins or slaves in England, and these of two sorts, regardantand in gross; and although tenure:arc taken away, there are no laws that have destroyed servitude absolutely. 'l.'rover might have been brought for a villein. If a man were to come into a court of record and confess himself villein to another, (which was one way of being a villein,) what the conse· quence would be I would not say, but there hi no law to aboli~h it at this time." Such is the reasoning, and all the reasoning, upon which Lord Hardwicke~ sitting as an equity jud<Ye, undertook to overturn two solemn decisions of the ]Gng's Bench on a point of common law. Villeinage, though it had died away and disappeared, had not been formally abolished; and therefore negro slavery, a relation wholly diflCrent in its origin and incidents, agreeing with villeinage only in the fact of involving personal servi tude-:-a relation introduced within two or three ccntunes, quite within the time of legal memory, and without any basis or foundation, except the convenience and gain of certain London merchants-this relation, by some unexplained transfusion, had inherited all the legal character of villeinage! There was no la\\~ to prevent a man from going into court and confesswg himself the villein of another, and therefore-there was no law to prevent London merchants from holding nc<Yroes in slavery against their will! 11hc personal character of a judge will often t~row no little light upon his judicial opinions, e~pee~ally those in which general principles are nw.olve?· Hardwicke, we are told by Lord Campbell, 111 h1s Lives of lite Cltancellors, was "the most con!';ummate ju(!~e wlJ9 ever sat in the Court of Ch~ncery," ,;he "greatest contribqtor tP the English eqUity code, - IN Ai\fF:RICA. 199 not any very high commendation, perhaps, with those who have had much experience of chancery suits. But the character. of a "commmmate judge" has too o~kn been obtained by a ready ingcnuhy in givin(Y plaui:'Jble reasons ~o sustain power against right, o~ 111 defect of plaustble reason, by a bold efli'ontery in tramJ?Iing under foo! the weak and helpless, for the beneht and convemcnce of the rich and powerful. That there was nothing in Lord Hardwickc's personal character to deter him from such a course, but much to prompt him to it, Lord Campbell himself shall be pur witness. "His career was not checkered by any youthful indiscretions or generous errors. He ever had a kern and steady eye to his own advantage, as well as to the public goml. [Is there not a little irony in thi:; last clause?] Amid the aristocratic connections which he formed, he forgot the companions of his ~onth, and his regard for the middle classes of society, lrom whiCh he sprang, cooled down to indiflCrence. He became jealous of all who could be his rivals for power, and he contracted a certain degree of selfish~ ness and hardness of character which excited much envy [?] and ill will amid the flatteries which surrounded him." His first patron, for whom he assidu~ ously wo~ked, and by whose partial favo~ he \Vas brought mto notice, was the Earl or lVIacclcs fteld, ihat '~trafficker in judicial robes, and robber of widows and orphans," who was afterwards impeached and found guilty of corruption. He then attached himself to the Duke of Newcastle, who, in a long political career, endeavored to make up for personal imbecility by the freest usc of patronage and money. "The best t.hing that can be remembered of the chancellor," •ays Horace Walpole, "is his fidelity to his patron; for let the Duke of Newcastle betray whom he would, the chancellor always stuck to him in his perfidy, and was only not false to the falsest of mankind!" Such wae preci~ely the sort of "consummate judge" from '~hom tmght have been anticipated an attempt to g1ve to the enslavement of man a character of legality. |
